Chapter Nine
From: [email protected]
Subject: Sorry. Again.
God, you wouldn’t believe how fed up I get with saying sorry — when the stammer cuts in, and there’s a whole row of faces waiting for me to say something, and then I try to apologise but I can’t even get the ‘sorry’ out without stammering. But, fed up as I may be, I still have to say it to you here. Winter, I am so sorry I made you cry. I’ve come to think of you as this rather tough girl, always alone, always so capable and just . . . there in every situation. I’ve got this little mental fantasy (nothing like that, obviously) of you being all sort of Catwoman. Only probably without the stunts, now I come to think of it. But seeing you cry . . . well, I’m really rather glad that the coffee got spilled because I had no idea what the next step was going to be. Crying made you softer, somehow, someone I wanted to hold (hope I didn’t freak you out when I hugged you!). I don’t deal so much with adults, you can probably tell. When Scarl falls over or something, one quick hug and she’s back up and running. I forget that sometimes adults have hurts that can’t be got over with a hug. I’m guessing yours comes into that category.
You should never have been made to choose. That’s all I’m going to say on the subject. I don’t know the circumstances after all. I’d have thought that your Dan would just have to find a way to work around things, to make sure you had time with your sister and with him — it shouldn’t be so hard really, should it? Unless there was other stuff in his head, maybe he’s just messed up.
Okay. Now that’s out of the way. A couple of things. Firstly, because I know you should always ask for favours upfront — is there any chance at all that you could pick Scarlet up from school on Monday? I’ve just had someone reschedule something and Mum, who usually picks up the slack, has got to go to Middlesbrough for an appointment. No pressure, absolutely, if you can’t then that’s fine and I can slip away for twenty minutes, or ask Lucy to bring her back after she’s finished, only it’s the bank, and I really don’t want to give them any chance at all to find me unfit to run a business. It’s tough enough convincing them that Scarlet doesn’t interfere with my ability to earn them pots of money anyway.
Oh. And do you fancy coming over for a meal on Monday night? I know popular convention says that I should take you out for dinner but babysitting being what it is, and Mum not being able to have Scarl overnight because she’s got to leave early in the afternoon for her appointment . . . I can cook, honestly.
Alex
From: [email protected]
Subject: It’s okay
You didn’t upset me. Really. I know I cried, but it’s mostly because I feel stupid. Stupid that I ever let Dan get close enough to even question my relationship with Daisy. There’s something about being a twin that’s impossible to describe. She’s my other half. She’s nicer than me, really, she’s kinder and softer and she cries all the time. I’ve even known Daisy to cry at football results. When we were little my parents had to tape shut the story of the Ugly Duckling because Daisy used to cry at the pictures every time. She’s more compassionate than me, more imaginative, more . . . everything. It’s as though when we were in the womb and all the attributes were being doled out, she got all the nice ones, all the artistic and sensitive ones, and I got the practical ones. It does mean that I can hold my own in a swearing contest, and drink seven pints of beer before I fall over, but that’s not always a good thing. She’s just better than me is what it comes down to. And I know I should feel jealous, I should be all narrow-eyes and hissy whenever her name is mentioned, but I love her. Not loving Daisy just isn’t an option, and that’s where Dan went wrong. You’re right, he should have just let things go on, let me have Daisy and fitted himself in around us both, but he couldn’t. Maybe he was messed up, or maybe he thinks Daisy is better than me, I don’t know.
Of course I’ll fetch Scarlet on Monday, don’t worry. Please send her in with a letter though, saying I’m coming, that Ms Charlton is a bit scary! And I would love to come to dinner. I trust Light Bulb won’t be eating with us?
Winter
From: [email protected]
Subject: Monday
Hey, Lu
Thought I’d better let you know, Winter is coming to pick Scarl up on Monday. Mum’s busy and I’ve got the bloke from the bank coming in. Oh, and before I forget, thanks for the chat. Glad to know she’s getting on better with those spellings! You can hang on to the books you borrowed, btw, no rush to get them back.
