Starting Over (37 page)

Relief. She’d live to fight another day. She went down to secure the kitchen door, thinking she’d have to get into the habit of being more careful about locking it. A good strong cup of tea would calm her, then she’d come back upstairs to read, listen to the radio, continue her solitary, silent existence since last time she visited the supermarket and spoke to the person on the checkout.

She turned the back door key, reached for the kettle.

And he was there.

Not safely out into the twilight as she’d supposed. But there. Leaning in the sitting-room doorway. Locked in with her.

A scream, it must be hers, a banged elbow as she leapt backwards, water spilling and splashing from the kettle in her hand.

Even as she madly computed the probabilities and possibilities of scrabbling for the back door key, turning it, opening the door and getting away from the expression in his eyes, she realised there was no real escape. He was a few leisurely strides away.

He straightened up and stepped silently nearer, close enough to touch. His eyes glittered and she was scared.

‘Hullo, Princess,’ he said. ‘When did you get back?’

His eyes pinned her, like a rabbit in the headlights. He broke the contact first, let his eyes travel over her. Size ten jeans where the bump should have been. ‘No baby,’ he observed neutrally.

She gulped, tried for normality. ‘I’m going to have a cup of ...’

‘No you’re not. No baby?’

Her eyes shut. ‘No baby,’ she whispered. She shouldn’t have come back. Or she should have gone straight to Pennybun and risked whatever reception waited. Not slunk back to Honeybun the way she had yesterday, squeezing the Freelander in the hut, hoping the shrubbery between the two cottages would hide her for just a few hours more until she’d screwed up the courage to face him. She opened her eyes at his silence, dared to look at his impassive face. ‘There wasn’t a baby after all.’

‘You lost it?’

She shook her head. ‘My period just arrived.’ Tears crept out between her lashes.

‘I don’t suppose,’ he mused, stepping forward so that she shuffled nervously back until the door handle jabbed her ribs, ‘that you lifted a few too many boxes?’

Tears stilled in shock. ‘That was nothing to do with it!’

‘No?’ His eyes, which used to be filled with love, now accused. ‘
What
were you doing just before your miscarriage?’

Heart flip. She gazed at the wall to avoid his eyes.

He answered himself. ‘Carrying boxes! Running away. Something’s wrong, Tess must pack up and go. And flush a baby!’

Her voice was hoarse, choked with disbelief. ‘There was no baby this time!’

‘How did you know? When you took your bold decision to clear out whilst I was safely out of the way, when you felt the only thing to do was scarper, when you stuffed your little world into boxes and loaded the Freelander, when you carried that monster computer monitor downstairs, did you think you were
being very sensible
?

‘Tell me.’ He moved forward, crowding without touching. ‘Why Princess Tess couldn’t just say, “I can’t cope with your past, I’m leaving”
.
Did you think I’d beat you up? Tie you to a stake?’

Tears raced each other down her cheeks, her chin, jumped for safety as she shook her head.

‘But it didn’t occur to you to simply tell me it was over?’

Another wild headshake, gagged by her throat muscles. This was awful, worse even than she’d imagined, because he was right! It had been blind reaction. So hurt, so angry that
he’d
been the bastard, left a relationship after unprotected sex without bothering to find out ... just like Olly. Fuelled with self-righteous indignation at his treachery, she’d run, fled. It wasn’t until she stopped that she wondered why.

And he was accusing her of killing their baby in the process! ‘I rang ... after. Dr Warrington said the test showed I wasn’t pregnant after all.’ She covered her face, the choking sobs burst out in an ugly volley at the memory, at the disappointment, and she shuffled towards him. She was so
sorry
! And oh, to feel the strength of his chest and arms!

But Ratty stepped back, leaving her marooned and foolish, drowning in her own tears.

His voice, when it came again, seemed distant. ‘When Olly’s child was conceived,’ he asked, ‘it wasn’t rape, was it?’

