by Fiona Walker
‘I’m fine.’ She’d never felt this deep a craving.
‘I’ll go first, shall I?’
Taking her hands from her face, she saw the cup was at his lips.
‘Stop that!’
Luca offered her the other, eyes unblinking. ‘On the count of three?’
‘What are you doing?’ She made to knock the raised cup out of his hand, but he whipped it away too fast.
‘I’m coming with you on this bender whether you like it or not.’
‘Get a grip.’
‘One: I’ve not played the violin sober in years for a start. Two: I need a drink. Three…’ Luca shut the argument down, draining the cup while Pax watched, bewildered.
‘Why do that?’
He proffered the second cup. ‘You’re not drinking alone tonight, Pax. And if anything’s going to stop you, it’s seeing me langers. I’m a seriously annoying drunk.’
‘You’re seriously annoying.’ She glared at him, his face, just visible in the lantern and firelight spilling from the other end of the orchard, a flickering mask. ‘I do know what you’re playing at here, Luca.’
‘And what is that?’
‘Making a moral sacrifice to prove a point.’ She waved an accusing arm, anger bated. The wassail procession was finally in the orchard proper and whooping its way towards its first tree. Even in the dark far corner, she now had to shout to be heard. ‘You’re playing truth or dare, aren’t you?’
‘And which will it be?’
‘You already know my truth!’ As she shouted it, the wassailers hushed to listen to the chair of the parish council make his welcoming introduction, Pax’s ‘know my truth!’ carrying evangelically across the orchard.
‘Which is?’ Luca asked quietly.
God, he was milking this.
‘I’m a secret drinker,’ she hissed obligingly. ‘We’re good at secrets in my family; my entire childhood was built on one, as it turns out. Mine is bottles of vodka in the tea-towel drawer.’ She paused to breathe, determined not to cry or to let her voice climb scales, pushing the letters and Kes’s departure from her mind. ‘This stupid drinking game is just one of your holier-than-thou gestures.’
He crossed himself, which she didn’t find funny.
‘You think if you drink it’ll shame me out of it, but I refuse to have you on my conscience.’ Pax felt another flash of anger at his martyrdom. ‘You can end up legless in a ditch for all I care, playing dirges on that violin. Because, when it comes down to it, you can’t stop me drinking any more than I can stop you.’
Across the field, cups were being filled from a ceremonial jug, a few huzzahs raised, the parish chair still droning on about the tradition of tree blessing.
He said nothing for a long time, then, ‘Thanks for the explanation. And there was me thinking we might simply get fluthered one last time before Step One.’
‘This isn’t like you, Luca.’
‘That’s the thing. It’s very like me. The old me you’ve never met. I thought it was time I introduced him. I don’t think you’ll like him overmuch. And I warn you, he’ll serenade you from the ditch later. Any requests?’
She crossed her arms. ‘Please stop this.’
‘You said it yourself, Pax,’ his voice stayed soft, unhurried, ‘you can’t make me stop any more than I can you. Although this stuff is awful enough to do it.’ He tossed the contents of the second cup in the grass, looking up with a smile that glinted in the half-light.
Pax felt a rush of relief, in desperate need of strong, principled Luca. Then she watched, dismayed, as he flipped open the violin case and pulled out a quarter-size bottle of whisky from a compartment alongside the bow. ‘No self-respecting fiddler travels without poitín.’
Pax wanted to turn and walk away, but her legs refused to move. ‘Luca, don’t.’
‘I forgot you prefer spirits.’ He poured a measure, offering it to her. ‘Save you running home.’
She hardly dared breathe, her need was so great. Damn him for knowing. ‘What’s got into you?’
The smile flashed and faded. ‘You, Pax.’
Surprise kept her rooted to the spot.
For a moment Pax let the frisson quiver through her, assumptions jettisoned, feeling strangely high. But then she fell just as fast, and kept falling, into deep, dark self-doubt. This absolutely couldn’t happen. Nobody had seen her so raw as Luca had. She was a woman who had thrown away her marriage, carried family secrets, pushed her son away – and now she’d even driven her kind, patient minder to drink. She couldn’t take him under with her while the storm was still raging in her broken life, its whirlpools like black holes. They could never be trusted together drunk. One of them had to stay on dry land.
