‘There’s a letter here for you, Mrs Bennett!’ Archie was waving a white envelope at her.
Lily walked over to the reception desk and held out her hand. The envelope was flimsy and had her name scrawled across the front.
‘Handwritten,’ said Archie.
‘Yes.’ Lily turned it over but there was nothing on the back of the envelope; she had no idea what this was.
‘I didn’t see who delivered it. Someone must have dropped it off earlier, while I was in the kitchen.’
‘I guess so.’
‘Do you know people in Keswick?’
‘No,’ said Lily. ‘Not a soul.’ There was a tiny rip on the back of the envelope, at the edge of the glued-down flap. She guessed Archie had been trying to have a sneaky peak at the contents, just before she came down the stairs. She was surprised at his lack of initiative; she would have thought a man with such a lengthy history in hospitality would have learnt how to quickly and efficiently steam open an envelope. She tucked it into her pocket as she turned towards the door.
‘Are you not going to find out who it’s from?’ He sounded disappointed.
‘See you later!’ she called out. She was desperate to rip open the envelope, but wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of doing it right here. She’d been on her way out to the campervan, to see if she had a spare phone charger in the glove compartment – hers had taken to working intermittently or not at all. Having slid open the side door, she hopped up and sat at the little table, fishing the envelope out of her pocket.
It was from Jake.
Her eyes had flown straight to the bottom of the single sheet of paper, and when she saw his name in neat, forward slanting writing, she gasped with delight, initially skimming through what he’d written, before reading it properly a second time, then a third and a fourth. He was asking her to meet him this evening, down by the lake. And he’d scribbled his phone number at the top of the sheet of paper. She caught her breath and her heart started to flutter a little faster as she brought the note up to her face, hoping to catch a waft of his aftershave. It smelt of absolutely nothing.
‘Idiot,’ she muttered to herself. She must stop behaving like a lovestruck teenager.
‘I don’t get it,’ said Eleanor. ‘Why would you want to do that?’
‘I just need a couple of hours to myself,’ said Lily. ‘I’m going to make some calls, have something to eat. I need some “me” time, Eleanor. You must be able to understand that?’
‘I suppose so. It’s not hugely convenient though. What time will you be back?’
‘No idea,’ Lily said, cheerfully. ‘I’ll see you when I see you. You and Mum can watch some TV together and the Campbells will bring up supper trays, as usual.’
The expression on Eleanor’s face was priceless.
‘I don’t want to be stuck in here with you, either!’ Moira called from the bed. She started coughing again. ‘In fact, I’m the one who deserves some “me” time.’
‘Sorry, Mum, but you aren’t going anywhere,’ Lily said. ‘You need to take it easy and give those antibiotics time to work. Don’t forget to take your pill this evening, I’ve left the packet on the table, to remind Eleanor.’
When she went out of Moira’s bedroom, she almost skipped down the stairs. She felt like a schoolgirl who’d managed to get out of lessons by telling a massive lie – and got away with it. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d persuaded Eleanor to give up what she was planning and step in to take some responsibility for Moira. Mind you, that was because she, Lily, never asked for anything from her corporate powerhouse of a daughter. She just went ahead and did everything in life without expecting any offers of help or support – which was a self-fulfilling prophecy, because it meant she never got any. She giggled to herself as she remembered the shock on Eleanor’s face and the annoyance on Moira’s; the two of them were going to irritate the hell out of each other over the next couple of hours. Good.
Leaving the guest house, she walked briskly down the hill towards the lake. The light was already fading and she wrapped her coat more tightly around her to keep out the October chill. In the note, Jake had suggested meeting a little way along from the theatre. He wrote that he’d be on a bench beneath a large oak tree, at 6pm. As she walked along, she suddenly realised she hadn’t told him she was coming. How stupid! Maybe he wouldn’t be there? She was a few minutes late, so he might have given up and gone home. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, thinking she should text him, but then put it away again – by the time she did that, she’d be nearly there. She increased her pace, her footsteps ringing out on the path. She almost wanted to laugh out loud with relief when she saw a figure up ahead, sitting back on a bench, legs stretched out in front, one foot carelessly slung over the other.
He stood up as he saw her and she stopped a few feet away. He was smiling, tiny pale crow’s feet rippling out from the sides of his eyes.
‘Hi!’ he said, running his hand nervously through his hair, pushing his fringe back from his face. ‘I wasn’t sure if you’d come.’