Her sleeve was scratchy and non-absorbent when she struggled to use it to wipe her tears. She gasped, tried unsuccessfully to sniff. ‘Of course not!’ She shook her head.

His head levelled with hers and she looked down to hide the red, blotchy, swollen mess of her face. ‘How
did
that baby happen? Maybe you got carried away? Got unlucky?’

Put like that, there was a startling resemblance to his own scenario.

‘Get out of the way, I want to leave,’ he said.

‘Tess’s back.’

‘Shit!’ Pete banged his head on a raised bonnet. Rubbing the sore spot, he stared, astonished. ‘When?’

‘I called at Honeybun last night to check everything was OK. There she was.’

Pete reconnected a battery, careful not to over-tighten on the soft terminals, shook back his hair. ‘So, everything’s going to be all right?’

‘No.’

‘Getting back together?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t you want?’

‘No.’

‘What about the baby?’

‘There wasn’t one.’

He looked away from Pete’s shocked eyes. Pete had children, knew how loving them felt. Ratty’s baby may not have really existed but he hadn’t known that and had still to grieve. Feel aggrieved. For a stupid moment his eyes boiled. He blinked.

Only the relationship debris remained. He must get used to seeing but not loving her. Realise that they wouldn’t be falling into bed together; he wouldn’t revel in her body, the intimacy she loved. This horrible, hollow, missing-her feeling would continue to gape in his chest.

Her furniture would have to travel from Pennybun to Honeybun, but the finances were simple. Tess had kept herself distressingly separate.

A colossal lot of bridges had to be rebuilt.

Anxious at the prospect of a welter of problems, to settle her nerves Tess made a list, Lucasta-style.
To Face – village shop, the pub
. Oh, ouch, too horrible to contemplate, all those people; go back to that one later.
Angel, Pete, Jos, Ratty
. God he’d been so angry! How could she have thought for even a microsecond he’d want her back? But then why had he been looking for her?

She touched her abdomen and wished that she had been pregnant; would everything have been different if she’d come back swollen and heavy with their child?

She bit her pencil and watched the trees tossing in the lane. A walk beckoned. But ... meeting people? Milk was needed, bread, fruit, coffee, supplies were dwindling. She pictured Gwen and Julie’s keen expressions, the avid
‘Are you back
?’
and
‘Where’ve you been
?’ if she called at the village shop – opposite the garage for God’s sake! Maybe Tesco at Bettsbrough would be easier.

Wasn’t this where she came in?

Wasn’t this just how it’d been, the square peg in the village’s round hole, avoiding people in case they spoke to her? Or in case they didn’t? She wasn’t going there again.

Actually, it wasn’t at all as she’d expected.

Gwen said, ‘Hello, stranger,’ and rang up the purchases. Julie the assistant just carried on wiping tins. Flattening, really. Flattening.

When she emerged, clutching two blue-striped carriers, she jumped to see Ratty wiping something with an oily rag, obviously waiting for her. Polishing whatever it was, cut-away sleeves revealing his tattoos moving over his muscles, he stepped nearer.

‘What are you doing this evening?’

A heart trip, a mushroom of joy like a nuclear cloud. It would be OK! He’d blown off steam and now they’d be able to get on with patching things up! She beamed. ‘Nothing, if you’re asking.’

His eyes shifted from her plaited hair to her face. ‘Can you come and sort out your gear and leave your key? About eight?’

Oh ... Falling without a parachute. Stomach leaping to her mouth. ‘Well, yes, I suppose –’

‘Let’s get it over with.’

‘OK, I’ll –’ But there was just his back as, buffing whatever the hell bit of car it was, he left her standing.

So. Little sofa and chairs back up the lane to Honeybun, a couple of tables, a cabinet. Ratty offered his key to Honeybun and waited stoically whilst she fumbled and fluffed unwinding the Pennybun key from her ring. The door shut behind him as he left.

