The First Time I Saw Your Face

by Hazel Osmond

  ‘Ye-es. But sometimes people do bad things for good reasons, Jen.’

  Jennifer looked up through the leaves and branches of the tree and frowned. ‘Are you trying to defend him, Cress?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Cress?’

  ‘I think … I think it does change a lot of things, Jen, and before you leap down my throat, just listen.’ Jennifer could hear Anna Maria talking in the background and Cress saying, ‘Yes, yes, I’m telling her. Shush.’

  ‘Recently, when we’ve been talking, you know, talking properly again, I’ve just enjoyed hearing that you were angry with him. It was better than all that sorrow you were lugging around. So I’ve held back from saying some things I wanted to say, and before I say them now, please understand that I am always completely, utterly on your side. If you decide not to forgive him and not to believe he has genuine feelings for you, then fine. But I think he does love you, Jen. I told you what he was like in Bath, but if anything I underplayed it – he was completely, utterly gutted.’

  ‘I’m surprised he managed to fool you too,’ she said, knowing Cress would have picked up on the snitty tone.

  ‘Don’t think he did, sweetie. He wasn’t acting.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear this.’

  ‘I’m sure you don’t, but please, just cut me some slack here. We’ve never discussed why I gave him the story of Anna Maria when I could have fobbed him off with the Rory one. Did you think it was part of some deal I cut to keep you out of the paper?’

  ‘Look, I don’t know how these things work …’

  ‘I gave him the story, even when he wouldn’t tell me what his mother’s secret was, because something about him made me believe what he felt for you was genuine.’

  ‘That’s enough, Cress.’

  ‘No it’s not. You’d better brace yourself, because there’s something else. You’re going to think I’m mad, but I set him a kind of test – told him something that I half-expected him to blab straightaway, but he hasn’t.’

  Jen stood up and almost knocked herself out on the bottom branch of the tree. ‘Tell me you’re not talking about what I think you’re talking about,’ she said, suddenly frantic. ‘Tell me, Cress.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Oh God, oh God, what have you done? You can’t trust him. He’ll just be holding out for a higher price now you’re even hotter news.’ She put her hand out and felt the bark of the tree under her palm. ‘I’ll deny everything. It wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘Oh, come on Jen, time to grow up. Sorry to be so harsh, but we both know the truth. And if you can forgive me, haven’t you got it in you to forgive Mack? Look, tell him to get lost if you like, refuse to forgive him, but if there is the slightest smidgen of doubt in your mind about him being a bastard, swallow your hurt, give him a chance.’

  ‘I have to go,’ Jennifer said quickly and ended the call before throwing the phone as far away as she could.

  CHAPTER 49

  When Mack returned from Bath he found Pat’s post-office van parked near Doug’s car, which he took to be a good sign as it was ten o’clock at night. In the kitchen Mack saw the two ukuleles, one red, one blue, that had arrived during the time he had been away.

  He listened. There was the dull thump of heavy metal from upstairs and so it wasn’t really necessary for him to tiptoe to his own room, but he did it anyway. At least he’d finally done something right. Unless in the morning he discovered Doug with teeth marks in his neck, drained of blood.

  The Doug who appeared at his bedroom door in his underpants next morning was robustly full of life and kept striding around repeating ‘Bloody Hell!’ until Mack said, ‘Finally got it together then?’

  ‘Yesterday,’ Doug said, with a grin. ‘It was that ukulele that did it. She’s canny, Mack. She’ll be back after she’s done her rounds. Thinks the sun shines out of my arse, can you believe that?’

  ‘No. I’ve seen your arse, remember.’

  Doug threw himself on the bed and lay beside Mack, his hands behind his head. ‘Me and her. Unbelievable. She’s first class and I’m just a rough old package with not enough postage.’

  ‘Are you going to talk in postal metaphors all the time now?’

  Down in the kitchen, as a massive fry-up spat and sizzled in the pan, Doug asked Mack how much it had cost him to bring him and Pat together.

  ‘You knew all along?’ Mack asked.

  Doug gave a huge, from-the-bottom-of-his-stomach laugh which Mack took to mean ‘Yes’.

