Face the Wind and Fly (29 page)

‘But you love Willow Corner.’

He was right. It was more to her than a house. Kate had always felt the connections to her home’s past keenly and she knew she’d miss her muslin-draped eighteenth-century predecessors in their shawls and bonnets, and the nineteenth-century women of the house in their stays and corsets.
Stay with us,
they seemed to call to her,
don’t abandon us.

‘It’s a house,’ she said, stubbornly ignoring them all.

‘The thing is,’ Andrew said slowly, looking at her over his wine, ‘Sophie is – well—’

‘Demanding? Broody? Jealous?’

‘—very young.’

That brought her up short. ‘Oh. Well, you knew that.’

He pursed his lips.

‘Charlotte told me that young flesh fed your vanity.’

His mouth fell open. He dropped the wine glass onto the table, where it toppled precariously. Kate shot out a hand to steady it.

‘She said
what?
’

‘Was she right?’

His eyes were wide with shock. ‘That’s a terrible thing to say.’

Kate leaned forwards and stared at him intently. ‘But was she
right
?’

‘Kate, where’s this going? I asked you here today because I wanted to tell you that I think I’ve made a mistake.’

‘Who’s having the salmon?’ They both swivelled abruptly. A waiter was standing by the table, a steaming plate in each white-gloved hand.

‘Here.’ Kate indicated the space in front of her. The waiter placed an immaculately arranged dish of salmon in front of her, then presented Andrew with a sumptuous-looking bowl of braised beef. ‘Thank you.’

‘Will there be anything else?’

She smiled sweetly. ‘Nothing. Thank you.’

They stared at each other across the food. Neither of them picked up a fork.

Andrew said, ‘Your hair suits you like that.’

She ran a hand through the curls. Allowed to go untrimmed for more than three months now, the old cropped style had grown luxuriant and untamed to below her ears.

‘It’s more like when we met. Do you remember that day?’

‘Of course I do, it was just like this. Wet and miserable.’

‘You looked so beautiful.’

‘You looked horribly tempting.’

His conker-brown eyes were hooded and sensual. ‘Kate, I—’

‘Stop.’

‘I wanted to tell—’

‘No. Stop, Andrew. It’s no good reliving the old days. Everything has changed. You know that.’

‘For better or worse? I thought you, of all people, would fight for your marriage.’

‘Vanity is a terrible thing, Andrew.’

‘I didn’t mean— As a principle, I meant, that was all. I’m not so vain as to think you’d love me unconditionally. I just meant ... because you’re a fighter. It’s what I’ve always loved in you.’

‘Has this just been a game, then? To watch me chase after you? To test me against Sophie?’

‘
No!
You’re twisting everything I say. I didn’t mean that, either.’

‘You’re the one who’s meant to be good with words. You’ll have to be clearer.’

‘I’ve made a terrible error of judgment. I never meant things to go this far.’

‘No.’ Kate lifted the linen serviette on her side plate and spread it across her knees. ‘I don’t suppose you did. You just thought you’d have a nice, comfortable fling, like you have done before, then when you got tired of it, I’d still be there, waiting for you. Trusting you.’

He hung his head, his finger tracing imaginary patterns on the tablecloth. ‘It’s not like that.’

Harry’s words were fresh in her mind. ‘I think it is. How many women, Andrew? Hmm? How many?’

‘Don’t. It was always you, sweetheart. No-one else meant anything.’

‘Then why do it? Did those women mean so little? Did you afford them no dignity?’

His lips were tight. He looked much older today than his fifty-seven years. His skin was grey and there were two loose folds under the chin she had never noticed before. He was becoming gaunt, and it was not a good look.

He swallowed hard. ‘Sophie is a very insistent person. I suppose ... I confess I was flattered, at first. She’s fine-looking, she’s a little mysterious, you know? But I soon discovered that she’s very needy.’

 He looked straight at Kate. ‘Not like you, Kate. You’re so brilliantly sure of yourself. So capable. I admire you enormously.’

‘But you still betrayed me.’

‘I’ve been unutterably stupid. I suppose you’re right about vanity. At the end of the day, that’s what it is, isn’t it? Having someone young and beautiful look at you adoringly is deeply gratifying.’

That acknowledgement was a start – but could Andrew really change? If he gave Sophie up and came back home, would suspicion gnaw at her for ever?

She thought of Harry’s words.
You’d be fighting for the wrong thing. Dad’s not worth it.
‘Nothing can ever be the same between us, Andrew. Even if I did say you could come back, every time you left the house in the future, I’d think it was to go to Sophie – or Rachel, or Jess or whoever the hell you’d got your eye on.’

