Authors: Debbie Howells

The Bones of You (13 page)

BOOK: The Bones of You

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“I ought to do more,” he says. “Honestly? If I didn’t have Joanna or Delphine, I’d go. Never come back. Make it my life.”

He speaks as though he means every word. Putting the mugs on the table, I sit opposite.

“Thanks,” he says. “The other thing is, I’m crap at cooking.”

“Why not bring Delphine over for supper?” I say brightly. “I’m cooking for only one these days . . . well, during the week.”

“Oh?”

“Angus is working in York,” I tell him. “Monday to Friday. So honestly, you’d both be more than welcome.”

He gives me an appraising look. “He wouldn’t mind?”

“Angus?” I say incredulously as the implication of his question sinks in, that I’m inviting Neal for dinner while my husband’s away. “Of course he wouldn’t.”

I get the full, uncensored warmth of a Neal Anderson smile. “Then thanks. We’d both like that.”

I slow roast a chicken with baked potatoes and herbs I’ve picked from the garden, because it’s easy, adding vegetables for the last hour, pouring myself a glass of wine as I tidy up and set the table for three. I haven’t dressed up, just changed into clean jeans, adding a touch of make-up and a splash of perfume, because it’s just a kitchen supper with friends.

But when I open the door, I’m taken aback to see Neal’s alone.

“Delphine’s busy tonight,” he explains. “I’d completely forgotten when you invited us. Look, we could always make it another day. I’d quite understand—if you’d rather?”

“Of course not. You might as well come in. I’ve already cooked. . . .” I’m too bright, overdoing it. Trying to hide what he’s picked up on—the truth, that I’m a little thrown. I’m not sure why, but it feels a bit too cosy. His physical presence is powerful, unnerving. And now it is only the two of us, I’m not sure what Angus would say. Or, for that matter, Jo. Then sheer bloody-mindedness kicks in. It’s just dinner, for God’s sake. And Angus went to York, didn’t he? I know he doesn’t always eat alone.

“Cool. I’ll open this.” He produces a bottle. “Assuming you like red?”

“Red is good. Thank you.”

I find him a corkscrew, filling an awkward silence that doesn’t thaw, in spite of Neal’s best efforts. Was it naive of me to invite him here? Only I didn’t, I remind myself. I invited Delphine, too.

“So where’s Delphine?” I ask.

“With a school friend,” he says briefly. “I’m not much good at remembering the family stuff. What with being away so much, I’ve always left that side of things to Jo.”

“God, you’re as bad as Angus,” I tell him, taking the glass he holds out.

His eyes twinkle at me. “Us men, hey? I know, we’re all the same.... Cheers.” He clinks his glass against mine.

“Cheers . . . You’re not so bad,” I say lightly, meaning men collectively, rather than just Neal, and downing some of my wine quite quickly. “Shall we eat?”

“Good plan. Smells fantastic, by the way. You wouldn’t want to see what I can manage in the kitchen. And you must tell me, how’s your daughter getting on?”

“Grace? Really good. She’s loving her course. I miss her, obviously.. . .” My voice trails off as I serve the food onto plates.

“It’s okay,” he says quietly, topping up our glasses while I put the plates on the table. “I asked. And it’s not wrong to talk about her. She’s your daughter. You should.”

“You know why I don’t?” I tell him, wondering how I can tell
him
this, but not Jo. “Because when I mention her name to Jo, I feel so guilty.”

He shakes his head. “You really shouldn’t,” he says gently. “It’s not your fault Rosanna died. Or any of ours. And life goes on. It has to, Kate. I have to believe that. It’s the only thing that gets me through this.”

“It must drive you insane. Not knowing,” I say softly, my awkwardness gone, finding I’m suddenly flattered by his shared confidences, the way he talks so openly to me.

There’s a pause before he says, “Yes.”

We eat in silence, finish the wine; then as I look across the table at him, I feel a connection between us that’s tangible, born out of empathy, because he’s so brave, so strong. And he has no one who’s strong for him.

It’s as if he reads my mind, putting down his knife and fork as my heart flips over, and somehow, across the table, our hands link.

“How do you do it?”

“What? Touch your hand? Easy, Kate. My fingers close round yours, like this, and . . .”

His tone is light; his voice hypnotic. His fingers are strong and warm wrapped round mine. How can just touching hands feel like this?

What am I doing? What is he doing?

“I don’t mean that.” I want to pull my hand away, but there’s a force keeping it there, the same force that’s making my fingertips tingle, my pulse race, and my insides flutter. I try to ignore all of them, to focus. “I mean survive, keep strong after what’s happened?”

