They smiled at each other, the years between before and now falling away.
The woman was standing patiently waiting when Sophie broke her gaze. ‘Sorry,’ Sophie said. ‘Go on then. Yes, please.’
She sat on the small bench and lightly patted the seat next to her. But Tom shook his head.
Sometimes she forgot. Just for a moment. It was understandable, she told herself. It wasn’t that she’d forgotten Will or why she was here; and it certainly didn’t mean that she loved Will any less. But in this timeless place, with so many memories of Tom, it was understandable that she forgot that not everyone could see things the way she did.
She nodded. ‘OK,’ she said.
The woman looked up. ‘Ready?’
And she lifted her paintbrush and began running it lightly over the canvas.
16
THE THIRD SUMMER – 2013
The voices woke her and she opened her eyes in the dark bedroom.
‘She’ll be fine, love’ – her father’s voice.
‘I know, but…’ – her mum replying.
‘She’s all grown-up. You can’t make the mistakes for her.’
Her ears pricked; she crept out of bed, careful not to wake Tom, and made her way down the moonlit corridor. She stopped in the doorway of the bathroom, just opposite her parents’ bedroom. If anyone got up, she could dart into the bathroom as if that was where she’d meant to go all along.
‘She’s only twenty-three!’
‘I’d met you by then!’
‘I know but… she seems so young.’
There was a sigh and a shifting of pillows. Sophie made a half-dart towards the bathroom, sure that the bedroom door was about to open. But it was a false alarm. She leant against the white-painted wood of the door-frame, her heart hammering.
‘I admit, I’m not thrilled,’ her dad said now. ‘But Sophie’s a sensible girl. I don’t think she’d do anything rash.’
There was a shifting of bodies. ‘Do you think I should say something, you know, about…?’ her mother asked.
‘Not yet. Let them have their happiness. They’re so young,’ her father replied.
What was it her mum had wanted to say? Something about Tom? About it being too soon?
There was a creak and a rustling sound. Then silence. Sophie moved closer to the bedroom, hoping to hear any more whispered insight her parents might impart. Then there was an unmistakable moan of pleasure, and she recoiled as if stung and hastily made her way back to bed. Crawling in beside Tom, who sleepily lay out his arm for her to cuddle into him, her mind was racing.
They were right, weren’t they? It was too soon. She loved Tom; they loved each other. But they were only twenty-three. When she’d realised what Tom was planning, through hints and suspicions, she’d been shocked. Surely Tom, of all people, wasn’t someone who’d want to settle down yet? At least, not officially?
When they’d visited his parents to tell them the news, it was clear from his mother’s delight that she was all for it. ‘It’s an old-fashioned thing,’ Tom had confided on the way back. ‘Some of their friends are a bit weird about living in sin and all that.’
She’d smiled and nodded and touched the diamond on her finger, wondering how much the proposal had been about them, and how much about his parents’ friends. Since when was Tom someone who’d toe the line, anyway?
But then how well did they know each other?
Then he’d put his arm around her and she’d snuggled into his side, breathed the soapy, vanilla smell of him and felt herself relax. Because she might doubt the timeline, but she didn’t doubt the destination; she knew she wanted to be with Tom.
They’d made the weekend trip from Cambridge to Bedfordshire to tell her parents in person, on Tom’s insistence.
‘Why haven’t you told them yet?’ he’d asked idly one night when they’d popped out to the bar for a white wine.