Chapter Twenty-One
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I don’t like lying to my new housemate, so guilt takes the edge off my anticipation at seeing Ash on Saturday morning. Sian invited me to go shopping with her today and I used the excuse Ash suggested about catching up with an old friend.
But that opened up other questions.
‘Ooh, who are you seeing?’
‘An old friend from work.’
‘Boy or girl?’
‘Girl. Chloe.’ I did work with a Chloe, but we weren’t close.
‘Will she come here?’
‘No, we’re heading out for the day.’
‘Where are you meeting? Do you need a lift?’
‘No, thanks. She’s got a car.’
‘So she is coming here?’
‘We’re meeting at the pub in the village for lunch.’
‘Bit early for lunch, isn’t it?’
Aaargh!
I ended up telling her that I planned to go for a walk first, which was actually true. I can’t be seen in my biker gear, so I had to head up to Ash’s place to get changed.
The gear he bought for me earlier in the week fitted perfectly, which was just as well, because even though the jacket and trousers were exchangeable, the helmet wasn’t.
‘I still can’t believe you risked buying this,’ I say when I’m standing by his bike, fully kitted up and in the process of trying to tighten the chinstrap of my new olive-green helmet.
My jacket is also dark green and the trousers are black, and they both have body armour sewn in, but they look like ordinary clothes from the outside. I like the utilitarian styling of them. Ash point-blank refused to let me pay for any of it.
‘Well, I kind of already knew the circumference of your head,’ Ash admits, coming over to help me.
‘How?’ I ask, jerking as his fingertips brush my neck.
‘That cap I lent you, the one we bought at the market in Lisbon.’
I know the cap he’s talking about – I borrowed it from him at the Castelo de S?o Jorge when he was more concerned about my sunburn than his.
‘I never adjusted it back to my size afterwards,’ he murmurs, and I have a very close-up view of his peach-iced-tea eyes looking intense with concentration as he fiddles with my strap.
‘You still have it?’
‘Mm-hmm.’ He meets my eyes briefly and then picks up his rucksack and helps me to put that on too.
I’m still feeling kind of flip-floppy once we’re seated and ready to go. With my body armour and his, there’s a level of separation between us that we didn’t have on the other short journeys we’ve taken. I loved the feeling of his stomach muscles contracting beneath the fabric of his T-shirt, and I liked the warmth of his leather jacket on my skin, but I’m glad we’re wearing full protective clothing now that we’re going faster. I felt a little short of breath when he first took off along the open road, but I’ve got used to the speed now, the rush of air, the roar of the engine, and the way my body aligns with his as he leans into bends in the road.
I’ve relaxed enough to take in the scenery too: the wide-open fields and rolling green hills dotted with sheep, the bubbling water racing over rocks in the rivers beside us, the way the light changes when we zoom beneath the dense overhang of trees.
When we’ve been driving for forty minutes or so, Ash slows down at the entrance of a wide bridge spanning a large lake. It’s made out of grey stone that looks almost marbled with the amount of aged lichen clinging to it. He creeps to a stop to show me that the water on one side is lower than the other. The bridge’s arches perch on top of a thick stone wall that sinks deep beneath the dark surface.
‘It’s a dam?’
‘Yep.’
He drives slowly across to the other side while I look at the boats on the water, and after a couple more minutes he pulls up at the side of the lake and puts his foot down, turning off the ignition.
‘We’ll stop here for a while,’ he says, taking off his black motorcycle gloves and helmet.
I climb off behind him and remove mine too, shaking out my hair.
‘Okay?’ he asks, watching me for my reaction.
I nod, smiling. ‘That was so much fun.’
It warms my heart, how happy he looks.
‘Where are we?’ I ask.
The water glints between the tree trunks of a narrow stretch of woodland.
‘Lake Vyrnwy,’ he replies, taking my helmet and gloves and leading me between the trees. ‘This reservoir supplies Liverpool.’
‘Isn’t that quite a long way away?’
‘Yeah. The water travels along a seventy-mile aqueduct to get there,’ he tells me as we make our way towards the shoreline, stepping over dead tree trunks covered with furry green moss.
‘Evan’s asked me to go to some aqueduct with him tomorrow,’ I say casually.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ Ash replies bluntly, coming to a stop so suddenly I almost crash into him.
‘What?’ I ask as he turns around to stare down at me.
‘He’s taking you to the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct?’ he asks with annoyance, pronouncing it Pont-ker-sulth-tay.
‘I don’t know what it’s called.’
‘It’ll definitely be that one. That bloke is showing you everywhere in the guidebook. It’ll be Portmeirion next, or Powis Castle or Anglesey …’
‘I thought you didn’t mind Evan?’
‘I’m minding him more.’ Two seconds pass before he screws up his nose at me cutely and says, in a much more reasonable tone, ‘I know you’re free to do whatever you want with whoever you want, but I really wanted to show you the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. He’s Australian, for fuck’s sake. I’m Welsh. I still can’t believe he took you to Pistyll Rhaeadr on Sunday,’ he mutters irritably as he carries on towards the water.
Is it wrong to find his outburst amusing?
I put him out of his misery. ‘We haven’t been to the waterfall yet.’
