Face the Wind and Fly (31 page)

Kate pressed her foot down on the accelerator. It would do no good to linger among memories.

Through the woods, the road wound up past the back of Summerfield Law. She could see the fragile latticed skeleton of the Met mast, dark against the pale blue sky. All that was Jack Bailey’s problem now, thank goodness.

Far in the distance, she could see the sea. ‘I blame you,’ she’d told Andrew in one of their recent bitter exchanges, ‘for robbing me of my sweet memories.’ But it wasn’t true, she realised, a surge of optimism filling her as she pressed forwards. The memories were still there, nothing could change those. She cherished many moments in the life they once shared, it was merely time to move on. Bizarre though it had been, Sophie’s unexpected arrival at Willow Corner had taught her one thing – that she’d already started to put her life with Andrew into a filing cabinet marked ‘Experience’ and had opened another drawer, labelled, ‘My New Life’. Now she just needed to fill it.

She was high now, and the car was still climbing. The temperature gauge had fallen from three degrees down in Forgie to one and a half at the edge of the wood and was now showing just half a degree above freezing. Grassland turned into moorland, pasture into wilderness; it was a frost-rimed, bleak landscape that had its own wild beauty.

Kate’s emotions were intense. It was as if the cold glare of the winter sun was shining on the frost and refracting a dazzling spotlight back onto her. Under its beam Frank Griffiths’ passionate opposition to the wind farm suddenly made absolute sense and she knew, with a comprehension that was deep and visceral, why Ibsen loved these rugged acres.

‘I like things,’
Ibsen had said,
‘the way they are.’

He was allowed to feel that. In her passion for her craft, Kate realised now that she had been slow to acknowledge this. She would defend her turbines to anyone, but perhaps she should learn to recognise, much more than she had, how deeply people wanted to protect a world that was changing inexorably around them.

Now she was on the bleakest part of the moor. It was December, it was freezing, and this was a desolate part of the country.

And it was the worst possible place to skid on black ice and slither helplessly into a ditch from which she could not possibly get out.

Chapter Thirty-three

Christmas Eve. Frost hung on the trees, thickly sprinkled like icing sugar on a peppermint cream. When darkness had fallen, their cold ghostliness had faded – but now it burst joyously centre stage as headlights became spotlights and illuminated their denuded branches. Harry and Jane’s car had just swung into the drive.

Kate poked her head out of the front door, waved a welcome, then pushed it hurriedly closed again so that the freezing air didn’t percolate inside.

‘Muffle up well, you two,’ Kate called up the stairs. Ninian had taken down his death threat poster and transformed his room since his relationship with Alice had deepened. Gone were the random socks and tee shirts littering the floor. Kate had taught him how to load the washing machine and set it to the right programme. He pulled the vacuum cleaner out and used it with reasonable regularity. He kept his room tidy. It was now a room suitable for receiving visitors – and one visitor in particular. Kate recalled thinking that when Ninian lost his gaucheness and remembered where he kept his charm hidden, he would become a magnet for the girls. He’d certainly forged a deep bond with Alice Banks.

Ninian’s bedroom door opened and Alice appeared. She called, ‘Have Harry and Jane arrived? Are you ready to go?’

‘They’re here. Are you ready? Parking won’t be easy. You have got gloves, Alice?’

Russet hair swung round slim shoulders. She was wearing a flimsy tee shirt. A
tee shirt
! In the middle of the coldest snap for years! What happened to turning down the heating and putting on a sweater?

Ninian bounded downstairs. She could swear his shoulders had broadened and filled out in the last few months. ‘Have you got the mince pies, Mum?’

Kate was proud that she had made her own and that they didn’t look too disastrous. She waved a willow basket at Ninian. ‘They’re in here, warmed through and wrapped in dozens of tea towels to keep them that way.’

‘And the mulled wine?’

‘In there,’ she gestured at a hessian carrier bag, ‘in a couple of vacuum flasks. Can you take everything out if you’re ready? I’ll be there in a sec. Just need to pull on my boots.’

As Ninian and Alice fled into the cold, their laughter hung behind them in the freezing night air, tiny frozen bubbles of exuberance. Kate stood for a moment on the doorstep, savouring the sound of their happiness and thinking of everything that had happened in the last few months. Her world had turned upside down. She had lost her job, but fallen happily into new work. Ninian had gone through a period of self-doubt and anger, but had found Alice. She had learned who her friends were, and who they weren’t. Her marriage had ended and— and nothing.

She hauled on one fur-lined boot, then steadied herself with one hand on the bannister.

She thought of Ibsen often. She liked him a great deal – far too much – and yet she always seemed to rub him up the wrong way. He’d peeled back a hard, protective layer and let her peep underneath to the rawness he battled with, and she had chosen to focus instead on the sticking plaster that was his lifestyle. He’d asked her to a movie, and she’d retreated into a sulk.

Kate shoved her other foot into the second boot and banged it on the floor to get it to slide in.

Enough.