  ‘I have to tell you something though, Doug, in the interests of honesty … I used some of O’Dowd’s money to pay for the things. Sorry … don’t know how you’re going to feel about that.’

  There were a couple of seconds when it could have gone either way, but then Doug was laughing again. ‘You tight git,’ he said, ‘you’d think with so much money to dip into you could have got some better presents.’

  It was only after they’d eaten, gravitating again to the sun and the pond to drink their cups of thick, brown tea, that Doug told him Jen had called round while he had been away. It had been an emotional meeting as the two of them had barely talked since the after-play party. She had stayed for a couple of hours and, from the look on Doug’s face, she had forgiven him for taking Mack in.

  ‘Did she mention me?’ Mack asked, trying not to hope.

  ‘She says she understands why you did it, but I couldn’t draw her oot any further. Sorry.’

  ‘That’s OK, it’s hard for you, I know that. But Alex, please tell me she’s not getting together with him again?’

  Doug chuckled. ‘Sorry, should have told you this first off, but I wanted to savour the moment – Alex’s not welcome at the farm any more. Aye, you may well look like that. He turned up when Jen was there on her own. She was in the lambing sheds, clearing up some bits and pieces for Ray, and he starts trying to pressurise her into going back oot with him, ranting on about how grateful she should be to him, how she obviously couldn’t cope on her own, but she’s having none of it and he loses that temper of his. Starts backing her into a corner, literally, telling her she owes him—’

  ‘I’m going to bloody kill him,’ Mack said, standing up.

  Doug reached up and yanked him back down. ‘Hang on, bonny lad. Turns out Jen wasn’t on her own. Bryony was in the house with Louise. She’d seen Alex arrive, thought she’d just turn the lamb-cam on, keep an eye on him. Result: end of Alex’s visiting rights.’

  Mack watched the water boatmen skimming over the surface of the pond and thought of Jennifer being cornered in that barn and not being there to help her.

  ‘Something else on your mind?’ Doug asked after a while.

  ‘I was wondering if you’d make a gift for me to give to Jen. I mean, I don’t think it’ll make any difference, but I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I’ve done a sketch; I’ll go and find it.’

  Doug screwed up his eyes when Mack gave him the piece of paper. ‘Should be alreet,’ he said, turning the drawing round and looking at it from every angle. ‘Thin plate steel, use a gas torch, high-quality lacquer. Aye. Canny.’

  Mack asked how much it would cost.

  ‘Nothing. I owe you after those ukuleles,’ Doug replied.

  Jennifer did not appear in the park for a full week after that, although Mack saw her go in and out of the library. He ate his chocolate and drank his lattes and read his books. He worked his way through the menus of the sandwich shops. In the afternoons he walked around all those places he’d curled his lip at before and had often lied about visiting. He tramped over high moorland and down into the valleys. He got himself lost in the great, cathedral-like conifer forests and he walked along the coast. If he didn’t get his daily fix of that huge sky and those endless views he felt cramped and hemmed in, and often he would not get back till ten or eleven at night, enjoying the longer, light evenings this far north.

  One place he did not go was Low Newton – too many ghosts on the beach.

&nb
sp; During that week he veered between optimism and despair, but on the day she came to him he watched how she moved and knew she had made a decision.

  ‘I’ve been thinking around everything that happened,’ she said, perching on the arm of the seat, ‘I know the bind you were in – and I really appreciate that what Cress told you about the accident has remained secret. But … no matter how I try, I can’t imagine how I could ever trust you again.’

  ‘You could, Jen,’ he said, desperately trying to get her to look him in the eye, ‘just give me time, I’ll prove to you that Matt Harper changed me. I’m not in a hurry. I’ll just keep coming back here every morning—’

  ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I made that mistake with Alex, giving him hope, and in the end it’s just cowardice dressed up as charity. Go home, Mack, I hope your mum keeps on with the treatment, I hope you start writing that novel of yours again.’ She gave him something between a grimace and a smile. ‘I’ll always be grateful to you for making me believe, really believe, that I shouldn’t be crucifyingly self-conscious or apologetic or embarrassed about what has happened to my face. In some weird way, what you did has made me braver. Who knows, I might go out to see Cress soon, travel further afield, take some acting classes. And the next play, well, Finlay was talking about Portia. I just might do it.’