‘No way.’ She took the cup from him, raised it in a toast and poured its contents out onto the grass.
‘Good girl.’
‘That’s what you wanted?’
He nodded, turning the bottle in his hand so it caught glints of flame light. ‘Forgive me.’
‘You’re only trying to help.’
‘Not for that.’
Realising what he meant, she looked down, heat spots in her cheeks. She had enough on her plate without being told she was in his head. He was in hers, too. It was getting way too crowded.
His phone started ringing. He ignored it, holding the whisky bottle like a grenade, free hand raking his hair so it stood up in strange spiral peaks.
Yet she still couldn’t move. She wanted to tell him how much his friendship meant, but she worried she’d give too much away and his phone was still ringing. No sooner had it stopped than it started again.
‘Why not just answer? Whoever it is isn’t going to stop until you do.’
‘Maybe I need to be drunk first.’ He took a swig from the bottle.
It’s not me on his mind, Pax realised with a thud of recognition; it’s whoever is making that call. It should have been a relief but wasn’t.
‘Is it her? Dizzy’s mother?’
‘No.’
Across the orchard, the crowd launched into a song:
‘Here’s to thee, old apple tree,
That blooms well, bears well.’
‘I’ve not been to… …est, Pax.’ It was hard to hear him over the din. His face was in darkness again, just the glow of firelight eclipsing his gold hair like a corona, and a glimmer of the bottle as it went to his lips again.
‘Not been what?’
‘Hats full, caps full,
Three bushel bags full,’
The dancers drew closer and they could hear the crackle of the flames.
‘Honest.’
It shocked her. She’d started trusting him implicitly. ‘About what?’
Rubbing his face then raking back his hair in his hands, he seemed to change his mind. ‘Forget it. It’s best you’re not involved.’
‘An’ all under one tree.
Hurrah! Hurrah!’
Cheers went up amid much bell-jingling and tub-thumping, the hurdy-gurdy in overdrive.
In Luca’s pocket, his phone was in full cry once more. When somebody calls that often, Pax reasoned, they are very obsessed indeed.
‘Are you in danger?’
Ignoring the question, he watched through the trees as the wassail king and queen, in rival elaborate leafy evergreen headdresses, soaked toast slices in the ceremonial flagon of cider and wedged them in the branches. ‘That’s just weird so it is.’
‘Luca you have to tell me about this. Are you in danger?’
He ducked his head with a dry laugh. ‘Catch me in that ditch later and I’ll tell you all my secrets. I’ll probably tell you I love you too, but I say that to everybody when I’m blootered.’
The wassailers were singing and dancing round the trees nearest them now, bringing the braziers closer, light spilling into their dark corner of the orchard, burnishing trunks and casting golden shapes through the branches. The whites of Luca’s eyes flashed, and his face was gilded in light for a moment, h
ollow-cheeked, lashes like gold veils, a sun god out after hours.
Attraction cut through Pax without warning, a reckless urgent need to kiss and be kissed. To be loved by Luca, however briefly, even Bacchanalian in a ditch.
‘I’m not a nice drunk, Pax,’ he repeated. ‘I’m selfish and I’m greedy and I’m horny. Please don’t trust me.’
Touching her face with his hand in apology, he turned and walked away.
Cheek on fire, Pax stared into the darkness after him, wondering why she suddenly couldn’t breathe.
Her own phone lit up with a call, vibrating furiously in her hand. Helen. She had to move to the far wall to be sure of enough reception to take it.
‘Sorry – been with a client. It is your week for Wednesday nights, I’ve checked,’ Helen’s warm, firm voice insisted. ‘You absolutely don’t have to let Kes go with them. They’re bullying you. I’ll take this up.’
‘Thanks,’ she said quietly, ringing off and closing her eyes, allowing herself one silent sob, violent as a mule kick, shame burning. I want to go, Mummy. She’d got it wrong. She always got it wrong. She was too weak, too passive, too fair. Kes came first, above everything, always, and yet she’d politely let him go.
The revellers were moving back towards the other end of the orchard, singing another wassail song, Love and joy come to you repeating every few lines.