She flung herself on the bandy little sofa, which somehow held the scent of Ratty, too miserable for tears. She felt as if a hole had been blown in her chest and the wind that blew through her was very cold.

Her status in the village changed.

Ratty had withdrawn his – what? His patronage? Stamp of approval?

It felt collusive, as if the residents of the village were silently ganging up on her. Except they weren’t, because nobody was paying her much attention at all. Passing the garage, Pete and Jos would say ‘Hi!’ neutrally, Ratty would glance and nod. And they’d all carry on diligently with their stupid cars.

But worst of all, and what for some reason she hadn’t anticipated, was Angel, with whom there seemed to be no going back.

Her greeting, when Tess tapped on her door, was a tepid, ‘Wondered when you’d show.’ But there was no picking up where they’d left off, no tearful hug and matey confession. Just the last echo of the old affection, heavily coloured by Angel’s disappointment. ‘Were you expecting to be welcomed with open arms? We were supposed to be friends! You left without telling me, and hurt Ratty.’

‘It wasn’t calculated.’ She was miserable with guilt.

‘Maybe not, but you can’t be so ... arbitrary! If you were going to end the relationship over a bit of bad news from the CSA, you shouldn’t pick the most hurtful, misery-making way of doing it and expect us to lump it.’ She reached into the cupboard for flour, shaking back her fair hair, a shorter, scraggy bob. ‘I thought I understood you. But this? Tell me, truthfully, why did you have to come back in such a sneaky way?’

Tess fiddled with her ponytail. ‘I was gearing myself up for the confrontation.’

Angle sniffed. ‘So you couldn’t just turn up at Pennybun and tell Ratty you were alive and well and living next door, right?’

Tess said, unconvincingly, ‘I was going to.’

‘Why couldn’t you ring? If he’d bellowed or whatever it is he does that makes you totally unable to face him, you could’ve put the phone down.’

Tess heard herself go all croaky. ‘And hear his voice? Angel ...’ She struggled for control, had to get up and get herself a glass of water before finishing inadequately, ‘I missed him.’

Adding margarine to her mixing bowl, Angel frowned. ‘So why didn’t you stay away? Start over somewhere else?’

What? Never see Ratty again, never feel the heat of his body, the strength in his hands? Tess gulped more water, stating contradictorily, ‘I had to see him.’

A pause. Angel’s hands worked methodically at her baking, but the eyes she fixed on Tess were narrow and accusing. ‘You wanted it the easy way. You wanted him to discover you, throw his arms around you and love you better. No effort required on your part.’

Tess simply couldn’t answer.

Angel dropped her eyes to her work. ‘What do your parents think?’

She felt her face heat up. ‘I haven’t, um ... I’ll ring them.’

Angel thumped her pastry down, whistling in scandalised admiration. ‘My God, you’re wonderful! All the upset you caused, have you any idea? Your poor mother has been expecting your body to be recovered from a ditch, and
you haven’t even told her you’re back
?’

‘I’ll phone! They know that I need to get away from things, sometimes!’

‘
For months
? And why phone? Why not break the habit of a lifetime and face them? Suffer their recriminations, put up with the shit. Go for it!’

‘My mother will be in fits,’ she sulked.

‘Yes, won’t she? And your dad will be insufferable and say why didn’t you stay with Olly? And I’m beginning to wonder the same thing – perhaps you two deserve one another. And while you’re at it you could face Lester and Elisabeth. They’ve had a terrible time with Ratty!’

She didn’t, as it happened, have to, because the Arnott-Rattenburys pretty soon faced her, knocking at her kitchen door and stepping in for a brusque visit. ‘Just to clear the air, rather than avoid each other,’ said Lester, grim-faced, refusing a flustered offer of coffee.

Elisabeth’s attractive smile was absent. ‘It’s a shame you and Miles have to live in such proximity. But as it seems you’re going to, we might as well be civil.’ As they left, she remarked, ‘Good job about the baby.’