CHAPTER NINETEEN
The house seemed empty without Jack in it. Maybe moving to the country had been a mistake. If she’d been staying in London, she could have lost herself in the last-minute Christmas Eve panic in Oxford Street. It might have even been fun to try and spot the most harried male shopper with a look of desperation in his eyes.
Louise stopped by a shallow pool surrounded by bamboo. A copper statue of a Chinese Buddha, covered in verdigris, stared back at her. He was the closest thing to human being she’d seen since having dinner with Ben on Sunday evening. The statue stared past her, looking serenely through the trees to the river below, and she decided he probably wasn’t the life and soul of the party, anyway, and moved on.
She only entered the house to collect a few things and make a flask of tea. In the last few days she’d spent a lot of time at the boathouse, preferring the cosy little space to the multitude of echoes that seemed to have appeared around Whitehaven.
Tonight, she was going to sleep in the boathouse, tucked up under both the duvet and the quilt, with the fire going and a good book for company. Hopefully, Santa wouldn’t discover her hiding place, set between the beach and the woods, and he’d fly straight past. There wasn’t anything she wanted this year.
She pottered around the house, wandering from the kitchen to her bedroom and back again, picking up the few things she’d need. All the while, she distracted herself with her favourite Christmas daydream. At least in her imagination she could keep the loneliness at bay.
The fire was glowing and coloured fairy lights twinkled on a huge blue spruce in the bay window of a cosy cottage sitting room. It was early in the morning, the sky a deep indigo, and Jas and Jack were squabbling half-heartedly about who was going to hand out the presents. She and Ben were laughing and eventually they let the kids get on with it, just to keep them quiet.
Then, amidst the sounds of giggling children and wrapping paper being ripped, Ben drew her to one side and presented her with a silver box with a delicate ribbon of white velvet tied round it. She stopped and smiled at him, a look that said ‘you shouldn’t have’ glowing in her eyes.
Then she gave in and tugged the wrappings free with as much abandon as the children had. Before she opened the box, she bit her lip and looked at him again. Then she prised open the lid to reveal …
This was the bit where she always got stuck. What could be in the box? She didn’t want fancy jewellery and body lotion and stuff for the bath was just a bit too blah.
Louise stood from where she was, putting a change of warm clothes into a holdall, and stared in her bedroom mirror. You’re losing it, girl. Seriously. Hasn’t this fantasising about the gardener gone just a little bit too far?
It had. She knew it had. But it was warm and comforting—like hot chocolate for the soul—and heaven knew she needed a bit of comfort these days. And it was the one Christmas comfort that was one hundred percent calorie-free. She’d end up the size of a house if she resorted to the other kind.
She zipped up the holdall and slung it over her shoulder. The clock on the mantelpiece said three. She needed to go soon. No way was she trudging along the rough paths coated with soggy leaves in the dark.
Louise took her time wandering back to the boathouse. There was something hauntingly beautiful about her wild garden in winter. However, when she was only minutes away from her destination, the sky grew darker. Rain came in hard, stinging drops and she picked up her pace.
She ran up the stairs to the upper level of the boathouse, only pausing to retrieve the key from its hiding place, and burst into her cosy upper room only to stop in her tracks, leaving the door wide open and a malicious draft rushing in behind her.
What …?
She couldn’t quite believe her eyes. What had happened to her sanctuary while she’d been gone?
On almost every available surface there were candles—big, thick, tall ones, the sort you’d find in churches—some balanced on saucers from the old china picnic set she’d rescued from the damp. The fire was burning bright, crackling with delight at the fresh logs it was hungrily devouring. There was holly and ivy on the mantle and, in the corner, near one of the windows …
Louise laughed out loud. How could this be?
A Christmas tree? Not a huge one, but at least five feet high, bare except for a silver star on top. She walked over to it and spotted a box of decorations sitting on the floor, waiting to be hung. Red, purple and silver shiny baubles would look amazing in the candlelight. She picked one out of the box and fingered it gently.
How …? Who …?
An outboard motor sputtered to life outside and suddenly all her questions were answered. She ran out onto the balcony and leaned over. ‘Ben!’
The little wooden dinghy was already moving away from the jetty and he looked up at her, a sheepish smile on his face. He waved and yelled something back, but his words were snatched away by the billowing wind.
Her natural response would have been to stand there and shake her head in disbelief, but the rain—which was rapidly solidifying into sleet—was bombarding her top to toe. She pushed her wet hair out of her face, ran back inside and closed all the doors.
Not knowing what else to do, she sat cross-legged in front of the fire, staring at the patterns on the blue and white tile inserts until they danced in front of her eyes.
Toby had been good with show-stopping gifts—diamonds, cars, even a holiday villa in Majorca once—but none of those things measured up to this. None of those gifts had this depth of thoughtfulness, this knowledge of who she was and what she needed.
Louise stood up and placed a hand over her mouth.
