Never Alone (7 page)

She goes to speak, but he hasn’t finished.

‘I’m good at fixing things, you know – I can do painting, decorating; I can wire up electrics. Whatever you need doing.’

‘I know you’re good at fixing things,’ Sarah says; ‘you helped me with the guttering when you stayed here before, remember?’

‘Aye, I did,’ he says, proudly, as if he’d forgotten.

‘But the thing is, Will, I’ve got a friend staying in the cottage at the moment. You met him, last weekend at the Royal Oak. So it’s not free. I’m sorry.’

‘Oh, right, I see,’ he says, but looks as if he doesn’t. A second later he drinks some of his tea and goes to stand up. ‘I’ll be on my way, then. I don’t want to trouble you, Sarah. You know you were always very kind to me.’

‘Hang on!’ Sarah says. ‘You don’t need to rush off.’

She doesn’t particularly want him staying in the house with her, on her own, but she can’t imagine sending him out into the
darkness again with nowhere to go. But then, she’s not on her own, is she? Aiden is there. He is just a few yards away.

‘I can sleep in the workshop,’ he suggests. ‘I don’t mind. I won’t disturb anything.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ she says. ‘It’s not exactly warm out there.’

‘I’ve got my sleeping bag,’ he says. ‘Seriously, don’t worry – anything’s better than the bus shelter.’

He says that as though he’s done it before. The thought of it makes Sarah want to weep.

‘Look,’ she says, ‘you can have the spare room tonight…’

He looks up, overjoyed, his bright blue eyes shining, ‘Serious? Are you serious? Thank you, thank you so much…’

‘… but tomorrow we need to find you somewhere better, okay?’

‘Aye,’ he says, but looks doubtful again.

‘We’ll worry about that in the morning. Are you hungry?’

He is, of course he is. And he needs a bath. While the oven’s warming up, Sarah goes upstairs to put clean sheets on the bed in the spare room, the one at the back of the house. She turns the radiator up while she’s in there. Normally she leaves it just about ticking over. Seems little point in keeping the whole house toasty when it’s just her here.

When Sarah gets back downstairs Will is asleep, his head resting on his arm. He is breathing deeply. She does not wake him but puts the pot of chicken casserole she had defrosted into the oven to heat through, prepares some vegetables. Even the chopping and the boiling pan don’t disturb him. She goes into the living room while the vegetables are cooking, switching on the television. The news is just finishing and the weather report indicates that heavy rain is due overnight. There is a risk of localised flooding.
Not up here
, she thinks,
thank goodness
.

When the oven timer sounds to remind her about the dinner, she goes back into the kitchen. Will is awake now, sitting back in his chair.

‘That smells so good,’ he says.

She wants to object, reply that it’s only chicken, that anything would smell good if you were as hungry as Will clearly is, but instead she smiles and accepts the compliment as it has been given. She fills a plate and puts it in front of him. Then she dishes up her own portion and sits at the table to eat with him. It’s nice having company. It does feel a little odd that it’s just the two of them, especially after what’s happened with Sophie. She wonders whether to bring up the subject, considers that he might be too tired – and too emotional – to talk about her now. It can wait, she thinks. After all, Sophie doesn’t even need to know he stayed here. He will probably be gone in the morning, or certainly after the weekend.

‘This is great,’ Will says. He has nearly finished already.

‘You want some more? There’s a bit left. Help yourself.’

He gets up from his seat and takes his plate over to the Aga, spooning the last bit of casserole out. The last few mouthfuls he tries not to rush. She watches him while he eats, and when he catches her looking he smiles at her. He really is beautiful, she thinks; it takes her by surprise. Under the tangle of short curls, he has clear skin, and that makes the blue of his eyes even more vivid. A pierced nose – not so common in young men, but not at all effete, because he has a good strong nose that suits a silver stud, and white, even teeth. A beautiful boy, he is.

No wonder Sophie is attracted to him, she thinks. No wonder she was, herself. But she isn’t going to think about that right now. She told herself she wasn’t going to think about it again.

