Chapter Eight
‘Outside a little chapel in the north of the moors is a fabulous example of sarcasm — I can only imagine what this lady must have done to the man who carved her stone. Whatever it was, he bore that grudge until she died. The lady in question, one Jennet Hartley, seems to have been one for lying about her age, because her stone, carved in beautiful, easy-to-read classical style, reads: “Here lies Jennet Hartley Born 1819 Died 1876 Aged Forty-Three Years”. I had the feeling that someone must have pried the chisel from the carver’s hand, otherwise it would have been followed by the Victorian equivalent of the smiley-face.’ — BOOK OF THE DEAD 2
* * *
York with an eight-year-old came outside any reasonable experience I could have been expected to have had. Scarlet behaved like a child who’s spent the last eight years tied to a table leg and wanted to go in every clothes shop, every Claire’s Accessories and every bookshop we came across, and, while she was perfectly polite and reasonable in her requests, she had more energy and enthusiasm than anyone I’d ever met who wasn’t on hardcore drugs.
In fact, as we went into the fourth ‘cheap earrings and lip gloss’ establishment that morning, hardcore drugs were beginning to look like a viable option to get through the rest of the day. I could only muster so much interest in make-up designed for tweenagers and stick on tattoos, so when Scarlet showed signs of flagging and gave in to my request to go for coffee and a bun, my relief made me cheerful.
‘There can’t be many books on pony care left in the shops, we seem to have done a good job of making it look like we’re a pair of clueless horse owners.’
Scarlet wriggled up onto the stool and hauled her plastic carrier up alongside her. It thumped onto the tabletop, weighted down with the aforementioned pony books, but then, as I’d told Scarlet, money spent on books is never wasted. ‘Can I have a milkshake, please?’
‘Okay. You sit there and I’ll go and order our drinks.’ I left her slumping forward, resting her head on the bag. She was tired now, and I gazed along the counter where the cakes sat, thinking that a sugar boost would be what we both needed, running my eye along the polished glass, looking for something suitably sticky and gooey.
A reflection. Just a brief glimpse of someone walking past the shop, but even that glimpse made my head spin and my hands contract into fists. Dan?
To the consternation of other patrons, except Scarlet, who I think had fallen asleep, I abandoned my position in the queue and dashed to the door. The crowds were thickening now as people came into town for lunch, and all I could see was a dark shape, hands in pockets, moving away towards the Minster.
Run after him? Shout, call out his name? It may not be Dan, it could be some other slightly-built bloke in black and just the fact that he’s on my mind so much is making me see what isn’t there.
I hovered in the doorway. I wanted, so badly, to know if it was him. To face him, look him in the eye and ask him how he dared be here, in Yorkshire, even how he dared be on the same planet as me, after the way he’d behaved. Just to ask him . . . why? Why had he felt the need to do it? Wasn’t I good enough? How had I failed so badly to be what he wanted me to be that he needed to drive a wedge between me and my sister?
‘Winter?’ Scarlet’s voice, sleepily raised over the general chat. ‘Where are you going?’ And the note of panic in her voice told me that I wasn’t going anywhere. I couldn’t leave her, whoever the dark man might have been.
‘It’s fine,’ I replied, but I felt too sick to want cake now. I was shaky and shocked, as though I’d been in an accident, as though the blood was being diverted from my brain to my heart. ‘I’ll get your milkshake.’
Scarlet sat and sucked pink milk through a straw and flipped through one of the new books we’d bought, blissfully unaware that next to her I was trying to stop my hands from trembling. The skin on my face felt tight and clammy, bile kept rising up as far as the base of my throat, and the throat-swelling of tears didn’t seem too far away. Why would he even be here? He’ll be in London, working; he certainly won’t be bothered wondering where you are and what you’re doing. And he most especially won’t be working himself into a state of hysteria because he thought he saw someone who looks a bit like you somewhere. Come on, Winter. You’re in charge of the child, you can’t go into meltdown because the ex who tried to get between you and Daisy might have walked down a street in York.
‘We’d better go back to the car.’