He sighs. “Oh. That. Sometimes, Kate,” he says, “you really don’t have a choice.”

When I don’t rally with some flirty aside, the shutters go down. Slowly, he disentangles his hand, then gets up, offering to help clear up before glancing at his watch.

“Thanks, but it’s no problem,” I tell him. “Look, there’s hardly any washing-up.”

His eyes flicker around the kitchen. I see it through his eyes for a minute. Small and untidy instead of pristine, stripped wood instead of gleaming steel. The washing-up’s stacked in the sink; ingredients are spread over the worktops. Then I stop myself, because this is my home and I love every untidy inch of it.

“It was a lovely meal,” he says finally.

“Sorry. I should have made a dessert. I could make coffee, if you like?” But my offer is halfhearted.

A silence falls between us, filled with unsaid words. Then he says, “I think it’s best if I go. Thank you for tonight, Kate.”

He takes a step closer, and like my fingers were sparking earlier, I feel my traitorous heart skip a beat.

“It was nothing, really. You’re welcome.”

I don’t say, “We must do it again.” I’m too aware of the physical effect he’s having on me to say anything else. And then, before I can stop him, he leans toward me, his lips closer, then touching mine.

ROSIE

I see the blue-eyed boy in worn jeans working in our garden, the one who knows the seasons and how to sell them to people like my parents, who, above all, want to look good. To bask in admiring glances because they have the biggest house and the most impressive garden.

Am I drawn to him that first time because my parents would hate even the idea of their daughter touching him, kissing him, joining her body to his? Or do his kind gentleness, his sensitivity, the way he reads me mean it’s as inevitable as night falling or storm waves crashing on the shore? How can I tell?

Alex shows me the first shoots poking up through the earth. “It encapsulates nature,” he tells me. You have these small, brown, knotty things buried in the earth that, with the right conditions, grow and produce something beautiful. First leaves, which are each their own shade of green, followed by a tiny snowdrop or a sweet-scented narcissus or bold tulips, which keep growing, changing color, even when you cut them. “But,” he adds, “the potential was always there, even if you couldn’t see it.”

The way he speaks makes it simple, that what needs nurturing isn’t the blowsy, transient flower, but what’s underneath. Like with people, what’s inside is far more beautiful than anything produced by the surgeon’s knife.

He shows me there’s beauty in imperfection. In petals that drop, then wither and brown, leaving the seed pods, which birds feed on. In lichen-covered bark; rich, crumbling soil; and the rose with different colored blooms. Their own kinds of beauty beyond the obvious.

It starts with our eyes. Our shoulders brushing. Fingers making contact as I hand him a mug of tea, until one day, he puts down the mug. Strokes a strand of hair off my face, then leans down and kisses me.

His touch is as seductive as the first breath of honeysuckle or the sun’s warmth after a long winter. I don’t know how I’ve lived so long without him, how empty I’ve been, until the moment his hands first hold mine, when I breathe in the earthy, fresh-air scent of him, which makes me long for him. It’s when I realize for the first time, I feel truly alive.

It’s a moment I can’t take back. There’s nowhere else to go after falling in love, with its dancing air and light feet. It’s life changing, reaching into my psyche, lifting it. I can breathe. I can talk. I can be. Is it love that does this to people, or being surrounded by the silent strength of trees, the unstoppable force of the wind, while at your feet the most delicate flowers grow?

Alex shows me another world: the tallest hilltops, with the world spread at our feet; the highest clouds that herald a storm. The movement of the tides while we light a driftwood fire and sit, his arm around me, my head against his, watching the sky, shades of blue fading to peach purple before stars pierce the darkness.

And in between, it’s enough to snatch moments, no less precious because they’re fleeting.

I’m so careful. Cover every trace of us with finely drawn lies so no one knows. Until the day I don’t see my mother come back after her hair appointment’s canceled and they forgot to tell her. I don’t hear her car, because she parks it on the road. Nor do I see her silently open the door and go inside, then tiptoe through the sitting room to the kitchen, where she stands and looks outside.

Is the shock on her face because his arms are around me, or because she sees on our faces something she knows she’s never felt and never will?

It no longer matters what my parents think. This kind of love can’t be wrong. But I know, too, it isn’t always like this. That there are some people, like my parents, who would be better as passing strangers. Or best, never meeting at all.

W
hat happened with Neal that night haunts me, even though it was just a kiss, and I pushed him away, and even though I picture Angus drunk in a bar, his eyes blurry as he gazes adoringly at a nameless someone, always a
pretty
nameless someone, as he flirts, almost definitely in a harmless, tipsy kind of way—but always harmless. The results of the “How much do you trust your husband?” test are in. He passes with flying colors. I trust him implicitly. With our marriage. With my life. Like he trusts me.

