Chapter Sixteen
By the time Pippa had heated up enough chilli for two and added it to a bowl with tacos and sour cream, Lola had leaped up in delight, letting her know that Gil had joined them. She turned, about to slide one bowl onto a tray.
‘Didn’t want to put you to any more trouble,’ he said, making a fuss of his dog, who was ecstatic to see him. ‘Thought I’d eat down here.’
‘With me?’ She threw an alarmed glance at the flimsy table; it was so small, it would be akin to eating on his lap. ‘Where?’
‘What about the sitting room, on our knees?’ He tilted his head to the door on his right. ‘But if you’d rather not…’
‘No, that’s okay.’ She’d have the space to avoid him in there and it wasn’t as though she could insist he eat in his bedroom. She pointed to the bowls. ‘Why don’t you take these through and I’ll bring drinks.’
She poured water for both of them and left his on a side table near the armchair he’d chosen beside the fireplace. She settled on the orange sofa; it was where she curled up most evenings. She was getting used to the house, surrounded by silence now that Harriet was out more often.
Her insistence on Gil moving back in had been an instinctive offer when she’d felt sorry for him. But it had changed her situation too, especially since she’d trashed the mattresses from the caravan to make sure he couldn’t return. They’d have to contend with sharing that bathroom and who was going to cook for whom. And then there was the matter of an estate agent and having a sitting tenant in place.
‘This is really good, thank you.’ Gil was tucking into the food with relish, and she wondered how he managed to produce a decent meal in the caravan when the facilities were so poor.
‘For a vegetarian dish?’
‘I wasn’t going to say that.’
‘Again.’ She held back her smile until he grinned. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Better. Thanks to you.’
‘That’s not what you said when you found out about the mattresses.’
‘I was pretty mad, but I can’t fault your execution of the plan.’ Lola was stretched out on a threadbare rug patchy with burn marks in front of the unlit fire. ‘Are you serious, about letting me stay in the house?’
‘Gil, it’s your home and you have an agreement,’ she said helplessly. ‘Legally I doubt I could make you move out even if I wanted you to.’
‘I’m not really used to someone looking out for me.’ His voice was very low, and her pulse jumped. As they ate she was thinking of the touch of his hands on her shoulders that day, wanting more. How she’d longed to lean into him and allow her senses to take over, to loosen some of the control she usually relied on.
‘Are you saying now you don’t want me to leave?’
‘I’m saying that I don’t want you to live in the caravan. Lola deserves better.’
‘Ouch.’ He clutched his heart. ‘All this is for Lola’s benefit?’
‘Absolutely.’ They shared a smile, Pippa the first to look away as she put her empty bowl on the floor. Gil was overtaken by a bout of sneezing which turned into a cough, and he leaned back, closing his eyes with a yawn.
‘Sorry.’
‘It’s fine. I hope you’re not on call this evening.’
‘Nope. Glad it’s not me, to be honest. I really don’t feel like it.’
‘Tell me about the practice.’ Twenty-four hours ago she wouldn’t have asked; sitting here with him as dusk eased into evening, all was different.
‘Why do you want to know?’ He opened his eyes, turning his head to find hers.
‘I’m interested, I suppose,’ she said, half relieved, half surprised he hadn’t refused. ‘I found out tonight that my great-grandparents were farmers here and I know your grandfather was a farmer too and set up the practice with someone else. Maybe mine were clients of yours.’
‘Maybe they were. And maybe it’s a crazy dream, trying to keep it going because it means something to me.’ Gil ran a hand over his jaw, roughened by a couple of days’ stubble. ‘I did my student work experience here and always knew I’d stay so I could support my gran on the farm. I met Clare, my ex-wife, when we were at Bristol, and she was pregnant before I graduated. Then Joel was a month premature and spent three weeks in hospital.’ His eyes darkened at what was obviously a painful memory.
‘Clare’s parents were in Australia and once Joel came home, she moved in here and I came back straight after graduation. Living with my gran wasn’t exactly the life we’d planned but money was tight, then we had Luca and when we eventually bought a house it was twenty miles away in town. I was commuting, on call, Clare was working, and…’ He shrugged. ‘You know how it is. Life goes on. It wasn’t until my gran passed away and the estate wanted to sell the farm that I seriously thought about moving back in and taking on the practice myself. Clare and I, we were going in different directions by then.’
