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Chapter 7
Audrey was a terrible patient, every bit as bad as I expected: not because she was demanding, but because she refused to make any demands. I had to go round earlier and earlier each morning to try to catch her before she attempted to dress herself; if it carried on, there would barely be a gap between putting her to bed and getting her up.
Leo came over on the Friday afternoon following Audrey’s accident, and worked in the study so that I could have the afternoon off to visit a couple of bookshops. I had compiled a list of shops within a thirty-mile radius, and intended to visit them all over the coming weeks to see if any would be interested in an author event with Leo to promote the Alice Hornby biography. My enthusiasm was trampled when the first shop turned me away almost immediately, but the owner of the second shop agreed to attend the Foxwood Farm event the following weekend and meet Leo before deciding whether to invite him to hold a signing. Now I had to hope that Leo rose to the occasion.
Neither of the children would agree to come to the Foxwood Farm Lancashire Evening, and as I still wasn’t used to appearing anywhere on my own, I invited Daisy to join me. The rain of the morning had finally broken to reveal a dazzling blue sky, and the temperature had risen from coat to cardigan warmth, so I walked through the village to collect Daisy at her house. She opened the front door before I was halfway up the path, and quickly pulled it shut behind her.
‘You can’t come in,’ she said, dispensing with the customary ‘hello’ and starting up the path with her bag in tow. ‘The house is a tip. Chloe is at her dad’s this weekend, so I’m having a sneaky sort out of all the old clothes and toys that she’d never let me throw away if she was here.’
‘You should have said. I would have offered to help.’
‘I know you would.’ Daisy followed me through the gate and left it swinging at a forlorn angle. I went back and closed it. ‘But I only really wanted to clear out a few things. You’d have blitzed the house like a military operation. You’d have shot me at point blank range for suggesting something had sentimental value.’
‘That’s unfair. I would have tried diplomatic negotiation first.’ I smiled, but Daisy’s words stung. The ‘efficient and capable’ label was so firmly sewn onto the back of my neck that I couldn’t imagine the world held a pair of scissors sharp enough to cut it out.
Foxwood Farm was situated at the southern edge of the village, a pleasant stroll away in the spring sunshine. The farm was looking magnificent, decorated for the event with flags and bunting showing the red rose of Lancashire. It was too early in the year for real roses, but tubs and flowerbeds filled the farmyard and pansies, tulips, and azaleas danced in a brilliant display of colour. As the weather had turned fair, the cobbled courtyard outside the main barn where the event was taking place had been scattered with bales of hay covered in furry sheepskin rugs to make benches, and old crates covered in crisp white cloths provided makeshift tables. Large braziers stood around the edge of the area, already flickering with flames that would light up the area as darkness crept in. Although we were on time – being efficient and capable, I was never wilfully late – a decent crowd was already milling around in the evening sunshine, colouring the air with conversation and laughter. I reached out and grasped Daisy’s arm, sent off-balance by an unexpected shot of loneliness.
‘Let’s get a drink,’ Daisy said, and dragged me inside. It was quieter here, apart from a small group gathered in front of a table that was set out as a bar. There was an impressive display of Lancashire drinks: real ale with weird and wonderful names from a micro-brewery a few miles away; sloe gin and blueberry vodka from a farm in a nearby village; and a delicious selection of soft drinks from Fitzgerald’s, the famous temperance bar. I picked up a glass of wine.
‘That’s French.’ Daisy pointed disapprovingly at my glass. She had chosen a pint of beer, an incongruous sight in her dainty hands, but she carried it off; she was one of those naturally pretty women who could carry off anything. Beside her petite blonde figure, I looked like the Grim Reaper’s warm-up act. If we weren’t such friends I would never have stood within ten feet of her. ‘You’re not being loyal to the spirit of the evening.’
The glass hovered halfway to my lips, as my values battled with my need for wine. Luckily Lindsay, who had organised the event, was nearby and solved my dilemma.
‘We used a Lancashire wine merchant,’ she said. ‘It was the closest we could get.’ I drank half my glass, conscience clear. Lindsay smiled, and leaned across to kiss my cheek. ‘You deserve that wine after your hard work this afternoon. The display looks great.’