Several times I pick up my phone to call Rachael, but something stops me. Is it fair to put her in the middle of this? Or is the truth that I’m too ashamed?

Just a kiss.
That was what Neal said before he left last night.

All his fault. How sorry he was.
He said that, too, before he left.

I could have stopped him sooner. I’d sensed what was coming. Let it happen
.
That’s no one’s fault but my own.

I escape on Zappa, who’s still with me because although his owner doesn’t want him back, she cannot bring herself to sell him.

This morning, he’s restless, jumpy, feeling the cold through his clipped coat and not liking what’s in my head any more than I do. Only when I turn him into an unplowed field and let him fly do we leave my thoughts far behind, fixing instead on the pounding of his hooves, the mud spattering in all directions, and the wind.

This majestic horse senses my every mood, even when we get back and I turn him out with Reba and Oz, when he spurns their company and instead comes and stands, his head close to mine, his breath warm against my hands, as if he knows. And for a short time, I forget. But when I get back to the house, shower the mud off, and am making lunch, with damp hair, Neal turns up.

“You should go,” I tell him, my cheeks flushed, not meeting his eyes. “Please. I love Angus. I don’t want this.”

But he doesn’t. He just stands there, saying nothing. I risk a sideways glance at his face, edging toward his eyes, feeling them riveted to me.

“Kate?”
How can one word, just four letters, hold so much?

Is this how affairs start? Is this all it takes? One person overstepping the line, persuading, sweet-talking the other to take a chance, to give in to that rush you’ve all but forgotten about, because it stops when you’ve been married as long as we have?

There’s a silence. Drawn-out minutes that feel much longer, after which, with an iron will, I turn my back on him. Wait for the latch to click as he closes the door behind him, listen for the crunch of male footsteps on gravel, count the number of seconds I know it takes to walk the length of our drive, before I turn, only to catch the back of him as he disappears out of sight.

I slump to the floor. However he makes me feel, I’m relieved he’s gone.

After he goes, and though I don’t want it to be, shame is like a black armband or a battle scar, drawing sympathy I don’t deserve.

“I’m missing Angus,” I say if anyone comments on how pale I look, hearing, “Liar, liar, pants on fire,” in taunting tones behind my back. As well as almost cheating, I’m a fraud, too.

As if he knows, the cloud of my guilt stretching all the way to York, he doesn’t come home that weekend.

“I’m sorry, Kate. I completely forgot, but there’s this dinner on Saturday. If I’d remembered, you could have come, too. . . .”

“You will be back the next weekend, though, won’t you?” Disappointment spiked with relief.

That weekend, her course over, Jo comes home. And as my guilt intensifies, her words come back to me.
He’s having an affair.... It’s not the first time. He does this, and I have to live with it. . . .

Suddenly, I feel so stupid. I was such easy prey. So easily flattered that he just reeled me in—and I let him. It’s when I decide I can’t tell her that her husband came on to me, that I didn’t encourage him, but he did what he’s done many times before, playing it over and over in my head.

Sitting across the table, our hands clasped.

Or did I?

His lips on mine.

Does he see it like that?

But I stopped him—nothing really happened. It meant nothing. My guilt peaking when I see her outside the village shop.

“How was the course?” I ask her.

“Really good,” she says. She looks tired. “I met some interesting people. And, God, so many nerds, you wouldn’t believe.”

“Yes, well, that’s computers,” I say lightheartedly, as if I know.

“They’ve given us the next part of the course to do from home,” she says. “But it was good to get away from here, even just for a few days.” She looks wistful for a moment, and I wonder what she’s going to say. “Kate? Don’t you ever need to escape?”

“Me? Not really, but I am going to stay with Angus. In March. Swap my wellies for heels,” I joke.

She looks quizzical, as if trying to imagine it and finding it faintly ridiculous.

“There’s more to me than jodhpurs and riding boots,” I quip, but she doesn’t smile, just looks at me sympathetically.

“Are you missing him?”

“Actually . . . I am.” Surprised to hear my voice wobble.

She smiles a little sadly. “Don’t be lonely, Kate. I’m always here if you need me.”

Suddenly, I can’t speak, touched beyond words that in the midst of her problems, she can still find room for mine.

But after that brief meeting, in the way she often does, Jo goes to ground. Normally, it would be my cue to go and check on her, but with Neal at home and always there in the shadows, this time I keep away.

ROSIE

In front of me is a day that, though I want to, I can never forget. My twelfth birthday was my puppy birthday. The day I lost Hope. And now it’s Della’s.

