The Night Before Christmas (19 page)

‘Wow,’ Lydia said. ‘This Rachel had moves even Joanna would be proud of. What happened?’

‘I liked her a lot,’ Will said. ‘Like I said, she was
the prettiest girl around for miles, funny, smart. Had it all.’

‘Obviously not all,’ Lydia said, a touch snippily. ‘Otherwise you would have married her.’

‘You’re right,’ Will said simply, stopping at the crest of a hill that fell away to reveal the village, nestling in the crook of the hill, rooftops covered in snow, smoke rising from chimney stacks and snaking into the air.

‘Oh,’ Lydia breathed, as she took in the view. ‘It’s so beautiful, it’s lovely.’

Will looked sideways at her. ‘You think so? I’ve lived here all my life, and I never get tired of walking to the top of this hill and seeing that. It’s home, you know? Whatever else is going on in the world, to know you’ve got a home to come back to, like that. It lifts the heart.’

Lydia looked at him. ‘You can be quite poetic when you want to be,’ she said.

Will smiled faintly, taking hold of her gloved hand and not letting go as he led her down the hill towards the village, even though this time there didn’t appear to be any obstacles that she needed guiding over.

‘I realised I didn’t love her,’ Will said as they walked on. ‘She didn’t make my heart race every time I looked at her, or even thought about her. I didn’t miss being with her, even though I hardly knew her, and I didn’t feel the instant urge to build her a house, exactly the way she liked it, even if I suspected it might have turrets, and live in it with her for ever. And I thought
she deserved someone who did feel that way about her, so I broke it off. It was bad, she was very upset, but that was a year or so ago now. She’s with someone new, she doesn’t hold a grudge any more.’

‘I think it’s amazing,’ Lydia said. ‘Not that you broke up with her. I mean, that you have such a clear idea about love, about what it’s supposed feels like. I broke it off with Stephen because I know that I don’t love him. But I don’t think I know what it really feels like to be in love.’

‘Don’t ask me,’ Will said, noticing her hand was still in his and dropping it rather suddenly. ‘Romantic stuff, not my strong point. I’m not the sort of bloke who does the wining and dining business. I haven’t got all the chat. If I’m honest, most of the women I’ve been out with have chased me, and I’ve let them. But your gut, maybe I should say your heart, knows what it knows, right? I mean, you know inside how a person makes you feel; even if it doesn’t make the most sense, you
know
.’ Will seemed as perplexed by his own thought process as Lydia was.

‘So are you in love now?’ she asked, just as the snow began to fall again.

Will reached out, capturing a flake in the palm of his hand and watching it melt away. ‘We should stop for a pint and a pie before we head back,’ he said, which, by way of response, was frustrating. ‘Come on, I’ll introduce you around.’

* * *

The Royal Oak was full, of heat, light and above all people. It really did feel to Lydia as if the whole village was crammed into the tiny ancient building, which was packed from its flagstone floor to its ancient ceiling beams.

Children chased each other through the throng of legs, older people sat at the tables, laughing and reminiscing, families shared meals and raucous jokes, mothers swayed with babies of varying ages slung over their shoulders, or balanced on their hips as they compared sleepless nights, and teenagers buried their faces in their hair, their thumbs glued permanently to their phones. The old oak beams of the interior had been garlanded with mistletoe and holly, and strung with flashing coloured lights, and a roaring fire crackled in the grate. It didn’t escape anyone’s notice that Will had come in with a strange woman, and while the pub didn’t exactly fall silent while the locals stared at her, Lydia could feel many sets of eyes give her the once over as Will led her to the bar.

‘Now, then,’ the bar man greeted Will with a nod. ‘We thought you’d gone off somewhere, Will. Where you been?’

‘Up at the Pike, helping the new folk settle in,’ Will said.

‘And where did you find this young lady?’ Lydia smiled and waved, remembering her pink bobble hat a little too late.

‘This is a friend of theirs, Lydia. She’s from London but she seems okay. Lydia, this is Mal, the landlord. He’s best mates with Jim.’

‘Oh yeah, Jim from the Pike, he’s a good bloke, he is, likes his ale.’ Mal nodded. ‘What’ll it be?’

‘Pint,’ Will said, looking at Lydia. ‘Lydia?’

