The First Time I Saw Your Face

by Hazel Osmond

  Mack saw Lionel emerge at the top of the staircase, sniff and then walk past without even glancing his way. Mack had never been hated by a librarian before. Soon he’d be hated by people from a lot more professions – farmers, teachers, local council employees, sculptors …

  He guessed that the man in the baggy suit had been dumped on and watched Mr Armstrong reading to him. Jennifer was walking to the children’s section and was soon sitting in one of the small plastic chairs, talking animatedly to a woman and a small boy. She obviously knew them, her chin was up, and she was smiling and laughing. When the little boy jumped up and took her hand to lead her to the DVD stand, Mack stopped looking. He didn’t want to see that willowy body stretching. He put his glasses back on and tried to read some of the history of lead mining he’d picked up, but was soon looking down at Jennifer again. She was helping an older child search for something on the computer. He took his glasses off again, and twirled them to and fro as he wondered what Jennifer’s hair would look like if she put it up.

  ‘You’ve been on that same page for a while now,’ Sheila said behind him, making him drop his glasses on the table.

  ‘It’s quite a complex subject.’

  ‘I’ll bet, especially if your attention keeps wandering.’ Sheila looked down into the library towards the children’s section. ‘Anyway, shouldn’t you be down there and Jennifer up here?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be down there and her up here on this balcony? Oh no, I forgot, it’s Twelfth Night you’re doing, not Romeo and Juliet.’

  Sheila and Sonia, two great bloodhounds, sniffing you sniffing Jennifer out.

  He kept his head down when Sheila had gone, but couldn’t be bothered even to pretend he was reading and just closed his eyes. Please God let Cress loosen her knicker elastic soon, he couldn’t take much more of this.

  He opened his eyes and watched a teenager in the graphic novels section popping crisps in her mouth under cover of a well-timed cough, and sought out Jennifer again, hoping to pull up some of that revulsion he had felt when he’d first seen that scarring. Nothing came up. It was just what Jennifer’s face looked like.

  She was walking back to the desk when he came down the staircase, and she gave him that smile. He tried to remember what it did to her scarring, but he was too busy looking at her eyes.

  ‘I’m glad you popped in,’ she said, ‘I wanted to apologise for being so offhand and critical last night.’

  ‘Then make it up to me. Come for a drink now. That pub down by the swimming pool.’

  It seemed to him that the very quiet library had suddenly gone even quieter.

  Jeez, this feels like flirting. Is this flirting?

  ‘I could be there in ten minutes,’ she said, ‘would that be “now” enough?’

  Oh crap, it is flirting.

  As he left the library he swore he heard Sheila humming the theme song from Doctor Zhivago.

  On the way to the pub he rang Tess, hoping it would focus his mind on why he was doing this. Phyllida was behaving and the only bad news was that Joe was getting a bit fed up with all the visitors she was getting. Some he’d banned.

  Good old Joe. He knows what I know. You know it too, Tess, you just won’t face up to it.

  He ended the call and went into the pub, choosing to go through the door that led to the public bar. The only other occupants were one old guy off in the far corner with a half-pint stagnating on the table in front of him and a couple of women through in the lounge bar eating. Sleepy Hollow. Perfect for what he needed.

  And then there was Jennifer. He shot to his feet.

  ‘What will you have?’

  ‘Small white wine.’

  At the bar, he caught the way the barman was pretending not to look at either of them.

  Sticks and stones, mate.

  Back at the table he got his timing wrong, and his opening line sounded like a blurt. ‘I was a bit concerned about you last night,’ he said. He took his own phone out of his pocket and laid it on the table in what he hoped was a good bit of subliminal product placement.

  Phone. Phone call. Phone call from Cressida.

  ‘I’m feeling much better, thanks.’ She took a little sip of her drink.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ he pressed. ‘Not worried about the play?’

  ‘No, it’s always all right on the night. It wasn’t the play worrying me … I had a weird call from my cousin—’

  The door swung open and two men walked in. They were types Mack hadn’t seen much of since he’d been in Northumberland: young, loud and in suits. One plonked his posh car keys ostentatiously on the bar and Mack distinctly heard the word ‘scarface’.