‘Oh, can’t we go into—’
‘No!’ I felt guilt as soon as I’d snapped out the word, seeing the thumb go into the mouth and her eyes become cautious and guarded. She’s eight. Don’t make her suffer because you got shat on. ‘Sorry. I just think we ought to get home before Alex starts to worry.’
Slowly the thumb came out, hovering at chin level in case I was going to be cross again. She’d got pink milk all over her upper lip where she’d drunk the froth from the cup and now it was all over her fingers too, mushing down into a tight pink line like candy floss that’s got wet. ‘Please may I have a biscuit to eat in the car?’
She’d almost whispered the words and, once again, I felt the jab to the gut of shame. ‘Of course you can.’ Cautiously I thought my way through meeting Dan on the street, walking into him in the car park, yep, good, I no longer wanted to scream all the swear words I could think of and stab him with my car keys, so we were probably good to go. ‘Sorry, Scarlet, I just thought I saw someone I don’t like very much.’
Her eyes brightened. ‘I do that all the time! Most of the girls at school, really.’
We queued up to buy biscuits. ‘Yes, I saw them ignoring you in the park. Don’t you get on with them?’
The thumb hovered as though it was thinking about going back in the mouth, but eventually got shoved into a pocket instead. ‘They call Alex “weirdo”.’
I looked down at the sticky pink face, her blonde hair pulled into two rather inexpert bunches and her ever-so-slightly too small jeans. They tease you too, I should think. A child with a dead mother and no father, brought up by a man who must sound scary when he speaks, if you’re eight and don’t understand stammering. I don’t really think your grandmother helps much either. ‘What do you do? When they call him names?’
Scarlet swung away, seizing the cellophane bag that the girl behind the counter held out to her. ‘I hit them with Light Bulb.’
Ah.
We sat in the car, waiting to pull out of the car park into the traffic. My brain was humming, my eyes straining this way and that, trying to catch a glimpse of a flick of coat, the hint of a studded boot.
‘Why are you called Winter?’ She’d bitten her way into the first biscuit. A cloud of sugar puffed across the dashboard and settled like dust in the nooks and crannies of the air blower.
‘When I was born it was snowing. My mum looked out of the window and knew she was going to call me Winter.’
‘Oh.’ Crunch crunch. A shower of crumbs fell under her booster seat and made me narrow my eyes. ‘So why is your sister called Daisy? If you’re twins aren’t you born at the same time?’
Oh boy. How much do eight-year-old girls know about babies being born? I could traumatise her for life here. ‘Twins don’t . . . ummm . . . they don’t come out at the same time,’ I said, carefully trying to be euphemistic and yet factually correct, and, for all I knew, she still thought babies were found under gooseberry bushes. ‘I was born first and Daisy took a while to come out. By the time she was born, the sun was shining and the snow had melted.’
Well done, Winter. You managed to skirt right around the whole ‘childbirth’ thing, she’s probably going to grow up now thinking babies appear like pop-up book illustrations.
‘When Granny’s cat had kittens there was blood everywhere ,’ Scarlet said, with a disgusting amount of relish. ‘They came out one after the other, like squeezing cheese out of a tube.’
I’d forgotten to take into account that children living in the countryside were brought up with a more robust approach to new life than we townies, clearly. I’d thought babies came through belly buttons until I was eleven. ‘Riiight.’
‘Do you miss your sister?’ The question came around another biscuit. The car was knee deep in half-eaten raisins and bits.
‘What do you mean?’ My elbows trembled with the strain of keeping my hands steady on the wheel.
‘I wish I had a sister.’ Scarlet turned and looked out of the window, almost dreamily. ‘I could go and visit her and we’d make cakes and draw pictures. Do you visit your sister and make cakes?’
I took a deep breath. ‘It’s different when you grow up. Daisy lives a long, long way away in Australia and she’s got a fabulous life over there that she can’t just drop to come here. We talk a lot though, practically all the time, but no cakes.’ And besides, Dan hovers over us like a huge storm cloud. We might ignore his presence, but it’s always there, big and black and waiting to burst if we acknowledge him.
