‘The problem is, Jessie, I kind of kissed him. It was a split-second lapse. I only went to hug him.’
What she didn’t add was that in that moment she had wanted to be kissed back by him and she was flummoxed.
This was why she didn’t do relationships. She had imagined he was into her. That was awful. She was entrenched in a scenario from which no director would shout “cut” and save her. Clearly, he needed space. The best way she could think of to fix this situation was to leave him alone.
‘A peck?’
‘Our lips… had a collision. Of sorts. It was an accident. He’s gone off in a bad mood. He’s upset. I feel dreadful.’
Unable to sleep, and having invented a reason to use the wifi, Ella sat at the big table in the centre of Jessie’s kitchen, watching the steam rise from the mug of hot chocolate in front of her. When she’d heard the words Old Rose Cottage, what she had pictured definitely hadn’t included Karadow Hall. Up close, the ramshackle house looked like a weather-battered geological feature of the coast. Luckily for Jessie. the kitchen at the back was comfortable. With the dog and a couple of cats curled up together in front of the Aga it felt homely. Next to the stove there was an armchair, a throw draped over the back and an open book spread across one arm. A third cat lay on the opposite arm, its paws neatly arranged like an Egyptian sphinx.
‘There’s no such thing as an accidental kiss. In fact, the words accident and kiss do not belong in the same sentence.’
‘I didn’t know he’s a widower.’
Jessie set down a small bowl of sugar cubes with tarnished silver tongs. The bowl had a fading flower pattern and a chip in the rim. ‘Sugar?’
‘No thanks.’ She cupped her mug in her hands and took a sip of the delicious, warming drink. A folded newspaper with a half-completed crossword puzzle lay on the table in front of her. She stared at the questions and worked out the answer to five across. ‘Rainswept.’
Multi-coloured beaded bangles jingled on Jessie’s wrist as she lifted her pen and filled it in. ‘I’m sure there’s no cause for alarm about Callum.’
‘I feel like I did something wrong.’
‘Not all widowers are lonely old men in their nineties. Anyone can see there’s a spark between you. It’s unmissable.’
‘It’s not like that.’
‘For the sake of argument, let’s say it is.’
‘He’s cut up about his wife. How does anyone get over a thing like that? In his heart he’s still married. And I thought he was free. I knew something was off but I couldn’t tell what. I over-reacted. I got things horribly wrong with a married man in the past. He swore he loved me and I thought we’d be together forever, but then I found out he was married and it knocked me sideways. I had no idea.’ Since him, she liked to think she’d become an expert at reading men. Apparently not. She stopped talking. Un-bottling the mess from her past wouldn’t put things right with Callum.
‘Let me get this straight.’ Jessie weighed up the situation. ‘He’s not ready for a fling. And you are, I take it?’
She nearly choked. Jessie was easy to talk to, but she still couldn’t believe she was having this conversation. They’d only just met, and yet here they were, talking fling potential over hot chocolate.
‘No. I don’t know. I don’t think so. I don’t do that – normally.’
There had been a few men, but she had given up on meaningless hook-ups. She’d also given up on anything meaningful. Her heart was too breakable to trust a man with it.
She was the worst parts of her parents rolled into one. She had her mother’s starry-eyed impulsivity. As for her dad, commitment wasn’t in his vocabulary. He got bored and called his divorce lawyer.
Jessie pursed her lips. One of the cats, a silver tabby, jumped up from its spot by the Aga and sprang onto her lap. She stroked its fur. ‘If you want my advice, go back to the cottage and get some rest.’
‘I’d like to know he’s alright. I’m afraid my careless kiss reminded him that his heart is broken.’ She was mortified about the things she’d said to Callum. She wouldn’t rest until she had apologised.
Jessie adjusted the rings on her left hand. ‘I was married for fifty-five years. Gregory died four years ago. I think he’d want me to be happy, if someone new came along. It wouldn’t change what we had. A love like that doesn’t die. It’s indestructible. At the end of the day, though, it’s over – he’s gone.’
Silenced, Ella sipped her hot chocolate. The love Jessie had described was not for her.
The diamonds on Jessie’s engagement ring caught the light. ‘It’s hard when someone dies young. We don’t expect it. Maybe Callum’s having trouble letting go because he doesn’t know if that’s what his wife would want.’ She set down her mug, and added, evidently choosing her words with care, ‘I know the family, and it’s a small village; people talk. The accident destroyed them. Saffie went to pieces. She almost broke up with Josh. Callum’s been their rock, there for everyone. I can’t help wondering… who’s there for him?’
Ella fidgeted with the sugar tongs, kicking herself for being insensitive. ‘I’m terribly sad for him.’
‘Talk to him. Tell him what you told me. Everyone makes mistakes. Grief is hard. It lasts as long as it lasts. And that can be very long indeed.’
