LITMIR.BIZ

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‘I should’ve sold it and moved on; just been brutal and done it that same year. Instead, I got stuck.’

      ‘In what way?’

      ‘Pretending to be my dad, I suppose.’

      ‘You don’t like it?’

      He shrugged his shoulders. ‘A job’s a job, right? And –’ he flashed her a smile – ‘at least it was sustainable. For a while, anyway. I was forced to sell a couple of years later.’

      ‘How is your father now?’

      ‘The truth is, it’s hard to tell. One day he’s quite bad and the next he seems like his old self. My mother is thinking of moving him to a nursing home. They live in Leicestershire now and I don’t see them as often as I’d like.’

      ‘And you never finished your training?’

      He stabbed at a bit of salad. ‘I was married by then. To a girl who came into the shop to buy a mirror.’

      ‘I see. Did you sell her one?’

      ‘No, she couldn’t afford any. But I made her cups of tea and she used to stop in quite often on the pretext of finding one. In the end I gave her a really quite beautiful Edwardian overmantel.’ He smiled to himself, remembering. ‘I searched high and low for something decent I could afford to part with. I tried to act like I was going to give it away anyway. I don’t think she was fooled.’

      ‘But she married you. So it worked.’

      ‘Yes, it worked. I got the girl.’

      ‘But you sold the shop anyway.’

      ‘Turns out you need quite a lot of ambition to run your own business. After my wife’s death, I let it go.’ His eyes met hers. ‘She was killed in a car accident, two years ago.’

      He said it simply; quickly. She wondered if he’d practised how to get it over with the least amount of emotion possible.

      ‘I’m so sorry.’

      Cool air rushed around them.

      ‘Yes. Thank you.’

      They ate in silence.

      ‘It’s strange, isn’t it?’ Jack put his fork down. ‘That’s what everyone says – “I’m so sorry.” And I say “Thank you”, like I was buying a pint of milk in a shop. It’s somehow…wrong, inadequate, that it should be reduced to that. And in the end, the whole thing gets reduced down to a single sentence. “That was the year my wife died.”’

      She nodded. ‘The whole thing’s an absolute cunt.’

      He looked at her in surprise. ‘Yes, well…that’s one way of putting it.’

      ‘I didn’t mean to offend you.’

      ‘It makes a change from people apologising.’

      ‘When my father died, I dreaded speaking to anyone I hadn’t seen in a while; going through the whole dance of clichés. It made me angry. At them, which of course was stupid.’

      ‘Were you close?’

      ‘He wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy. But I don’t think it makes a difference. Mostly what I missed was the idea that one day it might be different. When he died the relationship became written in stone. It was too late to change it, even if I wanted to. Or could. And I was left, wandering around saying “Thank you” to a bunch of people who didn’t really want to talk about it and had no idea of what to say anyway.’

      ‘Yes,’ Jack conceded, taking another drink of wine, ‘it is a cunt.’

      They watched a flock of house martins swoop in and out of the high hedges on the south side of the garden.

      ‘And what about you?’ He leaned back. ‘Married? Divorced? Widowed?’

      She looked up sharply.

      ‘Or shall we leave all that?’

      She stared at him a long time. ‘I’m…I was involved with someone.’

      ‘You have a boyfriend?’

      ‘It wasn’t quite so clearly defined.’

      He raised an eyebrow. ‘You seem a little vague, Miss Albion.’

      ‘That’s my intention, Mr Coates.’

      ‘Do you instinctively balk at being defined, or simply in matters of the heart?’

      ‘Who said this was a matter of the heart?’

      ‘Well,’he laughed, ‘isn’t it?’

      ‘I’m not sure.’ She ran her fingers lightly along the rim of her glass. ‘There are so many more territories in the heart than one expects.’

      ‘Like what?’

      ‘Possession, power.’ She spoke slowly, softly, lifting her eyes to meet his. ‘It’s confusing sometimes, isn’t it?’

      He felt his pulse quickening, the surface of his skin alive with increased sensitivity. ‘In what way?’

      ‘To tell which is which. They are intimacies, not so polite as love, but compelling just the same. Not everyone longs for tenderness.’

      ‘And you?’

      ‘I long for all sorts of things. Some of which I understand and some which I don’t.’

      ‘Are you saying you don’t know your own mind?’

      ‘Do you?’

      ‘I like to think I do.’

      ‘You’re deceived.’

      ‘And you’re presumptuous.’

      ‘What does the mind have to do with it anyway?’

      ‘I’m not referring to intellect but to intention,’ he clarified, aware that he was overcompensating with a certain loftiness of tone. She was clever and provocative. But it was the speed of her that was most thrilling.

      Her lips widened in a slow, teasing smile. ‘And are all your intentions transparent and worthy?’

      ‘Isn’t that possible?’

      ‘Possible, perhaps. But not natural.’

      ‘And why not?’ He shifted, recrossing his legs. ‘Why can’t you be aware of your actions before you take them? Set your own course for your heart rather than blundering in blindly?’

      ‘My, you really are a rare breed!’

      The wind tossed the thick boughs above them, elongated black shapes stretching towards them across the lawn.

      ‘That’s not fair. You make me sound like a prude!’

      ‘Well, let’s see. A man whose motivations and desires are completely known to him at all times and absolutely under his control, who never stumbles into the murkier depths of human relations, whose affections only follow his pre-sanctioned plans…No, you’re not a prude. You’re a statue. Something Olympian. Definitely marble.’

      ‘And what about you?’ he countered. ‘A woman who doesn’t know her own mind, can’t even tell if she’s having a relationship or not, but is only certain it doesn’t involve love. What does that make you?’

      In the dimming light, a shadow fell across her, bathing her in darkness. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what it makes me.’

      The air felt suddenly cooler.

      He tried to think of a way to backtrack without losing face. ‘Cate…’

      But before he could, she pushed her chair back and stood up.

      ‘I’m tired,’ she said. ‘It’s been a long day. Do you mind if I…?’

      ‘Yes,

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