We drove over the moors. Scarlet had put her thumb back in her mouth and was making small sucky sounds around it, her head leaning against the glass and bumping. I tried to drive as smoothly as I could, I didn’t want her waking up and finding another load of questions to ask, but either she wasn’t asleep or she had a kind of sixth sense, because as soon as we drove through the archway to the Old Mill she sat upright and took her thumb out. When the car stopped she undid her seat belt, turned to me with a ‘thankyoufortakingmeshoppingWinter, bye!’ and hurtled off through the glass doors with bags dangling from her hands, bumping and bobbing in accompaniment, leaving a child-shaped clear space on the passenger seat, outlined in bits of biscuit and icing sugar like a confectionary-based murder scene.
Alex came out to meet me. Today he was wearing a white shirt and dark trousers that were made of a soft fabric like brushed skin. The shirt was open at the collar and his tanned skin contrasted with its whiteness like a black and white photo. ‘W-would you like to c-come in for a c-coffee?’
I hesitated. Part of me wanted to slide back into the cottage, so small and snug that it was less like going home and more like getting dressed. I wanted to lie in a bath for half an hour and wash away all thoughts of Dan, the potential of his dark shape flickering through the streets of York; to breathe in the scent of bath foam and fresh air and feel the quiet. But, on the other hand, Alex looked sensational today, and I’d dipped out on the coffee earlier.
‘Yes, please. If you promise to keep that coffee machine under control.’
He laughed and opened the car door for me. ‘Ah,’ he said, looking in. ‘S-Scarlet-shaped chaos. I’ll c-clean that up for you.’
I laughed. ‘Don’t worry about it. My boyfriend used to sit and sharpen pencils in there so . . .’ I tailed off, the words sinking under the rising image of Dan calmly carving off slices of wood, scattering them around him like broken wishes. ‘Just the coffee will do.’
The office space was bright and humming with electrical activity. Even though it was a Saturday Alex had clearly been working. Pages were scattered around the printer and there was the smell of over-heated machinery in the air. The coffee machine sat amongst all this like a gargoyle in an operating theatre, and spat occasional gouts of ill-tempered steam at us. There were two empty cups on the side, with tidemarks of old conversations halfway up the sides. ‘You’ve been busy,’ I said, taking a fragrant mug.
‘Making the m-most of Scarl b-being away.’ Alex gave me a grin over his mug. ‘We usually s-spend the weekends b-baking. Or exercising L-Light Bulb. Lucy c-came over to t-talk about Scarlet’s p-progress at school.’ From above we could hear the sounds of Scarlet racketing up and down the floorboards. ‘I f-fetched him back f-from Mum’s. She’ll t-take him out in a b-bit.’
I sipped. Despite the purring of equipment and the overhead thundering, it was relaxingly quiet in here. Alex was perched on the edge of the desk with his legs bracing him, which drew extra attention, if extra were needed, to his long, strong thighs. I wondered if he was doing it deliberately, advertising his attractiveness to an available potential mate, and then I cursed myself for my cynicism.
‘Why not get her a pet?’ I cast my eyes upwards, in case he might think I was talking about his mother, whose only need for a pet would be to have something else to fret about. ‘Something real to lavish all that attention on.’
His mouth twitched, it didn’t look like a smile. The mug went down onto the desk and his hands spread in a gesture of hopelessness. ‘It w-would be nice, yes. B-but . . .’ And now his hands went up, cupped his face briefly, then he sighed and stood up. ‘It’s h-hard to explain.’ The coffee machine burped twice, and he suddenly seemed to find it fascinating, lifting its lid to check water levels and pulling a few levers, which appeared to do absolutely nothing apart from jet steam in random directions. ‘Scarl would love a p-pet but I can’t c-cope with anything else. I mean we m-manage, it’s fine, everything is under c-control but if things g-go wrong’ — he peered into the depths of the machine’s workings — ‘with th-this place and Scarl. It’s a b-balance, d’you see? Anything else w-would be too m-much.’ The lid clattered back and he turned round to face me now. ‘I s-seem to do nothing b-but talk about myself with y-you. All I know ab-about you is what Scarl tells me, which is q-quite a lot admittedly, sh-she can be a bit nosey, I’m afraid.’
