‘You’re saying I’m all gnarly,’ I tease him, ‘like a rhinoceros?’
‘You’resonot like a rhinoceros,’ he exclaims. ‘You’re perfect, Kate.’ Then his eyes flood with tears as, quickly blinking them away, he says, ‘You’ve always been perfect to me.’
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Over breakfast the next morning, in the café by the town clock, the serious stuff still doesn’t come up. We spin it out, dawdling over a second coffee, and when we’ve finished I suggest a stroll around town and out into the hills. I know Fergus is manning the shop so I won’t be needed today.
‘It’s actually really beautiful here,’ Vince marvels, looking around as if he has never been in the countryside before. Or the north, for that matter.
‘Didn’t you notice, when you did that big walk?’ I suppress a smile as we cross the footbridge over the river.
‘Not especially. I was more focused on survival then. It was tough out there, y’know—’
‘Oh, yes. You thought you were going to be charged by a ram...’
‘Gored, more like!’ He grimaces. ‘They have horns, don’t they? What’re they for, if not to be used as weapons?’
We carry on this way, chatting and reminiscing and even joking around as we walk. We buy a makeshift picnic from one of the town’s numerous bakeries to eat by the river during a brief sunny interval, when Vince berates himself for not packing thermal layers. ‘Lovely shop, that,’ he remarks, munching into freshly baked rolls and cherry cake. I don’t mention that it’s Fergus’s favourite bakery, and that he often pops in there to fetch our lunch. Later, we have an afternoon drink at the Boat Inn. And all the while we’re avoiding the big issue, hanging like a barrage balloon above our heads.
Vince stays a second night at the pub, and when we meet up on a damp and chilly Thursday morning he says he wants to talk. ‘Properly, I mean,’ he clarifies, in a different café this time. I suspect we are deliberately avoiding being together in my flat, above the shop. We are avoiding mentioning Fergus too. It’s as if he has ceased to exist, but of course he’s still there in my head; a secret. And I have never had secrets from Vince.
‘I thought I’d catch the eleven o’clock train today,’ Vince says over coffee, which we drink steadily, and eggs on toast, which we can barely eat.
They do a lovely breakfast here. But neither of us is hungry. ‘If that feels okay,’ I venture.
‘I s’pose it does. I’d better get back really. For Jarvis,’ he adds.
I look at him across the table. ‘I hope you’re okay, Vince. I mean, I hope you don’t feel worse, after coming here.’
He shakes his head firmly. ‘No, I feel better. Honestly. Just seeing you has helped a lot. Seeing your lovely face...’
My cheeks burn and guilt swirls inside me. I lift my mug and take a sip to steady myself.
‘Look, Kate,’ he adds, ‘I don’t want to pressurise you. That’s not why I came here, to make you do anything you don’t want to do. But I’ll change, okay? I’ll do anything—’
‘Vince, you don’t have to—’ I start.
‘Shall we take a couple of months off together? Do an amazing trip? We can do that!’ he announces, and I catch an elderly lady glancing towards us from the window table.
‘It’s not as a simple as that.’
‘Okay, but the offer’s there,’ he says, a shade too loudly.
‘You don’t need to offer me things...’
‘I do, though. I need to make up for...everything.Honestly, Kate, I’ve had all this time to think about you – about us. And how amazing you’ve been all these years, with Edie, with me, running our whole lives. I’m sorry.’
Wordlessly, I place my hand over his.
‘I shouldn’t have made you move,’ he charges on. ‘It was selfish of me. I thought, if I persuaded you, then you’d grow to love it and we’d have this nice little small-town life. But it was me I was thinking about. WhatIwanted. I didn’t even consider how you loved your job, and all your friends in London. I acted like it was nothing and then, when we’d moved, I expected you to adapt, to fit in. Even though I knew it was never really you...’
‘It’s all done now,’ I say quietly. ‘And I could have refused, you know. I could’ve dug in my heels—’
‘The worst thing is, I know I’ve taken you for granted,’ he cuts in. ‘And I only realised that when you’d gone.’
‘Oh, Vince.’ I don’t know what else to say.
‘I’m an idiot, Kate. I don’t deserve you. Please, will you forgive me?’
