Chapter 26
Chapter twenty-six
Claire
The pub quiz, Claire had recognized, could have been a disaster.
It hadn’t started out well, with Eleanor disapproving of the alcohol and Dan utterly silent, seemingly set to stoically endure the evening.
Lily and Lucy’s enthusiasm made up for a lot, but Claire could see, even before she left, that Rachel wasn’t having a good time.
Still, she was determined to make the evening a success, and Dan eventually answered a few questions, mainly in monosyllabic grunts, and when Eleanor took charge of writing down the answers, she got into the spirit of the thing.
They didn’t come close to winning; they only got nine out of twenty questions right.
Dan had gotten the sports questions, Eleanor had rocked geography, and Lily had managed the pop culture ones, but everything else had been a complete blank.
Claire hadn’t answered anything—and yet she’d had a good time.
As they left the pub, Dan offered to walk Eleanor home, and Claire went along while Lily headed up the street to her house.
“I’m perfectly capable of walking home alone,” Eleanor snapped.
Dan, implacable as ever, had replied quite seriously, “I’m being a gentleman.”
Eleanor had harrumphed at that, but Claire could tell she was quite pleased. Not, of course, that she’d ever show it.
They said goodbye to Eleanor and started walking back up to the shop, when Dan glanced at her and said, “Your house is in the other direction.”
“Oh.” In the darkness Claire couldn’t read the expression on Dan’s face, but she was glad it hid her blush. “Right.” What had she been thinking, that she’d go home with Dan for a quick nightcap? “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking straight. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Assuming you’re planning to come to work.”
“Of course I am.” She hesitated, reluctant to end the evening and face Four Gables alone.
Andrew had texted her to say he’d be coming home for the weekend, but she didn’t know when he’d arrive.
And even with Andrew for company, she’d rather have Dan.
Which didn’t really make sense, but there it was.
“Did you have a good time tonight?” she asked, and he shrugged one massive shoulder.
“It was all right.”
“I’m going to take that as an unreserved ‘hell, yes,’” Claire answered. “Considering how often you show enthusiasm.”
He cracked a small smile then, much to her relief. “You can think that if you want.”
“I will.” The moment stretched and spun out and started to turn into something else. Claire took a step closer to Dan, her heart trembling in her chest. She wanted him to do something. . . .
He gazed down at her, and for a thrilling second Claire thought he was going to kiss her. She was practically on her tiptoes, face tilted up in silent, yearning invitation.
Then he took a step back, towards the shop. Claire rocked back on her heels, her trembling heart going terribly still before it went into free fall.
“Good night, Claire,” Dan said, and disappeared down the alley to his flat.
Claire walked slowly back to Four Gables, battling the overwhelming sense of disappointment she felt. Nothing had been going to happen with Dan. The idea was ludicrous, just as she’d told Lucy. And yet for a moment, a glorious few seconds, she’d actually thought . . .
“Dream on,” Claire muttered, and kept walking.
The beach road was lost in darkness, and a few sheep bleated in agitated misery; Claire couldn’t see them in the dark, but she knew lambing had begun, and the mothers were calling to their young.
In a few months the white, woolly lambs gamboling through the muddy sheep fields would be taken away to be slaughtered; Peter had mentioned it at the quiz, and Claire had been as horrified as if he’d said he was killing Bambi.
The fizzy feeling of satisfaction she’d had at organizing the pub quiz outing had gone, leaving her feeling flat and a little bit depressed.
Why was she trying to be friends, or even something more, with Dan?
It wasn’t as if he’d given her much reason.
And if she was honest, not much about her life in Hartley-by-the-Sea was set to last. A part-time job in a shop?
A handful of sort of, now-and-then friends?
Living at home? Not exactly what you built your dreams on.
It hurt to admit, but just as Andrew had said, her life here was more of a holding pattern, a waiting time until something else came up. Until she made a decision about what she wanted to do in life. And she had no idea what that was.
A car slowed down on the beach road, and Claire turned to see her brother’s blue Lexus.
“Want a lift?”
“I didn’t know when you were coming back.” She got in the car, and Andrew drove on. Both of them were silent for the duration of the drive.
The next morning Andrew was up and showered when Claire came down at half past seven for work. “Are you going somewhere?” she asked as she got out a bowl for cereal.
“I’m helping Rachel. Her mother’s coming home today.”