  Jennifer heard it too, he could tell by the way her chin went down and her hair fell forward. Within seconds her hands were in her lap and he felt if she could roll herself completely into a ball she might. The sexy, flirty woman from the library had disappeared.

  When the word ‘freak’ reached him, he was surprised by the speed and ferocity of his anger. He picked up his beer and took a long gulp of it. The smaller of the two guys, the one with the hair that he should have washed yesterday, Mack reckoned he could easily take, but the one with the beige loafers was a lot bigger. He looked at their smug, callous faces. Sod it, he was going to fight dirty and punch them both in their—

  ‘Please,’ Jennifer said with urgency, and he thought at first that she wanted to escape, but as he felt the panic coming off her, he realised she wanted him to calm down. ‘Alex used to lose it all the time,’ she explained. ‘He always ended up thumping people. I hate it. Hate it. It’s so humiliating, so embarrassing.’

  He could see she was desperate for him to behave so he held on to his glass and wondered what he could do to redeem this situation. He needed to get her out of here, calm her down, but somehow her wish to smooth things over was making him even angrier. He was almost shaking.

  The door opened again and he looked over to see a petite, vividly made-up young woman walk in, her skirt only just peeking out from under her short, tightly belted coat.

  ‘Don’t think much of yours,’ the smaller of the two men said, jerking his thumb in Jennifer’s direction, ‘but mine’s just turned up.’ Their laughter alone made Mack want to glass them and see how they felt about scars then.

  The young woman looked flustered and went out again, and Mack saw her reappear in the lounge bar. He pushed his pint away, righteous indignation piling on top of his rage.

  ‘Please, Matt,’ Jennifer said and her blue eyes echoed the begging tone in her voice. ‘Please promise me you won’t hit anyone?’

  Do not get involved. This is not your life and not your problem. If you get into a fight, the police might come and then your cover could get blown. Pick the pint back up and ignore them. Drink it down slowly and then take her out of here.

  ‘All right, I promise,’ he said, dragging his pint back towards him. He concentrated on its colour before draining it and getting to his feet. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Aye, back to the home,’ said the bigger guy and laughed directly at Jennifer.

  Mack saw Jennifer crumple even further and felt himself freeze. He wanted to kill these men, but she’d made it clear how much she would hate that. So who was he doing it for? It took all his self-control to turn towards her and say in a soothing tone, ‘Right, got your bag? Good. So … on your feet. Mind the door. Let’s go for chips. I fancy some chips and you haven’t had any lunch. Can’t go back to work without lunch.’

  He got her out of the pub and they walked in the direction of the chip shop, but he could see she was in no state to face anyone and diverted to a seat inside the park. He watched her struggling to get herself under control and berated himself for having taken her to the pub in the first place.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ he said, but the words sounded tinny and false. This was only a tiny preview of how she would be when he’d finished with her. Those men in the pub were angels compared with h
im.

  ‘You have nothing to be sorry for,’ she said in a watery voice. ‘You were great.’

  He didn’t know if he wanted to shake her for being too damn nice or just put his arms around her. She was looking at him with that soft blue gaze of hers, but he wouldn’t allow himself to meet it. He looked resolutely towards the bandstand.

  ‘I know you wanted to thump them,’ she said, ‘but you didn’t. You listened to me. Not like Alex.’

  ‘You can’t blame Alex or other people for trying to protect you,’ he said gruffly.

  ‘I know, but when people wade in on my behalf, without even asking me, it makes me feel as if I’m some kind of damaged child that doesn’t get a say in what happens – that the grown-ups know best.’

  ‘It’s still not right. No one should sit in judgement on you,’ he said, still looking at the bandstand. ‘One of those twats was wearing beige loafers, for God’s sake.’

  He heard a watery laugh. ‘You’re wearing conkercoloured brogues.’

  He had to push himself up and off the seat to stop himself from wrapping his arms around her. When he came back with the chips, she barely ate any, distributing them among the pigeons gathered near their feet.

