Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Bets decided to park in the village of Aldbury and walk up the long steep track to the monument.
It would give her time to collect her thoughts and rehearse what she was going to say, and there would be less chance of bumping into Jack at the usual entrance of the long driveway into the National Trust property.
Although getting back together with him was what she wanted more than anything else in the world, she couldn’t help the tiny kernel of resentment inside her, that Jack could snap his fingers and change his mind.
This evening, she had no intention of making this easy for him.
She scowled. Everything in Jack’s life came easily to him.
He’d sailed through his GCSEs and A levels, got into the university he wanted, was the apple of his parents’ eye.
He needed to know that he’d hurt her deeply, especially when she’d given him plenty of opportunities to tell her what was wrong.
It hadn’t been difficult to sense him drawing away, coming home less often and finding more reasons for her not to visit him.
Any fool should have seen the shouty capitals on the wall well before that final phone conversation, but she was so convinced that she’d done everything to make him happy, she’d trusted in him and what they had.
Although if she were being honest, from the first time she’d visited him at university she’d realised that she was up against a whole different world.
All his new friends were far shinier, brighter and cleverer than her.
The girls were a little too polished, too superior and too … too confident and full of themselves.
Bets rolled her eyes at the memory of Melissa and Saskia, two of Jack’s housemates.
They’d been the worst – and even more snotty when they all moved in together three years ago.
In Bets’ world everyone was a potential friend until proven otherwise.
From day one, those two had looked down their noses at her, and clearly didn’t think she was good enough for Jack.
Bets wrinkled her nose. There were plenty of people who liked her the way she was. Even so, she couldn’t help feeling a little bit on the back foot with Jack these days. He’d ploughed forward, earning his degree, while she’d stayed home and trod water.
‘We want different things out of life,’ he’d said to justify breaking up.
The words had rattled around in her head for days.
Her calves ached as she climbed the hill, and the breaths she sucked in didn’t seem to be quite enough.
She wasn’t as fit as she could be, but who wanted to be inside a gym, surrounded by perfect Lycra-clad women showing off their tight bums and tums?
Trying to ignore the way she was puffing, she focused on the trees, dressed in the vibrant green finery of spring, and the excitable chatter of the birds hopping around in the canopy, occasionally streaking across her path.
A bold squirrel scampered overhead along a branch before stopping, focusing his beady eye on her and chattering accusingly as if she’d done something wrong by being in his woodland grove.
She laughed at the scrappy little fella.
‘There’s room for us all,’ she said with a smile, looking up at him perched in the crook of a tree.
With another voluble outburst he jumped to another tree, claws skittering along the bark, and disappeared into the foliage, his tail a haughty brush swaying behind him.
She wished she had his chippy attitude instead of always trying to please everyone, not that it had done her mum any good.
The brisk walk cheered Bets up. Summer was definitely waiting to step out of the wings and take centre stage. She could feel it in the early blooming leaves and the snaps of colour appearing in the hedgerows and flower beds.
The ground flattened out and through the trees ahead she could see the fluted Doric column of the Bridgewater Monument, topped by a copper urn, which had oxidised over the years to the characteristic verdigris green.
To her surprise, as she grew nearer, she could see Jack.
He was actually on time, if not five minutes early, and looking in the opposite direction.
Nerves jumped and shimmied all the way down her spine as she took a moment to study him.
When she’d been fifteen and they’d started seeing each other, she’d had several pinch-me moments that he’d chosen her.
Now she stared at his handsome features.
That determined chin, the wide mouth that was always quick to laugh, and the cheekbones that were high and, to his embarrassment, a bit male-model-ish.
Although he wasn’t as tall or as broad as his brother, he’d definitely bulked up in recent years and she realised he was much more muscular than he used to be.
She wasn’t sure she liked it. Made him less like her Jack. Someone different.
As she moved closer to him, she noticed other differences.
His hair was shorter on the sides and longer on top, as if it had actually been styled.
She almost giggled. Whatever happened to him having to be dragged to the local barbers?
