Chapter 17
The path seems longer on the way back, maybe because the light is fading, or we’re walking more slowly.
Neither of us seems eager for this time alone to end.
Our hands are still linked. I can still feel the ghost of his lips against my skin, almost as strongly as I feel the disappointment that while I opened up to the waterfall, he made a joke about laundry.
He can feel it too. The atmosphere between us is uneasy, and he keeps taking a breath like he’s about to speak but then stopping before he actually does. At first, I don’t intend to push him, but I’ve become someone who needs directness, and I can’t stop myself.
‘There is no boss, is there?’ I blurt out.
‘What? How’d you get to that completely random and utterly wrong conclusion?’ He glances at me with an indignant expression that looks so well-practised, I know I’m on the right track.
‘Oh, come on, Reece.’ I yank my hand out of his because it’s one thing to pull that on the villagers, but we should have moved past it by now.
‘A couple of weeks ago, when you said, “You have permission, trust me.” When you mentioned woodworm having a munch through your floorboards. When I saw your fancy car out the front and it looked like it had never carried anything more than a briefcase until you started using it to haul building materials around, instead of a van like an actual builder would have. The way you don’t seem to be on any kind of schedule, with no one checking up on your work or expecting the job done in any set timeframe.
There is no London millionaire who wants a second home here… because I’m looking at him.’
I watch his face as he tries to figure how to deal with this.
I can see potential scenarios playing out behind his eyes, but I’ve been piecing this together for weeks now without consciously realising it.
The things he’s said, the way he speaks about the job, and the mystery surrounding this supposed boss of his.
The fact he’s been helping me with seemingly no detriment to his own deadlines, and how far he seems to be out of his depth.
He either works for the worst employer in the world, or… he doesn’t.
‘The millionaire part isn’t right. If I was a millionaire, I might be able to afford half the repairs that place needs.’
I nearly punch the air in victory because he isn’t going to continue denying it. ‘So why are you pretending not to be the owner? Why are you making everyone think you’re just a builder, working for someone who doesn’t exist?’
‘Seriously? You’ve seen the banner in the village.
You know how much vitriol there is towards the person who’s bought the pub and destroyed the “heart of their community”.
Rich city-types buying second homes in the countryside is a universally hated thing in tiny villages like this, and I knew everyone would think that’s what I was doing.
I didn’t want to be hated. I thought people would be nicer if they thought I was just a worker, a third party doing a job and definitely not the person responsible for taking their pub and depriving them of their famous quiz nights.
I didn’t intend to… I don’t know. I didn’t mean to mislead anyone, and then you came, and everything changed again… ’
We’ve stopped walking and I’m chewing my lip as he talks.
It sounds like the most he’s ever said on this subject, and there’s a waver in his voice that makes me want to hold him in my arms and reassure him that his secrets are safe with me, just like mine have been with him.
‘I won’t tell anyone. The ladies can ply me with all the cake and wine in the world and they won’t get a word out of me, I promise.
Not even if they turn to tried-and-tested torture methods.
Thumbscrews might be next on their list if cake and wine fails. ’
He lets out an unexpected bark of a laugh and reaches for my hand again, and I slip my fingers around his and we continue walking back the way we came.
But there are still parts of this puzzle missing, and he isn’t voluntarily sharing them. ‘Why?’
He groans. ‘I knew you were going to ask me that. That’s the hard part, Doll. The part I’ve never tried to explain to anyone before. Don’t mak—’
‘So try me.’ It sounded like he was going to say ‘don’t make me’, but I interrupt before he can get the words out.
I squeeze his hand and hold his gaze, trying to give him a reassuring look because there is something going on here, and I’m starting to think it’s much deeper than I could’ve imagined.
For a moment, I think he’s going to deflect again, make another joke or change the subject like he always does when things get too real, but then something in his expression crumbles, and he suddenly looks devastatingly vulnerable.
His eyes settle on a fallen tree trunk that’s lying half on the bank and half in the river, and looks so smooth that it must have been used as a seat for many walkers.