Al x
Alex Hill @AlexHillStone
Lovely woman coming to dinner, things are looking up!
Matt Simons @MattyS
Is this black-lipstick-woman?
Alex Hill @AlexHillStone
Ah, yes, turns out I was wrong about that. No black lippy, just v cute.
Matt Simons @MattyS
Aw, my boy’s all grown up now.
RETWEETED by @AlexHillStone
Alex Hill
I’ve rather rashly invited someone for dinner on Monday. I have no idea what to cook, any suggestions? Nothing with fish though — hate fish.
Matt Simons LIKES this.
Comments:
Matt Simons: Man, I am still laughing. Your heating-up skills are legendary, but your cooking? Not since we were at school.
Alex Hill LIKES this
Alex Hill: It’s never too late to learn though, is it?
Matt Simons: Think the Saturday night before the date might be a bit too late.
Alex Hill: Wish there was a bloody ‘dislike’ button.
Lucy Charlton: What about risotto? Here’s an easy one www.desperatecook/risotto
Alex Hill and 4 people Like this.
A.N. Editor Blog
Profile: Anonymous editor, blogging to keep sane in the crazy book world. Lives in London, male, thirty-two, not looking for pick ups or any more slush pile reading material, thanks, guys. Trying to believe that life is for living, YOLO, carpe diem, and all that crap.
BLOG POST
I’ve been on the move a lot lately. Getting some fresh ideas, fresh perspectives. After The Book was such an unexpected hit (none of us saw that coming; it was destined to be niche at best . . .) there’s been an influx of manuscripts on similar subjects, a lot of people trying to cash in. Some good, some bad. But I needed to get away for a while, from the office, from London. From the questions, everyone chasing the follow-up, chasing me, chasing her.
My personal life took a fall. Amazing woman, terrific writer, it’s like she sees the gaps in a story, she’s fascinated not just with people but with what makes them who they are and I reckon that’s why the book was such a success. She gets into those nooks and crannies of personality and jemmies them open so that anyone could see what makes people tick. Now she’s on with another and I should be involved. But I ruined it.
Should have handled it differently. Should have been . . . what, more sensitive? If I were any more sensitive I’d be talking to the other bloody side, and sometimes, you know, sensitivity isn’t enough. Sometimes there has to come a bottom line. I gave her mine. And she stood there on that bridge that night, all brown eyes burning through me and hair in the wind like Medusa and her crazy snakes and she blew me out. Just ended everything I thought we were working towards.
I offered to help her, offered everything I had to make it better but, in the end, she chose the life she’d already made. A narrow, broken path that’s never going to get anywhere, just going to pull her deeper and deeper into something dark.
I wish it hadn’t gone that way.
‘Win?’
‘Hey, Daze. You just read Dan’s blog?’
‘You were right.’ Daisy sounded upset. ‘He’s completely rewritten his version of history, hasn’t he? Bastard.’
My sister rarely got upset, at least, not like this. She was, for all her artistic temperament and flair and really weird clothes, much more equable than me. If anything was going to get thrown during an argument, it was always me doing the hurling and her ducking.
‘He’s putting it all down to me. I notice there’s no mention made of the ultimatum. He’s making it sound as though I’m something to be pitied , and for what? Not ending up with him?’ I was finding the anger useful, it pushed all the other feelings away.
‘We’ve got each other though, Win. He tried, but he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t keep us apart, so we won in the end.’ Daisy was calmer now. ‘We just have to remember that.’
‘And forget about him? You agree with me now, that I keep as far away from Dan Bekener as I can? I’m relieved about that, I thought you were going to nag me to ring him or something.’ The unknotting of my muscles told me how relieved I really was. There had been that tiny hint of dissention between my sister and I lately, whenever we’d spoken there’d been that little breath of blame in everything she’d said. As if my talking to Dan would have resolved something. ‘Daze, he wanted you out of my life! No amount of talking was going to change that, you know what he’s like.’
‘Single-minded. Determined.’
‘Yes.’
‘Sexy as all get out?’ She sounded as though she was smiling now.