She doubts that he even remembers.

Sarah stands at the bathroom door with an armful of dirty clothes, while Will sinks into the warm water with a blissful sigh.

‘I’ve put the clean clothes on the dresser there,’ she says. ‘Just some things of Louis’s. They might not fit, but, you know, better than nothing.’

‘That’s great, thanks,’ he says. His eyes are closed.

She turns to go, shuts the door behind her. Well, that was awkward. She had brought the clothes to the bathroom door, suggested he hand the dirty clothes over and swap them. The door was wide open and he’d just stripped off, there and then, before she could even say anything.

Even so, she had tried to avert her eyes as he passed over the pile of clothes with a smile.

Downstairs, she puts Will’s clothes in the washing machine with the other things he has dragged out of his rucksack, adds detergent, and sets the machine running. She rinses the dishes and loads the dishwasher, and then sits down.

She needs to clear her head, to think.

A few minutes later, Will comes down the stairs and pads into the living room on socked feet. He is much taller than her son, and the jogging bottoms are a little short, but they will do. His hair is wet but he looks much better, so much more relaxed. ‘I was going to offer to make you a cuppa,’ he says.

‘That’s kind. I’m okay, though. You want to make one for yourself?’

He goes through to the kitchen and comes back with a mug of tea and his guitar, sits cross-legged on the sofa with the guitar on his knee.

The memories of it, what happened, surge up inside her, sour like vinegar. She thinks he doesn’t remember; he cannot, surely, because if he did it would all be too much to bear; and then he starts to play ‘Killing Me Softly’ and she realises he does.

At five past ten there is a knock at the door; Sarah is there, the wind tugging at her hair and the cardigan she’s wearing.

‘I’m sorry it’s late,’ she says.

‘Don’t worry. Is everything all right? Have you got a visitor?’

You saw him crossing the yard, or, rather, loitering for a while in the barn as if he was trying to pluck up the courage to knock on the door. You watched him for a while, recognising him as the young man who’d been talking to Sophie in the pub. Finally he skirted the yard, keeping close to the wall of the workshop, and knocked on the front door of the house.

‘It’s only Will. He’s kind of homeless. I think he’s supposed to be house-sitting for someone in the village, but they’ve not left for their holiday yet. He didn’t have anywhere else to go.’

You pour her a glass of wine without asking if she wants one – it feels too late for tea – and she takes it. She follows you to the living area, sits down with you.

‘If you’re worried about him being in the house with you, you can send him over here; he can always sleep on the sofa.’

‘No, it’s fine,’ she says. ‘I think he’s been sleeping rough for a few days. It’s only because it’s been raining that he came here. His clothes were all damp.’

‘You can stay here, if you like,’ you say. ‘I’ll have the sofa. Or I’ll go and sleep in the house.’

‘It’s not that,’ she says quickly. ‘It’s not that I mind. He’s stayed over before, lots of times.’

‘What, then?’

‘Something happened between him and Sophie.’

You wait for her to continue. She is chewing gently on her lower lip, as if she is unsure of what to say. Sarah does not talk about her friends. She does not gossip. Or, at least, she never did when you knew her, all those years ago.

‘You know you can tell me, Sarah. Whatever it is. It’s just between us.’

‘She says she kissed him,’ she says. ‘After we left the pub, the other night.’

As she says it she looks up at you again and there is something in her eyes, some distant hurt. You wonder about Jim. You wonder whether they went all those years being faithful to each other; whether their marriage was happy. You don’t feel you have the right to ask.

‘I’ve never seen her like that,’ she says. ‘She’s normally so measured, so careful. She seemed – I don’t know – thrilled by it, I suppose.’

‘And you don’t approve?’

‘It’s not that. George is – Christ, I shouldn’t be telling you all this; for God’s sake don’t repeat it – well, he’s never been faithful to her. I just didn’t think she would do the same to him.’

‘You think something else happened?’ you say.

