The Other Half of My Heart (32 page)

Bettina startles. Rufus puts out a hand to her, and realizes that she's watching a woman in a badly fitting black dress stride past as though she's wearing wellies underneath it. ‘Sorry,' she says, ‘there are a lot of people here I haven't seen for a long time, and—' She shakes her head.

‘Would you like to leave?' he asks. At least he will be able to say that he's been. And at least, if they leave, she will be a long way from Roddy. He wonders if how he's feeling is how Richenda felt when she knew that he was looking elsewhere. Despite his new shirt and newly cleaned suit, he feels shabby.

‘No,' she says, too quickly. It doesn't make him feel any better.

Once the reception line has dwindled away, the string quartet stops playing and Fred, Fran and Roddy move to the area in front of the stage which must be intended for a dancefloor, as there are no tables there. As Rufus watches the Floods progress, he sees that the slightly odd layout inside the marquee, with tables dotted rather than clustered, means that a wheelchair can go anywhere, with ease.

Fred clears his throat and taps his glass with his wedding ring. His guests let their sentences fade, and turn to look at him. ‘Thank you for being here,' he says. ‘It's an honour to welcome old friends and new. I'll keep this brief, and then we can eat, drink and be merry.' There's polite laughter and a shout of ‘Yes please!' that causes more laughter still. Fred waits for it to fade, smiling an amiable smile.

‘This year we're proud to be training world-class competition riders as well as providing lessons for the next generation of riders, both amateur and professional.' He pauses and waits for the applause to stop. ‘And we're glad to be in good health and good heart.' More applause. ‘We won't say a lot, but we will make some toasts, and then the debauchery will begin in earnest.' Applause, laughter. ‘Let's raise a toast to our equine friends. Long may they tolerate and teach us.'

‘Equine friends,' calls the crowd. Bettina chinks her glass with Rufus.

Fran is next. ‘Flood Farm wouldn't be what it is without all the people who work with us, support us, and cheer us on. We're honoured that so many of you have joined us tonight. Thank you. Here's to you.'

The guests look round at each other, chink glasses, nod, smile, say a few words. ‘Here's to you, Bettina,' says Rufus. He kisses her, on the cheek just above the ear.

Then Roddy speaks. He pauses long enough to let the chattering die away again. He seems, too, to search out Tina as he looks around the room. Once he's seen her, he raises his glass.

‘To absent friends,' he says. Roddy is looking straight at her as he touches his glass to his lips. His eyes shine, brim. Tina's mirror him. He nods. She nods. The murmur of ‘absent friends' goes round the room, a more sombre sound.

Rufus is saying something, but Bettina isn't listening. His hand is on her waist and she knows that to move away from his touch would be churlish. And then Aurora is at the front, saying something else that Tina can't listen to because she can't look away from Roddy, who is looking at her still. It feels as though they are doing all of the looking, all of the longing, that they've missed. She had known that Fran would tell Roddy everything that they had discussed on the afternoon Fran came to see her. She wouldn't have been surprised if Roddy had turned up in Throckton the next day. But he hadn't. She'd been disappointed, at first, but then she'd realized, in the car on the way, that it's up to her to come back to him. She was the one who left, however sound her reasons had seemed, however much she'd wanted to protect and please her mother, make up for the loss of Sam, and apologize to Roddy for ruining his career and his life by, first, not trusting him and then punishing herself.

A trio of small children – Aurora's, Bettina presumes, they all have the hair and the confidence – follow their mother and break the eyeline between Tina and Roddy. They present wine to the Flood men, and flowers to Fran. Tina thinks about how little Fred and Roddy need more wine and how Fran dislikes cut flowers. She feels for them, all their effort and attention met with little more than thoughtless, hurried goodwill.

Soon there's wine instead of champagne, and food more substantial than the barely-a-bite canapés that have been doing the rounds so far.

‘Would you like to sit down?' Rufus asks, and Bettina nods.

The bravest guests are already dancing. The covers band is loud enough that it's OK not to talk.

