After my heart rate steadied, I went into the lounge to place the bowl on the coffee table and check on Trevor.
‘I was longer than I thought,’ I told him. ‘I’m sorry you’ve been on your own all evening. I promise to spend some time with you tomorrow but it’s bedtime now.’
‘Bedtime!’ he repeated. ‘Bedtime!’
As I draped the cover over Trevor’s cage, he fell silent, and I completed my usual nighttime round of the house, closing blinds and curtains and checking the locks downstairs before heading upstairs. I paused in Cliff’s doorway for a moment then, without switching on the light, made my way over to the window, my eyes focused across the road. I knew Christian’s bedroom was at the front of the house but it was in darkness. I was about to leave when his room illuminated. The blinds were raised and as he walked towards the window, I gasped at the sight of his bare chest. I ducked behind the curtains, my heart pounding and, moments later, the blinds were lowered and tilted. Releasing another long breath, I shook my head. We’d been talking about our ages earlier as I’d mentioned how kind my friends at Cake & Craft Club had been after discovering my sixtieth had passed unnoticed. He’d mentioned that his sixtieth had been a non-event – just a couple of drinks with some of his teacher colleagues – but he was hoping to do something special for his seventieth birthday in December. Seventy! I knew he kept himself fit and that flash of his naked torso had proved it.
I liked Christian a lot and the age gap didn’t bother me – not that much more than the one I’d had with Cliff – but could I see us together? I still wasn’t convinced but stranger things had happened. But as I settled down to sleep, it was Will who occupied my thoughts, not Christian.
32
‘Harry’s coming back on the 15th,’ Milly said after we’d sat down with our drinks in The Fox and Rabbit on Sunday, the first day of February. ‘I’m going to tell him I want a divorce then.’
‘Only a fortnight away! How do you feel about giving him the news?’
‘Pretty scared. What if he refuses?’
‘Do you think that’s possible?’
Milly shrugged. ‘I don’t know. You’d think I’d know him after twenty-five years together but he’s spent so much time abroad that it’s probably only a fraction of that in real terms. Sometimes he says and does things that surprise me. My mum says he’s a funny onion.’
I loved that phrase and it sounded perfect for what I’d heard about Harry.
‘He certainly sounds it. Will you tell him straightaway?’
‘It depends when his flight lands. It’s Veronica’s party that day and I don’t want to miss that, but I can hardly give Harry the news then bog off to a party without talking it through. I usually pick him up from the airport but I’m going to ask him to get the train this time and I’m hoping the timings will work out so I can tell himafterthe party.’ She held up crossed fingers on both hands. ‘It feels a bit harsh doing it immediately –welcome home and, by the way, I want a divorce– but it doesn’t feel fair keeping it from him either. I guess there’s never a right time to drop a bombshell like that. Kind of gives me an insight into why it took Rob so long to tell me he was leaving me. I just hope he takes it well and doesn’t decide to fight me every step of the way.’
I hoped Harry would respond positively and make the process smooth for Milly but I could understand her fear that he wouldn’t. The thought of ending my marriage had terrified me and our situation had been completely different.
Milly and I had a delicious meal and a great chat. I told her that I was thinking about getting a piano and would be driving to Carlisle on Saturday if she fancied a day out.
‘Can I let you know later in the week?’ she said. ‘Coral said something about coming home to collect something but it was all a bit vague. I haven’t told her Harry’s coming home yet. She might prefer to time a visit to see him.’ She laughed and rolled her eyes at me. ‘Although the weekend I tell her father I want a divorce might not be the best one to come home.’
‘Are you going to warn her?’
‘I can’t decide. On the one hand, I think it’s only fair that Harry’s the first to know but, on the other, I’d quite like her to be prepared. I don’t think she’ll be bothered. They’re not close. She’s even said before that she doesn’t get why I’ve stayed married to him, but saying something in theory and meaning it in reality are two different things.’
Didn’t I know it? Even though Cliff had been sincere each time he’d asked if I wanted to be released from our marriage and especially when we had our break, the reality was that ending things would have broken his heart and mine too.
‘Enough about me,’ Milly said. ‘Do you think you’ll buy a piano?’
‘I hope so. I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently and my fingers are restless. I need to play.’
‘There’s a piano in the village hall here, you know. They had a fundraiser to buy one in Willowdale a few years back but there was a hole in the roof so the funds had to be redirected. I’m sure nobody would mind you using the one in Pippinthwaite’s hall.’
I loved that idea. ‘Who would I ask?’
‘Trudy Eccles. She’s the current chair of the village halls committee. I’m pretty sure her number’s on the noticeboard. We can take a look after we’ve eaten.’
* * *
Trudy’s number had been on the board and she’d said it was no problem me using the piano. She only lived a few doors down from Pippinthwaite Village Hall so it was easy to collect the key from her house and drop it off when I was done. Across the following week, I managed an hour a day when the hall was free, confirming to me that I definitely wanted and needed a piano back in my life.
Milly let me know that Coral wasn’t coming home, leaving Milly free to come to Carlisle with me. At Cake & Craft Club on Wednesday, I extended the invitation to our friendship group, emphasising that they didn’t have to come to the piano showroom and could do their own thing. Laughlin’s brother was visiting and Veronica had plans with another friend but Paulette was free to join Milly and me.
Going out in a group was new to me and I had a brief flutter of apprehension about being the third wheel in a longer-standing friendship but I needn’t have worried as the conversation flowed easily between the three of us. Milly told Paulette about her plans to ask Harry for a divorce which earned her anabout time toocomment and Paulette updated us on the latest with Saffy’s parents.
‘Andrew phoned one evening when Joanne was out and apologised for the comments about me not being hisrealmother,’ she said, ‘but, as we chatted, it was obvious that Joanne had no idea that he was apologising on her behalf and wouldn’t be impressed. I told him to get back in touch when he’d grown a backbone.’