‘There was that too, of course.’ I smiled back. ‘But being more attractive than a softly-melting bar of Galaxy on a no-carbs day doesn’t mean he’s not as mad as a badger, does it?’
Now she laughed. ‘Why are you always so totes logical?’
‘Because I’m the oldest, and don’t you forget it.’
That’s better. When Daisy had gone, I could properly appreciate the lifting of my spirits, the extra bit of brightness in the day. You can’t fall out with Daisy, not over this. We need each other, that’s what Dan doesn’t get. He thought it would be a simple thing — you never speak to your sister again and that would be it. Boom. Plain sailing. But he never got the ‘twin’ thing, the fact that we spent nine months together, jostling for space in the womb, two people who came from one conception, one act, how could we ever be separate? Even when she’s far away and you’re here, we’re still feeling one another in some stupid, semi-mystical way, and that, Mr Bekener, is forever. When you and your fancy drainpipe jeans and your hard-man boots and your chaos-symbol tattoo have vanished into nothingness, we will still be together, Daisy and me.
So shove that up your red-pen comments and your track changes.
* * *
On Monday I found myself struggling to write, with one eye on the clock. I could feel the ideas, almost taste them; they were there, hanging in the air in front of me. But whenever I tried to pull them into existence with my keyboard they seemed to vanish, puffing into the air as though they’d always been ghosts. As though I was trying to make the unreal real and just couldn’t do it, just couldn’t do justice to the beauty and the shape of them, like trying to nail clouds onto paper using only the power of the apostrophe.
Eventually, at three, I packed up. I could no longer ignore the itchy feeling telling me that I’d only got another thirty minutes, even though the distance between the churchyard, where I was working, and the school could have been covered in infinitely less time, by someone with only half the number of limbs I possessed. Is this how Alex feels all the time? Is this what it’s like to be a parent, this constant rule of the clock?
I wandered up to the school alongside a drift of mothers, some pushing buggies, some walking in little knots and clusters. Almost every single one looked me over and dismissed me, which gave me a momentary desire to snarl, until I realised that I was wearing jogging bottoms with my recently-purchased anorak over the top, and looked less like a massively successful author than the kind of unfortunate who shouts at cars. Maybe you should have got dressed properly? These other women all have full make-up on, fading summer tans and designer flip-flops, you look as though you just got off The Jeremy Kyle Show .
I hung back to let the School Gate Massive have the space they clearly wanted. Lurked around in the newsagents for a while, bought a packet of little toffee chews for Scarlet and read Your Dog magazine until I heard the raised voices from the direction of the school, and then wandered down.
This time Scarlet was standing inside the building with a man. He had ‘Head Teacher’ written all over him, from the thinning hair to the ever-so-slightly askew tie. They were waiting for the playground to clear, and as soon as the final drifts of children had been swept up by parents, or run off together towards the park, he approached the doors. But before he had a chance to usher Scarlet out, Lucy Charlton appeared in her floppy smock and I could see their lips moving behind the glass as they launched into a conversation. They had the unnaturally cheery expressions that told me they were talking about Scarlet without wanting her to know. She was gripping Light Bulb by his stick so hard that his floppy corduroy ears were almost rigid, whilst in her other hand a vivid green nylon book-bag trailed to the floor, and she was scuffing her toes along the corridor lino in a ‘bored and wanting to go home’ way.
The Head eventually made the sort of face that goes along with the words ‘if you must’ and surrendered Scarlet, shuffling off into some inner reach of offices, and Lucy opened the door to launch Scarlet out into the world, floppy-headed hobby horse first.
‘Winter!’ Scarlet was clearly relieved to see me. There was a red streak across her face, cheekbone to cheekbone and one grubby sock was flapping as though the elastic had given up the ghost. ‘Can we get an ice cream again?’ She seemed cheerful enough, if a little less keen to gallop off down the road than usual.
‘Miss Gregory?’ Lucy hooked a couple of strands of her blondish hair behind an ear. ‘Could I have a quick word, please?’
I looked from her to Scarlet. ‘But I’m not . . . I mean, I’m only picking her up as a favour.’