‘Um, do you have a wine list?’ Lydia asked, finding herself inexplicably speaking exactly like Celia Johnson in
Brief Encounter
, her averagely middle-class south coast accent suddenly accelerating, against her will, through the roof to the height of poshness. ‘Oh, no, I mean. I’ll have a pint too. As long as it’s wine.’

Mal laughed, producing a leather-bound and actually very comprehensive wine list from under the bar. ‘But you should have a mug of my Kirstie’s mulled wine, there’s a double shot of brandy in every one, it’ll warm you up, if you need it, that is.’

Mal winked at Will, who maintained a steady eye contact with his pint.

‘So you’re staying up at the Pike, are you?’ Lydia turned to find herself being addressed by a woman probably a little younger than her, with a sleeping toddler nodding on her shoulder. ‘What’s it like up there now?’

‘Really lovely,’ Lydia said. ‘You should go up and visit it in the New Year,’ Lydia suggested, remembering how lonely Katy was. ‘My friend’s got two kids and she’d love some visitors. What’s your name, I’ll tell Katy to expect you.’

‘Alice, pleased to meet you,’ the girl said, smiling pleasantly before lowering her voice. ‘I think I’ve seen your friend on the school run, blonde curly hair? Keeps herself to herself, comes across a bit stuck up?’

‘No! She’s not stuck up at all,’ Lydia exclaimed. ‘She’s just really shy. If you got to know her, you’d find she’s lovely.’

‘Well, the school mums do a coffee morning at each other’s houses every other Tuesday. The next one is at my place after New Year. Here, take this lump a second and I’ll write the address down. Tell her to come along and let us have a good look at her.’

Lydia’s knees buckled briefly under the unexpected burden of the sleeping child she found in her arms as Alice scribbled her details on the edge of a beer mat.

‘So, you and Will? How long has that been going on?’ Alice asked as they exchanged beer mat and child again.

‘Me and …? Oh no, we barely know each other. I only just met him. He just asked me along for the walk.’

‘Will asked
you
out for a walk and then brought you in here?’ Alice looked sceptical. ‘That’s marrying talk, around here, especially coming from Will.’

‘Oh, I hardly think so,’ Lydia said. ‘He’s just taken pity on me.’

‘Fit, though, isn’t he?’ Alice said, eyeing Will’s bottom as he leaned over the bar to look at a child’s drawing
that Mal was showing him. ‘All the girls round here have tried to get him over the years, me included.’ Alice sighed. ‘Never asked
me
to go for a walk with him.’

‘Hello, I’m Cathy.’ Lydia turned to find a lady about her mum’s age. ‘You’ve come in with Will, so how long has that been on?’

And gradually, with her mug of mulled wine in one hand, Lydia found herself travelling around the pub, manoeuvred by the natural current of the throng from one set of people to another, asking her questions, mainly about how long she’d known Will, but also making her welcome, telling her jokes, gossiping about the last person she’d spoken to or the next, and in the case of one old gentleman, finding a great deal of excuses to pat her bottom. As she settled down next to a charming old lady called Gracie, who wanted to tell her all about the trips she used to make as a young woman to a Lyon’s Corner House on Piccadilly Circus, Lydia looked across to the bar where Will was sipping his pint, watching her, that shadow of a smile edging up the corner of his mouth.

‘Sorry,’ she mouthed, thinking that intense, brooding look on his face might be something to do with her having been whisked away, but he simply raised his pint to her and turned back to Mal.

‘What I liked best about being a Wren was the soldiers, all very handsome,’ the old lady told her. ‘Kissed more than my fair share during The Blitz, let me tell
you. But I was glad to come back here after the war. I’ve never seen so many busses in my life, you know. Unhealthy great things.’

‘Really?’ Lydia said, anxiously, as she watched Will finish his pint and then head out of the door. He wouldn’t leave her here, would he? Would he? Everyone kept telling her how Will liked his own company, wasn’t often seen out with a girl, was a quiet, shy sort of man, which either made him incredibly sweet or a serial killer, Lydia couldn’t decide which. Either way, it felt like a very real possibility that the prospect of making conversation with her during the mile trek back to the house might strike Will as a conversation too far.

‘I’m really sorry, I’ve got to go …’ Lydia said goodbye and made her way through the crowd, stopping to give a kiss under the mistletoe to the old gentleman who, along with the fondness for her bottom he’d already demonstrated, turned out to have a very opportunistic tongue.

