‘That is a good one,’ said Michaela with a sigh. ‘Very good. You win the prize for the best mushroom of the day.’
Leo hugged her. ‘You’re the mushroom queen.’
She giggled because it was silly and it was only a mushroom, but they were both so pleased for her. If it had been Steve or her cousins, they would have doubled down and hunted even harder to try and beat the find. This was so much more fun. She felt their joy in her triumph more than her own.
It seemed that now she’d found one, her eye was trained, and as she looked more closely she began to see a few more, but that first one had been enough. She smiled to herself and paused for a moment, struck by a clear, piping chorus of birdsong echoing from high above them. When she looked up she caught fleeting glimpses of a tiny dunnock darting from tree to tree, while a nosy chaffinch hopped up and down, peering at them from a branch. There was a sense that the forest was alive around them, although starting to shut down for winter, and as she looked, really looked for a change, she noticed how the vivid green moss carpeted the base of trees, while paler lichens dotted their bark, and how the leaves had drifted to echo the contours of the ground. She took in a deep breath and smelt the musty, earthy aroma. Her feet sank into the soft mulch. Her senses woke up one by one, absorbing the sensations of the forest, and a deep sense of contentment settled upon her, one she hadn’t felt in … she couldn’t remember how long.
‘Here, Anna,’ called Leo, beckoning her over. There were several porcini on the ground and she crouched next to him, helping to clear the leaves from around his finds, as he sliced through a stem and moved on to the next. Suddenly their heads were almost touching and they both looked up at the same moment. His eyes locked on hers and his gaze was unusually solemn as it searched her face, as if looking for something. It unsettled her, making her feel a little lost, and when he gave her a gentle smile and looked away, it was as if she’d missed something.
To break the moment, she reached for another mushroom – of course, at the same moment as he did – and their fingers brushed. She almost started at the little electrical tingle that tickled her nerve endings but she didn’t pull her hand away. Suddenly she wanted his touch, wanted to feel his hand on hers, wanted that connection even though it unnerved her.
Leo pulled his hand away first. ‘You can have this one,’ he said, with one of his warm smiles, generous as always. It pierced her heart. He was a good man. Always had been.
‘We’re going to have a fine dinner,’ said Jan, coming up behind them, carrying Michaela’s basket.
Leo rose and handed over his mushrooms, which he’d been collecting in his beanie hat. Anna stood up and also held out her latest finds.
‘Only if you’re cooking,’ said Leo. ‘My expertise with these fun guys – fungis, geddit? –’ he nudged Anna ‘– runs to mushroom omelette.’
‘Michaela will make her famous mushroom goulash. As you have collected the food, you have to eat it too. This evening. Come have dinner.’
‘That would be great,’ said Leo, running a hand through his hair. Why did Anna have to notice the sun catching its golden highlights? Or how well he fit the autumn scene? Why was she so aware of him? ‘We’ll bring the beer.’
Amused rather than irritated that he hadn’t consulted her, Anna rolled her eyes at Michaela, but at the same time she remembered how Steve had often accepted things on her behalf because it was something he wanted to do and assumed that she would go along with it. In contrast, Leo’s response was spontaneous, of the moment, rather than thoughtless or selfish.
ChapterEighteen
‘Michaela didn’t mention this hill,’ said Anna, slowing down as she puffed breaths into the chilly morning air. She was reasonably fit, but her calf muscles were complaining about the workout on the steep incline. During the most delicious dinner of mushroom goulash the previous evening, their neighbour had insisted they should visit Petrín Hill. ‘We should have taken the funicular.’
With his usual bouncy puppy-dog enthusiasm Leo had convinced her that it would be far more fun to walk up through the park and ‘experience’ it rather than sit with other tourists.
‘The clue was in the word “hill”,’ said Leo and with a good-natured grin grabbed her hand to pull her along.
‘Very cute,’ she said, although she was laughing.
‘You know you’re having a good time, really.’ Leo threaded his arm through hers.
Rather than admit it, she rolled her eyes at him, although in fact she was enjoying herself enormously. She wondered if he was ever unhappy or sad or took anything seriously. Even his proposal had been a bit of a lark.
‘Let’s get married,’ he’d said, as they stood at the top of Primrose Hill admiring the skyline view of the City, on a walk not dissimilar to this one. And because she’d loved him, and was young and stupid, and there was romance in the moment, she’d said yes.
Swept along on the high of love, they’d decided to marry on her parents’ wedding anniversary, six weeks later, at the Kensington and Chelsea Register Office. It had been a conscious decision not to involve their respective families, Leo’s because Ernesto was away on location and hers because she knew her aunt and uncle would think it was all too rushed.
At the time it had seemed symbolic. Making a deliberate decision to follow in her parents’ footsteps rather than fall into line with her adopted family’s approach.
Of course, when she and Leo split up, her aunt and uncle were the first to say they knew it was a mistake. Why, she wondered, did people take such great delight in ‘I told you so’?
* * *
‘I suppose you’re going to want to go up to the Observation Deck,’ she said, tilting her head right back to gaze up at the steel girders of the Petrín tower, which bore a strong resemblance to its inspiration, the Eiffel Tower.
‘Of course. You’re not scared of heights. And the exercise will do us good.’
‘“The exercise will do us good!”’ Her outraged echo made him laugh. ‘You’ve just made me climb up a mountain.’
‘Come on,’ he said, disengaging his arm and taking her hand and dragging her towards the entrance. ‘I’ll pay. And we can take the steps slowly, old lady.’
‘Who are you calling old lady?’
