The Secret Life of Evie Hamilton - Catherine Alliott [90]
‘And how did it feel seeing… you know,’ I glanced to get his reaction, ‘Bella?’
Something flickered in his eyes. I caught it just as he tried to mask it. It killed me.
He sighed. ‘Very odd. She's changed a bit. But not much. Peculiar.’
‘No, not what did she look like. How did you feel inside?’
He looked at me squarely. ‘OK. Fair question. I felt… something leap. My heart perhaps, my nerves jangling, but it was a nostalgic pull. Mixing memory with desire – yes, to do with memory. With the past. Not the here and now.’
He was always going to be honest. I knew, if I asked, I had to accept the consequences. He would be scrupulously honest. As I folded my arms protectively tight he struggled to get it all out. ‘And of course the fact remains she is very beautiful, and she's—’
‘OK!’ I said breathlessly, holding up my hand. I shut my eyes. ‘Enough. I know I asked, but…’ I froze a smile. Shook my head. ‘You might have to lie to me a bit, Ant.’ I opened my eyes. ‘To spare my feelings. Not sure how much truth I can take.’
He smiled, got up and took my hand. ‘There is no more. That's it. She's very attractive, but she's someone from my past, when I was young. When I was a bit insecure, a bit directionless. She is what she was then: a final fling.’
I wasn't sure that was true. Ant didn't do ‘fling’, and how come he was directionless when he was getting married to me, but then I had asked him to dissemble.
‘You didn't think – I wish I'd married you, wish I'd stayed with you and Stacey all these years?’ I blurted out in a rush, shocking myself.
He looked horrified. ‘Of course not. How could you think such a thing?’
I shrugged miserably. There was no end to the things I could think. How tormented I could be.
‘Although, of course,’ I saw him plucking up the courage to be honest again and flinched; almost put my arm over my eyes, ‘the fact remains we have an unbreakable tie. We have a child together.’
I gulped. ‘Yes.’
Damn. Should have put that arm up.
18
On Sunday we took Anna over to the farm where she spent the day falling in love with Hector. The following morning, however, it was my turn, so as promised I drove down the lanes, swung around the familiar last bend with its high hedge, and swept through the gate into the farmyard. I turned off the engine. All was quiet; all was still. The hens had been let out and were pecking in the dirt. The cockerel, pleased with himself for having serviced most of them at least twice, stretched his neck and shook out his feathers, having had a celebratory dust bath in a long-abandoned flowerbed. A faint mist was lifting, rolling up like a fleecy grey blanket over the vale, but still shrouding the hills beyond, where our cows, having spotted Tim's white pick-up rolling towards them with their hay, lowed in Pavlovian response. I was early, as instructed, and as I got out of the car, I stood for a moment, breathing deeply, savouring, despite everything, what had always been a special time of day; when my father – now Tim, of course – had been hard at it for hours, but the rest of the village slept or slowly stirred.
It was a beautiful hazy morning. Soon it would be my favourite time of year. Not Ant's, because he said everything died, but for all his wisdom of the Romantic Pastoral tradition, he'd grown up in town. He didn't know autumn wasn't about fading beauty, but a last strong push: the elderberries clinging in luxuriant clusters in the hedgerows, the blackberries with second wind, plump and swollen by the rain, and when the mist lifted, that fabulous light no Hollywood movie could recreate would cast long, shifting shadows conjuring up all the shadows of my childhood. By then the apples would be dropping off the trees faster than Caro could pick them; pears and plums, gathered so eagerly a month ago, squashed underfoot by children's wellies. Summer would be long gone and all the bustle and organization that went with it. I didn't mourn it. I loved the limbo of autumn, the wondering when to get the logs in and light the fires, the sparkling