As she opened the pub door, a cold blast of air instantly cooled her heated face, and she looked up and down the road. Will was nowhere to be seen, and annoyingly, having boasted about being able to find her way back easily enough, Lydia couldn’t exactly remember which direction they’d arrived from, as the village seemed to be located at the foot of more than one hill.

She stomped out into the middle of the road. ‘Bloody men. Bloody, bloody men. Drag you all the
way out here for no apparent reason and then just sod off and …’

‘And what?’ Will appeared behind her, settling a sizable a rucksack on his shoulders.

‘Oh, I thought you’d gone,’ Lydia said. ‘But you haven’t. Here you are, creeping up on me again.’

‘I just went to get my stove and some stuff,’ Will said, gesturing vaguely towards a cluster of cottages. ‘Can’t wear the same clothes indefinitely, can I?’

‘Clothes?’ Lydia asked him. ‘Does that mean you’re staying another night? I thought you were coming here, to the pub, for Christmas lunch.’

‘I was,’ Will said, a study in nonchalance. ‘But then I thought I couldn’t really be arsed walking you back to the Pike and then hiking back here again. So I thought I might as well stay there as here. Makes no odds to me. And I packed my Yule log, so …’

Lydia found herself grinning, and, as she hooked her arm through his and they turned up the path back towards Heron’s Pike, she couldn’t help wondering if it was just the climb up the hill that was making her heart race.

The walk home was a good deal quieter than the walk there, but somehow Lydia didn’t mind the silence at all this time. The winter sun was already beginning to set as they rounded the last corner that brought Heron’s Pike into sight, casting a coppery pink light across the hills, making the snow-edged branches of
the hedgerow glow and glisten. Without even realising it, the two of them came to a gradual halt as Lydia paused, taking in the beauty of her surroundings.

It took maybe as much as a minute before Lydia realised that Will wasn’t looking at the view; his eyes were fixed on her.

‘Lydia.’ The sound of her name on Will’s lips startled her and she looked up at him. He put down his rucksack, watching her face bathed in the glow of the molten sky. ‘Lydia.’

As if in slow motion, Will reached out one ungloved hand and touched her face, his fingers tracing their way into her hair, and he gently guided her closer to him, bringing their lips together. Quite breathless, Lydia found she was trembling as he brushed her mouth with his. At first it was the lightest of kisses but it ignited a heat that raged through her like a wildfire.

‘Lydia,’ he said again, more urgently this time, his other arm encircling her waist and gathering her into him, his kisses becoming deeper, more passionate, covering her face, and what little of her neck was exposed. ‘You are so …’ Will broke away, his rare unbridled smile, as he gazed at her, utterly charming. ‘… dressed.’

Lydia giggled and Will laughed too.

‘That was unexpected,’ she said.

‘Really?’ Will asked her. ‘I thought you could tell a mile off that I liked you.’

‘I’d hate to see what you’re like when you’re playing it cool,’ Lydia said, her mind racing to keep up with her furiously beating heart.

‘Look.’ Will paused, searching for words. ‘I’m sorry I kissed you like that, I didn’t plan to, it was just you looked so beautiful and I really wanted to. It’s not like me at all.’

‘I know.’ Lydia smiled. ‘Everyone in the pub told me all about you.’

Will shook his head. ‘Trust me, I didn’t expect to come up here to fix the boiler and meet
you
.’ He said the last word very expressly, as if he were referring to a specific person.

‘Me?’ Lydia said.

‘Yes, you, the girl I can talk to without thinking about it, the girl I
want
to talk to. The one whose smile makes me want to kiss her, the woman who looks so incredible wearing nothing much more than a jumper that it put me in a right awkward position …’

‘Oh!’ Lydia’s eyes widened. ‘
Oh
.’

‘Yeah,
you
. Bloody hell, Lydia I don’t do this sort of thing. Talking to girls, kissing them, at least not until I’ve known them for about a decade. But there’s something about you, Lydia, that makes me want to … to build a house for you.’

Lydia stared at him, unable to speak, her breath crystallising in the air around her.

‘It’s too soon.’ Will looked stricken. ‘I should have
known, you’ve only just finished with Stephen. I shouldn’t have kissed you. I mean, just because I … doesn’t mean that you … Fuck. I’m sorry. Listen, let’s just forget it ever happened.’

Before Lydia could move, let alone speak, Will swung his rucksack onto his shoulders, and began marching down the drive towards the house, leaving her rooted to the spot, unable to quite fathom just exactly what had happened.