The week before, my mother takes me shopping to choose clothes for Della. Expensive ones. Expensive skin-care products. Underwear. Holds things up against me, too, then shakes her head, says only a certain figure can wear this dress or those jeans, even though now I’m thinner, and if I eat a full meal, I’ve become practiced at sticking my fingers down my throat afterward. But this isn’t about me; it’s about Della.

And just as much as I wanted a puppy, she wants a camera. I remind my mother.

“She doesn’t really,” my mother says. “She only thinks she does. What does your sister want with a camera?”

“But she does, Mummy.” Della’s shown me a digital SLR with a zoom lens. She wants to catch portraits, street scenes, people, reportage style, without their seeing.

“I’ll talk to your father,” is all she says, gathering up another armful of shiny, shop-scented clothes.

The morning of Della’s twelfth birthday isn’t like mine was, even though the sun shines and it stays dry. It’s worse.

When she opens her presents and sees her camera, her face shines with so much happiness, the air sparkles around her. I sit there, pleased, but I’m mad, too. If she gets what she really wanted, why couldn’t I have had Hope?

Then she opens the clothes presents, and I see what I didn’t see before. They’re the wrong size. Tiny doll sizes, far too small for Della’s frame. Her face is puzzled.

“Thank you,” she says politely, then picks up her camera.

“Try them on,” orders my father, seizing the camera from her. “Come on. Your mother’s spent all this money. I want to see how they look.”

She catches my eye. She’s seen how small they are, knows that voice of his, and she’s afraid.

“I’ll come with you.” I jump up, help her scoop up all the stupid, too-small clothes.

“Sit down, Rosanna,” roars my father. “You’ll stay here.”

My mother looks worried. And then I’m mad at her. For her part in this cruelty. For letting my father bully us. I almost get up, but I know if I do, he’ll lose his temper. I want to shout at him, tell him how fathers should love their daughters; or to walk out of here and never come back. But I can’t, because Della will be alone.

She comes downstairs, head down, shoulders slumped, in one of the dresses she’s pulled on, the sleeves cutting into her arms, the hem riding up her legs.

“There.” My father stands up. “Head up, Delphine. What’s the matter with you?”

She whispers, “I can’t do it up.”

He marches over and roughly spins her round, yanks at the zip, pulling it hard. I count two seconds as my father walks back and reaches for the camera.

“Smile,” he booms. “Pose, Delphine. Come on. You’re not a little girl now. This is a woman’s dress. Be a woman.”

I feel sick just watching him, seeing our fear, wondering where he’s going to draw the line, a line that seems to move almost daily.

Della moves minutely, and as my father aims the camera and snaps, there’s a ripping sound. And that’s the memory. Della frozen, her face washed red with shame, the gaping seam exposing soft white flesh, to a soundtrack of my father’s cruel laughter.

Later, he says he’ll take us out for dinner. At six o’clock. I help Della put away the hateful clothes. Wipe the images from her camera, wishing it was as easy to wipe them from her head. We get ready. Find one of the new tops that nearly fits her. Six o’clock comes, and we go downstairs. My father sits, watching TV. I can’t see my mother. At seven o’clock, he pours himself a whiskey.

“Are we going out?” I ask.

“Out?” he says, with fake surprise.

“For Delphine’s birthday? You said you were taking us out.”

“I’ve changed my mind,” he says calmly. “Your mother agrees. You saw what happened with that dress.”

Della sobs, runs back upstairs. I watch myself face him. Is he enjoying this? What does he get out of belittling his own daughter?

“That’s not fair,” I say quietly. My voice shakes.

“Fair?” he says, with that ice-calm way of his. “I’ll tell you what’s not fair, Rosanna. It’s fat, ugly children who don’t do as they’re told. Who don’t appreciate what they have. Who don’t make any effort and will never do anything with their lives, because they’re too lazy and too stupid.”

I gasp as crucifying pain hits me. Then, just as quickly, it vanishes, and I feel myself rise above it, completely numb.

“You can’t say those things,” I cry, not caring what he says. Can he be worse than he is? “Not to Delphine. She doesn’t deserve it.”

He gets up. I wait for another onslaught of words, but I wasn’t watching when the line moved. He raises his hand and hits me.

DELPHINE

“Give it time,” everyone says.

“It gets easier.”

“You’ll miss her less.”

“Feel less sad.”

“Start to enjoy life again. There’s nothing wrong with that. Enjoying life.”

That’s when I know they’ve never lost someone. If they had, they’d understand.

That you always miss them.

That the pain doesn’t go.