Lindsay gestured over to one corner of the barn. The central space was set out with chairs ready for the entertainment to begin, and each performer – not a word I had dared use to Leo’s face – had been allocated an area to display their work around the sides. Leo’s table was a shrine to Alice Hornby. The famous picture of her stood on an easel in the centre, surrounded by glass boxes containing replicas of some of her personal items: a tiny pair of outdoor shoes, complete with battens; an ivory fan; a purse embroidered with miniature birds, which we believed Alice had sewn herself. One box held a couple of pages of a draft of her most famous novel, The Gentleman’s Daughter; her handwriting was as familiar as my own, and thrilled me every time I saw it. A discreet pile of Leo’s book lay at the rear of the display, along with postcards and bookmarks bearing some of Alice’s most beautiful quotations. I had also added some leaflets about the Alice Hornby Society, which Leo and I had started ten years ago in a bid to connect fans of her work and promote awareness of her writing.
‘Is Leo outside?’ Lindsay asked, glancing at her watch. ‘We’re starting with the rock choir soon, and Leo’s on after that.’
‘I don’t know where he is.’
‘Have you lost him?’
How could I reply to that? I had lost him, but in a more permanent way than Lindsay meant. Amazingly, and despite my conviction that the whole world must be talking about us, it seemed that there was one house in Stoneybrook where the gossip had not yet spread.
‘We’re not …’ Above the chatter around us, the clink of my wedding ring against my glass was deafening. I couldn’t finish the sentence. I finished my wine instead. Daisy gripped my hand.
‘Mary and Leo are divorced,’ she said, leaning towards Lindsay and lowering her voice. ‘Leo lives in Manchester now. He may be delayed by traffic.’
She stopped there, giving only half the news; the rest would be obvious soon enough. And the sympathy in Lindsay’s eyes, when she pulled me into a brief hug, was quite enough to bear without witnessing her reaction to the rest of it. How long would it be before someone looked at me without pity or curiosity? I longed for a life of quiet anonymity again.
The rock choir were halfway through their set of songs by North West artists, and were belting out an arrangement of Elbow’s ‘Open Arms’ which moistened even my stubbornly dry old eyes, when Leo sauntered in with Clark. I slipped out of my seat and met them at the back of the barn, horribly conscious that many members of the audience were watching us.
‘Hello,’ I whispered, dragging up my public smile, and kissing them each in turn. Leo still didn’t smell like my Leo, and he had cut his hair much shorter, losing the fluffiness that had characterised him for the last twenty years. The new look suited him. ‘You’re in perfect time. The choir has one more song after this, and then it’s your turn. I’ve marked the passage that you’re reading.’ I delved into my handbag and pulled out a copy of the book, adorned with Post-it Notes. ‘And try to squeeze in a mention of the Alice Hornby Society. I’ve left some application forms on the display over there.’
Leo turned in the direction I was pointing.
‘It looks wonderful, Mary, well done. You never let me down.’
Those words, which would have once meant so much, could only ever be bittersweet now. Loud applause for the choir shattered the awkwardness of the moment, and I motioned to Leo to go to the front, while I resumed my seat next to Daisy. Clark remained standing, leaning against the wall, his attention wholly on Leo.
Lindsay welcomed Leo, and then Leo made a few opening remarks and began to read from the book. I had chosen a lively passage, describing a prank that Alice and her sister had played on their hated governess, and which had gone on to form the basis of a scene in her most famous book, and the audience laughed as I had hoped. But I was hardly paying attention to the words, too transfixed by Leo. He didn’t smell like my Leo; he no longer looked like my Leo; and he performed for the audience in a way that my Leo would never have done. He was relaxed, smiling, comfortable in himself as he had never been in the days of our marriage. There was no doubting why. Whenever his gaze swept the room, it always lingered over Clark.
The applause when he finished was as rapturous as it had been for the choir, and way beyond anything I had expected. I rose from my seat, propelled by pride, heedless of the fact that no one else was giving a standing ovation until Daisy yanked me back down.
‘He was great,’ Daisy said, with undisguised surprise. ‘He made me want to buy the book, and Lord knows there have been times when I thought I might go insane if I heard the name Alice Hornby again.’
‘You’re a philistine. She is the world’s greatest writer.’
‘Don’t waste your breath on me. I won’t read anything unless it has a glossy cover and celebrity interviews.’ She looked over at Leo, who had now joined Clark. They were talking, heads bent close together, tightly bound to each other even though they weren’t touching. ‘He’s changed. He looks …’ She screwed up her eyes, studying him. ‘Free.’