Scarlet cantered a small circle around a painted shape on the playground, concentrating furiously. I knew this meant she was probably listening as hard as she could to our conversation, although her expressionless face, between the bobbing, oddly lumpy plaits, gave nothing away. Lucy clearly thought the same. ‘Just . . . in here.’ She indicated the lobby inside the doors. ‘Scarlet, stay this side of the gates, please.’
The little girl threw us a look, and pirouetted in her own length. ‘Okay.’ She had affected disinterest, but I foresaw some probing questioning in my immediate future and was glad I’d bought the toffees.
‘I just wanted to ask you something.’ Lucy tucked more hair behind her ears. It was wispy and too fine to stay tucked anywhere, I noted. Along with the pointed little chin and big blue eyes it made her look a bit like a slightly simple Siamese cat.
‘You need to talk to Alex,’ I said, hastily.
She blinked, and both hands dived into the muff-like front pocket of the smock. ‘I’m sorry? Has he . . . ?’
‘I mean, I can’t really tell you anything about Scarlet. I’m only picking her up from school as a favour.’
Blink blink. ‘Oh, I see.’ More hair tucking. I wondered what was making her so nervous. ‘No, it’s more that I just wondered . . . Alex has invited you to dinner?’
Oh. Oh .
I looked out of the window so as not to read her expression. I really didn’t want to see anything combative in her eyes, not when I didn’t have the faintest idea how I even thought about Alex yet. ‘Just to say thanks for looking after Scarlet.’ I tried to make myself sound neutral, uninvolved. ‘We’re just friends.’
A moment, then an embarrassed throat-clearing made me look at her again. ‘So are we.’ She was holding out a piece of paper. ‘It’s a recipe. He was on Facebook, not knowing what to cook, I thought he might like to try this.’ And now her gaze was steady, still big, blue eyes but now holding something else. ‘I’m very fond of Alex.’ Not a challenge, not yet, but a warning. ‘And Scarlet.’
And I like the way he looks. I like the fact that he’s approachable and pleasant and, let’s face it, I haven’t spoken to many men in the last six months, let alone good-looking ones, so I can’t make you any promises, Lucy.
I took the folded paper from her hand. ‘He’s a nice bloke.’ I let my voice hold no more expression than hers, but an equal lack of challenge. I wondered whether Alex knew that Lucy wanted him; I knew she spent time around at the Old Mill, surely even Alex must have picked up on the fact that women don’t just ‘drop in’ on men unless they fancy them? Or maybe Great Leys was the world centre for platonic relationships and it was me getting the wrong end of the stick. ‘I’ll give him the recipe when I drop Scarlet off.’
Lucy smiled and there was a touch more warmth about her face now. ‘Thank you.’ She turned to open the door to the outside. ‘Is Alex coming to pick her up tomorrow?’
I shrugged, but the anorak absorbed the movement, so I said, ‘I would think so.’
‘That’s good.’ She turned to walk back inside, speaking to me over her shoulder as she went. ‘Perhaps you’d tell him that Dad . . . that Mr Moore would like to have a word with him? About Scarlet?’
Well, I didn’t think you were going to be correcting his spellings and giving him a maths test. ‘Is she all right?’
We watched her bouncing along, performing some complicated dressage move on the playground, staring solemnly between Light Bulb’s ears as her legs danced along another painted line. ‘She . . . there are some issues. I’ve already mentioned it to Alex, but Mr Moore wants a proper meeting up here at school.’
I walked on to catch up with Scarlet, and held out the bag of toffees. ‘Here. I thought it might be a bit chilly for ice cream. Sorry about having to chat to Lucy.’
‘’S okay.’ Bounce, bounce. ‘She wants to snog Alex.’
‘Does she?’
‘Mmm. She and Alex used to go out together. Lucy was Mummy’s friend.’
I had a moment of creeping prurient interest that told me I was likely going native and was only a London childhood away from taking up sheep-dip as a hobby. So, Lucy and Alex had a past, did they? But then again, they were similar ages, neither was a gargoyle, why was I surprised? I felt the edges of crumpled paper in my pocket, the recipe Lucy had given me, to ensure Alex’s dinner with me went off well; she was either a very generous lady or, despite Scarlet’s beliefs, had no interest in Alex any more.
