It was one of those nights that just seemed to unfold with no concern over the time. As they worked their way through the bottle of wine, Lucy told Connell what had happened to her husband, and he’d expressed concern and shock, of course, but mainly, he had listened.
In turn, Connell had sped through the significant events of his life since he had last seen her. No, it hadn’t worked out with Zelda. She had ditched him for a wealthy record company executive and, the last he’d heard, she had a chi-chi homewares shop in the Cotswolds. ‘You know the kind of place,’ he said, grinning. ‘Fifty quid for a set of coasters.’
Lucy smiled. He was easy to be with after all this time. In fact, it was the first time they’d ever spent an evening together, just the two of them, and he seemed far more considered than she remembered. He’d been pretty boisterous back then, concocting ridiculous cocktails in the blender his mum had bought him, involving vodka, coconut milk and cherries, she remembered now. ‘Not quite what Mum had in mind,’ he said, laughing as they reminisced. ‘I assume she’d been thinking more banana smoothies, to get some nutrients into me.’
Lucy opened a second bottle of wine and topped up their glasses as they relocated from the kitchen to the squashy sofa in the living room. ‘So, after Zelda, what happened then?’ she asked.
‘Um, well, the rest of my twenties were dedicated to prolonging my adolescence as long as possible,’ he said with a self-deprecating shrug. ‘I lived with another girl for a few years. We worked together at the same design studio, before I decided to go freelance. But it wasn’t right. My thirtieth birthday was thundering towards me and I had to make a decision. I knew she wanted kids and it wasn’t fair to keep things going.’ He broke off and sipped his wine. ‘They’re a bit of a milestone, aren’t they, those decade birthdays?’
‘I guess so,’ she replied. Her last one – her fortieth – had been marked by a wonderful party in a Manchester bar, masterminded by Ivan, and she could hardly bear to think of it now. ‘So, you broke up?’ she prompted Connell.
He nodded. ‘Yeah, it was kind of sad, but she moved on quickly and married someone much better, someone who really had their act together. She’s mum to twin girls.’
‘And you’ve never been married yourself?’
‘Nope – never came close. These past ten years or so – well, I was seeing someone on and off, but that’s petered out now.’ He chuckled. ‘Not sounding terribly good at this, am I?’
She almost felt sorry for him, hearing all of this. One relationship after another, which ended up going nowhere. Like her, Connell was forty-three. While she wasn’t of the belief that everyone should be settled down into coupledom and domesticity, she sensed a hint of phoney bravado in the way he’d described his life so far.
‘It’s just the way things have worked out for you,’ she said. ‘Better to not be in a relationship than one that’s not right.’ She paused as her phone bleeped on the coffee table, and she checked the text. It was James to say he’d be here tomorrow, and did she have time for coffee? ‘’Scuse me a sec,’ she said, quickly tapping out a reply: Old college friend Connell’s here, we’ll prob spend time together catching up. She pressed send, wondering now if that had sounded a little abrupt, and if she should add, You’re welcome to come over of course.
‘Everything okay?’ Connell asked.
‘Oh, yeah. It’s just, a friend’s coming to the village tomorrow, and I’m wondering whether to say to come over, but maybe it’ll sound like I don’t really want him to now.’
He smiled. She realised they were both pretty tipsy now. ‘It’s hard for an afterthought not to sound like one when that’s what it is,’ he remarked, immediately understanding her conundrum.
Lucy grimaced. ‘It would’ve been okay if I’d said it in the first text.’
‘Yeah.’ Connell nodded. ‘And things can easily be misinterpreted in texts. Like how you got the date wrong about me coming …’
‘I got the date wrong?’ she exclaimed in mock outrage. ‘I think you’ll find it was you …’ She placed her phone back on the coffee table, having decided it was better to leave it than risk offence. ‘So, anyway,’ she added, ‘I was hearing all about your life.’
Now he was the one grimacing. ‘I hope I’m not going on.’
‘Not at all! So, you don’t have any kids of your own?’
‘Sadly not,’ Connell said, adding, ‘Yours are so like you, you know. Both of them, but especially Marnie.’
‘They’re like Ivan too,’ she said with a smile.
‘Hmm, maybe. But they have your bone structure. Your smile, too. They’re both really striking. All of you are.’
‘Oh, thank you.’ She beamed at him, touched by the compliment.