‘I’m sorry. You must miss her, your gran?’ Pippa didn’t mean to make it a question, just a statement of fact.
‘Yeah. Especially here, the house hasn’t changed much since I first lived in it.’ Gil’s smile was a wry one, tinged with regret. ‘She was a proud housekeeper and a great cook, but I’m not sure anyone would say she had a flair for design. But it didn’t matter what the place looked like. It was home.’
Pippa felt the guilt twisting inside her, clouding her mind with sorrow for his situation and that she’d dismissed his home and everything in it as ugly and irrelevant. She’d viewed the house as a problem to solve for her dad, a thorn in her side keeping her from her own plans, when it was clear that love had lived here too. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t know, not until it was too late.’
‘Too late for what?’
She couldn’t admit it was too late not to care, both about the house and the future of the practice. And Gil, filling her heart and her mind in ways she would have found absurd just a few days ago. Perhaps it was easier when they fought, because then she could hide behind her frustration.
‘Too late not to come.’ She settled on a truth, one which didn’t reveal everything. How could she even be thinking she’d miss him when she returned home? Her life in London had seemed full of energy and noise but from here it felt flat, colourless, as though she was viewing her future in black and white. The moments lengthened, the air between them laden with unspoken meaning.
‘Why do you always do everything your dad asks?’
‘What makes you think I do?’ Pippa heard the defensiveness creep back in. It was exhausting sometimes, always being the one in control, making decisions and providing support. Raf’s role was to roam around the world without really standing still, and Tilly had eventually found her place. Phoebe and Freddie led different lives and Pippa occasionally wondered if they saw her more as their personal assistant who could put things right than their sister.
‘Harriet might have mentioned that you’re always available to your family. That your dad expects you to step in if he needs you.’
‘It’s a two-way thing.’
‘How? It’s looks pretty one way from where I’m sitting.’
‘My dad provides for us, he loves us. He always has.’ Pippa was twisting her fingers together, trying to defend Jonny, the lives they both led. ‘I chose to look after my family a long time ago. They needed me.’ She’d never doubted it or regretted it. But maybe sometimes she should step back, let them work things out for themselves.
‘So who do you turn to, when you need someone to lean on?’ Gil’s voice was low, but his words seemed to be shouting, rattling through her mind like crossfire. Her shoulders slumped as she remembered leaning against him, the solidity, the relief of having someone there to catch her, even for just those few brief moments.
‘I don’t…’
‘Yeah, you do. We all do sometimes.’
‘Even you?’ She tried to smile.
‘It has been known.’ He smiled too, but Pippa was utterly aware their eyes were holding a very different conversation. ‘It’s good to see Harriet enjoying herself at Dorothy’s and my aunt really appreciates the help.’
‘Not that she’d admit it.’
‘Never.’ Gil hesitated. ‘Look, I know it’s an impossible task, but try not to worry about Harriet. She’s having a blast.’
‘That’s maybe easy for you to say, when you won’t be the one having to drag her back to London.’ This reality was beginning to trouble Pippa almost as much as the house. ‘No doubt you’ve seen that we’re not getting on too well right now and going home will be my fault. As was fetching her here in the first place. I thought it might be a chance to reconnect, but instead she’s spending every spare minute at Dorothy’s or with Alfie, so I’m seeing even less of her.’
‘And you think those are bad things?’ Lola wandered over to Gil, nudging his hand until he was gently stroking her head. Pippa wasn’t expecting the rush of longing at the sight; the desire to touch and be touched, to lean into his strength, feel herself supported.
‘Only because it’s going to make it harder for her to leave,’ she said quietly, only too aware she wouldn’t be able to hurry home without a backwards glance either, not now after all she’d learned about her family, and even Gil. ‘It’s so different to her life in London and she’s never met anyone like Alfie before. Someone who could maybe break her heart.’
‘Nothing you say or do will change her feelings, Pippa,’ Gil said gently. ‘No amount of caution, trying to keep them apart or telling her to wise up, will stop her falling in love if that’s what’s going to happen.’
‘You’re saying it’s inevitable? That we can’t stop these things?’
‘Yeah. I think it’s true. The heart wants what the heart wants.’