  ‘Daffodils are pretty,’ he said, hardly knowing what he was saying. He saw her look at the great drifts of them running like a nodding carpet down to the bandstand.

  ‘Yes. I always think they seem kind of stupidly optimistic.’

  ‘Yes, kind of hopeful,’ he added and made the mistake of looking at her. She gave him a beautiful, brave smile.

  ‘Hopeful. Hope. Lovely words.’

  It made him feel shabby again, just as it had when she’d smiled at him after his stupid audition. Whenever she smiled at him. He took her chip paper from her and saw her over the road to the library. They didn’t talk much, just said they’d see each other at the dress rehearsal and Jennifer seemed relieved to get inside.

  The hatred he felt for himself at that moment seemed all-encompassing, the knowledge that he still hadn’t got that information he needed taking second place to his desire to do something for her – even if it was something she didn’t want done. He hared back to the pub. He didn’t know what he had planned, he was making it up as he went along. A hunch made him look into the lounge bar first. The petite woman was still in there, now cosied up to a man whose ruddy face suggested he worked outside a lot – doing something strenuous, judging by the size of his forearms.

  Perhaps he could sub-contract all this anger to keep his promise to Jennifer. ‘Excuse me,’ he said and was happy to see the aggressive way the guy rounded on him. ‘See those men through in the public bar? Me and my girlfriend …’ He stopped because the word ‘girlfriend’ had made him feel sad. No, not sad, wistful. He cast around for the dropped thread of what he’d been saying. ‘Me and my girlfriend had to leave. They were really nasty about her. And when your girlfriend just popped in there, they were rude about her too. I’m sorry to say that behind her back they called her a slag. Thought you ought to know.’

  The guy looked down at the woman as if seeking confirmation.

  ‘I did hear them laughing as I went out,’ she said, all big eyes and hurt feelings. This was a woman who obviously did like her man to make a scene.

  He stayed around just long enough to see loafer-wearing guy being picked up by his lapels and thrown against the slot machine.

  Jennifer knew it was official now. She had fallen for Matt, for his stupid clothes and his overeager attitude; for that intriguing sadness and that hint of something a bit naughtier lurking in the background. Especially that.

  He’d actually listened to her about those men, listened to her and reined himself in. He’d put her feelings before his own need to show everyone what a man he was. Yes, the incident still caused her pain, but his behaviour had taken some of the sting out of it.

  What was it she was feeling? Protected? No. Cherished.

  Poor Alex – all those battles he had fought for her, and Matt had simply shown some self-control and got her out of there, and here she was wanting to throw herself into his bed. Would he want her in it, though? She still couldn’t believe it.

  Or perhaps … perhaps she could. A barrier had shifted in her brain in that pub. There was something happening between them. Give him time, just give him time. Making a move on someone like her wasn’t easy for a bloke. That incident in the pub was bound to make him think twice about what he was getting into.

  She thought of him getting her out of that pub and needed him there among the piles of books and papers, where she could grab him by the hair and bring his mouth down on to hers. The old Jen, the Jen that didn’t hide in corners, imagined lying on the table under him. Or out in the fields at home, her back pressed into the grass.

  Thaw me out, Matt, come on, stop wasting precious time. Put your mouth on mine and thaw me out.

  CHAPTER 28

  Mack timed his entry to the dress rehearsal for a few minutes after the departure of the photographer from the paper and was greeted with a barrage of catcalls from the cast.

  ‘Oh, goodness,’ he said, ‘I’m too late for the photo, aren’t I? Really sorry, fell asleep in the chair, only just woke up.’

  ‘I knew I should have come and got you,’ Doug said, ‘I was starting to worry about you, daft sod.’

  He went backstage and Wendy and Lydia helped him change, telling him how dashing he looked. He didn’t want to hear that and barely looked at himself in his costume because he was getting to the point where he couldn’t stand to look at himself at all. The other costumes were impressive, though: suddenly everyone was carrying themselves differently. Lisa still looked nothing like a man and certainly bore no familial resemblance to him, but she was an arresting sight and she obviously thought he was too. She pulled him to one side.

