Chapter Twenty-Four
The attic was accessed by a long pole which hooked open the hatch, and a concertinaed ladder which pulled down on to the landing at the top of the house.
‘Alright?’ Leo asked Olivia. ‘Are you happy to go up first?’ She nodded. ‘I’m right behind you,’ he said, as she climbed. ‘Flick on the light switch when you get to the top.’
The attic had a vaulted roof, pale oak beams and was completely boarded out.
Around the edge were mini cities of neatly stacked boxes; in the centre was a huge figure-of-eight Scalextric track, including bridges, what Olivia assumed to be a pit stop, and two controllers on the boards at a casual angle as though they had just been set down.
‘Is it safe to tread everywhere?’ she asked.
‘Absolutely.’
She walked gingerly all the same. Leo sat down next to the track and crossed his legs, picking up one of the controllers. She came and sat down next to him.
‘It’s a bit dusty,’ he said, as she tucked the skirt of her dress around her.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Do you want to be red or blue?’ he asked.
‘Red, please.’
He showed her how to operate her controller and soon her red car was whizzing around the track, flying off at the corners and being patiently put back on again.
‘You need to slow down! Brake at the bends.’
‘I’m trying!’ she protested. The red car flew off the track again and Leo caught it expertly in one hand.
‘I wish you’d been my girlfriend when I was a teenager,’ he said. ‘I would have had you up here all the time.’ He winked at her.
‘Is that so?’ His girlfriend. Could she imagine that?
‘Oh, God, yeah. You’d be an absolute expert at this.’ He grinned at her. ‘What do you think, then?’ he added, more seriously. ‘About Foxes?’
‘Interesting,’ Olivia said carefully. ‘It must make my little place in Pimlico seem like an absolute hovel.’
‘I liked your little place in Pimlico.’
‘Really?’
‘I liked the bath. And the bed, too.’
She pretended she hadn’t heard him. ‘Do you have many friends down here still?’ she asked. She was fishing, dropping a baited line into water.
‘Not really, not now. Everyone left.’ He grinned. ‘Apart from Cressie.’
He had taken the bait, but it was Olivia who felt the tight pull of jealousy. ‘She never left Wiltshire?’
‘No. Her degree was in theatre production and she’s working at the Theatre Royal, Bath.
Commutes there. Total daddy’s girl, too.
’ His grin didn’t falter. ‘So, I guess she wants to stay close. Some people have no urge to flee where they were brought up,’ he added. ‘But I prefer London. I prefer you.’
The line twitched. ‘She’s really pretty. Have you ever dated her?’
Leo laughed. ‘Cressie? No! I don’t see her that way.’
‘I think she does . . .’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I think she holds a candle for you. I think she’s that girl, the one waiting in the wings.’
‘Where do you get that from?’ Leo’s eyes had mirth written into them.
‘The way she looks at you.’
‘That’s it?’
‘Yes. She’s really never made a move on you?’
‘No, never.’
‘Well, maybe she’s been waiting for you to.’
‘I don’t think so. And I think you’ve got a very good imagination.
’ He set the red car back into the grooves of the track.
‘I don’t want to talk about Cressie. I want to talk about us,’ he said, leaning closer to her.
‘How we left things, how we could begin things again. Maybe.’ The corner of his mouth rose into the comma of a smile, self-effacing, and the way he was leaning made his forearms look really good in his silky shirt, and Olivia thought Kitty Codwell was probably on to something, after all.
He took her hand, across the corner of the track.
She couldn’t help but drink in the kaleidoscope of his hazel eyes.
‘Shall we give it a proper go?’ he asked.
‘You and me?’ His voice dropped to a whisper.
‘I couldn’t let myself feel the way I felt about you.
Not back then. When things weren’t quite right.
When it was right for me to walk away. But I want to feel that way. I want to feel everything with you.’
‘I think I agree with you . . .’ she whispered back.
She so wanted to dive right into the clear, clean blue waters of hope and be immersed.
To see sunlight dappling on the surface of the ocean above them, but she wasn’t ready to drown.
He was too handsome, he had too many girls after him.
His stepbrother said he always had one hand on the door, when he had once had his hand on her door, and she had believed his reasons and she knew her own, but still.
She didn’t quite trust him somehow, or she didn’t trust how she might feel about him, and she didn’t trust his world.
She felt overwhelmed by it, to be honest. It was a world she had been on the edge of for so long, even with Stella and Annabel, but she had been accepted there, by their families, their parents.
She had made herself at home. She couldn’t ever see herself being accepted by Caroline and Isaac.
Or Balth. Or Cressie. It all made her cautious.
Sensible. Careful. ‘Or in another world, that I would like to, but I really don’t know.
I think . . . I think I just want to be friends for a while. ’
‘You do?’ He looked crestfallen. ‘Why?’
She couldn’t voice any of her reasons, but she simply knew she wanted a whole lot out of life and she didn’t think he was the one to seize those things with.
She didn’t think he was her Perfect Love, as much as she had enjoyed the evening and Foxes, so she simply said, ‘I think it would be better. Suit us more.’
‘It would suit me to kiss you right here,’ he said, and her stomach gave a flip but her mind was steady.
She couldn’t deny how attracted she was to him, but she could be friends with a rich country boy with complicated parents, a cold stepbrother, and a girl who was just right for him and was in love with him, couldn’t she?
She could deny this overwhelming attraction, this urge to say ‘sod it’ and have him kiss her?
Couldn’t she?
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Oh.’ He pulled a comical face. ‘But I can take friends, I suppose.’ He looked at her. Her heart started to quicken its pace. Kiss me anyway, fool, it said, but she couldn’t let that happen. He narrowed his eyes. ‘Well, then,’ he said, ‘how would you feel about being writing buddies?’
‘Yes . . . ?’ she replied. ‘That’s a nice idea. How would that work?’
‘We send each other what we’ve written so far, then after that, a chapter at a time. We critique. We’re not in competition, as we write different genres. We give feedback. We write the next chapter. And we spur each other on.’
She thought about it. ‘So, we make each other accountable,’ she said. ‘Yes, I like that.’ She needed to be spurred on. Her godmother had inspired her, her father had encouraged her in his own way, but they were both gone from her life. She needed some accountability. ‘When do you want to start?’
‘Well,’ he said. ‘If we have to be writing buddies and deny this undeniable electricity between us . . .’ He revved up his Scalextric car on the track to prove his point ‘. . . then we might as well get on with it straight away. How about Monday?’