Chapter Forty-Six
Nina launched into explaining what she thought they should do.
She could, of course, go ahead and do it all herself, but after the events of yesterday and seeing for herself the state Hilary was in, Nina was determined that Keith had to play his part.
She had stayed until late last night with Hilary and cooked them supper – she’d unearthed a ready-made lasagna in the freezer – tidied the kitchen and loaded and unloaded the washing machine, as well as insisted that Hilary have a relaxing bath while Nina put fresh bedlinen on her bed.
In Nina’s experience, a bath followed by getting into a clean and perfectly made bed always made one feel better.
‘Firstly,’ she said, and fixing Keith with a steady gaze, ‘we need to contact Hilary’s sister Lindsay, as she’s the most practical of the bunch. I’d suggest leaving the rest of her family out of it for now.’
Keith shook his head. ‘I don’t think for one minute Hilary is going to like Lindsay knowing what she’s been up to. And what if Lindsay tells the rest of the family?’
‘She won’t do that, not when we stress the importance of keeping it strictly amongst ourselves. I thought perhaps you could speak to Lindsay.’
Keith nodded, but to Nina’s eye he didn’t look convinced. ‘What then?’ he asked.
‘We encourage Hilary to seek professional help.’
‘She won’t do it,’ he said emphatically. ‘I repeatedly suggested that we both did that, and she flatly refused even to consider grief counselling.’
‘That was then,’ Nina said firmly, having anticipated this rebuttal from Keith. ‘Now that Hilary knows her dirty little secret is out, her words not mine, she accepts that she can’t go on as she is. Again, those were her words, not mine.’
‘If she’s reached that conclusion herself, why do I have to be involved?’
Nina was disappointed in her father-in-law’s apparent readiness to absolve himself from the situation.
‘Keith,’ she said as patiently as she could, ‘if you’d seen Hilary yesterday, you’d know how just desperate the situation is and that we have to support her, she can’t do this alone.’
‘Okay,’ he said, ‘so how do we convince Hilary to seek professional help?’
‘We all sit down together and show her that we genuinely care about her and want to see her well again. We also need to give her something to care about and to think about, other than what she’s lost. Because at the moment, that’s all she can think of.
She’s lost everything that mattered to her, her son, the hope of a grandchild and …
’ she paused, ‘and you. We’ve all taken from her and now we need to give her something to make up for that. ’
Keith looked puzzled. ‘Such as?’
She told him what she had in mind and his immediate reaction was to dismiss the idea out of hand, saying there wasn’t a chance in hell of Hilary going along with it.
But ignoring his pessimism, Nina asked if he had anything better to suggest. He didn’t.
‘In that case,’ she said, ‘I’m going to do some research and make it happen. ’
Over on the countertop where her mobile was charging, it buzzed and then buzzed again.
‘Feel free to answer it,’ Keith said. ‘I don’t mind.’
‘It’s okay,’ she said, ‘it can keep.’ Some telepathic sense – or more likely just plain old-fashioned hope, the giddy kind that made you want to believe you were constantly in another person’s thoughts – convinced her it was Jakob.
If it was, she wasn’t going to reply now, she wanted to do that when she was alone.
Something must have given her away as Keith said, ‘Would that be Jakob by any chance?’
‘Now why would you think that?’ she said.
‘Just a feeling,’ he said blandly. ‘And that you’re blushing very prettily, and you suddenly look decidedly on edge. Not that it’s any of my business,’ he added.
Inwardly annoyed with herself for being so transparent, but wanting to show how at ease she was, she rose smoothly from her seat and went over to her mobile.
‘You’re right,’ she said airily, ‘it is Jakob.’
‘Does he often contact you on a Sunday?’ Keith enquired.
‘You know how it is with work,’ she said with a shrug, ‘I’m never off duty.’
‘Nor is Jakob by the looks of things,’ remarked Keith with more than a hint of archness to his voice.
With her back to him, she put the phone down, but not before reading the message and looking at the accompanying photo. It was of Jakob, and he appeared to be immersed in a lake against a dramatic backdrop of snow-covered fir trees.
First proper snow in Troms? and wishing you were here with me! he’d written.
Not on your life, she thought with a smile, thinking how icy cold that lake must be.
When she was sitting down again, Keith said, ‘Are you going to tell me all about it, then?’
‘About what?’
He tutted. ‘You and Jakob, of course. I know your natural inclination is to keep things to yourself, and I respect that, but the thing is, Nina, I feel I owe it to Hugh to encourage you to move on with your life, whether that’s taking a risk on finding love again, or just throwing yourself into having some fun. ’
‘It was always about the risk for Hugh,’ she said with a faint smile.
‘The riskier the better. But I’m not like him.
That said, though,’ she added cautiously, deciding to confirm what Keith clearly suspected, ‘I have decided to take a risk and Jakob and I are’ – she mentally took a deep breath – ‘seeing each other; well, you know, we’re in a relationship.
Sort of.’ Why sort of? she asked herself. Who was ever in a sort of relationship?
Keith’s face lit up with a smile of pleasure. ‘I’m so pleased for you,’ he said. ‘I’ve never forgotten how radiant you looked at Fabian’s wedding when you were dancing with Jakob. You looked so happy. Obviously,’ he added with a grimace, ‘that was before it all went horribly wrong.’
Not wanting to dwell on the latter, and keen to stress how things were between her and Jakob, she said, ‘For now we’re at the very low-key-taking-it-steadily stage,’ she said.
‘More importantly, we haven’t gone public yet.
I need to find my way around being in a relationship again. Didn’t you feel like that with Diane?’
‘To be honest, we’re both still finding our way. And that’s perfectly normal, that’s how every relationship works, isn’t it? Every day is a new discovery. That’s part of the fun.’
‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘that’s how it should be.
I’m afraid I spend far too much time analysing how I feel about Jakob and the logistics of a relationship with him, as well as the age gap.
Whereas I should be letting myself enjoy the moment like I did when I danced with him.
’ She frowned. ‘I never used to be like this.’
‘But you’d never been widowed before. For what it’s worth, I think you should forget about the age difference and focus on the fact that you like Jakob, and he likes you.
What does it matter if a relationship with him comes unstuck, and for whatever reason; better to have tried than not.
My advice is to throw yourself in at the deep end and see how it feels. ’
Later, when Keith had gone, and she was changing into her running gear, Nina thought of what he’d said and although it probably wasn’t the kind of thing that he’d been thinking of, Nina looked again at the photo of Jakob swimming in the freezing cold lake and tried to imagine throwing herself into doing that with him.
Hmmm …
She could think of other things she’d rather do with him, and it didn’t involve any snow!
Amused at the thought, she smiled. And by the very fact that such a thought could amuse her, she knew that she was slowly moving in the right direction.
Whether it was just her hormones getting the better of her, or the prolonged period of celibacy now yearning to be vanquished, her physical desire for Jakob was definitely hotting up.
It was the one thing she’d thought she would struggle to do, or even imagine doing, and that was to make love to a man who wasn’t Hugh.
But the physical need she now experienced for Jakob was so acute she knew that she was ready to take their relationship to the next level.
She had feared he might push that side of things, but he hadn’t.
Maybe he’d held back out of respect for her need to go slowly, or perhaps because he was worried she would compare him to Hugh.
She was trying more and more to see things from both sides, not just her own.
Looking again at the photo of Jakob, Nina thought of Cassie asking her if distance was making her heart grow fonder, and she had to admit that it was.
After adding a gilet to her running outfit, along with a short scarf which she wrapped around her neck, she took a selfie and sent it to Jakob with the words – Wishing you were here!
She then sent another.
I miss you. X