‘We used to talk about everything,’ she says. ‘It did feel as though she wasn’t telling me the whole story. And I didn’t press her. I don’t know why I didn’t.’

But then she puts a hand to her mouth, her fingers pressing against her lips.

‘You do know why,’ you say.

‘What?’

‘You know. You’re just not sure you want to tell me.’

She laughs, a short bitter sound. ‘Why do you always have to be so bloody perceptive? Are you psychic?’

‘Yes,’ you say seriously. ‘Of course I am. I know you, Sarah. I know everything about you. I know exactly how your mind works.’

She kicks you gently with the toe of her shoe. ‘Stop that.’

You laugh to ease the tension. She thinks you’re teasing, which is fine with you. The truth is, you do know everything about her. Everything.

‘Sorry.’

‘That’s just it, though. I haven’t been honest with her. There’s something I should have told her, right at the beginning, and I didn’t.’

You wait for her to carry on. This isn’t something you can rush.

‘I feel embarrassed about it now,’ she says. ‘But I had a – a thing – with him. Years ago.’

‘A thing?’ You can’t help yourself.

‘At Louis’s birthday party. His twenty-first. Will was there, and everyone was drunk, I was drunk. It was only a few months after Jim died; I don’t know if that’s why I behaved the way I did. Everything felt strange back then, as if I wasn’t really myself any more. I guess it was – maybe it was part of the grieving, I don’t know. I was determined to have a good time if it killed me, for Louis, and I’d managed it until really, really late – most of them had crashed out and I’d woken up a bit, and I went outside to get some fresh air and think, and Will followed me out. We were just talking and laughing, and he rolled a joint and we shared it. And then he played me some tunes on his guitar, out there in the garden with just me and him, and the next thing I knew he was kissing me.’

You don’t speak. You wait for her to continue.

‘It was just that once. In the morning he did all the washing-up and tidying up downstairs, and then, when all
the others who’d slept over got up, they all went down to the village for breakfast and I didn’t see him for ages after that. He’s never said anything, never made me feel weird about it. It was just one time, and you know what? It felt great. It made me feel as though my life wasn’t over.’

There it is. That explains why he looked so comfortable with her, in the pub. That explains the way he was looking at her. You hate that self-assured swagger you see in other men, that triumph, that entitlement. No wonder you took an instant dislike to him.

‘You didn’t tell Sophie?’

‘I was a bit embarrassed. I mean, he’s nearly twenty years younger than me, for God’s sake… not that Sophie would have cared about that. But I knew, I kind of already knew, that it would just be that once. So there was no point telling her, was there? It was just a moment that I had, and he had, and it was great but that was it.’

‘And you think maybe he told her that he’d already slept with you? When they were together?’

‘God, I hope not. I can’t really ask without telling her everything.’

‘And you can’t tell her, now?’

‘Not if she’s fallen for him. If I tell her that I slept with him, it will look as if I’m – I don’t know – jealous, or something. And besides, it will probably all burn itself out, won’t it?’

There is a long pause. She has finished her wine. You go to top it up but she stops you, her hand over the glass – she is taking it easy tonight. She doesn’t want to get drunk with you.

‘So now, with him turning up here, do you think he wants – you know? Sorry to put it crudely. You think he wants a rematch?’

She looks up at you. ‘I don’t think so. It was years ago, and besides, he’s interested in Sophie now, not me.’

‘Would you, though? If you go back, later, and find him in your bed?’

You’re putting words in her mouth now, aren’t you? What you want to believe. You don’t want to think that maybe, just maybe, she wants to fuck him again, even more than he does her. Because that would hurt. That would cut you deeply.

She shakes her head. You’ve gone too far; you can see it in her eyes. Something has grazed against her and she is holding herself still, upright.

‘I should be getting back,’ she says.

You look at her for a long while. It feels like the wrong moment, when you’ve just pushed her, made her uncomfortable. But you can’t help yourself.

‘Stay,’ you say.