Chapter 31
31
They’re obviously having a tea break or something, I realise as I step inside. There’s no visible activity on the traction engine, but I can hear voices engaged in good-natured conversation coming from the other side of it. A sudden bark of laughter that I recognise as coming from George reaches me and I’m completely caught off guard by the way it affects me. I have spent the last week tearing myself apart over what happened in the barn and poring over his frankly cowardly letter, and he’s just sitting here, laughing and chatting easily with his mates as if nothing was wrong? I don’t think so. As I listen to a little more of the conversation, with George sounding like he genuinely doesn’t have a care in the world, my hackles rise. As his laughter fills the space again, I start to feel a very different conversation unfolding than the one I’ve been trying to plan.
‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ I say sweetly as I round the engine and spot them. They’re sitting in camp chairs round a collapsible table, on which four large mugs and a packet of chocolate digestives are resting. They all start in surprise, none more so than George, who looks both terrified and guilty, like a dog who’s been caught stealing food. I’m curious to find that my normal response to his physique is completely absent. He doesn’t look sexy this morning; he looks cowed, and that doesn’t do anything to help my rapidly diminishing opinion of him.
‘George,’ I continue in the same saccharine voice. ‘I wonder if I might borrow you for a minute or two.’
‘Umm…’ He glances round at his friends, obviously unsure what to do. Oh, come on, for goodness’ sake, I think. Show some grit.
‘It’s OK. I won’t bite. Not hard, anyway,’ I tell him. ‘I just think there are a couple of things we need to talk about.’
‘Yeah, sure.’ He gets to his feet and leads me towards the office. There’s no enthusiasm in his gait though; he looks like a naughty schoolchild being sent to see the headmaster. When we get there, I close the door behind me and lean against it. He’s standing in front of me, looking at the floor.
‘So, umm, what did you want to talk about?’ he asks eventually, still not meeting my gaze.
‘Look at me,’ I command him, and his eyes slowly come up to meet mine. I study him for a moment. His face is a picture of misery, and he just looks downtrodden. I’m reminded of the scene in The Wizard of Oz , when Dorothy and her companions finally make it to see the great wizard, only to discover that he’s a very ordinary man behind a curtain. I feel a bit like that; there’s suddenly no magic to George any more and I can feel the last vestiges of my attraction to him draining away, like a balloon with a slow leak.
‘Did you read my letter?’ he asks when the silence becomes oppressive. ‘I think I covered everything in there.’
‘I did,’ I tell him coolly. ‘I just have one question.’
‘Of course. Ask anything you want.’
‘I kissed you. You kissed me back. Tell me if I’m wrong, but you seemed into it.’
He stares at me. ‘Is that the question?’
‘No. The question is this. If I’m right and you were into it, why did you immediately run away?’
‘I explained that. It was unethical, unprofessional. I took advantage.’
‘Yeah. The problem with that is that it contains an unpleasant assumption on your part.’
‘Which is?’
‘That I had no agency or free will in the situation.’
‘You were vulnerable.’
‘For fuck’s sake, George. I was upset, yes, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t know what I was doing. Give me some bloody credit, will you?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Mm. Anyway, so, rather than staying and talking it out, like an adult should do, you chose to run away. Not very mature, is it?’
‘I was confused and ashamed.’
‘Again, I’m not hearing me in this. How do you think I felt when you just upped and left like that?’
My voice is calm, but my mind is now working at a thousand miles an hour and a lot of things I never saw before are beginning to slot into place, not least Saffy and Rebecca’s assertions that George would never be enough for me. Compared to, for example, Alasdair, George is worryingly two-dimensional and spineless. Yes, he’s beautiful, but it seems his beauty is only skin deep. I’m reminded a little of those jigsaws that were all the rage a few years ago, where the image on the box was only a clue to the actual picture. The pieces are fitting together in my head, but the image they’re starting to reveal is totally different to the one I expected. I’m starting to realise that I may have got this completely the wrong way around.
‘I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking rationally, I guess,’ he says feebly. I’m rapidly losing interest in this conversation, but I’m aware that it was me that dragged him in here; the least I can do is let him say his piece.
‘So it would seem,’ I say, trying not so sound as withering as I feel. ‘However, you must have regained enough self-awareness by yesterday to figure out that this was the only place I’d know where to find you. Opportunity number two for you to behave like an adult, but instead you hid behind a letter.’