I changed the subject. ‘What happened to your face?’
‘Nothing. Let’s go home.’
‘Scarlet, I . . .’
But she seized the toffees and wheeled suddenly away. ‘Light Bulb! Oh, he’s taken a hold I can’t stop him, Winter, he’s too strong,’ and she hurtled off along the pavement, leaving me to shuffle in pursuit all the way back to the Old Mill. When I arrived, Light Bulb was face down on the small patch of grass along one side. Through the glass doors I could see Alex inside, talking to a man in a much better suit than the head teacher’s, earnestly indicating a piece of paper and making marks on it with a biro. The door was ajar, as though Scarlet had hurled through and gone upstairs. Alex was clearly in full spate with the man from the bank, so, pushing Lucy’s recipe down into the depths of my anorak pocket, I turned back through the archway and headed back to the cottage.
* * *
‘She’s being bullied, Daze, I’m positive. Remember when you used to get picked on at school?’
Daisy giggled. ‘Only until we swapped places that first time. They didn’t know what hit them.’
‘I told you you should have fought back. They never gave you any trouble after that, did they?’ I sipped at my tea and leaned back into the chair. They’d never be comfortable, it was like sitting on a skeleton’s lap.
‘No, but I had detention every playtime for half a term. There’s nothing you can do, Win. I know you like her and you’re drooling after him, but—’
‘Hey, who’s drooling? No drooling. Absolutely none. He’s a bit tasty, that’s all. And he’s invited me to dinner tonight.’
A pause. ‘Are you taking your toothbrush?’
I stopped to consider. Did I want to sleep with Alex? That well-muscled body promised a good time but . . . but what? He’s sexy, he’s tactile, more importantly he’s available, and we all know how rare nice, straight, good-looking men are once you’re over the age of twenty-five, so why is there any hint of a but? ‘It’s a bit soon. We’ve not known each other that long yet.’
Daisy snorted. ‘Remember, when you were nineteen, that bloke on the train? And Johan, on the Uni exchange programme, didn’t you sleep with him within about ten minutes of meeting him?’
‘Well, yes, but . . .’
‘You’re still comparing every man to Dan, aren’t you?’
‘Daisy, you need to stop bringing Dan into every conversation that we have. I am so over him, if I was any more over him I’d be in orbit, all right? Please, can we stop mentioning him, or even thinking about him, yes?’
Daisy made a rude noise, and was gone. I went back to trying to put into words the sudden, and rather ignominious, end of a chap buried in one of the churchyards up on the moors who’d been killed by a herd of sheep. Despite his family’s clearly not having much money, he had a dramatic stone, so italicised and decorated that the details were hard to read, and topped, rather thoughtlessly I thought, by a ram’s head.
Daniel Bekener @EditorDanB
@WinterGAuthor Please just let me know that you’re okay.
WinterGregory @WinterGAuthor
@EditorDanB I’m working.
Daniel Bekener @EditorDanB
@WinterGAuthor That’s fine. It’s good, I’m glad.
I waited, but nothing else was forthcoming. All right, so maybe he was just checking on his investment, I’d had quite an advance for this book and a deadline of Christmas, any failure to hit it was going to make Dan look daft in front of the entire publishing community. Particularly when he’d taken such a huge gamble on me when I’d submitted Book of the Dead , which I knew was fun and different and everything but I’d never foreseen it being a huge hit. I’d written it when I’d come into some money, Mum and Dad’s split and divorce and subsequent relocation to different continents having released some family cash and I’d got sick of my research job. The idea for Book of the Dead had come to me when I’d been standing in a graveyard, wondering about some of the people buried there and . . . well, that was pretty much it.
