I’ve learnt about Fergus’s childhood here, and how he went away to Edinburgh University but was pulled back to the place – and the woman – he loved. He and Jane had settled back here, both of them teaching: him in the English department of a secondary school and her at the local primary. When the bookshop had come up for sale, and Fergus had yearned to take it on, she’d been full of encouragement.
‘It was a brave move,’ I ventured.
‘Brave, or rash?’ He laughed.
We walk along the riverside holding hands. There’s the occasional tentative kiss. We are more than friends; that’s obvious. But after that first kiss, in the woods by the campsite, it feels as if we’re being cautious.
There’s time, for one thing. Fergus’s life is all about the shop and Liv and the baby. I’m filled with desire for him but I’m also scared. Does he want it too? Or is he happy with the way things are? Although I’ve moved into the flat above the shop, I still see Alice regularly, and share all of this with her.
‘I knew there was something between you,’ she says over coffee in our favourite café. ‘I could sense it.’ I’m glad she’s decided to stay on at Osprey House while viewings are happening. There have been a few, although no offer yet.
‘What d’you think I should do?’ I ask. ‘D’you think he’s holding back, or doesn’t want to get involved?’
‘I can only guess,’ she offers, ‘that he’s taking things slowly. You work together, after all.’
She’s right, I decide. He doesn’t want to spoil things. But late at night, in bed in the freshly painted flat, I imagine how it would be if I were to say, ‘Shall we go upstairs?’ after we’ve shut up shop for the day. Would it feel awkward? Or just weird? What if he said, ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, Kate,’ and it was mortifying to be together the next day?
Plus, I’m still married to Vince, and he’s the only man I’ve slept with in twenty-five years. Would it be different with Fergus? What if our wonderful closeness just didn’t work when we were naked together in bed? There are so many ways in which it could be awkward or spoil what we have, which feels precious enough. It feels greedy to want more, or even play with the possibility in my mind.Be content with the way things are, I tell myself. But as the days go by I’m aware of every cell in my body being highly sensitised to his presence. I can’t push it away. It shimmers there, just beneath the surface.
I have fallen for this calm, kind, hardworking man who adores his daughter and grandson. He makes me laugh. My heart soars every morning when I first see him and he hands me a mug of coffee in the shop. I love the way he talks enthusiastically about Celts, Picts and Romans as we sort through new consignments of books. And then one dark, cold afternoon, just as he turns the sign on the shop door to ‘closed’, I tell him all this. How these thoughts fill my head, and how I want him, yet I’m scared; and as we sit together on two easy chairs in the reading corner in the back room, it all pours out.
‘Well,’ Fergus starts, ‘I feel the same, Kate. And I haven’t known what to do.’
I look at him, my heart beating fast. ‘I don’t want to spoil things.’
‘No, I don’t either...’ He shakes his head.
‘I feel like I’ve been pushing you away a little bit,’ I add, ‘since that day in the forest...’
He smiles. ‘I haven’t felt that at all.’
I laugh, pushing back my hair from my face. What Vince called my ‘Pam Ayres bob’ has long grown out, and I haven’t worn make-up since I’ve been here. ‘I’ve been with the same person so long,’ I start, ‘I don’t really know how to do this—’
‘Kate,’ he cuts in. ‘It’s fine. Honestly. I’m the same. There’s been nobody since Jane, and that’s been three years—’
‘Really?’ I ask, surprised.
He chuckles. ‘Yeah. Sounds a bit sad, right? But I’ve lived in a weird world of dusty old books and formula milk.’
I look at him, wanting so much to hold this man close. And then I do, and we are kissing in the shop’s back room. And it’s not tentative at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. And all those fears and doubts seem to fly away as we hold each other and I say, ‘Shall we go upstairs?’
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Vince
So many thoughts are rattling through Vince’s brain as the taxi follows the winding road out of town. How Kate will react is the main one, obviously – because he didn’t tell her he was coming to Scotland.
He knew what she’d say. That he should stay put; that there was no point in him trekking all the way up here. However, he’s clinging to the theory that once she sees him, and realises he’s scrambled over hill and dale to get to her – well, taken three trains and a taxi – she’ll realise she’s had quite enough space or freedom or whatever it was that swept her up here with that madwoman in the first place. And now she’s ready to come home.
On top of all that, it was the only option he could think of to quell the terrible guilt that’s been ripping through him, since Flatpack Monday, as he’s privately called it ever since, trying to convince himself it was more about furniture construction than rolling about naked with his neighbour. Hadn’t he always said that self-assembly was a sure-fire route to frustration and pain?
The fact is, he and Agata hadn’t actually done it. But only because biology wouldn’t let him. Vince had never thought he’d see the day when he’d be grateful for such a situation – but there you go.
We were just celebrating,he’s tried to reassure himself. Celebrating what? The successful building of a shelving unit? He can’t imagine that would stand up in a court of law. Meanwhile, another benefit of this hastily arranged trip is the fact that it’s a very long way from Sycamore Grove. So he can rest assured that he won’t bump into Agata – or, worse, her devoted husband, Dr Lenny Kemp. He’s been terrified that Agata might have an urge to confess, and that Lenny would set out to ‘get’ him. He’d even dug out the balaclava that Kate had bought him, jokily, for that televised trek across Scotland. (‘Well, you keep going on about how cold it’ll be.’) But then, he’d reasoned, would wearing it every time he ventured out draw evenmoreattention to himself?
He’s disgusted with himself, actually, for getting naked with Agata when, if he’s absolutely honest, he’d never even paid her much attention before. Is he really that pathetic that he was absolutely up for having sex with a woman just because she was up for it too? So, yes, it’s something of a relief to be far away from all that.
‘So you’re going out to view the place, are you?’ the taxi driver cuts into his thoughts.
