Chapter 3
She was falling, falling, falling … like the autumn leaves.
She shouldn’t be feeling like this.
At fifty-two years of age, Cath thought she should be past all the schoolgirl excitement of the tentative start to a relationship.
Certainly after everything she’d been through, every brutal lesson in love learned with Trevor.
So why couldn’t she better control her feelings now than the sixteen-year-old she once was, when she’d first fallen for Will – her Matty?
*
She was buzzing and yet oddly anxious once she got back to her cottage. So much had happened in these past few days, and she felt she wanted to share that with someone … someone she trusted.
With a cup of tea near to hand, and an hour to spare before her evening tuition session, sat in her cosy armchair in the living room, she called her sister. ‘Hey, Susie, hi. How are you?’
Cath felt a tremble through her fingertips that held the mobile as it hit her how quickly her life had changed from ‘we’ to ‘I’. Was it already time to move back to ‘we’? Would Will become part of her equation? Or was it all too fast, too risky?
‘Oh, fine thanks. You? How’s village life?’
‘Ah, good … yeah, all fine.’ The image of Will burned brightly in her mind.
‘Hmm? And?’
‘Yep, everything’s good.’ Too good, an excited voice reminded her. Her body still felt like it was tingling a little. The kiss, that hug today, had left her with aftershocks.
‘Come on, sis. Your voice is all giddy. Something’s up – I can tell. Spill the beans. What’s been happening?’
There was a telling pause, as Cath chewed a hangnail momentarily.
Where to start? Susie was sure to be discreet, but Cath was still digesting it all herself.
She wasn’t sure how to put it into words.
Good Lord, she felt like a daft teenager again …
A teenager, hmm, that’s where it had all begun.
Was this fate? Second time lucky? And yes, Susie had been there with her the first time around, too.
‘Oh, it’s not that hunky guy in the pub, is it?’ Susie hazarded a guess. She’d visited a couple of months ago, and Will had come over briefly to say ‘hello’.
Hah, how did she do that? Hit the nail on the head every damned time. Was Cath that blooming obvious? It must be down to all those years of sharing a bedroom when they were kids … then on through the riots of youthful hormones, on to adulthood, parenthood and beyond.
‘Maybe …’ Cath felt suddenly coy. Was it too soon to be sharing any details? It might yet fizzle to nothing, and she also felt a little protective towards Will.
‘The good-looking one – touch of Marti Pellow about him,’ Susie continued.
‘Umm …’
‘It is. You lucky girl. I bloody knew something was up. Tell all …’ Susie then started humming ‘Love Is All Around’ with a short blast about feeling it in her fingers.
Cath snorted with laughter. She certainly had been feeling it in her fingers and her toes, and probably a few other more sensitive places, as well.
‘Okay, you’ve got me on that one.’ But the thing was, Susie still had no idea that she, they, in fact already knew this ‘Marti Pellow’ chap from years ago.
‘Okay, so we may have kissed … last night. And went for a walk in the woods today, that’s all.
Nothing major.’ White lie alert – that kiss had felt pretty seismic, and had caused a tsunami of emotions ever since.
‘This is major, Cath. You haven’t kissed anyone other than Trevor since 1992. Well, not unless you’ve been secretly playing the away game, too, and never told me?’ she added cheekily.
‘Of course, I bloody well haven’t! I stood firmly by my wedding vows, unlike some.
Anyway, all this is lovely and early days, but I’m also scared that it’s all a bit much …
and too soon.’ There, it was out. Coughed up like a confessional furball.
She couldn’t bottle her confusing feelings any longer.
‘Well, I think it’s great you’ve met someone.
But you don’t have to sign up to a whole new relationship – just have some fun.
What’s the problem? He’s hunky. He’s free, I imagine.
And he seemed like a nice enough guy when I saw him in the village that time.
Hey, it’s high time to get back in that saddle, girl. ’
‘Oh jeez, that’s just it.’ Perhaps Susie had hit the nail of her anxieties on the head again.
What if it did develop into anything more?
What if their relationship was about to become sexual.
‘Christ, I’m terrified of that,’ she confessed.
‘It’s just been me and Trevor all these years.
I’m middle-aged now for goodness’ sake, with a saggy mummy tummy.
’ She began to feel a thrum of panic at the mere thought of taking her clothes off in front of Will, excitement and horror hitting her in equal measure.
‘Hey, he’s bound to be nervous too. And yeah, he was fit-looking, but he wasn’t exactly Tom Cruise. He’ll not be expecting a model.’
‘He’ll not be getting one.’ Cath had to chuckle.
‘Anyway, cuddly is good.’
‘Hmm.’ Cath wasn’t convinced, but hey, they were jumping the gun here.
It might not even get that far between them.
Oh, and then that hit her like a little gut-punch too.
There she was getting nervous about something happening, and now even more worried that something might not. She was a bag of bloody anxieties.
‘Look, if you get to that point, just have a large glass of wine, and then go with the flow. That’s my advice, for what it’s worth. I still use that ploy with Mark now.’
The pair of them got the giggles.
Susie had been married to her second husband Mark for eighteen years, having been left at only twenty-nine with two young girls to bring up single-handedly, and what a brilliant job she’d done of that.
Mark was the extra layer of support and love they hadn’t realised they all needed, and he’d taken Beth and Hannah on as if they were his own.
Cath took a sip of tea, then became more thoughtful.
‘On a more serious note, Suz, yes, he is really nice and we’re getting on well, but I know he’s struggling with bereavement, so it may not all be plain sailing.
His wife died from cancer a couple of years ago. She wasn’t even my age,’ Cath shared.
‘Oh my God, that’s awful. The poor chap.’
‘I know. So, I don’t think he’ll want to jump in all guns blazing romantically. He does seem lovely though. He’s been coming along to those supper club dos we’ve had in the village.’
‘Ah, well, that’s a good way to get to know each other.’
‘Yeah, it has been.’ And that reminded her: she needed to organise another supper evening to look forward to soon. ‘And Suz,’ she then continued, ‘oddly enough, you already know him.’
‘I do?’ Her tone was quizzical.
‘Strangely, we go a long way back. Remember our Northumberland holidays with Mum and Dad? Does the name Matty ring any bells?’
‘Shit … you’re kidding me. No, Cath, it can’t be.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Matty, the lad you went all goofy over. You made that mix tape … with “Angel Eyes” on repeat. Oh, Christ, that really was “Wet Wet Wet”, hah. And then you mooned about him for weeks after you got back.’
Cath remembered it all, too. That and so much more. Was it true that first love never dies?