She’d like to return his kindness to her by being there for him, someone to listen, if he’d let her, but she also didn’t want to get in the way. ‘I’m not sure that’s what he wants. It seems like he doesn’t do talking.’
Jessie put her mug down. She rested her elbows on the table and steepled her fingers. ‘Could be what he wants and what he needs are two different things. A friend is exactly what that man could do with. And you need to be swept off your feet.’
Ella gasped. ‘I don’t know what gave you that idea.’
‘It might surprise you to hear this, but those two things aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.’
‘We’ll have to agree to disagree. I don’t suppose there’s a room in the house I could stay in? That way, Callum can have the cottage to himself.’
‘I’m afraid not.’ Shaking her head, Jessie frowned, deep lines creasing her forehead. ‘Most are damp. And piled high with mountains of stuff. Also, I might have bats in the roof. One found its way into the house the other night. Scared the life out of me. Truly, the cottage is the best place for you. I’ll move out there myself one of these days.’ She laughed joylessly. ‘When this old relic starts to fall down around me and crumble into the sea.’
Ella didn’t like to say, but as far as she could tell that had already started to happen.
‘I’ll have to sell up and move at some point in the not-too-distant future, but I keep telling myself not quite yet.’
Ella could tell from the sadness on her face that moving would be a wrench for Jessie. She couldn’t imagine staying in one place for decades. She glanced across to the kitchen window and the fading daylight. ‘Callum’s been gone ages. He was heading for the beach.’
‘Why didn’t you say so before? He doesn’t know this cove. It’ll be dark soon and the tide’s coming in.’ Jessie got up from the table and opened a door. The dog jumped up from his warm place by the stove. ‘Come with me. This way. There’s a bird’s-eye view from the front of the house.’
Ella followed Jessie and Hughie up a corridor full of clutter. Most of the light bulbs had died, so it was dimly lit. She picked her way past boxes crammed with magazines, newspapers, books and knickknacks, cricket stumps and old, wooden tennis rackets. As they reached the door at the end of the obstacle course, Jessie’s foot knocked a croquet mallet and she almost lost her balance. Ella grabbed her elbow and steadied her.
‘I don’t use this part of the house.’ Jessie opened the door to the entrance hallway where a grandfather clock ticked in the shadows. ‘After Gregory died, I made a bedroom in what was originally the housekeeper’s room. A local builder turned the former butler’s pantry into a shower room. I live mostly in the kitchen. It’s all I need.’
Across from the kitchen corridor they entered a vast room which stretched the length of the house. With high windows, wedding-cake plasterwork on the ceiling, and wide doors leading out to a terrace with a classical stone balustrade overlooking the sea, it took Ella’s breath away.
‘This is the ballroom. It’s what my mother-in-law used to call the party room, although there hasn’t been a party here for over twenty years. Gregory and I gave all that up after she died. It wasn’t his thing.’
‘That’s too bad,’ said Ella. ‘It’s amazing.’
‘Right, then.’ Jessie walked over to one of the windows. ‘If he’s down there, we’ll see him from here.’
Together they surveyed the cove. Sure enough, there was Callum, a still, dark figure, roosting on a high crop of rock like a giant seabird.
‘If he’s not careful he’ll get cut off, and I don’t like his chances of clinging to the rocks until the tide goes out again. There’s a storm coming. You’ll have to go down and tell him. You’ll be faster without me. Take Hughie. He knows the path. Follow him.’ Jessie shooed her out into the hallway. With difficulty she turned a rusty key in the front door, undid a couple of stiff bolts and heaved it open. ‘Beach, Hughie.’ The dog trotted off confidently. ‘Go on, hurry,’ Jessie told her. ‘I’m sure he’d rather have you come to his rescue than the lifeboat.’
Ella ran down the front steps of Karadow Hall because Hughie was already scooting along the driveway. When he reached the path to the cove he turned his head, apparently to check that she was following. Then with Ella in hot pursuit he bounded along the sandy track.
She looked down at her shoes. ‘Slow down, Hughie, I’m not exactly dressed for this.’ The little dog gave a single yelp in reply and hurtled on regardless, so she kicked off her high-heeled shoes and abandoned them on the path.
Down in the cove, Callum was still staring out to sea on his rock. Hughie sat, eyes beady, black nose shining, tongue out, and Ella wished she had a treat to give him. ‘Good dog,’ she said.
She hurried across the stretch of sand towards the rocks, the tide advancing rapidly. As each new wave rolled in, it covered more and more sand. The waves lapped at the edges of the giant rock, surrounding its base in steadily deepening water.
‘Callum!’ she shouted. Next to her Hughie gave some sharp yelps. ‘Come down from there. Jessie sent me. It’s not safe.’ A wave splashed over her feet and she backed off.
‘I’m not twelve. I’ll come back when I’m ready.’
The sea was filling the cove alarmingly fast.
‘For crying out loud, Callum. Come down off that rock, will you? You can’t stay up there all night.’
