Lunch had gone well and Mark was smiling as he left the restaurant and made his way to the nearest tube station. His agent and editor loved the book as well as his proposal for the next one, so once he was back in Penhallow Sands, he could make a start on writing the next book.
London was exactly as he remembered but even busier. Thursday afternoon traffic crawled around the roads and people hurried along the pavements, their eyes locked on their phone screens, their feet carrying them in familiar directions. Mark had once been one of them but it felt like twenty years or more had passed. It made him aware of how his time in Penhallow Sands had affected him. It had changed something within him, enabled him to relax and let go of what had been holding him back from his writing and from himself, and from what he really wanted. London was an incredible place and he’d always want to visit, but he no longer wanted to live there.
He wanted to be wherever Catherine was. Catherine was his home now.
‘Mark?’
The voice cut through his thoughts and he turned slowly, knowing who it was and yet wishing it wasn’t.
‘Ellie.’ He met her questioning hazel eyes, took in her delicate elfin features, her cropped red hair (darker red than he remembered) and the cute spattering of freckles on her nose. She was wearing skinny black jeans with heeled leather boots and some kind of wrap thing that swept over her left shoulder. She looked like a catwalk model or a celebrity.
‘Mark!’ She rushed towards him and kissed his cheeks. ‘I thought it was you. My goodness, where have you been?’
He took a steadying breath. The last time they’d spoken it had been acrimonious and her current effusive display was unsettling. And yet, so Ellie.
‘I’ve been away. I went to Cornwall.’
‘Cornwall?’ Her perfectly shaped brows rose up her smooth forehead. ‘What are you doing there?’
‘Taking some time out.’
She placed a hand on his arm and he glanced down at it, his eyes drawn to the sparkling diamond on her ring finger. ‘But you’re back now?’
‘Not for long.’
‘Then we must do lunch!’
‘I’ve just eaten.’
Her familiar perfume, a heady jasmine scent that he’d once loved was cloying, burning his throat, and he averted his face to avoid breathing it in.
‘Well, how about a drink? Oh do let’s have a drink, Mark. Please? For old time’s sake.’
Mark looked at her, at the woman he’d known since he was a teenager, at her pretty face and striking eyes, at the mouth he’d kissed hundreds of times and the head he’d buried his face in as they’d hugged.
She had been everything.
Then she had pushed him away.
He no longer had feelings for her and it was liberating. She was nothing compared to Catherine. Nothing at all.
‘I don’t know, Ellie. It’s probably not a good idea.’
‘Nonsense!’ She waved a hand. ‘It’s exactly what we need. A way of making peace with what happened between us.’
He bit back the comment that it was her betrayal that had happened to them, her deceit that had kept them together even though she could have freed him from their relationship a long time before she in fact had. He could have got on with his life a long time ago. But perhaps the timing had been as it was meant to be, because he’d gone to Penhallow Sands and found Catherine. Thinking about her must have brought a smile to his face, as Ellie misread it as acceptance, slid an arm through his and led him towards a bar.
‘Come on then, Mark, let’s get a drink, shall we?’
He nodded reluctantly, although the reflection in the glass doors of the pub wasn’t the one that he wanted to see. He didn’t belong with Ellie anymore; it was Catherine he wanted to see on his arm.
Ten minutes later, they were sitting in a booth as strains of a Lionel Richie song filled the air and a waitress arrived to take their order. Ellie asked for a bottle of red wine and two glasses, without checking if that was what Mark wanted. He kept quiet, not seeing the point in calling her out over her inability to understand that he was a person in his own right who might have wanted something different. It wasn’t something that would have even occurred to her.
She removed the dark grey wrap to expose a fitted pink T-shirt with some glittery logo on the front.
‘So, Mark, what took you to Cornwall?’ she asked innocently, as if she had no idea why he might have wanted to leave London in the first place.
He took a deep breath before replying. This was going to be a challenging afternoon…
Catherine was clock watching. She had tried to keep busy to take her mind off Mark but she couldn’t help it. She knew when he’d be on the train, when he’d arrive in London, when he’d be having lunch, but after that, she wasn’t sure what would happen.
Her day had involved a whole school assembly with a beautiful presentation from Year 6 about kindness, a meeting with the Alternative Learning Needs Coordinator, a meeting with a parent and playground duty. The school day was almost over but this evening, unlike every other evening recently, Catherine wouldn’t be heading up to Plum Tree Cottage to see Mark.
It was a strange feeling because she looked forward to seeing him – it gave her days a lift – and knowing that he was so far away triggered a physical ache in her chest. She’d reprimanded herself several times during the day, reminding herself that she didn’t need a man to complete her life, but it wasn’t that. Mark had become her friend and companion and she liked him, enjoyed being with him. In a short space of time they had become so comfortable with each other that they could sit and talk, watch TV, work or just be. Catherine didn’t feel that she needed to put on a front with Mark; she felt that he liked her for who she was, and that was something very special indeed. She had grown very fond of him and the thought that anything could ruin that was dreadful.
She took a deep breath and stood up then tucked her chair back under her desk. Mark had to go to London and it was something that would happen again in the future, but it didn’t mean that it had to impact negatively upon their relationship. She just hoped that he wouldn’t see anything there that made him long to return to the city life he’d had before and that he didn’t find that he missed it. Catherine’s whole life was in Penhallow Sands and if Mark decided to leave, she wondered if she’d be able to leave with him, or if he would even want her to go.
Mark bit his tongue as Ellie went on and on and on. She’d always liked the sound of her own voice but once she had a few glasses of wine inside her, she liked it even more. He’d sat there listening to her talk about her job, her looks, her family, her friends and her hair – which had prompted her comment about how she liked his new style – and her latest (and rather bizarre-sounding) vampire facial. She was, he realised, very high maintenance. How had he never noticed this before? Or had he simply been blind to it, not wanting to believe that the woman he loved needed to do so much to feel good about herself?
