Wishful Thinking (25 page)

Christian wished Jess was there to share it with him; walking next to him, close enough to share body heat, hand in hand, laughing together and enjoying the magic of the moment. She had taken his confession far better than he could have hoped. At least she hadn’t condemned him outright, but he could tell she’d been shocked and worse than that, disappointed in him. But what else could he expect? It had taken him over two years just to come to terms with his guilt, how could he expect Jess to understand it in two minutes? She saw him as weak when she needed his strength and that was humiliating for him. She’d even seen him cry, but had said she understood and that was something he needed to cling to. As long as he had something to build on, he had hope.

When they reached the stream, the fog had mysteriously lifted. Greg said it was something to do with the current being so strong but his mind was only half attending to the science of nature. He watched the young boys running up and down the bank searching for wildlife and wondered about the sons he might have had, if he hadn’t destroyed them. He caught Adam’s eye and felt, just for a fleeting moment, that he might be pursuing a similar idea. A universal thought? But then they were not so dissimilar, he and Adam, which was probably why they’d been such good friends from the outset.

They had to rely on Greg to identify the wildlife they did see: water rats and voles mainly but finally, after an hour of patient watching, a twitching, glossy brown nose poked its way out of a holt and an inquisitive otter came to sample the morning air. It slithered around for a moment on the bank, rather like a cat, rubbing its sleek coat for pleasure and each spectator, down to the youngest child, held his breath in silent wonder.

And then something else happened. Christian felt Ben’s hand reach up and clasp his own as if by instinct – just like that first night and it seemed like the most natural act in the world. When he looked down, Ben was gazing up at him as if trying to send a message to him telepathically, his eyes moving frantically but his mouth clamped shut, and Christian suddenly believed he understood the silent suggestion. He nodded and surreptitiously pulled out his phone. After acknowledging Ben’s nod of approval, he scrolled to camera mode and crouched beside the boy. Ben wanted to share the magic of the moment with his mother – just like him. After a moment, he passed the phone to Ben so he could complete the filming. They hadn’t exchanged a single word but a wealth of communication had passed between them in that rare moment and Christian felt humbled by Ben’s simple belief in their shared understanding and goal.

Walking back to the house afterwards, he enjoyed all the old camaraderie with Adam and they chatted just like old times, before all the issues with Amber came between them. He wanted to win back Adam’s trust and be able to open up to him, even ask his advice, like he used to and this now seemed to be happening. All that he needed to make his day complete was to know that Jess might forgive him and give him a chance to prove himself worthy of her love.

The last sight he expected to encounter was Amber in her fake Dr Zhivago outfit looking like a wilting polar bear. She was just as horrified to see him when he walked into the kitchen. He saw it in her eyes in a flash – in a moment of brilliant clarity, even as his brain registered Jess making towards the door to escape: Amber’s guilt!

She started and demanded to know what he was doing there but before he had any opportunity to reply, Adam had entered and Amber looked from one to the other of them, her face paling visibly. He noticed the newspaper on the table and her confusion suddenly became clear to him. She had been caught out in her lies and didn’t know how best to plead her case to her two judges.

Although he wanted to rush off after Jess, he forced himself to stay, just to make sure Amber didn’t complicate things further with any more lies. They sat at the table and Amber sipped coloured water from a teacup while Kate brought out bottles of beer for the rest of them. And then Amber said the words he needed to hear – needed Adam to hear.

After that there was no reason for him to stay. Adam and Amber no longer required an audience. Greg and Kate saw that too and also moved off to busy themselves elsewhere while he went upstairs in search of Jess.

He found her in Gray’s bedroom and stood for a while observing the sight. She was sitting on a Disney beanbag with Daisy on her lap and Josh reclining against her leg as she held open a large picture book. Gray and Ben were lying on their stomachs on the floor with another large book open in front of them. Christian could make out dinosaur pictures on the open page, but the boys were not reading that book. They were listening to Jess reading her story – except she wasn’t reading. She was clearly inventing a story as she went along, using the pictures in both books as stimulus and, more importantly, all the children present as characters. Even little Daisy seemed to understand her own important role in the magical story Jess wove all around them.

He loved her then more acutely, more powerfully and more completely than he had ever loved anyone in his life. That morning he had promised to let her go if she chose not to be with him after hearing his story. Now he knew with absolute certainty that he couldn’t let her go. The rest of his life would have no meaning without her.

He stood mesmerised, just like the children, until her story came to an end and the children clambered around her, looking at the book from which they thought the story originated and begging for more. She looked like some wonderful, modern-day Madonna as she gathered them all around her, basking in their innocent pleasure.

“No, I’ve told
you
a story – now you have to tell
me
one! I want to hear all about the otters and so does Daisy as she missed out on them too.” Daisy chuckled on hearing her name and Jess dropped a kiss on her golden curls and lifted her higher onto her knee.

Just then Ben looked up and saw Christian. His face lit up and he held out his hand for Christian’s phone. Christian entered the room, pulling out his phone and sitting on the floor between the boys to guide them through the program so that they could then show it to Jess and Daisy. The boys told them about jumping on the clouds and Daisy said ‘cwoud’ and pointed to the window, causing everyone to laugh and clap, telling her how clever she was.

He managed to catch her eyes amid the laughter and hoped she could see the love expressed in his. He would have gone on to tell her but just then Kate popped her head around the door.

“Lunch is ready. If those two carry on talking for much longer, it might be spoilt, so I think it’s time for the troops to muster and launch our attack, don’t you?”

****

“I wish you’d stay,” Kate told Jess as she hugged her tightly. “I’ve loved having you here and I can’t believe you’re abandoning me when she’s still here. Please come back soon – any time.”

