Chapter 16
16
W ith a slight but steady breeze drifting in through the open window, Caro lay on the bed stripped to her bra and knickers. She had her hands stretched above her head as she held her phone high and scrolled through. To her surprise she only had one text from Matt.
30+
For a smart man, he was useless with words.
Excellent,
she texted back.
She knew what he meant. They had surpassed the goal, and the offering had already passed thirty million. She dropped her phone and rolled onto her side. As she did, another message pinged through. This time a photo of Matt and a few of the crowd from the office. They were obviously finishing the day at the pub. Eyebrows knitted, she tapped the screen and zoomed in. Even Mel, her former secretary was there, and looking at the familiar faces a strange feeling came over Caro, a feeling that if she hadn’t known better, she might have mistaken for envy.
But she had nothing to be envious of. Two years ago, still recovering from a traumatic miscarriage, and numb with shock at her mother’s catastrophic stroke, she had walked out of the office into a nightmare. This was when she had met Tomasz, on what was probably the worst day of her life. The evening she had taken Libby’s baby and walked too long, and too far with him. The evening the police had been called, the evening she had put Libby and Helen through so much pain. Tomasz had come to find her. Sat down next to her and asked if she knew where she was. Let me take you back, he had said, and from the ashes, wings of hope had stirred. The hope of a different life. The hope of being loved.
Matt had been magnanimous when she had explained she would not be coming back. Empathy embodied, until the share price in Eco-Innovate had taken what looked like an irreversible decline.
‘Consultancy only,’ he’d offered. ‘No pressure. No deadlines. No stress and no high-net arseholes ringing you up at midnight.’ He’d even sent a photo of a pair of Gucci loafers, the suggestion being that he could find no-one to fill her shoes. Remembering this, Caro smiled. Sometimes words were superfluous and picking up the phone to him had been like picking up the phone to a still-beloved ex. They had, after all, had the perfect work marriage, and if today hadn’t proved the truth of that image of the loafers, nothing would. It had been clear that she’d known more about the current market than anyone else in the room.
Rolling onto her back again, she stared at the ceiling. The stress in the office these last few days had been off the scale, and she had thoroughly enjoyed it. What she had said to Helen was true, a change was as good as a rest and now, having spent the last year doing not much more than growing tomatoes and visiting potential smallholdings, she felt thoroughly rested and raring to go.
She picked up her phone and opened Matt’s message again, smiling back at all the faces in the photo. The problem was there was nowhere for her to go. That was it. This had been her last job and without a deadline she didn’t know where to start, without pressure she could feel her edges slackening like a balloon deflating.
The bedroom door swung open.
Sitting up, she swiped her phone behind her back.
‘Are you OK?’ Tomasz stood in the doorway, a tea-towel over his shoulder.
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Just tired. The train was hot.’
‘Do you want to rest? I can do the poo-pick.’
‘The poo-pick?’ Caro rubbed her eyes. In the five days she had been away she hadn’t thought once about the chicken-coop poo-pick, a daily chore that was her responsibility. Along with feeding the goats their pellets and checking their hooves and raking away their manure. Or, if she was completely honest, any of regular jobs required to keep the smallholding going.
‘I’ll do it.’ The door was closing. ‘You rest.’
‘I’m OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll do it.’
Tomasz looked at her. ‘You need food,’ he said. ‘I can keep it warm. Just say when you’re ready to eat.’
‘I’m not sure I can face it.’ How could she tell him? How could she begin to describe that table of champagne and oysters, the lobster, the caviar. How could she explain what fifty million sounds like? Or how it feels, as a woman in a roomful of men, to stand as a queen on a stage in the sky. How could she confess that she had said, I would have loved to.
‘Do you feel unwell?’ He frowned.
‘Yes,’ she said. Then, ‘No. I don’t know …It’s just hot.’
‘Caro.’ She watched as he came over and sat on the edge of the bed, shifting her weight to accommodate the space he took up. The sofa, the bed. He wasn’t even a big man, but everything shifted when he joined her.
‘What’s the matter?’
Looking back at him, Caro shrugged. She loved his eyes. They had been the first thing she had noticed about him, and the thought that she was causing the trouble so clearly reflected now, hurt her. But she couldn’t take it away. She couldn’t give him the answer he wanted, say, Nothing! Nothing is the matter! bounce off the bed, go downstairs and eat roast pork. Let alone roast pork with tomato and courgette sauce, not after bottling gallons of the stuff last week. She sat up and looked at her hands, at the shimmering lilac gel of her manicure winking back at her now, tenfold.
‘Forget dinner,’ he said. ‘You’re tired. Come down when you’re ready.’ And lifting her damp hair from her neck, he pressed his lips against her skin, a soft pressure, like a pillow she wanted to lean into. She watched him stand, the bow to his legs and the very slight stoop of his shoulders as familiar to her now as her own imperfect body.
Exhausted by the day, she rolled onto her side, watching the sun sink lower. Her eyelids drooped and her cheek pressed her hand and by the time the sun had taken its leave, Caro too had fallen asleep.
She was woken by the twit-twoo of owls calling through an inky twilight. Like they were lost. Like one was calling, are you there, are you there ? And another was answering, I’m here, I’m here. Apart from that, the cottage was quiet. Downstairs, she found Tomasz in the kitchen, drying what looked like the last of the dishes. Aside from a neat pile of jars by the sink, the room was spotless.
‘Tomasz.’ She put her arms around his neck. ‘You must be exhausted.’
‘I could do with sitting down,’ he whispered, his hand in her hair.
‘Me too.’ And taking the tea-towel from his hands, she led him through to the front room, poured them both a glass of wine and handed him the remote control. Within another minute, her feet rested in his lap and his hand rested on her thigh, a quiz show played harmless on the TV, and outside the owls had fallen silent.
‘Sydney,’ Thomaz said, nodding at the TV.
Caro frowned.
‘Summer Olympics, year 2000.’ He took a sip of wine.
She put her head to one side. ‘Wasn’t it Athens that year?’
‘No. I was in Gdansk, and I remember getting up at six to watch before work.’
‘I must have been closer,’ she murmured. ‘I vaguely remember it being on in the evenings. Singapore?’ She looked at him.
‘You don’t remember?’ How about if I do this …’ He squeezed her big toe. ‘Does that help?’
Caro sneezed.
Laughing, Tomasz squeezed again.
‘Stop it!’ She managed, but she was still sneezing and laughing herself now.
‘What this? Stop this?’ He kept squeezing and now she was rolling from side to side, helpless with laughter. ‘You like it,’ he said as he let her foot go and leaned forward to kiss her.
Smiling, Caro fell back against the cushion. Yes, she liked it. She liked all of it. The ease, the gentle companionship, these spontaneous explorations they undertook together, excavating fragments of their past lives as carefully as if they were pottery pieces from a lost civilisation. It was only last week that he’d told her about the raised fist of the Communist Salute, he’d been expected to perform at school. And she had told him about her dungaree-wearing drama teacher who’d run off with the deputy head. And they had laughed, and she had thought how it was true. How love is wasted on the young.
‘Sidney, Australia,’ the TV host said.
‘Told you.’ Tomasz patted her leg. ‘Let’s see how many more we get.’
But she didn’t get any more, because she didn’t hear any more questions. She didn’t hear the theme music that marked the end of the show, and she didn’t feel him ease the glass from her hand. Her feet still in his lap, her head on the cushion, she fell into an easy but dreamless sleep.