He laughs, then winks. “See, I always just thought it was a love story.”
—
In his kitchen back at the cottage, Caleb offers me a nightcap, and when I decline, says, “Do you mind me asking...?”
“Booze just doesn’t really... agree with me.”
“So, do you drink at all, or...?”
I shake my head. “Not anymore.”
He nods, apparently entirely unfazed by this. “Well, I can offer you an impressive array of hot drinks.”
“You can?”
He rubs his chin. “Yeah, I seem to collect—don’t you do this?—random boxes of herbal teas, about five different types of coffee... I’ve got hot chocolate, and Horlicks, and...” He starts rummaging in a cupboard.
“Coffee’s fine,” I say with a laugh.
So he makes us both coffee, and while the water’s boiling I wanderback into the living room and over to a row of photos on one of the walls, all bearing Caleb’s penciled signature on their mounts. There’s a windswept vista of the dunes at the far end of Shoreley beach; a deer midleap above a five-bar gate; a shot of a bride and groom on their wedding day with the flare of a setting sun behind them; a black-and-white shot of an older woman laughing, who looks strangely familiar.
I feel him at my shoulder, watching me looking.
“These are insanely good,” I say, feeling almost intimidated by his talent.
“Thank you,” he says modestly. He is standing delectably close. I can smell the scent of his washing powder, the faint trace of aftershave lingering on his skin. “That was my stepsister’s wedding day. And that last one’s my mum.”
“She’s beautiful,” I say, realizing now why she’d looked familiar.
Caleb heads back into the kitchen to finish making the coffee. I move over to two more framed pictures on the mantelpiece above the wood burner. One is of Caleb standing on a bridge with two other men about his age and an older man and woman. In the other, he’s sitting around a dinner table with his mum, his stepsister, another younger woman, and a younger lad.
He appears at my shoulder again, hands me a mug. “My parents divorced when I was ten, so I have about a million stepsiblings.” His smile as he says this doesn’t quite reach his eyes, in a way that reminds me of Jools whenever she talks about her family.
I sit down on the sofa, tuck my legs up beneath me. “Do you get on?”
Caleb draws the curtains, then passes me a blanket before switching on an ancient-looking lamp that flickers and fizzes in protest.
“We do,” he says, sitting down next to me. “It’s more that... I don’t know. I was an only child, but my parents have both had new familiesfor getting on twenty years now. So I sometimes wonder... where I fit in. If that makes sense.”
It does, and I feel a sting of sadness for him. “Do they live close?”
He shakes his head. “Dad’s in Devon, Mum’s in Newcastle. Like, as far from each other as they could possibly be. And me, come to that.” He smiles. “How about your folks?”
“Oh,” I say, with an irrational onrush of guilt, which I get whenever I talk to anyone whose family background isn’t entirely happy. “Well, my parents are sort of... this crazy fairy tale.”
“Yeah?”
I sip my coffee. “Yeah, they met on holiday when they were twenty, fell pregnant with my sister, and have been stupidly in love ever since.”
He smiles. “Nice. What’s their secret?”
“I guess... they always saw themselves as soulmates.”
His smile falters slightly. “My dad used to say that about every woman he met after my mum.” I catch the faintest of eye rolls as he speaks.
I wrinkle my nose in sympathy. “That must have been weird.”
“Let’s just say, it definitely killed that old-fashioned idea of the fates aligning, love being written in the stars... that sort of thing.” His smile returns. “Must have been nice for you though, to see living proof of the real deal.” To his credit, he says this without a shred of cynicism.