‘It wouldn’t be like —’

‘If you smiled at a woman, I’d think you were screwing her. If you even
wrote
about a pretty girl, I’d draw parallels and imagine you were indulging in some secret liaison.’

‘I’ve told you before that fiction and reality are two very different things.’

This was the moment of choice. In front of her were two paths. One was familiar and would remove many uncertainties. She would be able to stay in Willow Corner, she would work to rebuild trust with the man she had fallen so deeply in love with, the man she had believed she would spend her life with. The other turned a corner and was unmapped, its destination uncharted. She would travel it alone and there would be many difficulties along its course. Two days ago she had walked away from her job to salvage self-respect. Should she abandon her marriage for the same reason? She took a shaky breath.

‘Stop. Enough. It’s over. You know it is. We’ve both got to face it. Perhaps we should both just be grateful that our marriage has lasted sixteen years.’

‘Kate—’

‘No!’ She threw her linen serviette onto the table. ‘I can’t do this. You made a choice. You’ve made a lot of choices over the years and most of them didn’t fall out in my favour.’

She pushed back her chair and stood up. Andrew jumped to his feet and caught her arm. ‘Don’t go. Please. You haven’t even eaten yet.’

‘I’ve lost my appetite.’

‘She’s not right for me, Kate. You are. I love you.’

She gazed at him steadily. ‘You should have thought of that before.’

‘Please. Let’s talk. There’s Ninian—’

‘Don’t! Don’t you dare use your son as a tool.’

She’d thought her job was the most important thing in her life, until she’d discovered that her family meant more to her than her work. She’d thought her love for Andrew was unassailable until she found that he had demeaned it.  Now all that mattered was Ninian, and being true to herself. And in her current situation that meant discovering, all over again, who she was and what she really cared about.

‘Sophie—’

‘Yes,
you
need to think about Sophie. You owe the girl some honesty. But don’t think about her in the context of your marriage, because that is over.’

She picked up her handbag and walked out. The maitre d’, at the doorway, called after her, ‘Is everything all right? Madam?’ Behind her Andrew stood, helplessly.

She emerged into a pale and watery sunshine. Seeing Andrew had been difficult, but her reaction to his feeble complaints had told her all she needed to know about their marriage. She hadn’t lied to him. No more prevarication. No more fooling herself that maybe, ‘for the sake of Ninian’...

She knew it really was over.

Chapter Thirty

The run-up to Christmas  – a time when Ibsen normally found himself at something of a loose end – was exceptionally busy this year. He hadn’t been back to help Kate clear up after the storm. Instead, making the excuse that he had too much to do in the community garden at Summerfield, he’d asked one of his pals from college to help her.

The story about the garden had the merit of being partly true, at least, because there was to be a carol concert in the garden on Christmas Eve, and as it was its very first official event, he wanted the place to look the best it could look at this time of year.

Ibsen hated computers and had no patience with texting – his fingers were too big and the phone was usually somewhere inaccessible. He relied on Nicola Arnott, therefore, to help him organise the volunteers, and at the end of November she circulated an email calling for as many as possible to turn out for a last push before the lights were brought in and staging set up.

He didn’t expect Kate to come down.

Kate, reading Nicola’s plea, was nudged by pangs of conscience into action. She hadn’t volunteered in the garden for weeks. Too busy getting to grips with the new work, she excused herself – but was she really? She could easily have come to help for an hour or two.

Bracing herself, she wrapped up warmly and answered the call for help.

Nicola greeted her with an excited hug. ‘Isn’t it terrific? It’s been really full on, but I can almost see the end now. Look, the paths have all been delineated and some of them have been laid already.’

‘What a change,’ Kate said, her admiration tempered by guilt.

‘Hi Kate, no’ seen you for a while,’ came a nicotine-husky voice from near her shoulder. It was Maisie, the volunteer she’d befriended. ‘Afraid o’ hard work, are we?’

‘Not a bit of it.’

‘They paths, they’re buggers.’

‘Really? Why?’

‘Got to mark them then dig down four inches. Backbreaking. Then compact the lot o’ it, then add wee stanes and compact again. That Jodie, mind her delicate hands?’ Maisie cackled. ‘One big blister.’

Guilt hit the heights. ‘Oh dear, have I been slacking?’

‘No worries, hen,’ Maisie chortled, ‘there’s still loads tae do.’

Kate glimpsed Ibsen from a distance, but someone slotted her into a team at the far side of the garden, so she put her head down and got on with the work.

Maisie was right about the blisters – she could feel one coming up after half an hour. It felt good to be working here again though, she had missed the physical labour as well as the community spirit, which was fantastic. When it was time for a break, she rummaged in the basket she’d brought.

