7. Chapter 6
Peter
By the time Alexandra decides I need feeding, managing and possibly sedating, I have already agreed to go to Morton Hall on Monday.
I am not sure how that happened.
One minute, I am sitting at the bar, trying not to look too closely at Mandy while my sister recommends another man to her as if she is choosing a starter from the specials board.
The next, I have told Alexandra about the bank, nearly made her cry over the cottage and agreed to discuss a finance job at my best friend’s hotel.
All in all, a lively Thursday.
“You can come here after,” Alexandra says.
I look at her. “After what?”
“Morton Hall. On Monday.”
“So you can ask me how it went before I have taken my coat off?”
She wipes an invisible mark from the bar. “I was going to offer dinner.”
“You were going to offer an interrogation with food.”
“Food improves most things.”
Hunter, who still has the fingers of one hand linked with hers, kisses the side of her head. “It does when you are not the one being interrogated.”
“I have never interrogated you.”
He gives her a look.
She smiles sweetly. “Not excessively.”
Mandy finishes the last of her wine without joining in. She has been quieter since I told them about the cottage. Not awkward. Not cold. Just watching in that way she has, as if she is keeping track of what people do not say.
I can handle Alexandra fussing. I can handle Hunter being practical and annoyingly kind. I can even handle the idea of sitting opposite Morton Hall’s Director of Finance on Monday while she decides whether I am a useful hire or a sentimental act of village pity.
What I am less sure I can handle is Mandy noticing which parts get under my skin.
“I should go,” Mandy says, setting her empty glass on the bar.
Alexandra glances towards the window, then turns to me. “Walk her home.”
I look at my sister. “Sorry, was that a request or have I been conscripted?”
Mandy pauses with one arm in her coat. “Why?”
“Because the football was on,” Alexandra says, “and there will be drunken idiots wandering about.”
“This is St Claire,” Mandy says.
“Exactly. We know all our drunken idiots by name, which makes them no less annoying.”
I make a show of looking at my unfinished pint. “I was in the middle of processing a major life change.”
“You can process while walking,” Alexandra says.
“That sounds medically questionable.”
Mandy pulls her scarf into place. “I do not need an escort.”
“No,” I say, sliding off my stool with all the reluctance of a condemned man, “but apparently you are getting one. Come on, then. Let us get you safely through the lawless streets before someone from the cricket club offers you unsolicited opinions about Arsenal.”
Her mouth twitches. “I am touched by your sacrifice.”
“You should be. I had plans.”
“What plans?”
I glance at my pint. “Finishing that.”
Hunter lifts it out of my reach. “A noble dream, cruelly cut short.”
Mandy opens the door, and cold air slips into the pub. “Are you coming, or shall I risk the mob alone?”
I sigh heavily and reach for my jacket. “Fine. But if I am attacked by a retired geography teacher with strong opinions about VAR, I expect you to tell everyone I died bravely.”
“I will say you complained until the end.”
“Accurate,” I say, following her outside, “but harsh.”
Outside, the cold hits harder than I expect.
The pub door closes behind us, cutting off the warmth, the light and Alexandra’s voice saying something to Hunter that I do not catch. The village is quieter out here. Thursday night quiet, with most curtains drawn and only the weak glow of streetlamps stretching across the wet pavement.
Mandy falls into step beside me.
For once, neither of us says anything.
I should fill the silence. It is what I do. A joke about drunken football fans. A comment about Alexandra appointing herself head of village security. Something about the cricket club having stronger opinions than batting averages.
But the words do not come.
My head is still at the bar.
The bank is closing.
Morton Hall on Monday.
Less money. Less responsibility. Enough to keep the cottage, maybe.
I shove my hands into my jacket pockets and walk beside Mandy past the dark bakery, past the old noticeboard and down the narrow lane towards her cottage. Her boots make a steady sound on the pavement. Mine are heavier, less certain.
At her gate, she stops and turns to face me. The entrance light catches the pale strands of her hair and the edge of her scarf.
“Well,” she says.
“Well.”
“You have delivered me safely through St Claire’s criminal underworld.”
“It was touch and go outside the bakery.”
“I did see a suspicious-looking wheelie bin.”
“I had it under control.”
Her mouth curves, but the smile does not quite hold.
For a second, we stand there with the gate between us and the rest of the evening waiting to find out what it is allowed to become.
Then Mandy opens it.
“Come in, Peter.”
I follow her up the path.
The cottage is warm when she opens the door, and the familiar lemon-clean smell catches me before I have even stepped inside. Mandy drops her keys into the bowl on the little table, closes the door behind us and turns.