Oh, this was dangerous. All at once, she saw the folly of her whole ‘daydreaming is safe’ plan. It was backfiring spectacularly. Her mind now revolved around Ben Oliver, her thoughts constantly drifting towards him at odd moments throughout the day. And now her brain was stuck in the habit, it was starting to clamour for more—more than just fantasies. Especially when he did things like this. She was aching for all the moments she’d rehearsed in her head to become real.
So much for standing on her own two feet and never letting a man overshadow her again. Ben Oliver was an addictive substance and she was hooked. She should have known from Laura’s diary that letting her imagination run free might be the path to destruction. The last thing she wanted was to lose herself again, not when she’d come so far. In the last few months she’d started to feel less like Toby’s wife and more like someone else, even if she wasn’t sure who that woman was yet. But it would be so easy to fall into the role of the woman who adored Ben, and nothing else.
Dangerous.
She looked around the room. As a declaration of independence, she ought to just pack it all up and leave it outside the door, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that. If she did, the boathouse would seem as stripped and hollow as the mansion sitting on the hill, and she’d come here to escape that.
The decorations piled in the cardboard box twinkled, begging her to let them fulfil their purpose, and she obliged them, hanging each one with care from the soft pine needles, hoping that the repetitive action would lull her into a trance.
When she’d finished, she pulled the patchwork quilt off the day-bed, draped it around her shoulders and sat on the floor in front of the fire, her back supported by one of the wicker chairs. In the silence, all she could hear was the sound of her own breathing and the happy licking of the flames.
After sitting that way for a few minutes, she decided she needed something to do, something to distract herself from the thoughts bombarding her brain, so she retrieved Laura’s diary from its home and sat back down on the floor with it. Perhaps Laura had the answer.
Had her dreams turned into reality without dragging her down, or had she and Dominic just destroyed everything and everyone around them? Suddenly she really needed to know. Maybe it would help her decide what to do about her own fantasy man.
6th January, 1954
I waited nervously for Dominic at a little restaurant in Pimlico. No point in going somewhere in the West End—we’d have been spotted in a second. Instead of dressing up for lunch, as I’d so wanted to do, I had to dress down. Nicely cut dress, but it was grey, not the green one I’d wanted to wear, and I put a raincoat over the top. I also covered my hair up with a scarf.
I was early. A mix of reasons: partly because I was so desperate to actually see him and partly because I was so terrified of being late that I left more than half an hour extra for the taxi ride from Victoria.
Dominic had asked for something away from the window and the waiter showed me to a little cramped space near the kitchen where a table for two only just fitted. I stared at it in dismay before I sat down. Love is supposed to be grand and glorious. One is supposed to want to shout it from the rooftops. But Dominic and I can’t even sit in the window with the winter sunshine falling on our faces; we have to hide away in a dingy corner, disguising our love from the world.
Not for the first time a shiver rippled through me. Was this what I really wanted? And was I prepared to strip my feelings for Dominic of all their sparkle and grandeur just so we could be together? Something about this little table felt seedy. Tarnished.
I took off my gloves, folded them and placed them in my handbag, and then I sat down, staring out towards the chink of window I could see. I waited for twenty minutes, and then another thirty.
Just as I was pulling my gloves back out of my handbag, a shadow fell over me. I looked up to find him standing there.
At first I jumped up, ready to throw my arms around him, because I was so thrilled at seeing him that I didn’t really register the look on his face. I stopped halfway to flinging myself into his embrace and my arms dropped back down to my sides.
His mouth was straight and his lips were thin, a horrible shape for them to be, but it was his eyes that were the worst. At first I thought there was a hardness there, a coldness, but then I realised it was because the emotions swirling underneath were so strong, so dark, that he had to be that way to hold it all together.
I said his name, and my voice wavered.
He shook his head. He didn’t sit down.
‘I can’t …’ he said. ‘We can’t …’
Then the coldness was inside me too, swirling down inside, freezing everything it touched. My question must have been written on my face, because he answered it without me even opening my mouth.
Why?
‘Because Jean is expecting my child,’ he said. ‘I can’t go through with this, Laura. I can’t be that kind of man. I will not.’
I nodded.
I understood, even as my heart was breaking.
‘I can’t see you again,’ he said, and I cried at the pain in his eyes. I cried like a fool. And for the first time, I didn’t cry for myself, because I couldn’t have the man I loved; I cried for him, for his pain.
He reached inside his pocket and pulled out his handkerchief. He didn’t even touch me, just laid it on the table where I could reach it. And then, while I was still sobbing and mopping up my tears with a square of cotton that smelled like him, he took a step back.
‘Goodbye, Laura,’ he said, and then he was gone.
That was when I cried for myself, for the foolish longings I’d let grow out of control, for the wasteland that my marriage would always be after this, no matter how hard we both tried. But mostly I cried because Jean had won. She’d trumped me, and I could do nothing about it.