That was it, exactly. Perhaps because Daisy hadn’t seen Leo for a few months, the alteration was obvious to her. Leo did look free: free of care, free of pretence, free of being someone he was not. Free of me. Our stars had been aligned for so long; but his had now risen to a height that seemed well beyond my reach.
A performance poet came next, entertaining us in a traditional Lancashire dialect, followed by a popular local folk band, before supper was served – Lancashire hotpot, served with pickled red cabbage, which was simple but delicious. I was one of the last to be served, distracted by talking to the bookshop owner who had previously promised to attend, and by that time many of the guests had wandered outside to enjoy their food. Carrying my plate of steaming hotpot, I headed the same way, trying to find Daisy. She was never easy to spot in a crowd, but I located her at last, talking to a tall blond man who had his back to me. His head was tilted down towards her, exposing a stretch of tanned skin between the collar of his shirt and his exceptionally neat hairline – a perfect horizontal line that my finger itched to trace. I must have drunk more than I thought, because as I stared at his neck, my lips tingled with an inexplicable urge to taste that warm skin.
Heat raced through my blood, carrying with it the echo of a long-forgotten memory. My feet wouldn’t move, either forwards or backwards. And then Daisy glanced in my direction, waved, and her companion turned and smiled. My lungs seized with horror, shame, and sheer wrongness as I realised that the stranger who had stirred the unfamiliar desire, reminded me of the passion that I had chosen to live without, wasn’t a stranger at all. It was my brother-in-law, Ethan.
In my frantic haste to return to the barn, I crashed into a man in the doorway, sending a lump of red cabbage somersaulting onto his pale shirt. Efficient and capable? I had never felt less.
‘Mary?’ The man took hold of my arm and steadied me. It was Owen. I hadn’t known he was coming tonight. He smiled and I relaxed. ‘What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen the proverbial ghost.’
‘Sorry,’ I said, fighting to return to normal. ‘Look at your shirt.’ I picked off a clinging shred of cabbage. A pink stain remained. ‘I have something that will get that out, if you let me have it.’
‘Now? You’d like me to take my shirt off here?’
‘No, of course not …’ It took me a moment to realise he was joking.
‘Don’t worry. I can wash my own shirt.’
‘Can you?’ Leo had never touched a washing machine, as far as I knew.
‘Shall we start again?’ Owen let go of my arm. ‘Hello, Mary, it’s good to see you. Come and sit down and eat your hotpot.’
There was something so gloriously mundane about that sentence, that I let him steer me over to some empty chairs. He chatted about Lucilla and school, and the brilliance of the rock choir, while I picked at my food. I thought I’d lost my appetite, but Owen was such restful, easy company that my plate soon emptied. He took if off me and stood up.
‘Another wine or would you like a coffee?’
‘Wine, please.’
He threaded his way to the bar, squeezing past people with polite diffidence. There was something solidly reassuring about his broad back and sturdy waist. Light brown hair lapped over his collar; no sliver of exposed neck there to catch women unawares. Panic fluttered in my chest. It hadn’t been Ethan, surely? He was in New York. Audrey had mentioned him yesterday, doing something or other in New York. He wasn’t supposed to be in the country until July, so he couldn’t be here, right now, at Foxwood Farm, and I couldn’t be fantasising about his neck. It was impossible, and it was wrong. Unnatural. Undesirable. Undesirable desire. I was in danger of becoming hysterical.
‘This isn’t what I had in mind when I suggested we should have a drink together,’ Owen said, handing over my wine. ‘We’re under scrutiny.’
‘Are we?’ I looked around, expecting to see Daisy watching, but instead found Leo gazing our way.
‘Your ex-husband?’ Owen indicated Leo, and I nodded, unable to say the word that would acknowledge that ‘ex’. ‘You’re still on good terms?’
‘Yes. We’ll always be friends.’
‘Friends?’ I frowned, unable to read Owen’s tone, and wary of making a wrong assumption about what he was asking. This was a whole new world to me: men had only ever been men, not potential boyfriends or partners. I didn’t know the rules of this game, or understand the language in which it was played. Owen helped me out. ‘I’m a simple soul, Mary. I like you. I don’t like complications. If it may prove to be a temporary split …’
‘It won’t.’ No one could see Clark and Leo together and have any doubts about that.
