14. Chapter 13
Mandy
Igo to the harvest festival alone, which is perfectly normal.
I have been going places alone for years.
There is absolutely no reason for today to feel different.
People go to village events alone all the time. They buy raffle tickets alone. They examine oddly shaped vegetables alone. They stand in queues for tea and pretend not to judge the Victoria sponge entries alone.
I am here because Alexandra roped me into an hour on the raffle table weeks ago, before Peter asked me to come with him and before I said no as if he had suggested we merge bank accounts and adopt alpacas.
Since then, Peter and I have been polite.
Polite is awful.
He texted on Tuesday to ask whether my week was better. I said it was manageable. I asked about the branch. He said there had been three complaints, two people cried and one man who announced he would be keeping his money under the mattress from now on.
I sent a sympathetic face.
A sympathetic face.
There are people in legal disputes with warmer correspondence than that.
We have not seen each other. We have not slept together. No late-night messages. No jokes about his dick’s schedule. Nothing that could be mistaken for wanting.
Except I do want.
And that is inconvenient. So I put on a coat, walk to the village green and tell myself fresh air and raffle tickets are a plan.
The harvest festival is already busy when I arrive.
The rain has held off, but the grass is soft underfoot and the bunting sags between poles as if it has lost faith in the season.
The green behind the village hall is covered with stalls: jam, chutney, cakes, second-hand books, knitted pumpkins, children’s games and a raffle table displaying the usual combination of unwanted bath sets and bottles of questionable liqueur.
Bernard sits beside Mrs Higgins near the cake tent wearing a red neckerchief and the expression of a dog denied legal representation.
I go straight to Alexandra.
She is behind the table, holding a roll of tickets in one hand and a clipboard in the other.
“You came,” she says.
“I said I would.”
“You also say that when you mean probably not.”
“I am a woman of mystery.”
“You are a woman who avoids rotas.”
“Only recreationally.”
She gives me a look, but she is too busy to interrogate properly. A queue forms almost at once, and for twenty minutes, I sell tickets, make change, explain prizes and prevent a small child from putting his entire hand into the jar with sweets.
It helps.
Being useful usually does.
Then Mrs Higgins arrives to ask whether Bernard is allowed to enter the best-dressed scarecrow competition.
Alexandra says no.
Mrs Higgins says the rules do not specifically exclude dogs.
Bernard yawns.
I look away before I laugh, and that is when I see Peter.
He is behind the Morton Hall baked-apple stall.
For a second, my body reacts before my brain does. A tightening. A lift of my heart. Something foolish and immediate.
He is wearing jeans, a dark jumper and a white apron that is too small for him. Morton Hall is stitched across the front, which would make sense if he had started the accounts job already. He has not. The bank is still limping towards closure.
Then I remember Alexandra saying the hotel had a wedding this weekend and Hunter was short on hands for the festival stall. Of course Hunter asked Peter. Of course Peter said yes.
He is good at it.
That is the first thing that hits me.
Not handsome, though he is. Not mine, because he is not. Just a good guy.
He serves baked apples in paper bowls, adds custard, takes coins, smiles at people without making it feel like an act.
An elderly woman says something to him, and he leans forward to hear her properly over the noise.
A little boy points suspiciously at the raisins, and Peter gives him the solemn attention of a man negotiating international peace.
The boy takes the bowl.
Peter looks absurdly pleased with himself.
I should look away, but I just can’t.
A woman steps up to the stall.
She is not from St Claire, I do not think. Green coat, glossy hair, clean boots, the faintly polished look of someone staying at Morton Hall rather than living anywhere near a field. She says something to Peter, and he smiles.
My stomach drops before common sense catches up.
He is not flirting.
I know what Peter looks like when he flirts. I have seen him do it in pubs, on walks, in my kitchen, against my front door and, unfortunately, in several places I am trying not to think about while standing near a raffle table.
This is not that.
He is polite. Warm. Funny enough to make her laugh, but not the way he is when he wants to be followed. He ladles custard into her bowl, answers whatever question she asks, then turns to serve the next person.
He has done nothing wrong.
Neither has she.
That is not the problem.
The problem is the space beside him.
Not physically. There is barely room behind the stall for Peter, three trays of apples and a jug of custard. But the space is there all the same. The public space. The ordinary space. The one where people know you are together because you stand close without explaining it.
I refused that space.
I said no to it.
And now I am standing across the green, watching him fit into the day without me.
He is not sulking. He is not visibly heartbroken. He is not performing misery because I hurt him and therefore owe him attention. He is being kind to customers and useful to Hunter and irritatingly attractive in an apron.
He has a life.
Of course he does.
I know that.
Still, something cold and honest moves through me.
I do not want someone else to get the life with him that I am too frightened to choose.
Not because he belongs to me. He does not.
Because I want to belong there.
I want to be the woman who rolls her eyes at his baked apple jokes from behind the stall.
I want to know whether he had breakfast before Hunter dragged him into this.
I want to steal a spoonful of custard and have him pretend to be outraged.
I want the ordinary things I keep telling myself are dangerous.
Sunday mornings.
My mug in his kitchen.
His ridiculous fruit faces when he decides a plate looks too serious.
His hand on my back when I am tired and pretending I am not.
The calm way he bought sanitary towels and knickers without making me feel ridiculous, then came back with half the confectionery aisle because he had no idea what would help and tried anyway.
The realisation is not dramatic.
It is worse than dramatic.
It is quiet.
It settles.
I do not want Peter only in the hidden parts of my life.
I want him in the daylight too.
“Mandy?” Alexandra says beside me.
I blink and look down.
I am holding out raffle tickets to Mrs Atkins but have not taken her money.
“Sorry.” I sort the tickets, take the coins and give Mrs Atkins her change.
I hand over the tickets to Alexandra and step away from the raffle table. “I need a minute.”
“All right,” she says even if it is written on her face that all she wants to do is asking me a gazillion questions.
I walk towards the church wall where the noise thins. I do not sit on the bench because sitting would make it easier to stay there and do nothing.
I have done enough of that.
I think of Karim, but not in the way I usually do.
Not as a warning.
Not as proof that love can fail ordinary life and therefore ordinary life should be avoided.
For years, I have treated that ending as evidence. A relationship can be real and still not last. A marriage can be kind and still not be enough. Love can exist and still fail when the shape of life changes around it.
All true.
But Peter is not asking me to return to a life that did not fit.
He is not asking me to become the woman I was with Karim, or the wife I used to be, or some softer version of myself arranged for public approval.
He has already met me without the polish.
He has seen me tired, sharp, hungry, embarrassed, scared. He has watched me fail at lying, fail at cooking, fail at pretending I do not care. He has held me when I came to him because I could not face going home alone.
And he still asked for one afternoon.
Not possession.
Not rescue.
A place beside him.
Across the green, Peter laughs at something the little boy says when he comes back for more custard. The woman in the green coat has gone. Of course she has. She was never the point.
The point is Peter.
The point is that I said I did not want to be seen with him, and now I cannot bear the thought of staying invisible.
I take a breath.
It shakes.
I take another.
I have to do something!