Bang.

I’m doing all right.

Bang.

I can live without Ibsen.

‘Mu-um!’

Ninian’s voice leached impatience.

‘Coming!’

She pulled the front door behind her and double locked it. Time to go.

Behind her, the lights on the tree in the window glistened like red berries. It was going to be a perfect, picture book Christmas.

Nicola Arnott was full of excitement. ‘Isn’t this wonderful? It’s the first event at our community garden and look at it – there must be a hundred and fifty people here.’

Kate hugged her, infected by her excitement. ‘You’ve done wonders. Look at this!’

And it
was
wonderful. She was standing on one of the paths she’d helped to make and even in the darkness she could make out some of the areas Ibsen had planned – the friendship garden, for example, just to her right. Once the plants started to grow, it would become a delightful, intricate labyrinth.

He hadn’t come back from Northamptonshire – or if he had, she hadn’t heard. She’d been silly to think she could ever persuade him to change his mind – but what a loss he would be to Summerfield.

She tried not to feel sorry for herself. She was on a long road, she would just have to find her own way.

‘Here Mum, take this,’ Ninian appeared and handed her a chunky red candle, its flame already flickering.

Kate looked around. While she’d been dreaming, the garden had become a bobbing, flickering, dancing sea of candlelight. She caught her breath. ‘Oh! How lovely.’

Ninian slid his arm around Alice. Their eyes shone in the light of a hundred flames.
They look so happy
, Kate thought, with a pang of envy, but with genuine pleasure in her son’s contentment.

‘They’re going to start the carols soon,’ Alice said, her cheeks rosy with cold.

Harry said, ‘I can’t believe this patch of waste has been transformed like this. It was your idea, wasn’t it, Kate? You must be very proud.’

Kate was glad that the darkness hid the tears that sprang to her eyes. Harry’s praise meant a great deal to her.

Across the garden, Nicola Arnott jumped onto a low dais that had been placed at the top end, near the school. An electricity supply had been run out from the building to power a microphone and a couple of small lights. ‘Hello everyone!’ she called, her voice used to commanding attention. ‘Hello,’ she said again, as soon as the chatter stilled, ‘and welcome to the Summerfield Community Garden for our very first carol service. We’ll start our carols shortly, and after that there’ll be a ten-minute interlude. The pupils have suggested that you use this time to introduce yourself to someone you’ve never met and exchange a cake with them, in a gesture of friendship. We’ll have the switch-on at nine o’clock precisely.’

There was an excited murmur.

‘Quiet please, quiet!’ The murmur dropped. ‘Before we start our carol service, can I just say a couple of brief words of thanks? First to Kate Courtenay, whose idea this garden was—’

Kate felt her face grow hot as people clapped, and was glad that the darkness concealed her.

‘—and of course, to Ibsen Brown, who has designed the garden and co-ordinated all the many volunteers who have been working so hard to get the garden into shape. What?’ she paused to listen to a shout. ‘Oh yes, with the able assistance of Kylie Tolen, of course.’

There was much laughter. Kylie, the ten-year-old daughter of the forthright Mary Tolen who served on the Community Council, had developed a reputation as a powerhouse of persuasion. She’d worked so hard for the garden that she’d been chosen to switch on the lights.

‘Now— please welcome the Summerfield Primary School Choir!’

Twenty small children filed onto the dais, a chord was played on a keyboard, a teacher raised her hands ready to conduct, and the heartbreakingly beautiful voice of a young boy rang out with perfect purity, ‘Once in royal David’s city—’

I can’t be the only one, Kate thought, to have a lump in my throat. She tried to wipe away a tear that was threatening to escape down her cheek and was reassured to see a few handkerchiefs out. It was perfect. Freezing feet and scarlet noses and fingers, a sea of glimmering candles, the old apple tree with its charming decorations and a choir of little angels. And, above all, a community of people who might never otherwise have come together, drawn here in a spirit of harmony.

There was a sniff beside her and Maisie grinned happily. ‘No’ bad, eh?’

Not bad. Not bad at all.

‘Mum, try this chocolate log,’ Ninian said, ‘and can you give me some of those mince pies?’

‘Jane’s brought a flask of hot chocolate spiced with a little rum,’ Harry said through pastry and mincemeat, ‘and by the way, these mince pies are pretty good.’

‘I made them myself.’

‘What, even the pastry?’ Jane asked.

‘Even the pastry.’

‘Stunning.’

‘I let Andrew take charge in the kitchen for far too long. It was easier to let him cook because he was good at it, but it meant I never tried. Actually, I’m rather enjoying it. It’s very therapeutic.’

‘We’d better circulate,’ Harry said, ‘we’re meant to talk to someone we don’t know.’

‘Here—’ Kate gave him a cardboard box full of warm mince pies, ‘distribute these. And Jane—’

‘Yes?’

‘Your hot chocolate is divine.’

‘Thanks!’