‘I’m not very good at confrontation.’
‘Who’s to say it needed to be confrontational?’
‘It feels pretty confrontational.’
‘That’s because I’m annoyed, George. Yet again, you denied me my say. How do you think it felt for me, having agonised over what you might have been feeling and what was going through your head, to hear you laughing and joking with your mates just now as if you didn’t have a care in the world?’
‘I’m sorry. I do care about you. I’ve made a mess of this, I can see.’
I sigh. ‘You have,’ I tell him. ‘But maybe it’s for the best. Look, I don’t want to fight with you. You’ve made your position clear and I’m fine with that.’
‘I know I’ve made a hash of things, Thea,’ he says, suddenly earnest. ‘But I do like you. I was into it when we kissed. I am attracted to you.’
‘Sorry,’ I tell him kindly but firmly. ‘Nice try, but that ship has sailed.’
‘Can we be friends, at least?’
‘I don’t know. I need time to think about that. Shall we rejoin your mates? Regardless of the situation between you and me, Rebecca and I have come up with a business proposition for you all.’
I’m relieved, but not completely surprised, to find that Alasdair is still waiting when I walk out of the building, nearly an hour later.
‘I thought you said thirty minutes and you were going to be out of here,’ I remark as I slide into the passenger seat of his car. There are a lot of things I need to ask him, but I’m suddenly unsure how to start the conversation.
‘There was a fascinating debate on the radio. I lost track of time.’
‘Was there?’ I ask sceptically. ‘What was it about?’
‘Oh, you know. The usual.’
‘You would have waited all day, wouldn’t you?’
He sighs. ‘Probably. I just wanted to make sure you were OK.’
‘Mmm-hmm. Shall we get out of here then?’
‘Yes, boss. Where are we going?’
‘Back to the mill, I think. My car is there, for one thing.’
‘OK.’ He calls up the postcode on the satnav and eases out onto the road.
‘Were you ever going to tell me?’ I ask him gently after a while.
‘Tell you what?’
‘Come on, Alasdair, this is me you’re talking to.’
Another sigh, much deeper this time. ‘You figured it out, then.’
‘Yes.’
‘I came close, once or twice, but it never seemed the right moment.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I was scared it would spook you and I’d lose you forever.’
‘When did it start?’
‘I can’t say precisely, but it wasn’t long after we became friends.’
‘Why the hell didn’t you say anything?’
‘Because it wouldn’t have been what you wanted to hear.’ His voice has an impassioned tone that I’ve never heard before. ‘You were focused on your career goals, and I understood that. I was too, in a lesser kind of way. When we started sleeping together, I knew it was only a casual thing, and in some ways that hurt because I obviously would have liked it to be more, but I knew that was all you had to give, and I told myself I was lucky to have that. Having a little bit of you was always better than the prospect of having none of you, and that’s what would have happened if I’d said anything. You know it’s true.’
Now it’s my turn to sigh. He’s right; I would have been spooked and probably dropped him like a hot brick.
‘You’ve always had my back,’ I say after another long silence.
‘Of course.’
‘What kind of person sets an alarm to remind them when they can contact someone else?’ I laugh.
‘I do. Although I didn’t really need it. I knew the date off by heart.’
‘But here’s what I don’t understand. You would have let me go. If I’d come out of that building with George, you would just have driven away.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because that would have been what you’d chosen. There’s an old proverb?—’
‘If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it’s yours. If not, it was never meant to be,’ I interrupt.
‘Exactly, although you’re not a thing.’
‘Risky strategy.’
‘Yes, but it had to be your choice. It still does.’
There’s another long pause, both of us seemingly lost in our own thoughts.
‘Are you OK?’ he asks eventually.
‘I don’t know.’
‘It doesn’t have to change anything?—’
‘Of course it does!’ I exclaim. ‘How can it not? You expect me to carry on as normal, knowing what I know now?’
An uncomfortable silence descends again.
‘Look,’ Alasdair says eventually. ‘I get that this is a shock for you, but I’m not a problem you need to solve. I’m a big boy; I can look after myself.’
‘What happens if friends is all I can offer?’
‘Then friends is what I’ll take. My offer stands. You’re obviously not going to marry George, based on this morning’s events, but if you find someone else, I still want to be your page boy. Promise me that?’
I smile. ‘I promise you that.’