‘And that other man?’
I turned to where Owen indicated, assuming he was referring to Clark. My stomach heaved, and not in reaction to the hotpot. It was Ethan. Ethan was here, tonight, in Stoneybrook, not in New York. So that reaction earlier had been to Ethan … I applied my mental blinkers, shutting out that thought.
‘Ethan. Leo’s brother.’
‘I suppose it will take time for them to accept you have separate lives now.’ Not just them. I smiled, an automatic rather than meaningful gesture, but Owen leant forward. ‘Are you still up for that drink? Perhaps without the minders?’
Even I couldn’t misunderstand that. I hesitated, feeling as if the room had fallen silent, and every pair of eyes and ears were waiting for my response – including mine. My gaze wandered over Owen’s face, past honest brown eyes, a straightforward smile, and on to a delightfully ordinary neck.
‘Yes. What about Tuesday?’
‘Are you trying to get squiffy, Mary Black? The music isn’t that bad.’
Warm breath blew against my ear, and I turned to face Ethan. He still wore the smile of the thirteen-year-old boy I had first met: confident, cheeky, effortless.
‘I love the music. The arrangements are amazing.’
A trio of young men were playing jazzed-up versions of old Lancashire songs with extraordinary energy and vigour. It was a mesmerising performance, and had drawn in most of the people who had remained outside after supper. I had been queuing at the bar when they started, and had been too entranced to move away.
‘The arrangements? Or the handsome young men in dinner jackets?’ Ethan laughed. ‘You always were much more cultural than me.’
‘Surely not even you can have lived in New York for so long without some culture rubbing off. You have Broadway, the Met, the MOMA …’
‘And the New York Yankees. Much more my thing. There’s more drama in a baseball game than in any Broadway play.’
‘Have you ever been to a Broadway play?’
‘Yes. Don’t look so surprised. I made it all the way through The Phantom of the Opera, and I’d only had two beers. I needed more than two to recover afterwards.’
He laughed, and it was impossible not to join him. This was good; this was normal. I hadn’t looked at or thought about his neck once.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Mum gave me her ticket. She thought one of the family should support Leo.’
‘Did you hear him?’
‘I arrived just in time and lurked at the side.’
‘I didn’t notice you.’
‘No. You never did notice anyone else when Leo was around.’
That was true; or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I had chosen not to look. Except once … but I mustn’t think about that.
‘I actually meant what are you doing here, in England. Audrey said you were coming over in the summer.’
‘I brought it forward. I wanted to see how she was.’
‘And how is she?’ I asked, poised to be offended if he suggested in any way that I wasn’t looking after her properly.
‘She’s great.’ He smiled, reading me far too well, even after all this time. ‘I knew you’d care for her. But you shouldn’t have to. She’s our responsibility.’
Briefly he rested his hand on my arm, softening the rejection that his words might have given.
‘I don’t give a stuff about whose responsibility it is,’ I said. ‘I do it out of love. You won’t stop me.’
‘Then we’ll do it together. I’ll be your humble servant, Mary Black.’
He clicked his heels together, and bent over in a deep bow, flicking a glance full of mischief at me as he did. Then his face and body straightened as he looked over my shoulder. ‘Hello, Leo.’
‘Ethan.’
‘Great performance earlier.’
‘Thank you.’
I swivelled from one to the other. They weren’t close – they were too different for that – but this clipped formality was new. Had something happened between them? Leo clearly wasn’t surprised to see Ethan here, although he hadn’t told me that he was coming home.
‘Mary, I’ve spoken to Clark, and we wondered about next Friday,’ Leo said.
‘Friday? Do you want to do something with the children? Because Ava has maths clinic after school …’
‘No, not for the children. For the dinner party.’ I had forgotten all about it. Leo had mentioned the dinner party at his book launch a few weeks ago, but hadn’t raised the subject since then. ‘You’ll be free, on a Friday night, won’t you?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ Of course I was. When did I ever do anything? Tuesday, I remembered with a jolt. I was going out on Tuesday too, on my date with Owen. Where might that lead? I brushed my hair off my face, conscious that Leo and Ethan were watching me. A memory raced into my head, only a snatch but so clear that I shivered, feeling again the cold night air, the soft rain tickling my cheeks, the heat of a bonfire on my skin, and the gentle touch of a hand brushing aside my hair …
‘Friday,’ I repeated, fixing my gaze on Leo. ‘That would be lovely.’