Louise was still staring at the pages, her mouth slightly open, when there was a knock at the door. Unable to move, she just transferred her gaze and stared at it instead.
Whoever it was—and let’s face it, she’d win no prizes for guessing who—knocked again. She rose to her feet slowly, keeping the quilt wrapped tightly around her and walked over to open it. Her heart jumped as if it were on a trampoline when she saw him standing there, his wet hair plastered to his face, a large brown paper bag in one hand and a rucksack in the other.
‘Ben.’
Nice, she thought. Eloquent.
‘Louise.’
At least they both seemed to be afflicted by the same disease.
He brandished the paper bag. ‘Can I come in?’
She stepped back and let him pass and he handed her the paper bag, which was warm and smelled of exotic spices. He moved past her and placed the rucksack on the floor.
‘I ought not—seeing as you’ve already indulged in a spot of breaking and entering today.’ She kept her voice deliberately flat and emotionless.
He stopped halfway through struggling off his green waxed coat. ‘You don’t like it? Oh, Louise! I’m so sorry. I was just trying to …’
The look of remorse on his face was like a punch in the gut. She’d tried to be cross, but she couldn’t. How could she? She grabbed the back of his coat with one hand and tugged at it, signalling for him to stay, take it off. ‘You succeeded.’
The relief on his face was palpable. ‘Thank goodness for that. I have food in here and I didn’t want to have to sail it back across the river and eat it cold.’
She peered in the top of the brown bag. ‘Curry? That’s not very traditional.’
Ben took the bag from her and began unpacking its contents on to the low coffee table in the centre of the room. ‘Nonsense. I’m sure I read somewhere that Chicken Tikka Masala has now overtaken traditional Sunday roast as the nation’s favourite dish.’
Louise reached for the old picnic set she’d found in a box when she’d cleared out the boathouse and pulled out a couple of plates and some cutlery. Pretty soon they were sitting in the wicker chairs, feasting on a selection of different curries and side dishes. She broke a crunchy onion bhaji apart with her fingers and dipped it in some mango chutney. While she chewed, she looked at Ben, who was absorbed in his meal. Finally, when he glanced in her direction, he froze.
‘What?’
How could she say how much this all meant to her? There just weren’t enough words. And maybe that was okay. Maybe the true depth of her feelings should go unexpressed. She settled for simple and elegant. ‘Thank you, Ben.’
The hesitation in his eyes turned to warmth.
‘Why did you … I mean, why … all this?’
He put his plate down and looked at her long and hard. ‘I remember how awful it was my first Christmas without Jas.’ He gave a half-grin. ‘Put it down to me being a single dad with too much time on his hands. Jas is away, my parents live in Spain now and my sister has gone to visit her in-laws. I can’t even rely on work to be my saviour—no one wants any gardening done at this time of year.’
Oh, that just sounded too good to be true. Too nice.
‘Yes, but you didn’t have to do all this.’ A horrible nagging thought whispered in the back of her mind: nobody does anything entirely altruistic reasons. He must want something. People always wanted something.
The little scratchy voice whispered louder. Perhaps you’ve got him all wrong. Perhaps you’ve been fooled by him, just like you were with Toby. She tried to drown it out, but it just kept spiralling round, growing louder, until she had to do something to stop it.
‘I’m not sleeping with you,’ she blurted out.
Oh, Lord! Had she really just said that? Her cheeks flamed and burned.
Ben’s grin turned to stone and he stood up, and practically threw his naan bread down on the table. ‘If that’s what you think, I’d better leave.’
Instantly, she was on her feet. ‘No! I’m so sorry! I don’t know what made me say that. After you’ve been so kind …’ At that moment, she hated herself more than she’d ever done for wearing fake smiles in front of the paparazzi and pretending her life with Toby had been a glorious dream.
Ben was pulling his coat on, his back to her. She laid a hand on the still-wet sleeve, tears blurring her vision. ‘Please, Ben! It’s just …’ Oh, hell. Her throat closed up and she couldn’t hide the emotion in her voice. ‘… nobody ever does something for me without wanting something—without wanting too much—back. I’m just not used to this.’
He turned to face her, his expression softening slightly. ‘Really? No one?’
She shook her head, too ashamed to speak any more. How did you tell a man like him nobody had ever thought enough of you to make that kind of effort? She always had to earn people’s love—by being the one who gave and gave and gave. Even Toby had only kept around as long as he had because it was good for his image, nothing more. And she’d let her younger brothers and sisters grow up thinking she was strong, that she never needed anything. She hadn’t wanted to burden them the way she’d been burdened. And they’d believed it. They still believed it. And why should she tell them otherwise? They had their own lives now. It was their turn to shine. She’d had hers.
‘I’m so sorry, so sorry …’ she said, sinking into the nearest chair and covering her face with her hands. ‘I’m no kind of company at the moment, so maybe you’d better just go.’