  He tried to grab hold of one of her hands, but she pulled away.

  ‘Jen, tell me what to do to make you believe that I love you and that I’ll never, ever give you any reason to distrust me again.’

  ‘There’s nothing,’ she said brutally. ‘I can’t love you. I loved the other you. I’m sorry.’

  She was so calm and so cold it chilled him. He’d done this to her, toughened her up, and now it was coming back to haunt him. He went to speak again and she cut him off.

  ‘It’s pointless arguing. Your mother hasn’t swayed me; Cress hasn’t swayed me. You were so cunning, employed so much guile, I can only believe it’s part of your character. Who knows when it will come out again?’ She got up. ‘This is it. End of the road.’ He felt the lightest of touches on his shoulder before she was gone.

  He remained on the seat until the sound of the abbey clock striking the hour roused him. Standing up slowly, he looked around and then walked out of the park and drove back to Doug’s. The house was empty and the forge cold, but the thing Doug had made for him was lying on the table, a note on top of it:

  Here you go. Not very happy with the colour of the barley – what do you think? Can have another go tomorrow if you like. Staying at Pat’s tonight.

  Mack still had some brown paper left in his room, and when he’d finished using it, he packed his bag and wrote Doug a few words on the reverse of the note and a stupidly large cheque. He looked at his watch. He had a few hours while Jen was still at the library and so he piled everything into the car and drove to Brindley. Sonia looked surprised, but not angry to see him.

  ‘Just the card, is it?’ she asked. He didn’t answer as he gave her the money and knew she was still watching him as he sat in the car and got out a pen.

  The package was heavy, but he parked at the fork in the track and carried it all the way to the farmhouse, not wanting to alert anyone that he was there. It was warm today, the light on the fields seeming harsh and so different to when he had first come here.

  Laying the parcel down gently on the doorstep, he placed the card on top and then drove away, looking only at the track and nowhere else.

  ‘Jen, I can’t stop long, atmosphere on set is manic after all the time we’ve already lost, but I need you to ring me back. I’m concerned about you. I’ve been trying to get you all week, Jen. You’re doing it again … avoiding me. Leaving messages on my voicemail doesn’t count as talking to me. I know you’re pissed off with me about all those things I said, but this isn’t fair, Jen. I had to say them. I had to be honest with you about Mack. We’ve always been honest with each other. Jen. Talk. To. Me. Oh, bugger.’

  ‘OK, Jen. Part Two, I’ll talk quickly or the bloody thing will cut me off again. That message you left yesterday and the one you left the day before – they didn’t sound like you. You sound, well, like you’re on medication or something. Jen, sweetie, please, this is torture. Look, don’t get cross but I’ve had a talk with Auntie Bren. She’s worried too. Jen? Are you there? I’m in Make-up. Please ring back. Pretty please.’

  Jen looked at the phone, ran her finger over the dent in it where it had hit the fence, and then returned it to the glove compartment and drove home.

  ‘You’re all bloody worried about me. All the time. Poor broken Jen.’

  It was all right for Cress, her life was like a film, full of living-happily-ever-after. Real life was a little tougher than that.

  Nobody had given her a second chance, asked her if she’d like her face back, so why should she give him one?

  Cress had said she would understand if she decided not to forgive Mack, so let her prove it. She’d ring her later, ask if she could go and stay for a while. Perhaps Anna Maria would show her a little of Argentina too. She wound down the window and breathed in deeply.

  It had been a mistake to touch him on the shoulder just as she left, she had felt his hair brush the skin on her arm. But looking good and being good were poles apart. What use was a man who you couldn’t believe was telling you the truth, even if he was? She laughed and it felt comfortingly bitter.

  Alex, who wasn’t on her wavelength; Mack, who wasn’t on her side. Perhaps the men in America would be better.

  She glanced in the rear-view mirror and felt nothing when she saw her face. So, he’d been of some use, then.