The more he talks, the less he stammers. As if he’s gradually relaxing with you, getting less fazed by speaking; it’s quite attractive. Even the way he blinks when the words jam, it’s a nice little touch, stops him from being so utterly out-of-your-league gorgeous; that little hint of vulnerability.
‘Oh, before I forget, I gave Scarlet a copy of Book of the Dead . I had a couple of author copies with me, which saved us having to comb some of the more dubious bookshops in York looking for one. You might want to check through before she starts reading it, there’s a couple of stories of death that might not be all that suitable, although I don’t know what level she’s reading at, so she might just slide right past them, but you ought to be aware, just in case.’
He was staring at me now. Or, rather, not staring, but his eyes were particularly intent on me. ‘Th-that happens a lot, p-people changing the subject. Like, b-because I stammer I c-can’t keep track of what’s g-going on in a conversation. B-but I can, Winter. I c-can see you change the subject b-because you feel uncomfortable w-with it, but why? I’m only a-asking for what you’ve told Sc-Scarlet, in your own words. Not a d-deep psychological insight.’
I sighed. ‘I’m sorry. Yes, you’re right, of course. I mean, Scarlet asks these questions, right out of nowhere and sometimes she sort of gets me by surprise, but, yes, you trust her with me so you ought to know that there’s nothing horrendous there in the background. I’m just a writer who had one huge success that she’s now trying to replicate by writing about little-known country churchyards and staying in a house that looks like the doorbell should chime “hi ho, hi ho”.’
‘And you’re a t-twin?’ He resumed his coffee drinking, after staring briefly into the cup, checking that the machine wasn’t trying to poison him, presumably. ‘That must be . . . ?’
What does he want you to say here? That it must be nice, or terrible or confusing or painful?
‘I don’t know. I’ve never been anything but a twin. I mean, I know enough people who aren’t to say that it’s a relationship that’s so strong that what Daisy and I have is . . .’ I felt the tears come to my eyes, flattening my throat so that words wouldn’t come and flaming in the back of my brain. ‘Sorry, sorry.’ I started sniffing, but that wasn’t enough, and the tears began to fall. I hunched myself forward and groped for a tissue, encountering nothing in my pocket but a sheaf of receipts, wondered about using my sleeve but, even in extremis, realising that blowing my nose on my own clothes in front of a desirable man was not the way to go.
‘Here.’
To my surprise Alex passed me a box of tissues from the desk. He didn’t look as appalled as I would have expected of a man who’s asked a simple question only to be met with a breakdown. I blew my nose resoundingly and rubbed at my eyes.
‘Winter?’ Scarlet was standing in the doorway. ‘What did you do, Alex?’ A very grown-up question.
‘It wasn’t Alex,’ I snuffled. ‘I just got a bit sad for a moment. I’m all right now though.’
‘Oh.’ She hovered for a moment, with Light Bulb swinging his head from side to side as she made a decision. ‘Well. You have to say sorry, Alex, if you upset Winter.’
‘I’m v-very sorry if I upset y-you,’ Alex said, solemnly, and I nearly laughed around my tissue.
‘Good.’ And now the drama was over, life was back to normal for the little girl. ‘I’m taking Light Bulb out for a canter. I put the books in my bedroom, we bought loads , and Winter got me some lipstick and a milkshake! Come on, Light Bulb, trot on, you’ve got so lazy today!’
‘J-just in the yard, Scarl,’ Alex called after her. She gave no sign of having heard but, when we peered through the doors, she was loping round and round the paved yard outside. ‘I really am s-sorry,’ he repeated, more quietly now. ‘What h-happened?’
I heaved another great sigh, as though the incoming air could rinse out some of the poison. No point in being coy about it. And if you ever do end up dating Alex, then he ought to know. ‘Dan. My editor. He and I were . . . well, a couple, of sorts. Not for very long, but . . .’ Long walks by the Thames, mooching through the chilly spring sunshine eating ice creams not much colder than the breeze. Laughing, always laughing, meals and wine. ‘And then the book came out and it was a success.’ Drinking champagne, the constant phone calls updating me on the sales figures, Dan chasing the publicity department to get me on TV, radio, interviews with the press. Still, the laughing. ‘And then something changed. Dan never really liked the fact that I spent so much time talking to Daisy. He was jealous, basically, of the time I gave her. I mean, I said , I explained, she was such a long way away, and I missed her, and I needed to talk to her to make up for her not being around. But he wanted . . . he said I shouldn’t rely on her so much . That I had him . . .’ I swiped the tissue over my face again. ‘And he made me choose.’ Dan, never more beautiful than he was that night, standing on the bridge, his hands against the rail, head bent so far forward that I thought he might jump into the river. ‘You need to make a decision, Win. If you stick with Daisy, then I have to go.’