He shoots his head round to look at me and he’s so upbeat and hopeful that I can’t help but laugh.
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know, I just didn’t really feel like going out after all.’
I was a bit freaked out by Sian’s teasing that it was a date so I made excuses about needing a chilled one.
‘In that case, we’ve got a lot to pack in today,’ he says with a grin, half jumping and half striding off a ledge onto the stony shore.
‘You can’t show me all of Wales in a day.’
‘No, but I can show you a chunk of Mid and North Wales. We’ll go further afield next time.’ He places our helmets on the ground. ‘If that’s okay with you,’ he adds with a bashful smile, coming back to help me.
‘I suppose it could be,’ I tease as he clasps my forearms with his strong hands and steadies me while I climb down.
On the other side of the lake is a tower that looks like it’s part of an old castle, with tall, round, grey stone walls and a conical green roof. A forest rises up behind it, and the water is so still, it reflects a mirror image of the trees, tower and sky.
As he unzips his black jacket, Ash tells me that it’s a straining tower, built at the turn of the twentieth century to extract water from the lake. He’s wearing a dark grey long-sleeve T-shirt underneath, with chunky black boots and black trousers. He’s definitely giving hot biker.
‘So how have you been this week?’ I ask as I remove his rucksack.
‘All right,’ he replies.
‘Have you spoken to Beca?’
He shakes his head as he takes the rucksack from me and starts getting out the picnic supplies. ‘She’s not answering my calls.’ He sounds down.
‘What have you told your parents about your break-up?’
‘My father? Nothing. He hasn’t asked and we don’t talk about feelings . My mother, only that it’s over.’
‘Bet she was disappointed.’
I remember him saying that she wanted him to get together with Beca when he was younger.
‘Sometimes we have to disappoint our parents,’ he says wryly. ‘Speaking of disappointing our parents, how did yours cope when you broke away from the family business? I still don’t know anything about that.’
‘Yeah, I don’t really like to talk about it,’ I reply morosely.
He looks concerned. ‘They took it badly, huh?’
‘That’s an understatement. My mum basically disowned me.’
His eyes widen. ‘Holy shit. I’m so sorry.’
‘My dad and I speak and text occasionally, but I don’t think my mum will ever get over it. I’m still standing, though.’
‘Yes, you are,’ he agrees tenderly.
‘Can we change the subject? I try not to think about them if I can help it.’
He’s still looking concerned, but he obliges me. ‘Tell me about your apprenticeship. What was it like, working at Wisley?’
We chat about me for a while and then move on to talk about his motorbike travels around Europe, and it’s nice – it really is like catching up with an old friend.
‘I told Sian I’m seeing a girl from my old work, by the way,’ I say as we pack away the remnants of our lunch.
He looks troubled. ‘She’s going to be upset with you when she finds out you’ve lied.’
‘Then she’d better not find out.’
‘Why can’t we just tell people the truth?’
‘What, so everyone can look at me differently? No thanks.’
‘Why would people look at you differently?’
‘They might think I’m trying to social climb.’ I couldn’t bear for anyone to put me in the same league as my parents.
He lets out a laugh. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Deadly. You might think you’re their friend, but there’s a balance of power there that puts you on a different level. Like it or not, you’re not equal to them, not in the way I am. Right now, they respect me for being a worker just like they are. I hate the thought of them knowing that I’m your bit of rough from the old days.’
His mouth drops open. ‘Excuse me?’ He’s staring at me disbelievingly.
‘Well, I am, aren’t I?’
‘Are you fucking kidding me?’
He’s outraged, bordering on furious.
‘Don’t tell me that they’d understand,’ I say crossly, feeling chastised by the look on his face and becoming defensive instead of backtracking – I am my father’s child. ‘They wouldn’t! They’d think I’m getting ideas above my station. I’m your gardener – an employee. Beca’s on your level – they all think you two are a match made in heaven.’
‘That’s bullshit ,’ he snaps, aggressively zipping up his rucksack.
‘No, you’re talking bullshit. You are a match made in heaven.’
He scowls at me and then rakes his hand through his hair and stares across the lake, his back and shoulders tense. I don’t know why I’m pushing his buttons like this, but I can’t seem to help it.
He sighs and turns to look at me. ‘Beca would never do this. She would never get on the back of my bike and go for a ride. She would never camp out under the stars. She avoids the workshop, she hates the cabin, she doesn’t like it when I talk with a Welsh accent. She never gets her hands dirty. She would never go swimming in cold water. She doesn’t like picnics – she doesn’t see the point. She would never in a million years go interrailing and slum it in youth hostels.’
He’s already said that he feels disloyal talking about Beca to me, so I know that he doesn’t want to lay it all out on the line like this. It feels as if he’s committing to something by doing so.
‘Beca will always be important to me and I won’t give up trying to win back her friendship. We gave it a shot – it felt like the right time to do that – but I’ve been ignoring a niggling feeling in my gut for months. She’s not made for me, Ellie. Please trust me on that.’
I want to, I really do, but as we ride through the Berwyn Mountains, skirting glittering lakes and waterfalls, I can’t help but remember that I’m not made for him either.