Because that was what Mark could see now. Not the confident, glowing woman he’d loved but a woman in her late thirties who was, actually, quite insecure. She was very attractive, had a toned physique, and knew how to sit and stand to show her figure to optimum advantage, but all the time she was speaking, she kept searching Mark’s face for signs of approval. She had even asked him twice what he thought about her hair and nails, if he thought she had changed in the past year, if he agreed that she’d lost a little weight. Mark had gone along with her, not wanting to hurt her, even after what she’d done to him. As the red wine had relaxed her and her flawless façade slipped, she’d shown signs of vulnerability, and he actually pitied her. Ellie clearly had some anxiety about herself and her life, about what people thought about her and how they perceived her, and Mark was glad that he didn’t care about those things himself. Yes, he wanted to be a good person and yes, he wanted readers to enjoy his books, but as for pleasing people in other ways, it didn’t appear on his radar.
There had been a time when Mark had wanted to please Ellie, her family and her friends and for her to love him, approve of him and need him, but that time had passed and he was, delightfully, free.
‘Mark, what do you think?’
‘Sorry?’
She’d asked him a question and he hadn’t heard it.
‘I asked what you thought about us.’
‘Us?’ He grimaced.
‘Yes, of course. I mean… I do care about Fernando but he’s not… not that mature.’
‘Hold on.’ Mark held up a hand. ‘You’re talking about the guy you’ve been living with, the one you moved into our home and were – apparently – sleeping with before we split up?’
‘Don’t say it like that, Marky baby.’
‘“Marky baby”?’ He cleared his throat. ‘Ellie, you’re engaged to be married and only recently engaged at that.’
‘But I think it might be a mistake.’
She pouted at him, her hazel eyes roaming his face.
‘But you love Fernando.’
She rolled her eyes then sighed and sagged in her seat.
‘I thought I did, but hey… accidents happen.’
‘Accidents happen? Are you saying that Fernando and the past year were accidents?’ His heart was thundering and blood rushed through his ears.
‘Oh, Mark, love, I miss you. Bumping into you today wasn’t an accident at all. I knew you’d be here and when. Guess how?’
Mark sat and listened as she explained and his alarm grew with every second.
Finally, he shook his head and stood up. ‘Oh dear. Uh… I think I need… the toilet. Back in a bit.’
He ran the cold tap and slid his hands under it then splashed water over his face. In the harsh lighting above the mirror, he looked haggard, his eyes wild and confused. He hadn’t expected to bump into Ellie today and it had been a shock, and when she’d suggested going for a drink, he definitely hadn’t expected to hear all that. But in a way he was glad he had. It wasn’t that he didn’t want Ellie to be happy, because he did, and he wished her well. But hearing that she had accepted another man’s proposal and believed it was a mistake meant that it hadn’t been just down to Mark getting it wrong in their relationship. In fact, it seemed that Ellie wasn’t cut out for marriage, not to him nor Fernando. Now that she’d accepted a proposal from another man and realised it wasn’t right for her, she apparently wanted Mark back. But for how long? How long until she tired of him again and replaced him with someone else? Five minutes going by her current track record. She seemed to crave attention and approval and didn’t like anyone to move on. She had wanted Mark to love and need her and when he no longer did, it seemed that she felt the need to get him back.
Six months ago, Mark might have weakened and gone back to her, been happy with whatever fragments of love and affection she would throw him. But no longer. He was different now. Having time and space had freed him from whatever hold she had had over him and, of course, there was Catherine. She was Ellie’s polar opposite and it lifted his heart to think of her.
Also, knowing that it hadn’t so much been him that Ellie was rejecting as marriage itself, cleared up another mystery from his past. Ellie had yet to find her Mr Right, but Mark had found the woman he wanted to be with and it wasn’t Ellie.
He dried his hands then returned to the booth and sat down.
Ellie held a finger to her lips and winked at him then gestured at the mobile she was holding. Mark blinked. Was that his mobile? He patted his pockets. It was. It must have fallen out of his pocket when he was sitting down and he’d rushed off to the toilets without realising. And now Ellie was speaking to someone on it.
Who?
‘Yes, that’s right. He’s with me now in London.’ Ellie nodded. ‘We’re sharing a bottle of wine and, do you know what? I think we’re going to have another one. Bye for now.’
She cut the call off then handed Mark his mobile.
‘Who was that?’
She shrugged.
‘Some woman called Catrin.’
‘Catrin?’
‘Or was it Catherine?’ She drained her glass.
‘Catherine?’ He swiped his phone screen and checked recent calls. Catherine had called him five minutes ago. That meant Ellie had been speaking to her for that long.
‘She seems nice if a bit highly strung.’ Ellie held out a hand and admired her nails.
‘What did you say to her?’
‘Not a lot. But she seemed to think you’d be with your agent and editor.’
‘I was.’
Mark’s stomach churned and he looked at his mobile as if trying to undo the conversation that had just happened.
‘How did she seem?’
‘I don’t know, Mark. Who is she anyway?’
‘She’s—’
‘Don’t worry about her anyway.’ She cut him off before he could say she’s my friend, my lover, my happiness. ‘Let’s talk some more about us.’
Mark needed to speak to Catherine but he couldn’t do it here. He needed some space.
‘Ellie, there is no us.’
He stood up, pulled some notes from his wallet and dropped them on the table.
‘I wish you well, but I have a new life now and you’re not a part of it. Goodbye, Ellie.’
Her mouth fell open and she gaped at him then colour filled her cheeks. She was about to blow but Mark had no intention of being there to watch.
He marched out of the bar and onto the street then hurried back to his hotel with only one woman in his mind.
Catherine.