They disappeared into the darkness. Ninian and Alice had already been swallowed up in the throng. Kate picked up her basket and started to walk. She found Jodie-of-the-blisters and accepted a rather heavy sausage roll in exchange for one of her pies. Mary Tolen gave her a slab of brandy-laden Christmas cake and her excited daughter, swathed in scarves and barely visible under an oversized bobble hat, traded an iced biscuit in the shape of a star.

Something thumped her in the back of the knees and almost knocked her over.

‘Wellington!’ His tail was a blur of excited greeting and Kate’s heart raced from nought to sixty in three point four seconds. ‘Hello, boy! Hello!’

If Wellington was here, his owner must be here too. She looked up.

Ibsen was standing a couple of yards away, the same – but somehow different.

‘Your hair!’ Kate gasped, ‘What the hell have you done with your hair?’

The ponytail had gone and instead his hair had been shorn to a neat crop.

‘Don’t tell me.’ She smiled. ‘Melanie turned into Delilah and cut it all off one night to drain your power.’

There was no answering smile. Kate surveyed him critically. He was wearing a sweatshirt with the slogan ‘Take the Leap’ alongside a stick figure jumping a chasm. ‘You look jolly cold.’

‘Probably,’ he said, ‘because I’ve got no hair.’

‘Why
did
you cut it off? Assuming my guess was wrong, that is.’

‘I was going for a job interview. I thought it would look smarter.’

‘Cassie told me. She was upset. She thinks you’re running away.’

‘Cassie’s upset because she’s losing a push-over babysitter.’

‘You know that’s not true.
Are
you running away, Ibsen?’

‘What would I be running away from?’

They were talking. Never mind how difficult it was, they were talking. She said with great gentleness. ‘Violet. Lynn. Memories.’

He said, ‘No. I wasn’t running away. There was nothing for me in Summerfield.’

‘There was Melanie.’

‘Melanie is a mischief maker. She had merely attached herself to me for warmth that night. Your timing was bad.’

‘Oh.’ There was a few moments silence, then she said, ‘I’ve been thinking about it a lot – I’m sorry about the wind farm.’

‘Summerfield? We scattered Violet’s ashes up there. That’s why I felt so strongly about it.’

‘Oh God, I didn’t know. That makes it even worse.’ She took a step towards him, but he moved away and she stopped at the rebuff. ‘I really am desperately sorry.’

‘Don’t be. It’s taken a long time, but at last I’ve come to accept that it’s immaterial – Violet will always be in my heart and that’s the only thing that matters.’

‘So why leave? Why the job?’

‘Lynn wrote to tell me she may be getting married again. And the only woman I’ve really had feelings for since we split, turned me down. It seemed like a good time to make a complete break.’

Kate’s sense that she was about to lose everything was overwhelming – then his words sank in.
The only woman I’ve really had feelings for since we split, turned me down.
She gasped. ‘Ibsen—’

His expression was bleak. Where was the twinkle that had drawn her to him? What was it Charlotte had said?
Sometimes, just knowing that someone gives a damn can turn your life around.

She said, ‘It’s been a strange, winding road for me this past year, but across the crazy months, one night stands out.’

Not a muscle in his face moved.

‘I wanted to make a little magic, but instead I found I had been enchanted.’

‘Kate—’

‘Shush. I’m talking.’

She saw his face crease, briefly, in amusement. That was better than lifelessness, a damn sight better, so she ploughed on. ‘Charlotte tells me I’ve never taken much interest in other people’s lives. I think that’s a little unfair, but it’s true that recently I haven’t had much energy left over to cope with someone else’s problems. And I guess when you’ve just been battered around the heart you get rather sensitive.’

Ragged with apprehension, she said, ‘You shared your demons with me once, but I didn’t fully understand how much your confidences meant. Will you let me support you now?’

Her heart hammered as she waited for his reply, but it was a long time coming.

Finally, Ibsen shook his head, a strange, unfamiliar, ponytail-less shake. ‘No.’

Her head fell forward and she stared at the ground. Someone had obviously been smoking here, she counted five cigarette butts stamped half into the earth. So. This was it. The fag end of her life, and she had only herself to blame for losing everything.

‘I’d only want your support,’ he went on, ‘if you thought you might be able to give me your love too. Maybe not right now, maybe not this moment, but—’

He never finished the sentence, because she crossed the space between them and threw herself into his arms before either of them had time to think about it too much.

Instantly, Wellington objected. A cold, wet nose thrust itself between them so that passion turned to laughter. ‘Behave, dog,’ Ibsen growled.

Kate’s teeth were starting to chatter. ‘He’s j-jealous.

‘Kate?’ He put a cold hand under her chin and tilted her head up so that he could look into her eyes. ‘This isn’t a game? You think you and I—?’

‘Let’s see.’ She pretended to count on her fingers. ‘Does it add up? I’d be swapping a man who wears shirts of finest cotton lawn for a man who has a taste for tasteless tee shirts—’

‘A man with a sense of fun rather than one who’s up his own—’ he protested.