Chapter Fourteen

Lydia stopped outside the living room door, listening to the sound of Jim reading to the children.

‘Are there mouses in our house?’ Tilly asked him rather anxiously.

‘No, sweetheart,’ she heard Jim say. ‘And not likely to be, either, and Vincent is a very rare breed of mouse-hunting hound, and they are all scared of him.’

‘Good,’ Tilly said.

‘There are spiders, though,’ Jake said. ‘There’s one at the bottom of your bed the size of my head.’

‘Dad!’

Pushing the door open, Lydia found that Jim and the children were the only ones in the cosy room, with Vincent curled up at Jim’s feet. She noticed two knitted red and white stockings hanging above the fireplace.

‘Father Christmas is coming tonight,’ Tilly told Lydia, clenching her fists with barely containable excitement.

‘I’m getting an Xbox,’ Jake said.

‘Possibly, or possibly something even better,’ Jim said carefully, winking at Lydia. ‘So how was your walk?’

‘Good. Did you see where Will went?’

‘I sent him to find the girls; they are present wrapping in the kitchen. Katy’s more or less refused to move from beside the Aga in case it goes into decline. I think she might sleep on it tonight. Stephen’s been in his room most of the day, Alex’s been putting her feet up and bossing David; and Joanna and Jackson went out for a walk. I think she was a little put out that foxy Will asked you out.’

‘He didn’t ask me out.’ Lydia blushed as she remembered how expertly Will had kissed her, not with the panache and Hollywood style that Jackson employed, but with something more real. ‘We just went for a walk, that’s all. It was nice.’

‘Well, I’m trying to get these two to settle down to something calmer than fever pitch so that when they go to bed they won’t be bouncing off the walls. Because,’ he said, looking from one child to the other, ‘Father Christmas doesn’t come if you’re awake.’

‘I’ll leave you to it, then,’ Lydia said, listening to Jim begin to read again as she walked up the hall.

‘Who’s St Nicholas? I don’t want him, I want Father Christmas!’

Katy, Alex and the Calor gas stove were all in the kitchen, but Will was nowhere to be seen.

‘Ah, the wanderer returns,’ Katy said. ‘How was your walk with Will?’

‘What do you mean?’ Lydia asked her, defensively.

‘I mean, how was your walk. With Will?’ Katy raised an eyebrow. ‘Touchy!’

‘We just went for a walk,’ Lydia said. ‘What is all the fuss about?’

‘You tell me.’ Katy grinned. ‘All I know is that Will came in here, dumped that on the table and then went out to the boathouse for a smoke.’

‘The boathouse?’ Lydia knew she wanted to talk to Will, to see him again as soon as she possibly could, because if she could see him standing in front of her she might be able to make sense of some of what she was feeling. But there was no way she could run off to the boathouse now and ever live it down. ‘Irish coffee, anyone?’

‘Give her a break,’ Alex said, curling ribbon ferociously with a pair of scissors. ‘Let the corpse of her and Stephen’s relationship cool a little bit before you start trying to fix her up with the help.’

‘I’m just saying, it would be great if Lydia had a local love interest. She’d visit all the time, then, and I wouldn’t be so lonely.’

‘You know what you should do,’ Lydia said, heaping coffee into a cafetière. ‘Next time Jim goes to the pub, go with him and take the kids. I’ve met about twenty people today, and they wanted to know all about you. I even got you an invite to a local mums group.’ She handed Katy the beer mat with Alice’s number on it and explained about meeting her, omitting Alice’s less than flattering first impression of Katy. ‘Everyone seemed really friendly. You’ve got to get out there, Katy, make a bit of an effort. I bet you’d make loads of friends in no time.’

‘Maybe,’ Katy said cautiously, but she pinned the beer mat to the fridge with one of the assortment of magnets that lived there. ‘I’m just worried they might all club together and burn me in a wicker man.’

‘They only do that to virgins,’ Alex said, her face suddenly contorting in pain.

‘Braxton Hicks
again
?’ Katy asked her. Alex nodded. ‘They seem very strong, Alex. Should I call NHS Direct?’

‘What are they going to do, deliver the baby down the phone line?’ Alex asked her, her expression relaxing as the pain eased. ‘Look, this one isn’t due for weeks. And it says in my book that Braxton Hicks can be really strong. Besides, I don’t feel like I’m in labour. I mean, I’d know, wouldn’t I? If I was? There’d be screaming, and amniotic fluid everywhere.’