And what the actual flipping heck? Since when did he wear velvety corduroy trousers in a slightly startling tone of mustard yellow?
And that Barbour jacket was new, lacking the acceptable well-worn faded cracks in the waxed surface.
Bets almost snorted. He looked like a male model on a country shoot.
She tugged at the collar of her denim jacket, unsettled by the changes, and then told herself off for being nervous. With her head held high, she marched forward.
‘Where’s Jack and what have you done with him?’ She looked at her watch. ‘You’ve never been early for anything in your life.’
His lips tightened. ‘Perhaps I’ve changed.’
She gave him a steady look and raised one eyebrow. ‘Mmm, the fancy clothes are definitely new.’ She reached up and ruffled his hair. ‘And the hair?’
He batted her hand away. ‘Bets, leave it out.’
She stepped back, hurt by the disgruntled expression on his face. Once upon a time, he’d have laughed along with her. For the first time she registered just how different things were between them, and her heart broke all over again.
He sighed. ‘Let’s go up the tower.’
She glanced up and shook her head. ‘No thanks.’ She hadn’t been up there in years and had no intention of going up now.
‘What, the hundred and seventy-two steps are too much for you?’
‘No,’ she said indignantly.
‘I’ll go first if you’re worried about me pulling faces behind your back or something.’
‘You’re not twelve, but I prefer to stand down here.’
‘Where’s your sense of adventure? Come on, last one up to the top is a wuss.
’ There it was, a brief flash of the old Jack, and relief flooded her.
The habitual desire to please clicked into place and she found herself agreeing.
Jack paid the attendant at the entrance with a few coins and then held his hand out to help Bets and haul her into the staircase.
She allowed herself a small smile. Jack was still in there. Somewhere.
The spiral stairs wound round the tower, lit by little pockets of light that elbowed their way in through the narrow slits in the thick stone walls.
She focused on the tedium of putting one foot in front of another and not on Jack’s lurid trousers just in front of her or how much her thighs ached.
The narrow staircase was dark and silent and thankfully no one was coming down the other way, but even so there was very little space and the steps in the centre of the spiral narrowed away to nothing.
Through the slit windows she could see tiny glimpses of the earth falling away, making her feel a little light-headed. Don’t look down, she told herself.
When they reached the top, to stand directly below the green finial, it was all she could do not to sigh out loud with relief.
The square platform upon which they stood was edged with a chest-height black iron fence, which to Bets’ mind did not seem a big enough barrier between them and certain death.
They were the only people up there, for which she could only be grateful, especially as her feelings were so contradictory.
Much as she wanted Jack to tell her he wanted her back, she also wanted him to be suitably apologetic for making such a big mistake and making her feel so bloody awful.
‘Great view,’ said Jack, leaning against the rail.
‘Mmm,’ she said, her stomach clenching as she glanced out over the rail.
Her knees wobbled and, much as she’d like to put it down to the after-effect of the climb, she knew it wasn’t.
Don’t look down, she told herself again, focusing on the distant horizon, along the long drive towards the white stone facade of the historic Ashridge House.
‘How have you been?’ asked Jack.
Bets swallowed back tears. ‘Okay. I mean not great but I’m surviving.’
‘I’ve missed you,’ he said, putting his hand on top of hers on the railing and giving it a quick squeeze.
She’d done her best not to miss him, working really hard to throw herself into work, doing extra hours, volunteering to help at the village fete, taking extra shifts in the shop. None of it had helped.
She turned to him, all thought of punishing him flying out of her head. ‘I’ve missed you, too.’
‘I’m really sorry.’
She nodded, worried that she was about to cry all over him. The relief was like a cork being eased from a bottle.
‘I never wanted to hurt you but I couldn’t carry on. It wasn’t fair to you. But I made a mistake…’
Her heart contracted with sudden keen interest.
‘A terrible mistake … with the people I knew in Bristol, the job – everything. My life turned to shit over the course of a couple of weeks. I had to come back. I felt such an idiot.’
She frowned, not sure of the direction of the conversation.
‘So what are you saying?’ she asked.