And Dan had seen it too. Cajoled and persuaded the publishing company he worked for to make an offer and the rest was publishing history. And now we both had the pressure on us, follow that up with something equally spectacular or go down as the one hit wonder a lot of the critics supposed me to be, and the unpredictable, unconventional risk taker everyone said Dan was. But it hadn’t mattered when we were together. We’d just giggled at the thought of being a flash in the pan. Book of the Dead had made money for me, for the company, and I wasn’t sure I really wanted to write another one. But Dan came from a family where no one ever stopped. His father had dropped dead at his printing works, his mother still worked with special needs children, all his siblings had stepped into employment straight from school or university and none of them had ever, as far as I could tell, even taken a day off hungover in their lives. The government could have used them on posters. So, he’d talked me into writing another book, then another, and we’d keep going until . . .
Until I couldn’t do it any more. Shit.
I changed out of my writing clothes and into a respectable blue shift dress and heels. It felt strange not having trousers on. The sturdy breeze which swept down from the moors and scoured through the little town curled around my bare ankles like the ghosts of a thousand affectionate cats. I’d pinned my hair up, but London hairdos were not equal to Yorkshire wind and by the time I got to the Old Mill I had the feeling that I looked a bit pre-rumpled. Not that I was expecting Alex to rumple me, but I did look as though I might have had a tuppenny tumble in the bus shelter on my way over, which wasn’t quite the sophisticated look I was going for.
‘Hello, W-Winter.’ Alex met me at the door. The lights inside were turned down so that the whole building seemed to glow softly, the seasoned timber almost shone. ‘You l-look l-lovely.’
‘Well, since all the local females seem to wear designer stuff just to get their kids from school, I thought I’d better make an effort. Besides, turning up in an anorak and jeans would have been ungrateful.’ I slipped out of my London coat, beautifully shaped and fitted but with only two front buttons, which had let the wind in and flapped like a turbine all the way here.
‘They’re all v-very nice w-women really,’ he said, turning to lead the way through to the stairs up to the flat.
Yeah, if you’re a sexy single bloke with a come-to-bed physique and eyes like snowclouds. ‘Was Scarlet all right when she got home?’
Alex laid a finger to his lips and inclined his head, indicating, I thought, that Scarlet was probably sitting in her bedroom listening for any mention of her name. ‘I’ve m-made risotto,’ he said. ‘Or m-more precisely, the s-supermarket m-made it and I heated it u-up.’
‘Ah. Thought you said you could cook?’
Another one of his blinding smiles. ‘I was wr-wrong. Turns out it’s h-harder than it l-looks.’
‘What the hell do you and Scarlet eat, then?’ I handed my coat to Alex, who draped it carefully over the back of a chair. A proper, upholstered chair; the desire to ruin the spines of the nation was clearly his mother’s and didn’t run in the family. ‘Cereal and buns?’
‘Eight-y-year-old girls l-like b-breadcrumbs, b-batter and b-brown, anything else is d-disgusting, apparently. If it isn’t ed-edible as a result of twenty m-minutes at 180, then f-forget it.’
There was gentle overhead lighting in here too. The plain wooden flooring reflected the overhead bulbs but everything was dimmed and subtle — he probably wanted to disguise the dust and the sheer number of pony books. Up at the kitchen end of the room I could see a table, laid for two, thankfully no candles though. I wasn’t quite sure I was ready for that yet.
Alex peered, rather unnervingly, in through the oven door. ‘P-probably done, come and sit down.’
I sat, taking in my surroundings more fully as I did so. The flat was beautiful, underneath the trappings of ‘small girl’; lots of bare, plain wood, lowlighters and uplighters and top of the range fitted kitchen. A good, workmanlike room softened with planks with the bark left on, the pale yellow gleam of ash contrasting with dark oak, all very easy on the eye. As, indeed, was Alex himself, wearing those brushed cotton trousers and a pale shirt with just a trace of pattern along the weave. His eyes, when they turned my way, looked dark in this half-light.
‘This place is lovely,’ I said. ‘Did you design it yourself?’
‘Yes. W-well, Ell and I d-did it t-together. But b-before Scarlet. It’s n-not the best place for a ch-child.’ He turned back to dish out the food. ‘If I’d known what w-was going to happen, I’d have b-built a bungalow.’