‘Why can’t you leave me alone?’
She felt loathed, as if inside she was dissolving into nothing. She pushed away the feeling. This was too important.
‘Because if you don’t get off that rock right now, Jessie’s going to call out the lifeboat.’
‘What the hell?’ He looked down at the deepening semi-circle of dark water that was slowly but surely creeping up the sides of the rock. In the darkening light his face was contrite. ‘Oh fuck!’ He clambered down the side of the rock.
‘Jump!’ she shouted, and he did, right at the moment when a big, cresting wave crashed onto the beach, knocking him off his feet and leaving him face-planted in the wet sand as the wave receded. Ella hurried forward to help as another foaming wave broke on his back. It knocked her off balance and she laughed. ‘Are you okay?’
A third humungous breaker tumbled onto the beach, taking her with it. Shocked at the force of the wave, she panicked as it dragged her under and her mouth filled with cold, salty water. She spluttered and her eyes stung as yet another incoming wave crashed over her.
In a split-second his strong arms were around her, lifting her out of the sea and away from the rocks, holding her against him. Her fingers splayed against his wet shirt and his heart pounded beneath her hand.
‘I’ve got you.’ He brushed away the curtain of sopping hair plastered across her face and dusted some wet sand off her cheek. In the next second, another wave rolled in, and he swept her off her feet and cradled her against his body – his strong hold breath-stealing. As he waded thigh deep in seawater with her in his arms, she fizzed at his touch. If champagne was a feeling, then this was it.
Shit. This was not meant to happen.
‘Put me down,’ she demanded, ‘I’m fine.’
‘Right,’ he said, and he did.
Hughie tipped his head at them as if he was thinking, “Idiots!” Then he set off up the path on his own.
‘I’m sorry about the awful things I said. I saw red and made a terrible assumption.’
Silent for a long moment, Callum resumed staring at the darkening sky and sea. Finally, he spoke. ‘I blame myself for Roxanne dying. I think about it all the time.’
‘We can talk about it if it helps,’ she said carefully. When he didn’t react, afraid that telling her about his wife might upset him, she added, ‘Only if you’d like to. Not if you don’t want to.’
‘I should have been open with you. You’re someone who doesn’t know anything about me. That was refreshing – at first. Is that selfish?’
She shivered. ‘No.’
‘It’s hard knowing how to be with the people around me normally. I can’t work out what they expect from me.’
‘I bet if you asked them, they’d say to be yourself.’
He went on staring at the horizon. ‘Easier said than done. I second guess myself. I’m always trying to be somewhere between not too dreadfully happy and not too depressingly sad.’
‘That sounds exhausting.’ Ella stayed quiet a minute, thinking. ‘Your feelings just are. You can’t change that.’
Still facing the sea, every muscle in his body tensed, he began to talk about Roxanne. ‘She’d been out with Saffie,’ he said. ‘It was short walk from the Tube station to our apartment. She stepped off the pavement at a pedestrian crossing when the light was red.’ He hesitated, and Ella had a strange feeling, like she could see his pain. ‘She got hit by a van.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I know the details of the police investigation by heart, from the coroner’s report. The driver wasn’t drunk. He wasn’t speeding. Or talking on his phone. He braked. He swerved. He did everything he reasonably could. An ambulance was at the scene in minutes. She was dead on arrival at the hospital. There was nothing anyone could have done.’ He reeled off the facts robotically, but beneath the words, his anger and helplessness were tangible.
‘Oh Callum. That’s devastating.’ Her voice was a gentle whisper. ‘If you don’t mind me asking, why do you blame yourself? Because it’s clear that you do.’
‘I should have been there.’
‘You’re being too hard on yourself. You just told me “There was nothing anyone could have done”. Why doesn’t that include you?’
‘I let her down. I wish things had been different.’
Teeth chattering, Ella wished that for him too.
He turned away from the sea. ‘You’re frozen.’
She trembled. He put his arm around her and they hurried back up the beach and along the path. Pretty quickly she began to feel better thanks to their shared bodily warmth. As they approached the top his arm fell away because Hughie and Jessie were waiting.
‘You found him. Thank heavens.’ Jessie was carrying what looked like a stick of dynamite in one hand and Ella’s shoes in the other. ‘No need to send up the flare, that’s good. I keep one by the kitchen door in case of emergencies. You never know when it might come in handy.’
‘Ella saved my life.’ He ran a hand through his wet hair. His drenched clothes clung to his body.
‘She saved you from an embarrassing boat ride into the harbour courtesy of the lifeboat volunteers,’ Jessie said huffily. ‘As if they don’t have enough to do without a wally who should know better than to get stranded at high tide.’
The cold ate into Ella. Jessie looked her up and down. ‘Why does it look like she’s the one who nearly drowned? Best go inside and get a hot shower. And batten down the hatches, folks, there’s a storm coming in.’