Chapter 8
‘Come on, Daisy, you read the glossy magazines. What’s the dress code for a dinner party with your husband and his gay lover?’
‘It’s never come up in a magazine I’ve read.’ Daisy stared into my wardrobe. She’d been doing this for the last five minutes, as if by the power of her stare she could replace all the clothes with new ones. ‘When did you last buy anything new?’
‘1998.’ For a moment, I thought she believed me. Were my clothes that bad? ‘Stop pulling that face. You’re acting scarily like my mother.’
‘Not even Irene would wear this.’ Daisy pulled out a paisley print dress, which I had probably last worn in the difficult months after Ava’s birth, when I still thought the tummy and droopy breasts were temporary afflictions. ‘Do you have a wardrobe full of fashionable clothes in another room?’
‘What about the grey?’ I pulled out the usual jersey dress. Daisy wrinkled her nose.
‘To say it’s on its last legs would be a compliment.’ She rifled through the rail, which took about five seconds. ‘You do realise, don’t you, that one of the advantages of divorce is that you have an extra half of a wardrobe to fill with new clothes?’
‘I bought a new dress for Christmas. But Clark has already seen that. I don’t want him to think I only have one decent thing. And why do I need new clothes? I never go anywhere.’
‘This is your second night out in a week.’ Daisy settled down on the bed, making herself comfortable in a way that didn’t bode well. Sure enough, she began an interrogation. ‘Talking of nights out, are you going to tell me how it went with Owen on Tuesday?’
‘It was fine. Nice.’ Terrifying, if she wanted the entire truth.
‘What did you do?’
‘We went to the Inn at Whitewell and had a couple of drinks.’
‘That was a long way to go. Good choice though. Very romantic.’
‘Very private. He wanted to avoid any students or parents.’ Or any husbands or brothers-in-law.
‘And you had fun? It was a success?’
‘I suppose so.’
I removed my jeans and T-shirt, and took the grey dress off the hanger, ready to put it on. Daisy looked me up and down, and went over to the chest of drawers.
‘Have you no decent lingerie?’ she asked, rooting around my underwear. ‘Leo must have bought you some for Christmas or birthday presents.’
‘No. He generally bought books.’
Daisy held up a saggy bra and granny knickers.
‘Fond of grey, aren’t you? Please don’t tell me you still wear these monstrosities. Although those things you have on now aren’t much better. See how different it could look …’
She heaved up my bra straps, fighting gravity. As she did, the bedroom door opened and Jonas walked in.
‘Mum …’ He stared at the sight in front of him – and what a sight it must have been for an innocent young boy. ‘Not you as well,’ he muttered and backed out. Daisy laughed.
‘You need a lock on that door. What if you’d been in here with Owen?’
‘We’ve only had one drink!’ I pulled on the grey dress, ignoring Daisy’s disapproving tut.
‘Two drinks,’ she corrected. ‘And surely a kiss?’
‘No! Well,’ I conceded, ‘a kiss on the cheek.’ It wasn’t where Owen had aimed for, at the end of the evening, but I had chickened out and turned my head at the last moment.
‘Oh, Mary, you’re hopeless. You’ve devoted so much time to studying Alice Hornby that you’re acting like a Victorian virgin. You’re allowed to have sex with a man who isn’t your husband.’
‘Being allowed to do something doesn’t mean I want to. Anyway,’ I continued, turning away from Daisy’s sympathetic expression, ‘whether Alice Hornby died a virgin is one of her greatest mysteries. There’s a letter …’
‘Spare me the lecture. You didn’t go on about her to Owen, did you? You’ve spent so long in a bubble with Leo that you’ve forgotten not everyone is nuts about the Hornby woman.’
‘I can’t not mention her. It’s my job.’ I opened my jewellery box, took out the green pendant necklace that Leo had given me for Christmas, and fastened it round my neck.
‘Colour! At last!’ Daisy said, nodding in approval. She probably wouldn’t have approved if she had known where it came from, or that I was wearing it as a gesture of loyalty to Leo. ‘We’re going shopping before your next date. There will be another, won’t there? You haven’t scared him off with your prudery?’