Only when I’m outside, faced with crisp air and falling snow, do I accept it may have been a hasty decision. But I’m too hopping mad to go back inside. I don’t really fancy hanging out in the sheep shed. Maybe there’s some kind of shelter closer to the house?
Stomping off round the side to investigate, I come across planks nailed to a trunk leading up to some kind of wooden structure—a tree house! Perfect.
Clambering up the side of a tree in wellingtons and a thick coat isn’t the easiest of feats, but I somehow manage it. My head pokes up through a square hole cut in the floorboards of a small timber-lined room. It’s not luxurious by any means. There are chinks in the wall, letting through a chill draft; a couple of rattan chairs with faded Pooh Bear pillows; and some tattered bunting draped along the walls. But to me, it’s fantastic. I would’ve loved something like this growing up—a place to hide away from the world where I could read or think.
Some crayon animal drawings are still attached to the wall with yellowing Sellotape. One, a nicely drawn brown rabbit munching on an orange carrot, is signed ‘BAILEY 8’in red letters. Yikes, now I’m in his childhood tree house. I can’t seem to escape him. He’s everywhere.
Footsteps crunch towards the base of the tree, and someone starts climbing up. I sigh in relief. He’s come out looking for me. He does care. But the head that pops up through the hole isn’t Bailey’s—it’s Kirk’s. I freeze when I see his weaselly face.
‘Go away.’
‘Charming, especially as I come bearing gifts from your boyfriend.’
‘Oh?’
He pulls himself up and sits on the edge of the hole with his legs dangling through. A red beanie is extracted out of one coat pocket—‘In case you get cold’—and a buttered jammy scone wrapped in a tea towel out of the other. ‘He apologises for the lack of cream but thought it would be too messy in the transportation.’
I take the offerings silently.
Kirk surveys me as I tug the beanie on. ‘Are you going to sleep out here tonight then?’
‘No,’ I say grumpily.
‘I used to on occasion, in the summer,’ he says nostalgically, looking at the pictures on the wall. ‘Some of those are mine. Bailey and I used to have drawing competitions. He was always better at that kind of thing. Better at most things really.’
I feel like rolling my eyes. Great, I don’t really want to listen to his speech of brotherly woe.
But he changes tack. ‘I know something weird is going on with you two, so you may as well spill the beans. Are you together or not?’
I heave a sigh. He may as well know. It’s getting tiring trying to hide things from him. ‘We weren’t, but then we were. But now we aren’t again. At least I think we aren’t.’
‘Sounds confusing.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘Does it have something to do with Lewis and the TikTok?’
‘We may as well get comfortable. It’s a bit of a long story.’
So we sit in the rattan chairs, and I start at the beginning, telling him about meeting Bailey at the party—and how I didn’t really take to him.
Kirk guffaws. ‘That’s a first. Everyone instantly likes him.’
‘Well, I didn’t. I guess because he’d overdone it on the festive clothing. He tried to make me wear the Santa hat. I don’t know. It irked me.’
‘He can be a little full-on, but he means well.’
Remembering it makes me feel sad. The way he looked at me with hurt puppy-dog eyes. ‘Anyway, then he went off dancing with Andrea. And Lewis invited me for a nightcap, so I went with him to his hotel room. My big mistake of the evening.’
‘I gather from the TikTok, it got messy.’
‘Yeah.’ I break off a chunk of jammy scone and stuff it in my mouth, neglecting to tell him about the drinking game. ‘And it turns out he didn’t even post it. Moira did. Some twisted revenge thing to get back at me when nothing even happened.’
‘She didn’t know that. It did look pretty dodgy.’
‘I guess.’
‘If that was Bailey and another woman, how would you feel?’