‘I’m going to be around for a while.’ He clasped her hand. ‘I want us to be friends.’
‘Friends?’ she echoed.
‘I’ve asked Dad if I can work at the practice. I don’t want there to be any awkwardness between us. Plus, Wilsgrave is a small place and everyone knows us, but if they can all see that we’re good mates, it will make it much easier.’
He paused and, taking her silence as acquiescence, continued smiling gently at her.
Bets grasped the rail and made the mistake of looking directly down. The ground came rushing up to meet her before falling away again. Sweat broke out across her forehead. She lifted her chin and looked up, away from the huge drop below, worried her legs might give way at any second.
‘Bets, are you okay?’
She closed her eyes and backed away from the rail until she rested against the solid wall.
‘I thought I could do this,’ she muttered, as much to herself as him.
‘Do what?’
‘Not good with heights, remember?’ How could he not know that? How did he not remember?
‘Oh God, yes. Remember when we went to Thorpe Park in the sixth form? You were a nightmare. Freaked out on one of the rides.’
‘And yet you appear to have completely forgotten.’ Her voice was icy, as sudden fury rocketed through her.
‘Sorry. I … didn’t know.’
‘I need to go down,’ she said through pinched lips. The fear had got hold of her. ‘This is too much.’
‘Nothing’s going to happen. It’s perfectly safe. Keep telling yourself that.’
‘You know that, I know that. My brain does not know that. I want to go down. Now.’
‘Okay.’ He stepped forward as if to put his arm around her. She pushed him away, inched her fingers along the wall to the door and, without waiting for him, began the journey down the stairs, taking each step one by one, gripping the handrail.
As her fear began to ease, that seed of festering resentment bloomed into full-grown anger.
She glanced outside but the ground was still a long way below.
Her stomach clenched even though she was on her way back to safety.
She’d always been bad with heights. How had he forgotten?
Or did he not care? When she passed another window, her jaw tightened.
Jack only thought about what he wanted. She slowed her steps, the panic subsiding.
He wanted everything his way. Like asking her not to tell anyone they’d broken up until he’d spoken to his parents.
The burden of the secret had been a hard one to bear over the last couple of months.
Her steps speeded up now that she could see the ground coming closer, her anger with Jack increasing in direct proportion.
When she reached the bottom, she didn’t wait for him but headed back to the path to return to Aldbury, where her little Nissan was parked.
‘Where are you going?’ He ran to catch up with her.
‘Home,’ she snapped.
‘But we haven’t really talked.’
‘There’s nothing to say.’ She stopped and glared at him, pleased by his confusion.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m not going to be your friend. I don’t want to be friends with you.’
He took a step back as if she’d physically struck him and it didn’t please her as much as she’d hoped. ‘Why not?’ he asked and there it was, naked, unexpected pain in his eyes. Jack wasn’t supposed to be hurt. He was the villain here. This was all down to him.
‘Because you’re not the person I thought you were,’ she bit out, wanting his hurt to match hers.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means that I built you up on a pedestal when I was fifteen and I never took you off. Whereas you’ve moved on and left me behind.
’ Tears burned behind her eyes but she wasn’t going to let him see them.
‘You couldn’t be bothered to come home and talk to me.
It was much easier for you over the telephone.
And then when you want to talk’—she spat the word at him undisguised contempt—‘you didn’t even remember that I have a fear of heights.
You think so little of me … in fact you don’t think of me at all.
It’s all about you. So no, I’m not going to be your friend. You can piss off.’
The look of surprise on his face would live with her forever.
She shook his hand off her arm and stormed away.
What an idiot! That message. I’ve made a mistake.
She’d really believed he wanted her back.
Yup, a prize idiot with all the trimmings, and the worst thing was, she still bloody loved him. She always had.
‘Bets,’ he shouted after.
She turned and raised two fingers at him, feeling deliciously bitchy, especially at the shock on his face, and carried on walking back to her car.
If he thought she was going to roll over and play nice, he could think again.
A woman scorned indeed had her fury and she was going to revel in it. She wasn’t going anywhere quietly.