‘I don’t know, they sent me home four times with
Jake,’ Katy said. ‘I had to beg them to let me stay in the end.’

‘Look, I’m fine now,’ Alex said, getting up, spreading her arms and waggling her fingers to emphasise her point. ‘So let’s just get on with wrapping, shall we?’

‘Don’t forget, that pile has to be wrapped in the potato print paper, and that pile in the shop paper,’ Katy said. ‘I swear I’ve spent double on them this year, since the paper obsession started. I don’t want them thinking Father Christmas doesn’t bring them their dream present, and I don’t want them thinking that Mummy and Daddy haven’t got them anything.’

‘In my day, we got an orange and a piece of coal and were grateful,’ Alex said, so seriously and so untruthfully that everyone burst out laughing.

‘
There
you are.’ Joanna appeared in the doorway, dressed in a luxurious charcoal-coloured mohair sweater, her hair falling in glorious coppery curls.

‘What do you mean: there we are? We’ve been here, prepping vegetables and rolling tiny sausages in bacon all day. It’s you and Lyds who’ve been swanning around, out and about,’ Alex said, a touch resentfully. ‘Just because I’m the only one who couldn’t run fast enough to escape the clutches of Martha Stewart over there.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Joanna tipped her head to one side and looked Lydia up and down. ‘How was your walk? Was the scenery invigorating?’

‘Bloody hell!’ Lydia said. ‘It was just a walk!’

‘Are you sure?’ Joanna teased her. ‘I think he’s got designs on you and, after all, you’re single now, so why not?’

‘Because her ex-boyfriend is still somewhere in this house and, contrary to popular belief, she is not a total slut?’ Alex sighed heavily, as she dropped another present on the pile. ‘Oh, hang on, I can’t remember if I wrapped that in the right paper.’

‘I’m not saying rub his nose in it, I’m just saying if he’s interested don’t let the grass grow.’ Joanna grinned. ‘Take Jack and me, since we’ve been together I’ve kept him busy, really, really busy, so he hasn’t had a moment to have second thoughts.’ Alex and Lydia exchanged brief glances.

‘Lucky you,’ Katy said. ‘This morning was the first time I’ve had sex in weeks. If Jim’s not snoring his head off on the sofa, he’s flat out as soon as his head touches the pillow. It’s not like I miss the sex, so much. It’s the kissing. There really is nothing like a good kiss …’

‘Must be something in the air,’ Joanna said, peering at Lydia. ‘Is that stubble rash, Lydia? You look suspiciously like you’ve been kissed by an unshaven northern man.’

‘What? Where?’ Lydia ran to peer at her reflection in the stainless steel breadbin. ‘There’s nothing.’ Joanna and Katy dissolved into schoolgirl giggles, which billowed into gales of laughter as Will returned from the boathouse. He stood in the doorway for a second,
glancing first at Lydia, then at the hysterical women and then at the Calor gas stove. And then he went back out of the door again.

‘Poor man,’ Alex said. ‘Go and fetch him in, someone, before he freezes to death. And you two, stop laughing. Anyone would think this was Christmas.’

Lydia found Will leaning against the wall, staring up at the wonderfully clear sky, all the secrets of the universe laid out above them, so close that you almost felt you could take a single step and walk among the stars.

‘I’m sorry,’ Lydia said, approaching him cautiously. ‘I didn’t react very well, back then when we … It’s not that I didn’t react; it’s just that I couldn’t. I was so surprised … I thought you thought I was a bit silly.’

‘I do think you’re a bit silly,’ Will said, without looking at her. ‘Weird thing is, I like it.’

‘That kiss was … I mean, wow,’ Lydia said. ‘I didn’t think a person could get that turned on wearing fleece.’ She watched Will’s profile carefully for any sign of that elusive smile. ‘It’s just that everyone in the pub said you never make the first move …’

‘I never do,’ Will confirmed. ‘Never felt like it before. It’s doing my head in.’

Lydia took a moment to let the information sink in. ‘The thing is, Will, I would like to kiss you again. A lot. But I’ve literally just broken up with Stephen, and we’re all going to be sitting around the table eating
beans on toast in a minute and … well, there has been some other stuff going on that’s made me realise that the way you think you feel, isn’t always the way you feel, and that sometimes you can get caught up in something so much, only the be disappointed later. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I can’t kiss you again, not until I’ve sorted out the mess I’m in. But as soon as I’ve done that, then I’d be very open to a good deal more kissing at your convenience. Although the three hundred miles or so between our addresses might make it tricky.’

