Chapter 51 Kate
KATE
And by and by a cloud takes all away.
Kate knew she was being a coward not looking at her phone messages, so when she hears someone knocking on her door, she thinks it might be Linda, worried. Pia even. She does not expect Bardy.
For a ridiculous instant, she thinks of simply closing the door in his face, then Linda’s words come back to her. “Chin up, tits out.” So she smiles as best she can and steps back to let him in.
“How are you doing, Kate?” Bardy asks.
For some reason, his concern irritates her. “I’m not ill,” she replies sharply. She sighs. “Come into the kitchen and I’ll get us some coffee, or I’ve got some white wine open.” She suddenly realizes this might be easier over a drink.
“That would be good,” he answers cautiously, as if worried she might snap at him again.
Even before the wine is poured, she starts. “I’m really sorry about the JoJo Rose stuff. There are good reasons why I didn’t mention it. Well, things that were important to me. But I should have just come clean once I got to know you all. And I was never going to enter that competition.”
“Okay,” Bardy says, slowly, taking a glass of wine from her. “Would you tell me? I mean, you don’t have to.”
She looks at him, and suddenly this all seems so pointless. Best get it over with. They are still standing by the fridge. It hardly seems worth it to ask him to sit down. He can then tell the others. Then he can pack up his apartment and catch his flight.
So she explains about her parents, Alice, and her dad’s new wife, Maureen.
She had expected Bardy to understand. She will give him that. She had even imagined him being sympathetic. She hadn’t expected him to laugh.
“That’s bloody brilliant. So everywhere Maureen went, she saw your granny’s china and your mom’s name. Plus, she must have known you were raking it in.”
He looks conscience-stricken, mentioning the money. But for the first time in days, Kate grins and gestures around her. “Well, it bought me this.”
“Blimey.”
“Look, it was good while it lasted, but I’m not particularly proud of those paintings.”
“As Tay would say, it is what it is,” Bardy remarks.
“Or it was what it was.” Kate smiles. “How is she? I thought her drawing of you was so good.”
“She’s okay. I’ve just been saying goodbye to her.”
“Ah.” So, another reason for this visit. A farewell. It is happening so fast. Maybe that is for the best. Kate looks out across the creek and draws its magic to her. She can do this.
“Yes, wanted to say goodbye as she’s moving with Uzma to Leeds.”
“Oh! Oh . . . that’s sudden.”
“Yes, Uzma is taking over from someone who was rushed to the hospital, going to be months before . . . Oh, sod it, Kate, I don’t want to talk about that.
I want to talk about us . . . well, if you .
. . oh, bollocks . . . I’m doing this all wrong.
You might not like the idea of an us . .
. and think I’m an arrogant sod, coming here after everything .
. . and oh fuck it,” says the man who writes really rather beautiful poetry.
He takes a deep breath. “I’m not going to New Zealand with Hana.”
“You’re not?”
He gazes at her and shakes his head. “Couldn’t.”
The intensity of his eyes holds her, and all she can do is look back at him. She wonders what his eyes see.
Everything reflects everything.
He is the first to break the gaze, looking down at his glass of wine as if surprised to still find it there.
“Say it,” she says, softly.
“What?” He looks up, quizzical.
“Go on, say it,” she insists.
There is the flickering of a smile.
“Oh, Bardy, don’t tell me you haven’t thought it. You’re Jon Shakespeare. It’s one of his best lines. My favorite.”
He laughs, puts his wine down, spilling most of it, but he gets her hand and pulls her to him, holding her tight.
“Come on, and kiss me, Kate.”
So she does.
They are sitting in the kitchen looking out over the creek. They have finished the little bit of white wine that Kate had and opened a bottle of champagne. It seemed to suit their mood.
“But the boys?” Kate is asking. She finds she cares about them. Not a lot about Hana.
“Linda said something interesting. And Lou.”
“You’ve been talking to them about all this?” Kate feels herself flushing, then wonders why. They must all have known how she felt. How she feels.
Bardy isn’t going to New Zealand. She glances out toward the creek and the clouds clear, letting in the sunshine. She thinks it’s a truly beautiful day.
“What did Linda and Lou say?”
“Well, Linda’s got two boys, and she said that they’re moving on. Their own families are where they’re at. And that they might not want me muscling in, trying to make it all about how it used to be.”
Oh, thank you Linda.
“Good point,” Kate says, thinking of her own girls.
“I’ll visit my boys, of course, and they’re both doing pretty well, so I’m sure they’ll come back for holidays, and we’ll still FaceTime a lot, but I don’t think they necessarily need me on their doorstep.”
“It’s weird, isn’t it, the way you say, ‘my boys’ and I say, ‘my girls’ even though they are grown up. Sometimes halfway round the world. Completely their own people,” Kate reflects. “I know it’s not like it was, when my girls needed me, but they are still . . . so much a part of me . . .”