And I chose.
‘She’s my twin . If I separate myself from Daisy I’d feel as though I was losing something . . . oh, I can’t describe it . . . something treasured. Something that has been a part of me for so long that it’s not even a part any more, it just is . Like my nose or something. So Dan went.’
Alex’s eyes were soft. ‘That’s r-rough.’
‘So. We still sort of work together, he okayed the new book so it’s his responsibility to get it out there, but after that . . .’ I shook my head, ‘I never have to have anything to do with him again.’
‘I shouldn’t h-have asked.’
‘No! No, I’m glad you did.’ Because now I don’t have to worry about slipping up and saying something, dropping his name. ‘It was all six months ago now, so, you know, old memories.’
‘Winter.’ Alex closed the gap between us and put his arms around me. He was tall, taller than Dan had been, broader and harder, the difference took my breath for a second. ‘I’m s-sorry.’ The words ruffled my hair, one hand rubbed up and down my back as though he was calming a child. The tears thought about making a resurgence but fell back as I took in the sheer glory of being held against Alex; those trousers were every bit as snuggly soft as they looked, his shirt was crisp, his skin, where it showed at the neck of the shirt, smelled of a sharp masculine fragrance and I could hear his heart beating underneath it all. A steady thump, which sped up whenever I moved, however slightly. Above everything, though, was the rising smell of coffee. ‘Oh, b-bugger.’
I laughed and took a step back. ‘Not recommended when you’re holding a mug, Alex.’ My cup had become part of the general hug and had tipped my drink down the front of his shirt.
‘I w-wondered what that was. I just th-thought you came armed.’ He held his arms out to the sides to free me to move back completely. ‘Th-that’s a sod.’ Then, before I could say anything, he pulled at the back of the collar and took the shirt off over his head, slithering out of it like a snake shedding its skin.
Well.
My eyes became paralysed by the sight of the red blotch on his torso where the hot coffee had gone through the shirt, but he seemed more concerned with the fabric itself. ‘I’d b-better put this in to s-soak.’
Oh, don’t hurry on my account.
It was clearly the chest of a man who works hard rather than a man who gyms hard. Rather than pecs that made his nipples look like a couple of dartboard bullseyes, he had a nicely normal shaped torso, just a little perter and less ribby than some, and without the attempt to escape sideways of others. A highlight of hair dusted broadly across the top, then got its act together into a narrow line which disappeared down into his waistband. I’d forgotten the tears. Hell, I’d practically forgotten my own name.
Dan, the first time I saw his body. Taking off his T-shirt almost apologetically. ‘I’m not exactly Chris Hemsworth, but I make up for it in . . .’ a wry comedy glance downwards. ‘No, actually I don’t make up for it at all.’ But so at ease with his athletic muscularity, so at home in his own skin that I never thought about a lack of biceps, only that it was Dan. That he was strong enough.
I shook my head free of the memory.
‘I n-need to get this in w-water.’ He held the shirt up to the light, causing some interesting muscles to come into play in his upper arms. ‘And I’d b-better check on Scarl.’
‘And I ought to get home.’ Am I really thinking of the cottage as home? I’m either going native or shrinking. I drained my mostly-depleted mug down to the sludge in the bottom. ‘I’ll catch you later, maybe?’
Alex nodded. ‘Th-thanks again. I’ll email you. It’s easier.’ And then he gave me a beaming smile that turned those serious grey eyes into hazard lights.
Outside Scarlet had disappeared, but had clearly not gone far because Light Bulb was tied to a drainpipe. I looked at his befuddled expression. ‘You and me both, mate, you and me both,’ I whispered, and headed back to the car.