Will nodded, looking at her. ‘Good.’

‘Good?’ Lydia was confused.

‘Good, I’m glad you aren’t the sort of person to jump from one man to the next, and I’m glad you care about Stephen’s feelings and how hard it must be for him to lose you. And whatever mess you’re in, I’m pleased you want to sort it out first, before you kiss me again.’ He reached out, touching the tips of her fingers with his as he looked into her eyes. ‘As long as you do kiss me again.’

‘Oh,’ Lydia breathed. ‘Stop that, you’re making it awfully hard not to kiss you now.’

‘Can’t have that, can we?’ Will smiled. ‘Let’s go inside and fire up the stove.’

Surely, Lydia said to herself, as she took extra care over her appearance for her dinner of camping fare, surely it wasn’t the done thing to fall for a man you barely
knew when you’d only just split up with your almost-fiancé and had quite recently snogged your best friend’s boyfriend? And yet there seemed to be a connection between her and Will stronger than any she had felt with Stephen, or even Jackson.

That briefest of kisses in the snow had made one thing abundantly clear to Lydia: if another man could make her feel the way Will had in a matter of seconds, then any residual feelings she had for Jackson, which had been stirred up by seeing him so unexpectedly, simply weren’t real. Jackson had been her movie moment, a perfect romance that was only ever meant to last a few frames and then melt away into a cherished memory after the final credits rolled. Perhaps what he’d said last night, about missing her and wishing he’d got in touch sooner, even if it was all true, maybe they were things she was never supposed to know. Just because some twist of fate had brought them together again, it didn’t inevitably mean they were
meant
to be. And now Lydia knew that, she wanted to make sure Jackson did too; and more importantly, that Joanna never found out what had happened last night on the sofa.

Standing back, Lydia studied her reflection in the mirror. Perhaps a scarlet velvet dress was a little over the top for beans on toast, but she had no idea how long Will would stay around, and now seemed as good a time as any to pull out a showstopper. Carefully, Lydia adjusted the straps so they sat just off the shoulder,
flowing into the sweetheart neckline, than made the best of her generous cleavage. She smoothed her hands over her waist and hips, glad for the first time that she hadn’t dieted her curves away, like she’d been promising to do for months now. For a moment, she saw herself how she hoped Will might see her – dark hair and eyes, smooth creamy skin – and Lydia felt beautiful. Slipping her feet into her favourite black Kurt Geiger heels, Lydia took a breath and prepared herself to be teased by her friends for over-dressing to impress a man. After all, she was guilty as charged.

As she reached the top of the stairs, everyone else was at the foot, standing around the tree, sipping mulled wine and rather self-consciously singing carols, led by Tilly and Jake, whose shining faces gazed up at the tree as if Father Christmas might appear from behind it at any moment. Lydia watched as Katy rested her head on Jim’s shoulders, and David put his arms around Alex and their baby bump, holding them both so closely. And then she saw Joanna whispering into Jackson’s ear, and giggling, and Stephen with one hand on top of Vincent’s head as the dog leaned against his legs in commiseration. And finally, there was Will, who looked up at her as she walked down the stairs, the slow smile that Lydia had discovered she spent every moment away from him longing to see, spreading across his face.

Beautiful, that was how she felt.

* * *

For all its lack of Christmas pomp, dinner went well. Stephen came into his own, chopping onions and fresh tomato into the baked beans, joking quietly about his former career as a boy scout, while Will and Jim cooked sausages and toast over the fire, before carrying them into the dining room.

‘Do you know,’ Katy said as her husband put her plate of glorified beans on toast in front of her, ‘I think this might be the nicest meal I’ve ever eaten.’

Lydia let the evening slip away quite happily, feeling herself relax for the first time, not only since she arrived, but in months. Stephen was quietly stoical, and more than slightly drunk, and it seemed odd to Lydia to think that the man she’d arrived with only a few days ago was now already becoming a stranger to her. Sitting across the room from her, laughing with Jim and David, making jokes with Jake, and yet it felt right, as if that was the way it was supposed to be. She and Stephen were meant to be fond acquaintances, never lovers.