She didn’t want to rejoin the others. She wanted to go home just as Kes had.
Pax was fed up with being polite. She’d been a polite daughter, polite lover, polite wife and mother, polite drunk. Her good manners were the reason her son was with the Forsyths again tonight. The same well-bred silence that surrounded other family secrets would keep the contents of the letters safe too. It meant graciously acknowledging that she was still too much of a displaced wife to step away from its shadow without a customary period of mourning: three weeks ago, she’d been renewing the family’s Amazon Prime subscription and planning their summer holiday in Crete; everything was still in joint names, Mack hadn’t a clue how to sort the recycling and most of their friends didn’t even know they’d separated yet. Wasn’t it just common courtesy to continue ignoring the worst-timed bit of human chemistry fate had ever offered her? Being polite meant pretending Luca’s words didn’t make a difference, that his compassion wasn’t one part comfort to two parts bad-timing.
The last thing Pax needed right now was mutual attraction. A fortnight was an intake of breath compared to a marriage.
She held her hands to her cheek where he’d touched it. She’d dropped her gloves somewhere trying to call Helen. Her fingers were cold, the loose rings rattling. She carefully pulled them off and slotted them onto her middle finger where they now fitted perfectly. It seemed apt; she was giving her marriage the finger after all. She gestured in the dark, not at all politely, and felt better. Strength and honour.
Thinking about it, Pax hadn’t been very polite to Luca at all when they’d met, which was at least something. He’d arrived with a crush on her mother, hardwired kindness, suicidal driving and a puritanical streak. She’d seen no evidence to suggest he’d changed. Apart from those looks, that feeling, the deep feral pulse which beat louder. What was it Bridge had said? He fancies the arse off you. Mesmazur would have no qualms about leaving now without saying goodbye to anyone so that she could go home, slam the door and enjoy very rude thoughts in private.
Pax set off across the dark, hillocky orchard like a fell runner, aiming for the stile that led to the stud’s wooded boundary through which a half moon was rising to point her way. She dodged trunks and branches, ducking and swerving. Almost there, she tripped over a tree root. In three big, unbalanced steps, she was on her knees and head-butting the hawthorn hedge. Trying to sit up, she rolled backwards and downwards like Alice.
Love and joy come to you! sang the wassailers.
Bad eye smarting, Pax looked up, furious with herself that whilst she rarely ever took a spill drunk, she was flat on her back for the second time in an hour. Did falling in love earn its name because it started this way? she wondered fatuously. Directly above, she could see the distinctive W of Cassiopeia and remembered her grandfather once telling her that Cassiopeia and Cepheus were the only husband-and-wife constellation in all the night sky, the very epitome of growing old together.
‘Are you okay?’ Luca was stooping over her, catching his breath from running. ‘Don’t try to move. Did you hit your head?’
Slow down, heart. ‘Can you see the birds too?’
‘What birds?’ He crouched over her. She could smell the sweetness of the cider on him, the peat of whisky undercutting it. Her mouth watered.
‘The ones flying round singing Disney songs.’
‘Seriously?’ Then he made a ha noise. ‘Are you rolling your eyes? It’s too dark to see down there. You know you’re in a ditch?’ There was an ironic tone she didn’t recognise. He put out a hand to help her up.
‘Just warming it up for you.’ She scrambled out without him, almost treading on the violin abandoned on the bank.
Luca picked it up, plucking a couple of strings. ‘I came to find you to apologise,’ he said, ‘for all the rubbish I said earlier.’
She looked at him, wondering whether he was referring to confessing dishonesty or drunken love. Maybe they amounted to the same thing.
The big bonfire had just been lit, the smell of burning apple logs drifting in smoke through frosting air, golden light spilling far enough to illuminate the orchard clearly.
‘Hey, Paddy, we need music!’ demanded an unseen voice across the field.
Ignoring it, Luca tilted his head, able to see her face now. ‘You’ve hurt your poor eye.’
‘It’s not painful,’ she lied.
He put his hand on her face, unexpectedly warm. ‘Let me look, angel.’ He brushed his thumb lightly across her cheekbone and over her brow.