We do not bother with a conversation.
Her hands go to my jacket. Mine find her waist. She pushes the jacket from my shoulders, and I kiss her before it has even hit the floor properly. She makes a small sound against my mouth, pleased and impatient, and steps backwards until her spine meets the wall beside the stairs.
This should be easy.
Mandy’s mouth. Mandy’s hands in my hair. Mandy’s body pressed to mine in the kitchen where we are definitely not standing far enough from the front door for decency.
It is very easy for certain parts of me.
The rest of me, apparently, has decided to attend a finance meeting.
Morton Hall on Monday.
Rachel, Director of Finance.
Supplier payments. Payroll checks. Less money than the bank. Enough for the cottage, probably, if I am careful.
Mandy tugs at the hem of my shirt before sliding her hand underneath it before unbuttoning it. Her fingers skim my stomach, and I remember to kiss her again.
For about eight seconds.
Then my mind slides straight back to Hunter saying, the money probably will not stretch to what you earned as a bank manager.
Which is not, by any standard, a useful thought while a beautiful woman has her hand beneath my shirt.
Mandy stills.
I realise I have stopped kissing her.
Her hand is flat against my chest, and she is looking up at me with narrowed eyes.
“What?” I ask.
“You tell me.”
“I am enjoying myself.”
“You stopped.”
“I did not stop.”
“You did.”
“I paused.”
“Mmm.”
“That was a very judgemental noise.”
“It was a medical noise.”
“There are medical noises?”
“There are when a man kisses you into a wall and then suddenly forgets what his hands are doing.”
I look down.
One of my hands is still at her waist.
The other is resting against the wall beside her shoulder, doing absolutely nothing of any use to anyone.
“That hand is supervising,” I say.
“It is doing a terrible job.”
“I will speak to it later.”
“Peter.”
There it is again. My name without a joke attached to it.
I let my forehead rest against her shoulder for a second. Her perfume is there, warm from her skin, and underneath it the faint clean smell of her house. I should be able to lose myself in that. In her.
Instead, my mind is still picking at Hunter’s offer like a loose thread.
“I am sorry,” I say.
Mandy’s fingers relax against my chest. “You do not have to apologise.”
“I would prefer to be better company when I have been invited in for immoral purposes.”
“That does sound like a basic courtesy.”
“I am usually very courteous.”
Her mouth moves, but she does not quite smile. “Is this about Hunter’s offer?”
I push out a breath.
“Yes.”
She nods once, as if she already knew but wanted me to say it.
Of course she did.
“It is not that I do not want you,” I add, because apparently I am now a man who clarifies that sort of thing. “Just in case that was not clear from the enthusiastic start.”
“That part was clear.”
“Good.”
“Until the pause.”
“The pause was not about you.”
“I know that now.”
I move my useless hand from the wall and let it settle at her other hip. That is better. Not enough to fix my head, but better. Mandy notices. Her gaze drops for a second, then returns to mine.
“I cannot stop thinking about Monday,” I say.
“It sounds like an ideal offer. What are you not sure about?”
“Whether I would be taking it because it makes sense or because I am scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“Leeds.” I laugh, though there is not much in it. “Regional meetings. Hotels. Being the man who sells his father’s house because he was too proud to work at the place down the road.”
Mandy’s expression changes.
Not pity. Thank fuck, not pity.
Attention.
The kind that makes me feel as if I have stepped under a brighter light than I meant to.
“Do you want to sit down?” she asks.
“No.”
“Do you want to talk?”
“Also no.”
“Do you want me to pretend you are not clearly desperate to talk?”
“That would be ideal.”
“Unlikely.”
“I was afraid of that.”
Her hands slide from my chest to the open edges of my shirt. She does not pull me closer. She just holds the fabric, keeping me there without making a point of it.
“Have a seat,” she says.
“I thought we were going upstairs.”
“We were. Then you abandoned me emotionally for hotel accounts.”
“That sounds worse than it was.”
“It was not your finest moment.”
“I was still half undressed.”
“Only half.”
She steps out from between me and the wall, takes my hand and leads me to the table.
A glass sits upside down on the draining board. There is a book on the table, facedown beside a mug that has clearly contained tea and been abandoned before it was finished. Mandy’s life, exactly as she left it before going to the pub.
I do not know why that gets to me.
Perhaps because my own house has felt less like a life lately and more like a list of things I might have to give up.
Mandy lets go of my hand and leans back against the chair. “Right.”
“That sounded efficient.”
“I am resisting the urge to make tea.”