  ‘You missed the warm-up, but I could do a personal one for you. Fancy a quickie in the costume loft?’ He declined with regret. ‘Ah well,’ she said, ‘worth an ask. You had a chance to read those brochures yet?’

  Jocelyn looked every inch a lady in her black velvet, but still sounded like someone from the gutter, making little sniping comments about Lisa’s wig and the size of her backside. The most startling transformation was of beery, uncouth Angus into the dignified Duke.

  Mack felt his stomach start to churn and didn’t know if it was the prospect of standing up on the stage or the thought of Jennifer watching him act.

  Neither, it’s because you’re a lying, deceiving scum bag.

  Susan the stage manager put her head around the door. ‘OK, beginners. And keep the noise down, the rest of you. Break a leg.’

  Mack couldn’t remember much about the performance afterwards. Doug and he cocked up in one scene, but dug their way out of it. He managed to give Gerry a real thump with his sword when he drew it; Jocelyn and he still had about as much warmth in their on-stage relationship as a polar bear’s arse, but all in all it wasn’t bad. Jennifer had only had to leap in a couple of times to nudge the play along. The other hiccup had been Neale coming in with his yellow stockings at half mast which had caused most of the cast already on stage to corpse. Finlay exploded into the changing rooms afterwards to distribute notes and praise.

  ‘You wait till tomorrow,’ Doug said, giving Mack a huge hug. ‘Having an audience will give you a bigger buzz.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Angus agreed, ‘I’ve had some of my best sex after opening nights.’

  Lydia was picking up pieces of discarded costumes. ‘Only with yourself, I should think,’ she said.

  Once dressed, Mack went to the kitchen, just to have an excuse to wait for Jennifer, and found a piece of flapjack in a biscuit tin on the side. By the time he had taken a bite, Jennifer was there and he had to surreptitiously take it back out of his mouth, knowing he would not be able to swallow it down.

  ‘You were good,’ she said, coming and standing by him and touching his arm lightly, and he wanted to shout, No, I haven’t been good for a lon
g time, can’t you see that? Can’t you see how I’m playing you? Stop being so bloody nice to me!

  Instead he rolled his eyes. ‘What, even the bit with Jocelyn?’

  ‘Yes, even that bit.’ She gave him a shy grin and he felt disconnected from everything around him, only aware of how close she was and the smell of her. He forced himself back to the surface and said the first thing that came into his head: something about her being a dreadful liar, and part of him wished she would look right into his eyes and say, ‘Not like you, then.’ This was all getting too intimate, tripping over into something else.

  He wasn’t sure if he’d leaned towards her, he seemed to be closer, and then she gave a start and her hand was off his arm and she was reaching into her pocket. Out came her phone, and she was frowning down at it.

  ‘Not another weird call from your cousin?’ he asked, trying to focus. ‘Although you never did tell me if it was weird-upsetting, or weird-funny.’

  ‘It was weird-weird,’ she said, and then she was closing the kitchen door and he knew he was close, soooo close, to the reason why he’d come here.

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘you mustn’t breathe a word of this … but Cress has fallen in love. She’s so shocked she’s not doing anything about it for a few days. I mean, not, you know … acting on it.’ He sensed she was embarrassed that he’d know she was talking about sex. He kept his face blank, and she went on, ‘The other person … well … it’s going to mess their life up, evidently. Wouldn’t even tell me who it was.’ She shook her head. ‘And now I’ve had this text.’ The phone was tilted towards him and he read:

  Brenda, brick.

  ‘Why’s she telling you your mother’s a brick? Not that she isn’t, of course,’ he added, a little too quickly.

  ‘It’s code. She’s telling me to get Brenda’s old phone, it’s huge. Cress is a bit paranoid about the press; probably worried someone’s twigged it would be worth trying to listen in to my phone.’

  ‘That wouldn’t happen, would it?’ he said, having to unclench his teeth to get the words out.

  ‘After what the tabloids have been up to recently?’