She’d never heard Luca call anyone angel before. She wanted to clamp her arms around herself to stop everything fluttering inside so much, giving her away. How warm were his fingers?
‘Close your eye a minute.’
She felt the heat of his thumb crossing her lid, yet it didn’t seem to touch her. It should have made her flinch, but it didn’t. Was it her imagination or did the eye feel less angry? He did it again, more slowly. It felt amazing. That warmth.
This is the gift her mother had talked about, Pax realised. The same gift Carly possessed, untamed and untrained, the reason her touch had felt so odd. But Luca was assured and controlled, the energy focussed into a single movement.
‘There…’ He wiped the tears away with a light stroke of his little finger and stepped back. ‘See if that feels better.’
She opened them in astonishment. ‘How did you do that?’
‘Hey, Paddy!’ the voice shouted again, a long shadow falling towards them. ‘Horsemaker! You’re on.’
‘Let’s make a run for it,’ he whispered.
‘You have to go,’ she urged. ‘If the Turners fetch you a fiddle, you play.’
‘Then stay and listen.’ He lifted the violin to his chest and plucked a few blues slides like a guitarist. It was a neat trick. The smile told her she was safe, she was adored, she would have the time of her life.
‘I’m not ready for the old Luca.’ Remembering his warning, she wished she didn’t fancy his alter ego so much.
‘You coming, bro?’ The shadow was closing in.
‘You sure you’re all right?’ The Luca she knew was back all too briefly.
‘Maybe a touch of amnesia.’ She pulled some twigs from her hair. ‘D’you know, I can’t remember anything you said this evening at all. Not a word.’
‘That a fact?’ The O’Brien smile lit up the shadows, a mask she couldn’t lift.
‘All gone.’
‘Bet you forget this too.’ The kiss was the sweetest, briefest taste of adventure.
He was irresistible drunk.
Pax vaulted over the stile and bolted for home.
It had been an underwhelming wassail in Bridge’s eyes, the bacon butties a particular let-down. ‘Since when did two wet rashers laid to rest in unbuttered medium-white sliced call itself anything other than an obscene profit margin conjured from Lidl basics?’ she’d complained to the chef, adding ‘with no fecking ketchup.’ The spiced cider was admittedly spectacular this year, but she’d only allowed herself two thimblefuls with the children to look after. Carly was in a strange mood, currently sulking because Luca kept vanishing with a sacred Turner fiddle.
‘I championed him,’ she moaned, sounding like Cheryl let down by an X Factor boy band. ‘It’s my neck on the line.’
‘In fairness, you’ve never heard him play, queen. He could be shite.’
‘I’m going to look for him. You’re okay keeping an eye on Jackson and Sienna, yeah?’
Watching her go, Bridge’s lip curled. She’d spent most of the past hour as glorified babysitter, trending the two-buggies-and-an-empty-cider-beaker look. While the braziers blazed and the Morris men pranced, her eyes had stayed trained on the opposite end of the orchard, where for a long time a couple had been silhouetted under one of the oldest apple trees in excitingly close proximity. Now they’d gone.
Bridge felt very let down by Pax. Whilst there was no denying she and Luca had a smokingly sexy vibe going on, Bridge had nobody to talk to, unless you counted Auriol Bullock, immaculate in M&S camel hair, trilby hat and high spirits, trying to hide the fact she was smashed on cider punch. Bridge supposed she would have to get used to work encroaching on her social life now.
‘I’ve lent my bodhran to that ver’ attractive young man,’ Auriol, heavy-lidded, pointed out Monique Austen’s handsome groom beating out a rhythm.
‘Baron.’
‘Is he?’ She looked delighted. ‘I wonder if he has children of school age?’
‘No, the Irish drum is pronounced “baron”.’
‘I’ll stick with bo-de-ron, thank you,’ she said with crisp headmistress starch and just the slightest lurch to the left.
Auriol was waiting for a lift home from the hurdy-gurdy player, still only part through telling his potted history of medieval instruments to a glazed Mr Well Cottage (sideburns more Liam Gallagher than George Best, Bridge noted). None of the other Bags had been there to witness Bridge roll in with the Horsemaker and Pax, not that they’d hung out any longer than washing in a winter downpour.