“Ben said I can go to London and see his flat. I’ve never seen a
flat
before,” Gray said, tugging at her sleeve, the expression of wonder on his face betraying his ignorance of the word.

Jess laughed. “Well, Gray, you might be a
bit
disappointed when you see ours, but I’ll try to make it up to you in other ways. Mummy and I will discuss it and arrange for you to come up very soon.” She wondered how she might get another bed into Ben’s tiny room but was determined to find a way somehow. Ben’s friendship with Gray was one of the best things that had happened to him and she would do everything to encourage it.

She was reluctant to leave and would happily have let herself be persuaded to stay longer had it not been for Amber’s presence. Her arrival had created a definite shift in the atmosphere even though she had undoubtedly been on her best behaviour. There had been no fireworks, no recriminations or accusations and yet somehow everyone seemed to be on edge. She was dazzling in a brittle sort of way, even entertaining in her anecdotes, but her presence made everyone nervous and probably Jess more than anyone.

She had noticed Amber watching her closely throughout the meal and her scrutiny unnerved her. During a hiatus in the conversation Ben overcame his shyness and asked if he could take a photograph of her on Jess’s phone to send to Katya.

Amber simpered and preened. “I didn’t realise you had a little girlfriend, Ben. I thought you were going to be
my
boyfriend.”

“I’m
not
her boyfriend. I’m her
uncle
,” he told her crossly.

Amber eyed him with deep suspicion and dislike, which lingered in her expression as she posed for him across the table and then with him while Jess took another photo. Jess might easily have explained the relationship and relieved Amber’s doubts but decided against it. It wouldn’t do Amber any harm to think that even six year olds didn’t take her as seriously as she took herself.

Leaving Kate was hard though because she felt they could have been very good friends if their circumstances had been different. Right now she had no idea how or when they might meet again and could only hope that somehow it would be possible.

The fog had lifted by the time she and Ben had said their goodbyes, Ben was strapped securely into his seat and their bags stowed in the car, with little more than an hour of daylight left. Jess had grown nervous of driving in the dark and hoped to have left the poorly lit country lanes and hit familiar motorway territory before nightfall. It bothered her that she hadn’t said goodbye to Christian, who seemed to have disappeared but thought it perhaps for the best after all.

He had evidently reconsidered his options after seeing Amber again and, whilst she felt heavy-hearted at the thought, deep down she had to acknowledge that, given their history, this was understandable. “I knew she’d forever be between us,” she told herself, though her heart ached. “We never really stood a chance.”

She released a long, sad sigh as she drove down the sweeping, tree-lined drive which meandered to the main gate and out onto the road. The pale sunlight of the late afternoon threaded its way through tall, needle-like branches stripped of their leafy garments and dappled through smaller evergreens, casting different patterns along the winding drive. This is so very lovely, she thought. How perfect life must seem if you lived in a place like this.

She hadn’t realised that a tear had spilled from her eye until she felt it rolling down her cheek. She raised her hand to brush it away and, as she felt its wetness, she had to fight back the urge to release the floodgates and let all her tears pour out. She couldn’t allow such self-indulgence however because of Ben, sitting in the back of the car looking up at the stippled light filtering through the trees. She could see in her rear view mirror that he was valiantly fighting back his own tears. He hadn’t wanted to leave this lovely place either. He had made his first true friend here and seemed to have taken it totally for granted. Oh the simplicity of being six years old, she thought. You don’t have to know things are special and may never happen to you again in your entire lifetime. You just enjoy the moment as if this little miracle is perfectly normal and just one of those things the world encourages you to take for granted.

For a fleeting moment, Jess contemplated stopping the car and climbing into the back to give Ben a hug, but she knew that if she did, she would almost certainly end up weeping and that would just frighten him. He was trying to be brave and so must she. She sniffed away her tears and accelerated to pick up speed as she approached the main gate.

On reaching it, however, she instantly slammed on her brakes to avoid a figure standing in the middle of the road holding a bag. She had to blink several times to make sure she wasn’t imagining it, before gradually rolling up beside him.

“Hi,” Christian said, holding up his thumb. “What kept you? I really need a lift…well…somewhere, so if you’re going in my direction – and I’m very flexible – I wonder if you’d take pity on me. If not…I’m afraid you’ll just have to drive over me.”

Jess smiled as the tears streamed freely down her face. “I wondered what happened to you. Why didn’t you say?”

“Because I couldn’t risk you saying no. I couldn’t risk you going off and leaving me again. I had to make sure you couldn’t say no this time. I knew you wouldn’t leave a poor, sad old tramp stranded on the road in the middle of nowhere – which was exactly where I was before I met you. I don’t want to go back there, Jess.”

At least the flat wasn’t freezing when they arrived, but it was hardly what he considered to be warm or even comfortable. He knew his first priority had to be to get Jess out of that place and settled somewhere more suitable. And private!

The helpful neighbour came rushing out of her flat as Jess drew up, but did a double-take when she saw him with her. She helped carry Ben’s bag upstairs, which was quite unnecessary and would no doubt have followed them into the flat and settled down for a long chat given half a chance. He noticed Jess was incapable of telling her to go, which amused him. She had called him weak!

After a little gentle cajoling, Jess agreed to put Ben’s school-things together and spend the night at the Mayfair house. It was less than twenty minutes’ drive and she agreed that Ben would be able to cope with that in the morning before school. Ben was excited to be going to yet another new house and asked him if there were any children or dogs for him to play with. However, he seemed happy to forego both when he saw the TV and games console rise out of the foot of the bed in his new room.