‘She seems happy here.’
He made a sort of sideways shrug. ‘Would you like w-wine? I’m afraid I d-don’t drink when I h-have Scarl, but d-don’t let that stop you.’
‘I’d love a glass, thanks.’
Walking carefully, as though carrying a plate of hot food was an alien experience, Alex came over and placed the risotto in front of me, and followed it with a large glass of white wine. ‘I d-daren’t drink, y’see,’ he said, sitting down opposite me. ‘In c-case Scarl gets up in the n-night.’
I raised my eyebrows a bit. I remembered both my parents getting decidedly tipsy on several occasions — oh, nothing dramatic, no tales of drunken beatings or coming home from school to find them unconscious on the sofa, just the memory of Christmas sing-songs and anniversary parties, of Daisy and I laughing ourselves silly at Mum’s off-key rendition of Hark the Herald Angels Sing , with alternative, rude, words provided by Dad. But then, there had been two of them.
‘That’s a shame.’ I sipped the wine. It was pleasant, rather than delicious. The risotto sat in front of me, heaped on the plate like a pile of soggily-hatching maggots. ‘And this looks nice.’
‘It l-looks like it should h-have “could do b-better” on a little s-sticker. Sorry, W-Winter, I should have g-got caterers in or something.’
‘Don’t be daft.’ I forked up a couple of mouthfuls. What it lacked in the Masterchef presentation stakes, it made up for in flavour. ‘No, it really is nice.’
Alex smiled that thousand-watt smile again. It made the little creases in the corners of his eyes pucker and spread the grin even further, as though his whole face smiled, not just the mouth and eyes. ‘G-good. I—’
‘Hello, Winter.’
We both jumped. I’d been far too intent on those grey eyes to hear Scarlet appearing in the corner of the room.
‘G-go back to b-bed.’ Alex dropped the smile. His shoulders dipped a bit and a resigned expression crept in, forcing a careworn expression onto his face. ‘P-please, Scarl.’
Scarlet stood in the doorway. She was wearing an all-in-one sleepsuit with, predictably, a pony pattern all over it, and her thumb was hovering around mouth-level, as though she wasn’t sure of her reception. ‘I just wanted to say hello to Winter.’
‘Hello, Scarlet,’ I said. Her eyes went from me to Alex and then to the risotto, then back to Alex again.
‘Is that the rice stuff? Can I try it?’
Alex gave me the kind of shrug that must be performed by condemned men when the hangman asks them if they’d rather have a reef knot or a rolling hitch. The shrug of a man so reconciled to his fate that nothing really matters any more. ‘J-just one m-mouthful. Then b-bed.’
Scarlet ran over, took a forkful from her uncle’s plate, made a face, and then dashed back to the door. ‘It’s ’sgustin,’ she said, assuredly. ‘Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight,’ we chorused, and then sat in silence until we heard the very quiet sound of a bedroom door being closed.
Alex gave a deep sigh. It sounded as though he’d been holding his breath since Scarlet appeared. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Why?’ I went back to the risotto. Given the size and age of the oven in the Tiny House, I’d resisted cooking any real food since my arrival, and had been surviving mostly on soup and coffee, with the odd bar of chocolate thrown in for energy reasons. The risotto was making my stomach complain about this, vociferously. ‘It’s not as though I didn’t know she was here, is it?’
He shook his head and stared down into the depths of the risotto as though he was trying to foretell the future though rice-based products. ‘No. B-but . . . it’s hard to be a g-grown up and do adult things when S-Scarl could come b-bursting in at any minute.’
I gave him a hard stare and waved my fork. ‘I’ve only come for dinner, Alex.’
A slow smile now, not the high-voltage one but something softer. ‘True. But d-do you see what I m-mean? How hard it is to m-meet anyone and then take things any f-further?’
‘I think a hundred thousand single mothers would probably agree with you there.’ I drank some more wine and eventually he dropped his eyes back to his own plate.
‘You’re r-right. It’s not just me. It’s only sometimes it f-feels that way.’