She suddenly felt ridiculously awkward and tongue-tied. She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t think of anything to say.
‘But thanks anyway,’ he said. ‘For coming, I mean.’
‘Thanks for inviting me.’ Argh! What a stupid thing to say! Why was she being so formal? Plus, her voice sounded strangely squeaky, and higher than usual. She wished they could start over again.
He moved forward until he was inches away from her. Now she breathed in the scent of that aftershave and then his lips were on hers. She closed her eyes and kissed him back, reaching up to put her arms around his neck as she felt his hands go around her waist. His lips were soft and the kiss was firing up every nerve in her body. She leant against his chest, feeling as if her legs might give way beneath her.
When they pulled apart, a few seconds later, he was smiling.
‘Hello, Lily Bennett,’ he said.
‘Hello, Dr Jake Jordan.’
‘This is all highly unethical. Doctors aren’t meant to arrange furtive encounters with patients’ relatives.’
‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to tell anyone.’
They sat on the bench and Jake pulled a rucksack onto his lap. ‘I’ve got hot chocolate or wine,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know which you’d prefer, so I thought I’d cover both bases.’
She laughed. ‘It’s bloody freezing, so I ought to have hot chocolate, but I think I’d rather start with wine.’
‘Good,’ he said as he produced a bottle and two glasses. ‘Just don’t neck it quite as quickly as you did the other night. I want you to remember some of our conversation this time.’
‘Oh God, I’m sorry,’ she said, watching him pour the wine. ‘I’m so embarrassed about how I behaved. I haven’t been that drunk in years, honestly. And I want you to know that I don’t make a habit of falling into bed with men I hardly know.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ he said, as their glasses clinked. ‘I don’t make a habit of falling into bed with women I hardly know, either.’
As darkness fell across the lake, lights flickered on around them. She turned sideways, watching his face as he talked, their shoulders touching. It was so cold, they could see their breath creating tiny puffs of cloud in the air.
‘At the risk of making you repeat every word you said to me the other night, tell me about you,’ she said. ‘How long have you lived here?’
‘Eleven years. My wife’s family live up here – ex-wife, should I say. She was working in Penrith so I relocated when we got married.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Claire.’
‘Has it been amicable?’
‘Mostly. We drifted apart over the years. We tried to have children but it didn’t work out, and after a while we found there was nothing tying us together any longer.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Lily.
‘No need to be. I still love her, but I haven’t been in love with her for a long time, and she feels the same about me. I’m ready to move on. It hasn’t been much fun dividing up our lives and selling our home, but at least we’ve managed to stay civil with each other. It could have been much worse. It sounds like things were pretty awful for you?’
Lily grimaced. ‘Did I bore you with all that the other night? Sorry.’
‘You didn’t say much, but it sounds like your husband was a shit.’ Jake picked up the wine bottle and topped up their glasses.
‘He really was.’ Lily sipped at her wine. ‘He still is. Eleanor is very like him and they’ve always got on so well. I felt like a spare wheel for most of her childhood. She blamed me after the divorce – although it was Nick who’d had an affair – but we don’t ever seem to have got past any of that. When she was a teenager, I hoped our relationship would improve once she grew up and left home, but she’s twenty-six and there are no signs of that happening yet.’
‘She’s certainly forceful, your daughter.’
‘Yup, and convinced she knows the best way to do everything. I really didn’t want her to come up here, but she just rages through life, doing whatever she wants.’
‘How does your mum get on with her?’
‘She loves her, obviously. Eleanor is her only grandchild. But she has always been frustrated by her behaviour, and it used to make her angry when I was upset by something Eleanor did or said.’
‘Used to?’
Lily nodded. ‘I think it still does, but that’s the thing about dementia. Mum’s not the person she was a year ago, and it gets harder to know what she’s feeling or thinking. She has moments of total clarity, when she’s just like the person I’ve always known. Then she’ll have a day when her memory is appalling and she’s confused and can’t carry out a basic task, like loading the washing machine. I went over to her flat the other week and found she’d put all the dirty mugs and glasses in the fridge. When I found them and tried to sort it out, she got furious and threw a glass against the wall. The hardest thing is that she’s aware all this is happening to her, and I know it terrifies her. She doesn’t want to lose herself – any more than I want to lose her.’
Jake put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s such a cruel condition. Are you both getting plenty of support?’