  In the kitchen there was a reception committee waiting, the whole family. They looked as if someone had died and she wondered whether they’d already wrapped whoever it was in the large brown-paper package on the table.

  ‘Sonia rang,’ Brenda said.

  ‘Really. What did the nosy cow want?’

  She saw the shock on her father’s face and really couldn’t give a stuff.

  ‘Love,’ he said, ‘that’s not like you.’

  ‘It might be,’ she snapped, wishing he’d get off her back. ‘From now on it might be. Oh, here we go, those looks are flying back and forth again.’

  She felt Danny’s arm round her shoulder. ‘Jen, Sonia rang to say she thinks Mack’s gone. He bought a card; saw him writing it in his car. And Mum found this on the doorstep.’ He nodded towards the package.

  She shrugged his arm away. ‘I hope he has gone. I told him to go. He’s wasting his time up here.’

  ‘Jen,’ her mother said, moving towards her, ‘has something else happened today? What’s wrong?’

  ‘What’s wrong? What’s wrong? I’ve got a great scar on my face; I can’t be an actress, which is the only thing I’ve ever really, really wanted to be; I have to take all kinds of crap from people I don’t even know; and the person I loved, who made me feel so glad I’d survived that crash, guess what? Turns out he was a lie. Beginning to end, a great big fucking lie.’

  ‘Do you think we should call Dr Crawford?’ Ray said to Brenda.

  Jennifer was going to make some smart-arse comment when Bryony came swiftly round the table, grabbed hold of her and shook her. ‘Open the package, open the card on top of it and stop being a ruddy drama queen. One’s enough in this family.’

  ‘Cress calls you the Amazon, do you know that?’ Jennifer said, right in her face.

  ‘Good,’ Bryony retorted, ‘that means you won’t be able to stop me if I open this for you, will you?’ Bryony let go of her, pinched the brown paper on the package and then pulled, and a huge strip of paper came away. They could all clearly see it was something Doug had made, but what it was did not become obvious until Jennifer moved Bryony aside and tore off the rest of the paper.

  Brenda made a little ‘Oh’ noise when she saw the mirror but there was no sound from anyone else as they looked at Doug’s craftsmanship. Here was a twist of metal, with a delicate green gleam, lookin
g like the tendril of a plant; there a clump of ferns fanning out across a corner. Sheaves of barley lay beside a tiny kingfisher worked into a mesh of reeds, before the countryside gave way to the delicate metallic blues and greys of the coast – to fronds of seaweed, pebbles and shells. Ray put his hand out and touched the mirrored glass near the ferns and it looked as if his fingers were about to drop into a stream. When he moved his hand to the glass next to a razor clam, it seemed as if he was dabbling in a rock pool.

  Brenda handed Jennifer the envelope and she opened it, still looking at the mirror.

  ‘“For Jen, an ugly mirror until you look into it. Chin up, sweetheart, and break a leg”’ she read.

  ‘Oh God,’ Jennifer said feeling her lungs struggling to fill with air, ‘he always knew exactly what to say.’

  CHAPTER 50

  Mack watched the lads on the beach playing football, shouting and throwing themselves in great lunging bellyflops after the ball. Slowly, feeling his breath catch as the cold slapped at him, he walked into the sea.

  He paused as he got used to the numbing sensation and then took a few more steps, aware that the water had nearly reached the bulky turn-ups he had made when he rolled up his jeans. A few more steps and the water was up to his thighs, the weight of the waterlogged material now making it harder to move his legs. The numbness was dying away, to be replaced by a sensation of intense burning, and after a few more steps he felt his whole body start to tremble. A sharper lick of pain engulfed his groin as the water reached it.

  ‘Offside,’ the lads were shouting, ‘off bloody side.’

  He wondered how hard it would be to just keep walking, and whether the pain at the end would be greater than the pain he felt in his chest. He’d been so hopeful after Phyllida’s visit, so stupidly hopeful.

  Whatever else happened in his life Jen would always be there, just offstage, as she had been that time he’d seen her sitting in the prompt light and knew he loved her.