‘Cookie anyone?’

‘What kind?’ Maisie asked, poking a grubby finger into the basket.

‘Three-chocolate. I made them myself,’ Kate said proudly.

‘Nae bad,’ grunted Maisie, wolfing one down.

There were some left. Why not use them as an excuse to find Ibsen? Maybe breaking a biscuit with him would also serve to break the ice.

She stood up and stretched. God, she was getting stiff. The light was beginning to fail too, they wouldn’t get much more work done tonight.

She spotted Ibsen at the very far corner of the garden, leaning against the old apple tree, barely recognisable under a vast coat, his ponytail covered by a black beanie.

When she got to within five paces, she called a cheerful, ‘Hi!’

‘Hello.’

He sounded guarded. He didn’t move towards her.

‘How are you doing?’

‘Pretty good. You?’

‘Great.’ She paused. This was unexpectedly hard going. They’d always been able to crack a joke and share a smile – what had happened to him? Had she really offended him so deeply? She waved her biscuit tin in the general direction of the garden. ‘This is looking fantastic. You must be very proud.’

‘Aye.’

Monosyllabic barely began to cover it.

‘Would you like one of my biscuits?’ She held out the willow basket.

‘No, you’re all right. Thanks.’

He seemed unwilling to move.

‘I made them myself.’ Her laugh emerged more as a nervous giggle. ‘Your mother would be proud of me.’

‘Terrific. But I’m not hungry.’

‘I thought things would have quietened down once the digging was finished.’

‘There’s always something to be done in a garden.’

‘I guess so.’

‘You haven’t been down for a while.’

‘I’ve got a new contract. It’s keeping me busy.’

‘That’s good.’

‘Yes. Ibsen—’

She took half a step towards him and he pulled the greatcoat more tightly around himself. Kate looked at him puzzled. His usual heart-warming smile had been replaced by a look of flat resignation. Under his coat, something wriggled. She glanced down. He appeared to have two pairs of legs – and one pair was definitely a woman’s.

He followed her gaze and grimaced. ‘Rumbled, Mel. Come on out.’

He opened his coat and the unmistakeable auburn hair of Melanie McGillivray appeared, followed by heavily-mascara’d emerald eyes and a mouth twisted into what could only be described as a smirk.

‘She was cold,’ Ibsen explained.

‘Right,’ Kate said, finding it impossible to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

Melanie smiled smugly. ‘And he’s
so
warm and cuddly.’

Kate shifted from one foot to the other. How foolish she had been to think that Ibsen might still harbour any feelings for her – if he’d had any in the first place, that is.

‘Well, I can see you’re going to have a Happy Christmas,’ she said, her voice raw with disappointment. She turned away.

 For one hopeful second she thought she glimpsed movement – was he coming after her? – but all she got was a flat, ‘And you,’ from Ibsen and an arch ‘And a
great
New Year,’ from Melanie.

Holding her emotions firmly in check, she lifted her chin and headed for the gate. Holding onto her dignity seemed more important than retrieving her flask.

Melanie opened the passenger door of Ibsen’s van and started to climb in.

Ibsen said, ‘I’ll drop you home.’

‘I thought—’

‘I’ve got things to do.’

‘—you and me—’

He started the engine. In the dog cage at the back, Wellington barked. ‘There’s no you and me, Mel. I told you, remember?’

He was furious that Kate had caught him like that. It was the first time he’d even seen Mel since that night at the pub, but Kate would think they were together. The look on her face was something he’d prefer to forget.

‘Come on Ibs, you don’t mean it.’

She leaned across the gear lever and laid a hand on his arm. He shook it off, slammed the van into reverse and jolted off.

‘I sent in an application for that job.’

Melanie thumped back in her seat so that her head banged into the headrest. ‘Oh, shit, I thought you were kidding me. What’s your family say?’

Ibsen didn’t reply. He hadn’t told them yet.

The thought of Christmas filled Ibsen with dread. They’d never had a single Christmas with Violet, she’d died in mid December. They’d both gone mad with the presents – how stupid can you get? Why buy a baby Christmas presents? It’d be another couple of years before she’d get excited, be able to rip open the wrapping papers, brandish some pretty pink hat or rattly toy—

Still, they’d done it anyway. The inevitable cuddly reindeer as well as a musical snowman; a white porcelain night light in the shape of a dog (from Wellington); a super-soft pram blanket; a My First Christmas photo album; a door plaque with Violet beautifully painted on it and adorned with tiny purple pansies that Lynn had ordered from a Christmas Fair. It arrived the day after Vi died.