‘We’ve had a diagnosis, but there’s not much else they can offer us at the moment,’ Lily said. ‘That’s why I agreed to make this trip. I was dreading it, to be honest, but I thought it was possibly the last chance we’d have to spend proper time together while she was still able to enjoy it. She’s writing a book about her life – did I tell you that? Actually, I think she mentioned it, when you came to see her. I have no idea what’s in there, but it’s making her happy.’
The wine was finished, so Jake pulled a flask from the rucksack. ‘Pudding,’ he said, handing her a mug of steaming hot chocolate.
Lily laughed and wrapped her hands around it; she hadn’t realised how cold she’d grown. ‘This trip was so important to Mum. I know I have to take her home again, once she’s better, but there are other places she wants to visit. Even though I know she’s not up to doing that, it makes me feel guilty for bringing things to an end. I think I’ve let her down.’
‘I doubt anyone else would see it that way. It seems to me, you’re a very good daughter.’
‘No, I’m really not. But I do love her very much, and I want to help her with this book. I’m sure it’s doing her good.’
When the hot chocolate was gone, he packed everything back into the rucksack and they walked slowly along the edge of the lake, his arm carelessly thrown across her shoulders, her arm tucked around his waist. It felt strange to be this close to a man. She had never wanted to let Dave get anywhere near, let alone put his arm around her, and even when they’d been together, she and Nick had never been a touchy-feely couple. But right now, she realised how much she had missed being physically close to another person; being one entity rather than two lonely individuals. Every now and then people walked past in the opposite direction: dog walkers, other couples, once a gaggle of squawking teenage girls. Lily smiled at them all, keen to share her happiness.
Just before 9pm, they walked up the hill towards the guest house. Lily pulled Jake back beneath the trees across the road from Glenmorrow. It was highly unlikely Eleanor or the Campbells would be looking out of windows at this time of night – anyway, they wouldn’t be able to make out much in the darkness – but she didn’t want anyone to see them. She stood up on her toes and kissed him, then drew away again. This was all so strange. She didn’t know what to say, what to do. Could she ask to see him again? Would he want that, or had tonight just been a bit of fun for him, a way to pass an evening when there was nothing much on the TV and he was bored with sitting alone in his hotel room?
The possibility was slightly shocking, the last couple of hours had meant so much more to her. But maybe that was her own stupid fault? She was launching into something that had no future and would only end in tears.
‘So!’ she said.
‘So!’ he replied. ‘Guess I’ll say goodnight then.’
They stood for a couple of seconds, the silence stretching between them. Considering the fact they’d been rolling around naked in a hotel bed just a couple of nights ago, standing here like this so awkwardly felt all wrong, but Lily didn’t know what to do about it.
She knew she was falling for this man. It wasn’t just the way he looked – although staring up at his floppy fringe and his wide smile made her pulse race. It wasn’t how he treated her either – although it was wonderful to be with someone who clearly respected her and was vaguely interested in hearing her talk about herself. But those things were just part of a bigger picture: there was so much else, like his voice – low and a little gravelly, hugely sexy – and the sound of his laugh, which started as a rumble and immediately turned into a huge, deep guffaw that was so infectious she couldn’t help laughing along. There was the way he looked at her, and the way his arm felt so strong and muscular around her shoulders. Then there were all the things she’d started finding out about him as a human being: he was bright and interesting to talk to, he had great sense of humour – he’d had her doubled up earlier when he told her a story about a cycling trip he’d recently taken with his best friend from medical school. He was also incredibly self-aware – he’d been almost painfully open and honest when talking about his failed marriage and acknowledging the part he played in it.
So far, what little she’d seen, heard – and felt – of this man, he was the whole package. But Lily had no idea whether he felt the same way about her. Even if he did, they couldn’t have any kind of future together.
‘Well, thanks for a lovely evening,’ she said, hearing the formality in her own voice, not sure where it was coming from.
He seemed to stiffen a little, or was that just her imagination?
‘It’s been a pleasure,’ he said. ‘Good to see you.’
‘I’d better get back inside. Mum and Eleanor have probably been at each other’s throats for hours.’
He smiled and nodded. ‘Hope it’s not too battle-scarred in there.’
‘Well, goodnight then!’ She turned and walked away, feeling his eyes boring into her back, desperate to stop and run back to him, to fling her arms around his waist and bury her head in the collar of his coat. But she made herself keep walking. As she went up the steps to the front door of Glenmorrow, she couldn’t resist turning around. He was already walking away from her back down the road and, as she watched, he disappeared into the darkness.