Bettina and Rufus have found a bench for two at the side of the marquee. They are a little way away from the action. Bettina watches as people move between groups and conversations, easily, cheerfully.

She could imagine her mother here. Sam would be good at it too. She and her father would have sought each other out, and they might have sat here, together. Her father would have watched her mother, proud of her for being herself, and so different to him. Tina would have watched Sam in much the same way.

Rufus turns to Bettina and takes her wine glass from her, putting it with his at their feet. He takes hold of her hands. His thumbs rub across her knuckles, although she doesn't think he notices that he's doing it.

‘What I said about the house being our house, Bettina—'

‘Rufus—' Bettina says, but she stops, because she doesn't know what she can say that will even begin to explain this properly. There have been so many steps, each in themselves understandable, each in themselves forgivable, which have put her in the right place at last, but sitting next to the wrong man.

‘I'm sorry,' Rufus says, ‘it was too much, too soon.' Tina, not expecting this, looks straight into Rufus's face. She knows what kindness he's capable of, and that once, such kindness was enough. There are two paths; she takes the harder one, for a change.

‘Rufus—'

But Rufus hasn't finished. It's as though he's watching her shape-shift, and has only this chance to take hold of her, to stop the magic making her into something unreachable. ‘But you must know how I feel about you, and—' she's opening her mouth to speak again: he holds up his hand, ‘please. Let me finish. I know that you don't feel the same way about me. Not yet. But I think that we have something, and I think that, in time, it could be something that makes you happy, if you can give it a chance.' He stops. He's watched her this evening and he's realized that he might not be able to compete with memories, with passion, but he might be able to appeal to Bettina's pragmatic side. Now he's started saying his piece, it feels threadbare against his heart.

But she's still listening, or seems to be. Her hands are still in his hands.

‘I'm not stupid. I know you have unfinished business with Roddy.' The way her face changes at the mention of Roddy's name tells Rufus that he's as good as gone from her life. There are words in his mouth, about old relationships not being able to compare with the memories of them, and how none of us can truly go back and there's no use in trying. He swallows them back, where they join other words, things the man he was before he met Bettina would have said: has she really thought what being with a man in a wheelchair might be like, does she want to be a nurse for the rest of her days, does she even know that he is still a man. But it seems that Rufus is a better man for knowing Bettina, more patient, more clear-sighted, more self-aware. When she looks at him he feels as though she can see everything that there is to him, and he wants her to see something that's worthy of her.

The hubbub of the party is getting louder. Bettina leans in to speak. ‘Rufus, I think what you want is someone to love, and I don't think it has to be me.'

‘But you're—' It's her turn to hold up a hand.

‘Please. You've said that you know I don't love you.' Her words are hard but her eyes are soft, telling him that she isn't trying to be hurtful. And, oddly enough, it doesn't hurt, not really, because all she is doing is saying what they both know. It does occur to Rufus that anyone looking on – Roddy, say – as she puts her hand to his face, will think that this is a lovers' conversation, intimate and absorbing.

He nods. She continues, ‘I think I wanted to prove that I'm not damaged. I don't think that's a basis for a relationship.'

‘Probably not.' Rufus fights to remind himself how much he loves Bettina's honesty. Half of the reason that he began to love her was that sense she gave him of not dissembling. He takes a breath and realizes that, actually, he is the one who has joined the dots the wrong way, and has wanted this to work so much that he's taken every small sign of progress and multiplied it to make something that isn't there. She is the one who's given as much as she can to him; he is the one who's failed to see how insubstantial it was. But he can't help trying. ‘We have such a lot to give each other. In time—'

Bettina shakes her head. ‘I'm sorry, Rufus.'

‘Please. Hear me out,' he says. ‘I think you're good for me. You bring out the best in me. I'm good for you, as well. We were getting somewhere. But then your mother died. And—' he gestures, half wave of the hand, half shrug, ‘well, this.' He feels his hold on Bettina sliding away; he stills his urge to scrabble, to cling, to make a noise louder than the sound of his heart falling like a rock down a mountainside.