He’d no idea what had happened to the gifts. He couldn’t bear to have them near him. Had Lynn sent everything to some charity? Had his mother tactfully dealt with them? The only item he’d kept was a Peter Rabbit moneybox, because he’d been determined to give something back to the Lullaby Trust, the charity that tried to help them both to deal with their loss. He hadn’t been able to say thank you at the time. Now he put all his change into the moneybox every night, and when it was full he sent off a cheque for the amount to the charity. It was surprising how quickly it filled up.

‘We’ll have a family Christmas,’ Cassie promised, hugging her brother as she said it.

She must knew how difficult it would be for him, with Daisy Rose replacing Violet as the first baby in the family to celebrate Christmas.

The only thing Ibsen wanted to do was slip into a sleigh bed with Kate Courtenay and play jingle bells all night long – but the look on her face when she’d seen Mel under his coat said it all. He’d messed it up again, just when she looked like she might be prepared to talk.

His phone rang just as he was leaving for Frank Griffiths’ house the following morning.

‘Ibsen Brown.’

‘Morning, Mr Brown, this is Anne in Northamptonshire.’

‘Hi Anne.’ Ibsen’s interest quickened. She was calling from the office of the estate where he’d applied for the job.

‘We’d love you to come for a final interview.’

He had to strain to understand her flat vowels. ‘Sorry, I didn’t quite get that—’

‘A final interview. I know it’s almost Christmas and really short notice, and it’s a terrible time to ask anyone to travel, but there’s a cottage in the grounds that’s free, it goes with the job and our man has already left. So if you did happen to want a few days’ break with your family, you could certainly use it.’

‘I’ll be there. Thanks.’

He cut the call. Great. He wouldn’t be taking any family, but a few days in a cottage, away from everyone who knew him, was just what he needed. He could be back in time for a last Christmas with his folks.

Predictably, Cassie gave him a tongue-lashing when he told her. ‘What about Mum and Dad?’ she demanded, her sky-blue eyes glinting with anger. ‘It’ll break their hearts if you move away, Ibsen, you know that.’

‘Just for once, I need to do something for myself.’

‘Just for once? Who sat with you night after night when Vi died and after Lynn left? Who cooks meals for you and makes sure you’re—’

‘Don’t, Cassie.’

His tone must have been forceful, because she shut up. But he knew what she thought, all right. And even though his parents, when he broke the news, were completely uncritical of his decision, he knew exactly what they thought too.

Still – what was the point in staying here?

Kate went to see Charlotte.

‘I couldn’t let Christmas go by without putting things right between us,’ she said as Charlotte led her into the kitchen at The Herons.

It was almost twenty years since she’d first met Charlotte and for nineteen and a half of those years they’d been best friends. Much as she valued her new friendship with Helena Banks, there was nothing that could replace the thousands of moments they shared.

‘What will you drink?’ Charlotte asked, letting her into The Herons.

‘A cup of tea would slip down rather well. How’s Georgie?’

‘High as a kite.’ Charlotte appeared in the doorway. ‘James has become attentive.’

‘James? The boy she fancied?’

‘That’s the one.’

She sighed. ‘Ninian’s besotted with Alice. I can’t believe our children are old enough for all this.’

‘Lurve? Scary, isn’t it?’

‘Another three years and Ninian’ll be the age we were when we met.’

‘Life’s passing quickly.’

Kate took the tea from Charlotte and laid it in front of her. ‘That’s why I’ve come, Char. We can’t let it roll on and not make up.’

Charlotte pulled a face. ‘Are you willing to forgive me? You thought I was the perfect wife, but I tried to tell you it wasn’t true. I’m just a flawed human being.’

‘You—’

Charlotte went on as if Kate hadn’t interrupted. ‘I was jealous. You were the clever one. You got all the boys, everything came so easily.’

‘That’s not true. I lost my Dad, I don’t get on that well with my mother. You lived in Forgie, you had a lovely family—’

‘Perhaps we all wish for what we don’t have. I never thought much about Forgie or my family.’

‘It seemed so idyllic. Why do you think I ended up here myself?’

‘And then you finally realised Dad isn’t exactly idyllic after all.’ Charlotte looked at her and started to splutter with laughter.

Kate grinned. Soon they were both giggling, just like the old times. When they finally stopped, Charlotte said, soberly, ‘It was years and years ago, Kate. I’m really, really sorry.’

‘Years ago? Andrew you mean? I don’t care any more about Andrew.’

‘And me? Can you forgive me?’

‘I only wish I’d known. That’s all.’

‘Would it have changed anything?’

‘Maybe. Who knows?’

‘Friends again?’

‘We’ve always been friends. We’re just wiser and sadder now.’

‘Wiser? Maybe. Sadder? Let’s not be, Kate, let’s not be.’