Chapter 15
He wasn’t kidding. We really did buy pyjamas. Rory insisted upon it. In fact, even though we were only in Rowan Vale for another three nights, he insisted that we buy three pairs each.
And not even funny ones either. He said they had to be something that would look sensible and acceptable, even if we were wearing them in front of total strangers.
‘Why would we be wearing pyjamas in front of strangers?’ I asked, confused.
‘Supposing there was a fire alarm at the inn tonight?’ he said. ‘Supposing we all had to wait outside in the car park. Can you imagine the embarrassment of mingling with strangers wearing pyjamas that said that on the front?’
He nodded in disgust at the pyjamas I’d found that bore the legend I’m still hot. It just comes in flashes now.
I giggled and held up a pair of pyjama bottoms that had huge elephant ears at the sides, a pair of googly eyes on the front, and a trunk where you’d pretty much expect a trunk to be on a pair of men’s pyjamas.
‘This isn’t funny, Kirsty,’ he snapped. ‘I’m not standing in a pub car park wearing those!’
‘All right, all right. It was just a joke.’ I held a nightshirt against me which had the slogan, Don’t even think about it. I raised an eyebrow. ‘More appropriate?’
‘How about this?’ he suggested, handing me a pair of pyjamas that my granny might have considered wearing, but only if she’d lost the will to live and every ounce of good taste she’d ever possessed.
I glared at him. ‘Are you serious? I wouldn’t be seen dead in those!’
Rory took a deep breath. ‘At least you’d be covered up. And warm. And comfortable. Who knows how long you might have to wear them for?’
‘Huh?’
‘In the pub car park,’ he said hastily. ‘These fire alarms are such a nuisance, and the head count can take forever, and then there’s the safety checks to make sure there’s no fire and that it’s safe to go back inside.
And that’s assuming there isn’t a fire. What if there is?
We could be out there for hours. We might have to seek refuge elsewhere, and sleep in a communal dormitory with dozens of other people.
Imagine if one of them was wearing those elephant pyjamas. Who’d look stupid then?’
‘You’re quite right,’ I said. ‘I can’t imagine why I didn’t think of it before.
Three floor-length winceyette nightdresses it is, and perhaps I should buy a bedjacket to go with them.
Perhaps you’d like me to wear a nightcap in bed, too?
Ooh, and socks of course. We wouldn’t want total strangers to see our feet, would we? ’
‘You’d be wearing slippers,’ he muttered crossly, then his eyes widened. ‘Oh! You wouldn’t be! Not if you were in bed. Perhaps bed socks are the best idea now I come to think about it. Yes, we’ll add a couple of pairs each to the basket.’
‘This is ridiculous,’ I said. ‘I don’t even want any pyjamas. What’s all this about, really?’
I couldn’t help wondering if he’d had some terrible dream about a fire or something. Maybe it was how his anxieties over our marriage were manifesting themselves.
When he didn’t reply I decided to humour him. ‘Okay. How about these?’ I suggested, picking up a pair of perfectly decent, if a little dull, blue pyjamas, with a plain top and checked trousers. ‘And these?’ A similar pair with plain pink top and spotted trousers.
Rory seemed to calm down a bit. ‘They’ll do perfectly well,’ he said. ‘And I think these would be appropriate for me.’
He’d found some men’s pyjamas with a long-sleeved grey top and grey and black tartan bottoms.
‘Three pairs I think,’ he said, checking the sizes and adding them to the basket. ‘Now we’ll just get the bed socks and we’re done here.’
I decided to humour him, even though hell would freeze over before I’d wear socks in bed.
It was all right for him, but the hot flashes pyjamas weren’t really a joke.
I was nearly forty-five and the menopause could be upon me at any moment.
When that happened, the last thing I’d need would be to be bundled up in pyjamas and thick socks.
He’d be lucky if I even kept the duvet on the bed.
And if he thought I was going to let him come to bed in socks he could think again.
When we’d finally paid for our pointless goods and left the shop, we headed to a cafe where we had a quick lunch of sandwiches and cake, before making our way back to the station to catch the train to Harling’s Halt.
‘Have you had a nice time?’ Rory enquired politely.
‘Lovely,’ I replied, equally politely. It hadn’t been a total waste of time.
I’d managed to buy a special edition of a book I’d wanted for ages, with sprayed edges and a shiny jacket complete with gold foil lettering, so that was an unexpected treat.