But then again, one last attempt can't make things any worse. He doesn't want to have to go back to his flat and take those photographs off his fridge and start again. ‘Doesn't the fact that we can talk like this make you think—'

She takes his hand. ‘I thought I was free,' she says, ‘I wasn't. There was always someone else.'

And there really isn't anything to say now. He sighs, a great sigh that empties him and leaves – well, it's too early to say. Bettina is touching her eyes. Her face is turned away and he can't see if she's crying. He hands her his handkerchief and she takes it, touching his hand. He thinks he might cry, later.

‘I'm going to get another drink,' he says. ‘Would you like one?'

‘No thanks,' Bettina says, ‘I'm going to get some air.'

‘I could bring it out to you.'

‘No, Rufus,' Bettina says, as kindly as she can without being encouraging. She stands and steps away, towards the entrance, feeling sorry, feeling free. Rufus goes in the opposite direction, to the table where wine glasses are being filled, row after row of them. Rufus toys with taking two, in case she comes back in to find him, but he knows that she won't. As he turns round, he sees that Roddy is behind him.

‘Rufus,' Roddy says with a nod.

Rufus takes a deep breath. ‘She's gone outside,' he says. ‘I think she's waiting for you.'

‘Thank you.' Roddy nods and turns. Rufus waits for the satisfaction of his own generosity to make him feel better. He takes a second glass of wine, because he thinks it might take a while.

Tina hasn't just gone outside. She's gone down to the place to the left of the gate, above the bottom paddock, where the land falls away and there's a clear view down to the church and the graveyard. The bells have just struck nine-thirty. The stone of the church has a honey hue to it, clinging to the light a little longer than the buildings around it. It's not long since the longest day of the year. Everything on the farm that once was mud, or gravel, or track, is paved and smooth; there's a bench here that wasn't there before, but Tina leans on the fence that she remembers, although she imagines that every plank of wood will have been replaced since she last stood here.

When she sees the horse coming towards her, her first impulse is to back away, but she doesn't, because something in the way the animal moves holds her attention. Of course, she reminds herself, it's a long time since she's seen a pedigree horse up close. It's easy to forget how they look, so effortlessly elegant, their movements as smooth as their coats. And then the animal comes nearer, and nearer, and then he's standing next to her. His face is older, and his coat is not so sleek and plentiful as it was. But there's no doubt that it's Snowdrop.

Tina's hand, forgetting that it belongs to a person who cannot bear the sight or touch of horses because they remind her of everything she's lost, rubs him between the eyes, the way he likes it. He drops his head so that she can put her hands around his ears and stroke them, the way she used to. He knows who she is. She's sure of it. He puts his nose against her shoulder; she feels his face against her ear, wonders if she's dreaming him. But he's here, all right. And so is she. He nickers into her neck. She does the maths: he's twenty-two. It's a good age for a horse to reach, though not surprising as he's had all the benefits of good stabling and good care.

‘Hello, old boy,' she says, ‘I didn't think we'd see each other again.' Her heart is nineteen again, almost tearing apart with the joy of being next to this animal, who seems above all others to understand her. The pulse in her throat is calming at his nearness.

‘He seems happier out here, so we leave him out when it's warm enough, with a couple of his mates.' She turns. Roddy is there, as handsome as ever in the half-light. ‘I think he's been waiting for you to come back,' he says.

‘I didn't hear you coming,' Tina says.

‘I keep my wheels oiled,' Roddy says, and he smiles. ‘It doesn't fool the horses, but it keeps the people on their toes.'

Tina laughs. She isn't sure why, or if she should. She is disoriented in this world, back where she started, different but the same. ‘I can't believe Snowdrop's still here.'

‘You didn't think we'd part with him, did you?'

‘No, but—' She doesn't know how to explain that she'd locked off this part of her life so thoroughly that any evidence that it's been living and breathing still is like walking with ghosts, living in dreams.