He meets my eyes in a long steady look. “It was triggering me. Last year when I started with Narcotics Anonymous, my sponsor asked me this question.Are you willing to do anything, whatever it takes to get recovery?They tell you whatever you put ahead of your recovery you risk losing.”
He holds out his hand to me and I go back to sit on his lap, let him wrap me in his warm arms.
“Being back on shoot, in that world. It just felt like going back to the same shit. Every night, bottles making the rounds. I thought I could deal with that, and I might have if we’d been in England and I could go home at night. But not when you’re alone in the middle of nowhere. And the dealers hanging around, doctors who can prescribe you any poison you want, they’re all still there. Far too easy. I’d be back on the shit in no time.”
“So?” I say slowly trying to come to terms with this. “You’re not going back?”
“I have to. I’ve a contract. But I’ve spoken to my agent and told her this will be my final season. When this shoot is finished, next month, it’ll be the end. I might do the occasional advert or something local. But I’m not doing overseas shoots. That’s not an option.”
“And then what? Will you come to London?” in my mind I’m desperately searching for ways we can be together.
“I don’t know yet,” he says. “I’ll have to find a job.”
“London job market is pretty healthy.” Inside my head I’m frantically thinking. Now that I have to find a place to live, we can find a place together.
“I don’t want to live in London. I think I’d rather stay here. In Wales I mean.”
I’ve only just started to feel happy, to feel hope. Not even five minutes. And it’s gone again.
Because I can’t stay here. There’s nothing for me to do, not unless I’m going to hang around on the margins of his life.
“We’ll talk about it tonight.” He kisses my cheek. “Now let me go and see what Evan wants.”
I catch his sleeve making him wait.
“No need. I know what this is about. We already discussed it this morning.”
“Back in a minute.”
“It won’t be a minute. Nothing is ever a minute in this house. It’ll take you ten minutes just to cross from one wing to the other.”
But it doesn’t work. Raff is far too nice, he’ll get there and the Squad will keep him there. Not that I’m jealous, really. Honestly. But we have so little time; he’ll be off again tomorrow
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Christmas Day. Noon. Kitchen
It pans out exactly the way I predicted. He never comes back, and soon enough things get busy in the kitchen.
It’s time to take the roast meat out of the oven.
Meredith comes back looking glamorous in a sequined dress. She’s styled her hair into a pretty mass of dark curls around her face like a halo.
“You look beautiful,” I say taking the lamb out of the oven, covering it with foil and a towel so it can rest.
“Shouldn’t you go get ready” she looks at my apron over jeans.
I have my clothes ready in my room. A forest green shift dress with a matching silk scarf to twist though my hair like a French plait.
“I’ll go just as soon as the roast potatoes are in the oven.” I take out a heavy tray with two stuffed birds on it. “Can you give me a hand with the chickens.”
“We’ll be chickens ourselves, running around in a minute. Go and get ready and I’ll do the roasties. I am an expert.”
She starts to slide the first tray of fluffed-up potatoes into the very hot oven, all the time ladling more hot fat over them. Her head is almost in over the tray when an errant spark catches on the melted fat and flames up.
I rush over the pull her away and close the oven door but not before her hair is on fire.
Quickly I grab a towel off the counter and rub it over her head. The flames weren’t very bad. Just enough to burn off her fringe. The kitchen fills with the acrid smell of singed hair. Meredith lifts a hand to her head, discovered the fringe now reduced to two short inches above her forehead. She starts to cry.