Pippa couldn’t afford to learn what was in his eyes now. The gruff gentleness in his voice, the words she sensed he believed were enough to reveal a glimmer of the feelings she was certain he preferred to keep hidden. She needed to bring this conversation back from the brink and not imagine he felt it too, the pull of their attraction intensifying with every moment they spent together. The sketch she’d done yesterday, of Posy grazing in the field, lay on the coffee table and she realised he’d noticed it when he spoke again.
‘Why do you teach art and not show it?’ Gil nodded at the sketch. ‘And don’t say it’s complicated. You’re amazing, I’d recognise that demon pony anywhere.’
Amazing? ‘You’re just being kind,’ she replied stiffly.
‘Kind? You know me better than that, Pippa.’ His smile was a quick one. ‘It’s brilliant.’
‘Thanks.’ The familiar squeeze came again in her stomach, the memory of presenting her heart and soul to the world, laying herself bare to scorn. Her palms were damp, and she took a deep and calming breath the way she’d been taught. She’d been careless, leaving her work in here, not imagining that anyone other than Harriet and least of all Gil, would ever see it.
‘So tell me.’
‘I don’t have the time. I’m always busy with my job, Harriet and the family.’ Most people bought it if they ever questioned her, and friends and family had stopped asking, but Cassie knew the truth and understood it.
‘That sounds like an excuse.’
‘How would you know?’ Pippa made herself hold his stare, daring him to push her, make her confess.
‘Because I know one when I hear it. I can see it in your eyes, what it means to you. And I can’t explain it, why I already know that about you.’ His voice had lowered yet further, and she was completely tuned into it through the fading light. ‘Why do you pretend it’s a hobby when you clearly love it so much?’
‘How do I know you won’t mock me?’
‘I guess you don’t,’ he said softly. ‘You’ll have to trust me.’
It would be madness to trust him and confess, to return to those far away days she’d tried to put behind her. But she took a deep breath, wanting it out there suddenly, wondering why she’d always hidden behind it and allowed herself to believe that one single evening should define her passion for ever.
‘I did have a show, just once, right after I left university. It was my dad’s idea, he was so proud, thrilled about my achievement and that I had something of my own to love. He found a gallery and someone to organise it, leaned on a few contacts and all I had to do was paint. Get myself ready.’
She was staring at the empty fireplace, Lola lying before it again. She became aware of movement on her left, Gil getting up, crossing the room until he settled beside her, shoulders, arms, thighs touching.
‘Only the opening night wasn’t the success my dad had envisaged and some of the reviews were scathing, suggesting that it was pure nepotism and I wouldn’t be anywhere without his influence. That I wasn’t good enough and would never have a name of my own, on my own merit.’ She could feel herself drawn to Gil’s strength, his warmth a pillar beside her.
‘It absolutely flattened me, and my dad was livid, threatening all kinds of consequences which thankfully came to nothing. I stopped painting for two years and half the work I produced for the show went in the bin. My dad salvaged the rest, apart from the couple I did sell. Looking back, I know I was far from ready, and I let myself get swept up by his enthusiasm to help me. It wasn’t his fault, and he was devastated too. I disappeared to Majorca for a month and worked in a bar, trying to get past it.’
‘I’m sorry that happened to you.’
‘Thank you.’ She was barely breathing, having Gil this close, wanting him near and afraid to like it too much. He was a mirage really; he’d disappear from her life as quickly as he’d entered it. ‘A career in art was a dream and I’m not big on those. Not for me.’
‘I disagree. Sometimes a dream can keep you going when everything seems against you.’
‘You really don’t strike me as a dreamer, Gil.’ Pippa’s laugh was light, helping her past the confession she’d never imagined voicing to him. ‘You’re way too pragmatic.’
‘Maybe I’ll surprise you again.’ There was a smile in his voice too. ‘I’m not big on quitting.’
‘And you’re saying that I am?’ She felt hollowed out by shock, letting him glimpse a piece of her soul only to have him think her weak. ‘Because I don’t want to put myself out there again?’
‘I’m saying that you have an incredible gift, Pippa.’ He stood up and a tiny part of her was relieved; it was easier to think more clearly when he wasn’t quite so close. ‘And I don’t want you to let that experience define how you view it. You’re amazing, and one day I hope you’ll see it too.’