“Oh.” Claire glanced at Andrew, surprised; he looked as composed as ever, wearing his usual uniform of chinos and a well-starched button-down shirt. “That’s nice of you.”
“I want to help.” He glanced up with a wry smile. “Not that Rachel wants me to.”
“She is prickly about stuff like that.”
“She’s afraid.”
“Afraid?” Rachel seemed like the most fearless person Claire knew.
She always had been, even when they were children.
A memory slotted into place: Rachel taking on Rob Telford in the school playground, when he’d pulled Claire’s plaits and ran away with the ribbons.
He’d mentioned it when she’d first seen him at the pub, but now Claire could see the scene in clarity: Rob’s boyish, taunting face as he held up her ribbon and Rachel’s righteous fury, hands planted on hips as she commanded him to give it back.
Claire had simply stood there, shocked into silence by the whole episode and then filled with gratitude and relief when Rachel had returned her ribbon.
“She’s afraid of trusting me,” Andrew said, bringing her back into the present. “Or anyone. She doesn’t want to depend on anyone, in case they let her down.”
“I suppose I can understand that, considering her father up and left her family.”
Andrew’s expression hardened. “Not everyone is like that.”
Claire glanced at him curiously. “Do you . . . ? Do you care about her, Andrew?”
“Maybe I do,” he said, and folded up his newspaper. “I should get ready to go. I’ll drop you off at the post office, if you like.”
Claire wasn’t looking forward to seeing Dan after their weird interaction last night.
What if he’d been able to tell that she’d wanted him to kiss her?
He probably had. He was probably secretly laughing at her, although Dan didn’t really seem the type.
More like secretly—or not so secretly—disgusted by her pathos.
She came into the shop warily; Dan was in the back, getting ready to open the post office.
The papers had already been delivered, and so Claire started stacking them on the shelves without a word.
Dan glanced over at her but didn’t say anything, and they both worked in silence until Eleanor Carwell came in for her paper and milk at a quarter to nine.
By lunchtime Claire was ready to quit. Her few forays into conversation with Dan had ended in grunts, until she wondered why she even bothered.
She’d offered to walk Bunny when the post office closed at noon, but Dan had said he’d do it and had left her alone in the shop for an hour, which was a relief after the tense silence she’d endured all morning.
By the time he returned with Bunny, she’d worked up enough courage—and irritation—to ask him what was going on.
“Nothing’s going on.” He put Bunny back in the kitchen and closed the door behind him, coming out a few minutes later while Claire stood there, bristling.
“You’re being so silent,” she said when he returned and started opening up the post office again.
He glanced at her, nonplussed. “You’re surprised?”
“I thought . . .”
“I was changing?” He filled in. “You were rehabilitating me? Sorry, no.”
“Rehabilitating—”
A farmer came in for a meat pie and a Lottery card and so Claire fell silent.
Dan had disappeared behind the post office’s Plexiglas partition and she was manning the till, so even after the farmer left, it wasn’t easy to have a conversation.
Not that she even knew what to say. She was the one who had supposedly needed rehabilitation, not Dan.
By four o’clock they’d had no more than a handful of words between them, and Claire chastised herself for feeling so disappointed, and worse, hurt. Maybe Dan was right and she had been trying to change him. She’d wanted him to talk more, anyway. She’d wanted him to like her.
“See you on Monday,” she said as she reached for her coat. It was mid-May, but the wind off the sea was still cold.
“Wait.”
Claire’s heart lurched ridiculously, and she turned around to see Dan handing her a check.
“Your week’s pay.”
“Right.” She took it without enthusiasm and stuffed it in her bag. “Have a good weekend, anyway,” she said, and Dan didn’t reply. What a surprise.
She was at the door when he spoke again. “Claire.” She stilled, one hand on the doorknob.
“Yes?”
“Have a good weekend.”
Her shoulders slumped, and she left the shop without replying.
She was on her way home when she decided to stop by and see Rachel.
Rachel opened the door when Claire knocked, looking distinctly hassled, a tearful Nathan balanced on her hip. “What—oh, Claire.”
“That’s a bit better than ‘oh, you,’” Claire answered with a smile. “How are things?”
“Hectic.” Rachel shifted Nathan to her other hip. “Do you need something? Because I’m kind of busy.”
“No.” Claire wondered if she looked like she needed something, or if Rachel had just assumed because she’d always been the needy one. “Actually, I wondered if you needed something. If I could help.”