And the sandwiches and cake had been tasty enough.
And I couldn’t deny that it had been fun to travel on a steam train.
I was quite looking forward to repeating that.
Even so, everything felt off somehow. Rory was behaving very strangely, and as the bus arrived back in the village and we neared the church, he glanced at his watch and said worriedly, ‘It’s twenty past two! Can you take these back to our room and I’ll see you later.’
‘You’re not getting off?’ I asked, as he thrust the bags into my lap.
‘Going straight on to Chipping Royston,’ he reminded me. ‘Tickets. Car museum. Remember?’
‘Does this bus go to Chipping Royston?’ I asked doubtfully, getting to my feet and juggling the bags.
‘Yep. Already checked. So I’ll see you later back at the inn, yeah?’
‘Okay.’
He didn’t make any attempt to stand up to kiss me, or even say goodbye, so I headed down to the front of the bus where the conductor – not the conductress this time, thank goodness – bid me a cheery farewell as I stepped down onto the pavement.
I watched the bus drive away, but Rory didn’t even look in my direction, so I scowled and set off for The Quicken Tree Inn, carrying bags of pyjamas and bed socks and wondering what the hell was going on.
And to think, I’d thought I’d be the one to snap and lose the plot!
Back at the inn I dumped the shopping bags in our room, took off my coat and shoes and sat down, wondering what to do with myself for the rest of the afternoon. There was that new book I’d just bought. I supposed I could read that.
I thought about Rory, off looking at old motor cars and vans and probably having a whale of a time without me, and I felt a flicker of annoyance.
He’d been the one to bring me here. He’d been the one who’d insisted we needed to work on our marriage.
He’d been the one to inflict that awful nightwear on me.
I gave the pyjamas and bed socks a look of disgust, which quickly gave way to despair.
That Rory, of all people, would happily see me wearing that sort of get-up for bed!
And was he really going to wear those grey pyjamas and socks every night?
It didn’t bear thinking about. If he wanted our marriage to survive, he was going the wrong way about it.
I picked up the book and flicked through the first few pages but couldn’t get into it. I read the blurb. I gazed at the quotes and praise from other authors on the outside of the back cover and the author bio on the inside. I skimmed the first few pages.
I put the book down.
It was hopeless. My mind was racing and I couldn’t settle. I just didn’t understand what was going on. I’d have thought Rory would have jumped at the chance to visit the spot where Danny died so we could both pay our respects and find some sort of closure.
Not that I really believed it would work for me.
I knew that I’d just be going through the motions really, because laying flowers and saying goodbye wasn’t going to solve the problem of my guilty conscience.
Even so, I’d been willing to try because I loved Rory, and I wanted – and really hoped – it would work. That it would be enough.
Maybe Rory doubted that it would work, too, deep down. Maybe that was why he’d seemed so reluctant to carry out the little ritual.
But if we weren’t going to do that, what were we going to do? How did he expect me to heal here if we were going to spend our time shopping for hideous nightwear and admiring vintage motor vehicles?
I couldn’t stay in here all afternoon dwelling on my two marriages and what a failure I’d been in both of them.
I wriggled back into my shoes and coat, grabbed my handbag and headed out of the inn, not even sure where I was going. I remembered I had the leaflets in my bag so as I walked, I scanned a couple of them.
Rowan Vale really was chocolate-box pretty, with its honey stone cottages and the banks of the river lined with daffodils that danced in the breeze.
They wouldn’t be there much longer. They were already looking a bit past their best. Soon it would be May, and the landscape would change once again.
Blossom would burst into life on the trees, and many of the fields would turn golden with oilseed rape.
The seasons came and went, the years turned, and nothing remained constant.
Except the dull, aching feelings of regret and guilt that lived inside me.
‘Enough, Kirsty,’ I muttered to myself. ‘Just focus on the here and now for once.’
The Victorian Street was just across the water, and that looked quite interesting.
A sweet shop, a chemist’s, a photography studio, a grocer’s, a butcher’s and a curiosity shop, as well as a house decorated and furnished in Victorian style lay at the head of the village green.
Apparently, the stone structure that I could see from here was the old well.
I continued scanning the leaflet and smiled.
A Swinging Sixties street! That looked like fun. A toy shop, a fish and chip shop, a newsagent’s, a hair salon, a record shop, a boutique, and a cottage decorated as it would have been in the sixties. Now, that sounded more like it!