‘Sit for a minute?’ He’s already crossing the grass verge towards it, tugging me with him. We sit down and scoot along until we’re sitting on the old wood right in the middle of the river, with water flowing underneath our feet, the sound creating an echo all around us.
We watch a heron picking out late-evening fish in peaceful silence, waiting for Reece to find the right words.
‘Because I promised my son I would.’
My mouth falls open in surprise. ‘You have a son?’
He shakes his head and then drops it into both hands, and his voice comes out muffled from behind them. ‘I had a son. He died. Two and a half years ago now. He…’ His voice catches and he stops.
The boy in the photograph. Of course. No wonder he was so touchy about it. I had no idea something this awful would be behind his ownership of the pub, and I’m already wishing I hadn’t pushed him so hard. ‘Oh, God, Reece, I’m so sor—’
‘Don’t.’ He lifts his head and holds a hand up. ‘In the nicest way possible, I know you are. People always are. I know it’s meant well, but it doesn’t help anyone to say that or to hear it.’
‘Then I don’t know what to say.’
‘And that’s what I want to hear.’ He nudges his thigh against mine. ‘I’ve come to hate that sympathy in people’s voices, and that look on their faces.’
He reaches a hand over until the back of his fingers run along my jaw, and I try to rearrange my face into a neutral expression, but I’m desperate to hug him, and I don’t know how to stop that showing.
Instead, I catch his hand as he goes to pull it away and clasp it between both of mine, squeezing it tightly and hoping it encourages him to keep talking.
He’s quiet for a while, and eventually, he lifts my hand to his mouth and brushes his lips across it, and then clamps his other hand over the top of mine, until I’m not sure which one of us is squeezing the other’s hand tighter.
‘His name was Zach. He was diagnosed with a brain tumour when he was six. We did every treatment imaginable, but it wasn’t enough. He died just after his eighth birthday.’
He looks at the water as he speaks, and I can see the tension in his jaw and hear the careful control he’s maintaining over his voice.
‘After the diagnosis, I spent every moment with him. We had long stays in hospital while he underwent treatment. Endless hours of him being too weak to move, and I filled that time with stories from my childhood. I told him about Yorkshire – the place where I grew up, and Thimblenouth, where I spent every holiday when I was his age. We lived in central London, a small house on a busy street, no garden, not even a balcony. He’d never seen countryside like this before.
I told him stories about fairies in pub gardens, ancient woodlands and hidden waterfalls, knights and dragons that still existed here if you knew where to look.
He thought it was the most magical place on earth, and it became something for him to focus on.
I promised him that when he was better, we’d have an adventure here, but he was too ill to leave the hospital. ’
There are tears rolling down his face, and the need to hug him is overwhelming. I squeeze his hand so tightly, and reach over with my other hand to rub his back at an almost impossible angle.
‘He was dying. Looking back now, I see it in every moment, but at the time, I thought there was still hope. There was a break between treatments and I thought we could come here for a holiday, so he could see this place that he so desperately wanted to see. I looked online for holiday rentals, and…’
I can guess what happened next. ‘You saw the pub for sale?’
‘I saw the pub for sale,’ he repeats with a bitter laugh.
‘I bought it. Immediately. I didn’t ask any questions, I didn’t send a surveyor, I didn’t take structural integrity or renovation costs into account, I didn’t even tell my wife.
I spent pretty much all of my savings on it, because I thought it was the answer.
I told myself that this was the place my son would get better.
I thought if I told him that we could move here, he’d have something to live for.
He’d fight to get better if he had something to look forward to. ’
He glances at me, and even though darkness has fallen, I can see how red his eyes are.
‘And yes, I do know that medical diagnoses don’t work like that, but I was desperate.
I didn’t think it through, I just acted on a wave of emotion and grief for what we knew was going to happen.
And believe me, I know it was stupid, I heard that enough from my wife, but I just…
I needed to prove to him that I’d keep my promise – he was going to get better and we were all going to come here for a new adventure. ’
From the absolute desolation in his voice, it’s easy to guess that never happened. He’s still got one of my hands held between his, and I use the other one to brush his hair back and then lean over and press my chin against his shoulder.