I suddenly remembered Lucy’s face, those blue eyes trying to weigh my intentions. ‘Lucy gave me a recipe to give you, but I think it might be a bit late now.’
‘Oh?’ He didn’t look up, just kept eating. ‘Th-that was k-kind.’ A grin. ‘I p-probably shouldn’t h-have p-posted on F-F-Facebook that I w-was having you ov-over.’
‘You and Lucy?’ I asked, carefully.
A sideways inclination of the head. ‘On-once. But l-like I s-said, Scarl m-makes it h-hard to b-be n-normal. Ev-everything has to r-revolve around h-her.’ And then, with a shrug that said more than the words, ‘They c-could still t-take her away f-from me. I-if I don’t c-come up to s-scratch.’
We cleared our plates, chatting quietly. I didn’t know about Alex, but I was very, very conscious that at any time Scarlet could come sliding back through, and it put a bit of a crimp in my conversation. Oh, I wasn’t about to ask what he thought of frottage or whether he considered handcuffs an interesting addition to a bedroom repertoire, but I did have to stop and think before I swore or mentioned anything that an eight-year-old girl shouldn’t overhear, even accidentally.
Alex’s attention was very flattering, I had to admit. He was very pleasant to look at, this nicely abstract lighting making the contrast between his hair and skin and eyes look multi-toned and artistic. He didn’t stammer nearly as much now, and we talked softly over things like hobbies and what had been in the news recently — nothing controversial or too involved, just pleasant dinner-table chat while we ate and I drank and, at last, the plates were empty and it was approaching that time when a peck on the cheek could accelerate into a pleasant waste of time for a few hours.
‘This has been lovely. Thanks for inviting me over.’ I pushed my chair away from the table. ‘Now I really ought to weave my way home.’
Both of us had an eye on the door through which Scarlet had come earlier. Although I was almost positive that she’d gone back to her room, for all I knew she made a habit of crouching down in the hallway and bursting into the room suddenly at this time every night. Alex was almost as twitchy. ‘Thank you for c-coming. And for everything y-you’ve done for Scarl.’
You could kiss him. Just lean over across the table and give him a nice, friendly cheek kiss. He’s sexy, he’s cute, he’s . . .
What is he? Why are you hesitating? A couple of years ago you would have had him over the back of that sofa pleading for mercy by now, with a chair against the door to hold back young girls and another bottle of wine in the fridge for afterwards. Okay, you don’t have to do that, but you could give him some signal that you’re interested, couldn’t you?
I picked up my coat from the back of the chair but Alex took it from me and held it so that I could put it on. Maybe that’s why you don’t want to make any sudden moves. He’s a gentleman. As I slid my arms down the sleeves, I suddenly noticed Light Bulb, tucked into a corner behind the sofa. ‘Not in his stable?’ I nodded towards the hobby horse.
Alex settled the coat across my shoulders. ‘He was too w-warm. He’s cooling down out h-here and I’ll put him away l-later.’
I gave a little laugh. ‘You’re as bonkers as Scarlet.’
‘Maybe.’
Light Bulb had a slightly lopsided look about him tonight, his head seemed to be slightly askew on his stick, and I suddenly remembered Scarlet, with a mark across her face like a smack, and Lucy’s words. ‘Lucy said the school wanted to talk to you tomorrow about Scarlet. I think she might be being bullied, you know.’
He froze. Moved away from me, his hands falling to his sides as though weighted. ‘J-j—’ he started, blinking rapidly, his face almost bending in his effort to get the words out. ‘J-j . . .’ A sudden, vicious shake of his head and his fisted hands beat against his legs. ‘J-just don’t worry about it, Winter.’ The words came in a rush.
‘But she—’
He hustled me to the door, moving me with his body, so I either left the flat or he climbed up me. ‘Goodnight, W-Winter,’ he said, and closed the door, leaving me standing at the top of the coiled staircase from the big hallway like Ginger Rogers with stage fright.
‘Goodnight,’ I said to the door, for manners’ sake, then went down and outside into the newly chilly air.