“Like your heart,” Bardy finishes, simply.
Kate smiles softly and nods.
“And you mentioned Lou said something?” she asks.
“He said that none of it would work unless Hana and I were really solid.”
Another good point. Thank you, Lou.
“And you’re absolutely sure you’re not?” She needs to know.
“We were, and I think I kept trying to live in the past. But she left, Kate, for good reasons. I guess I missed what we had so much that I couldn’t see that I wanted different things too. And when she came back and could see I liked you and well . . .”
“Have you told her you’re not going?” Kate thinks of Hana, organizing the sale of Bardy’s apartment.
Bardy nods.
“What did she say?”
He looks pensive and a little sad. Kate tries hard not to feel jealous.
Bardy isn’t going to New Zealand.
“I think she was sort of expecting it. Had been rushing things along, to stop us having the sort of conversation we needed to.”
“And you’ve done that now?”
“Yep, and it’s okay. She’s gone back to Wales and then will fly out to New Zealand from there.”
She can’t read Bardy’s expression.
“What?” Kate queries.
“She said something odd just before she left. I didn’t really get it.
We’d been talking about Tay and about her drawing.
Tay’s plans to go with Uzma to Leeds, and how her work is trying to help find her a role.
” He is momentarily distracted. “So they bloody should. Anyway, we were chatting about that, and local things, like the gallery closing, just ordinary stuff. I was waiting with her for her taxi to the station, and she said she had a gift for me.”
“What was it?”
“Well, that’s it. It was just the name of an artist. One I’d never heard of.”
He tells her, and Kate hasn’t heard of him either.
Bardy’s phone buzzes. “Ah, that’s the group chat. They want to know how I got on.” He grins. “What shall I say?”
“Tell them they’re bloody nosy and that I want nothing to do with you,” Kate laughs. “No, say to come over. It would be good to see them. I’d like to explain everything to them, too.”
While Bardy is busy texting, Kate stretches and fills up their glasses. She looks down at him. Oh, yes, she could definitely fall for this man.
What does she mean? Could fall for him.
“They’re all coming.” He pauses and looks at his phone again. “Oh, except Tay, she and Uzma are busy packing.”
This reminds her of something. “Bardy, does it really bother you that Tay hugs Hana, but not you?”
“I got one, you know,” he says, proudly, and Kate feels her heart swell a little for him.
“What was the hugging all about? I kept thinking it meant something to you.”
Bardy sips his champagne. “It did. You’re right. I felt like if Tay did that, it really showed what an exceptional person Hana was, and that I would be an idiot to let her go.”
“And?”
“Well, she is exceptional,” Bardy agrees.
“Jack once told me that Tom said it was like growing up with a botanist and a gardener.”
“Did he?” Bardy laughs.
“He said that Hana takes a real interest in people, and that it’s all genuine. It’s not fake.”
Bardy nods again.
“What I don’t get,” Kate continues, “is what’s this got to do with Tay?”
A shadow passes over Bardy’s face. “She has had a pretty tough time. I can’t bear to think of some of it. It isn’t really Toni’s fault. She had no role model and struggles with addiction. Bad choices in men too.”
“I know that one,” Kate says jokingly, looking significantly at Bardy.
Bardy smiles, but shakes his head. “No. I mean really bad, Kate.”
“So is that why Tay wouldn’t hug you? Because you’re a man?”
“Partly,” Bardy acknowledges. “But mainly it was because I cared too much. Like you say, I’m the gardener, Hana’s the botanist.”
Kate shakes her head, not understanding.
“The thing is, Tay has had to deal with so much crap from a really young age. And it is a huge amount to deal with emotionally. And what she told me is that sometimes she wants to be hugged by someone who isn’t weighed down with more emotion.
If they feel sorry for her or are upset, she somehow feels that it is also her fault, and it is all too much.
She just sometimes wants a break from it. ”
“And Hana doesn’t care?” Kate is confused.
“It’s complicated. She is very fond of Tay. Is incredibly interested in her. Would do anything for her. But she’s not torn apart by some of the stuff that Tay has had to deal with.”
“And you are?”
“Oh, yeah,” Bardy says wearily.
“So much easier to hug Hana?”
“Tay tried to describe it as friends with benefits, which didn’t quite work. But it made us laugh. And I got it.”
So does Kate.
“She is amazing to be able to express all that.”
“Incredible girl, Tay. Red ocher.”
“What?!” Kate spins around to look closely at Bardy. “So the color stuff is real?” The doorbell sounds in the hall. “Don’t think I’ve finished with you, Bardy,” she says as she heads for the door.
From behind her, she hears a muttered, “Oh, I do hope not.”