‘I have to say, you seem so together, Luce,’ he went on. ‘With this amazing house, I mean. Running a B&B on your own and being a single mum … it’s incredible really. I feel like a total underachiever compared to you.’
‘Don’t be crazy.’ She laughed kindly and looked at Connell, realising now why it was often said that there was nothing quite like being with an old friend, someone who knew you way back, when you could feasibly sleep on a staircase or feel chuffed that you had ‘invented’ a particularly thrifty dish, involving penne and baked beans.
‘No, I mean it,’ he said, turning serious now.
‘It’s lovely of you to say,’ she said. ‘Things are going okay but, you know, sometimes it’s been incredibly difficult.’ Her gaze met his. How funny, she thought, that the college party boy was sitting here with her now, in her cottage in the country. ‘My mum’s adamant that I should sell up and move closer to her and Dad,’ she added.
‘You don’t want to do that?’
She shook her head. ‘What I really don’t want is for someone to make decisions for me.’
‘Yeah, I can understand that,’ he said.
Lucy stood up, overcome by a wave of tiredness now after the party and schlepping around the village, and now all that wine. ‘You seemed to be quite a hit with my friends,’ she added with a smile as they made their way through to the kitchen.
Connell grinned self-deprecatingly. ‘Only due to my pumpkin-carving skills.’
‘I don’t think it was just that,’ she teased him. ‘Looks like you’ve still got it.’
He coloured a little, his blue eyes crinkling with amusement. ‘Well, they all seemed very friendly.’
Lucy laughed, feeling extremely glad now that he had persuaded her to let him stay tonight. She could tell he was going to be fun to have around. ‘That’s what it’s like here in the country,’ she said. ‘The locals are friendly. But if you run into them around the village and they get too much for you, don’t worry. You have a safe haven here.’
Over the past few months James had started to look forward to his visits to Burley Bridge. He’d never imagined that would be possible, but that’s how it was now, despite his dad’s perpetual cantankerousness and the fact that even the cats seemed pretty pissed off whenever he turned up. ‘He’s not normally like that,’ his father had remarked recently when Horace had hissed at him. ‘He’s like a docile little kitten when you’re not here.’ Of course, the fact that James now felt his heart lifting – rather than crashing to his feet – on his drives over from Liverpool wasn’t really anything to do with his father at all.
He loved the time he spent with Lucy and valued their friendship immensely. There was something special about being with a friend who knew you from way back – before you were a dad and a working man, with an ageing father to take care of, and all of the other responsibilities everyone accumulated as they grew older. He supposed he didn’t really have that with anyone else.
He’d been a little nervous of introducing Spike to her and her kids. In fact, he’d been conscious of putting it off, as his son was prone to shyness, just as James had been as a child, and seemed happiest when the two of them were pottering about on a boat together. Spike was one of those kids who had a couple of good mates and that was enough. It usually took him some time to relax around new people. But not so that evening with Lucy, Marnie and Sam in his granddad’s garden. Building a fire came under the banner of those camping-type activities that Spike had always loved, and he’d known what kind of wood they needed, and how to arrange it so it would catch and burn steadily, and had clearly enjoyed his role of chief fire-maker that night.
That night had felt pretty significant in other ways too. James had been flattered that Lucy had shared her concerns about Ivan’s route home the night he died (even though he’d been pretty certain there must have been a perfectly innocent explanation). But then, James had shared things with her too over the past few months. She was the only person he’d ever told about slugging all that whisky on his own and smashing that glass vase.
He’d wanted to tell her something else too that night. It was something that had been brewing in him for a long time now. But the children had come back to sit around the fire and the opportunity had slipped away. He’d hoped to grab the chance on this visit. But this time, Lucy had another old friend over, and had made no indication that it would be okay for him to pop in tomorrow. In fact, she’d made it clear that she didn’t want him to as she was spending time with Connell.
That was fine, of course. Lucy had mentioned that he was coming to stay – this old college mate who’d been so popular, clever and fun, a bit of a rebel when it came to attending lectures and handing in assignments on time, but massively talented (of course). Apparently, he was going to be working on a stained-glass project at the village school. As James washed up his dinner things in his small, cramped kitchen, he figured that Connell sounded pretty impressive, travelling the country to undertake projects like that. He caught himself feeling a little put out, and silently chastised himself for it.
Don’t be so bloody ridiculous, he told himself as he went to bed that night. So, she doesn’t want to see you this time. She’s busy. She’s spending time with this Connell person. So just get over yourself.