Page 42 of The Christmas Fayre on Holly Field

‘Careful,’ Harriet warned, leaning back to avoid being hit. ‘You’d better go outside. I don’t want bits of shattered conker all over my kitchen.’

Bobby’s eyes widened and he looked at Owen, who nodded.

‘Outside,’ Owen said, grabbing the conkers as everyone trooped into the garden. It was almost dark already, but Harriet pressed a switch and the garden was immediately flooded with light.

He picked up a conker to show the children what to do. ‘Wrap the string around your hand like this… Good… Then you stand there and Sara stands there…’ He hesitated. ‘It might be a good idea to watch your mum and me first. What do you say, Harriet? Are you up for a game of conkers?’

Harriet pulled a face. ‘I know what to do, but I’ve never played,’ she said.

Owen said, ‘You can go first,’ and he let his conker dangle. ‘The purpose of the game is to strike the other person’s conker with yours, and try to shatter it. You take it in turns, and the person who has a whole conker at the end wins. I must warn you, you’ll probably end up with sore knuckles.’

Harriet didn’t seem too enamoured of the idea of rapped knuckles but the children didn’t mind, and soon there were conkers swinging everywhere, accompanied by whoops of joy and yelps of pain.

After a few goes, Harriet retreated to the kitchen, using the excuse that she needed to check on the casserole, and not long afterwards Owen joined her, having been soundly beaten by two children who had ganged up on him and broken the rules as well.

‘I’ll just wash my hands,’ he said, as he stumbled, laughing, into the kitchen. ‘I think I’ll wear boxing gloves next time – your kids don’t play fair.’

‘Thank you for playing with them.’

Her voice was soft and it took him by surprise. ‘I enjoyed it.’

‘They did too.’ She nodded towards the children, who were swinging their conkers with all their might, then skipping out of the way when one threatened to hit them. ‘They miss their father.’

Owen slipped his stinging hands into the pockets of his jeans. ‘Do they see much of him?’

‘A bit, and not at all recently. They don’t deserve to be treated the way Declan treats them.’

Owen pursed his lips, not sure what he was supposed to say to that. He wanted to know more but he didn’t like to pry.

‘I’ll just… er…’ He gestured to the downstairs cloakroom.

‘Of course, sorry. And if you need any arnica cream, let me know.’

Yet another visit to the loo to compose himself, he thought, although this time he did have to wash his hands.

Once again, he checked his reflection and saw that his face was glowing. He put it down to being outside in the cold before coming into a warm kitchen.

It had nothing to do with Harriet sharing a confidence with him; nothing at all.

How Owen survived the meal was a question he would ask himself later. But if it hadn’t been for the children diluting the increasingly charged atmosphere between him and Harriet (it wasn’t his imagination, surely?), he might have exploded.

After an offer to wash the dishes, which Harriet turned down, and an offer of coffee from Harriet, which he turned down, Owen made his excuses and left. As soon as he was a safe distance away from her house, he hitched in a deep breath and let it out slowly, relief seeping through him.

The problem wasn’t that he hadn’t enjoyed her company, or that of Sara and Bobby – the problem was that hehad.

And that was an issue because – fancying her rotten, aside – for the first time in his adult life he had caught a glimpse of another kind of existence. The kind of life he could have had if he had bought a house and not a van, if he had stayed in one place and hadn’t become a nomad, if he had found a woman he wanted to marry and have children with.

He had done what he’d done, and not for one second had he regretted it.

Until now.

But was it this abstract idea of being married and settling down that had suddenly become so appealing, or was it the thought of being withHarriet?

Chapter 10

Will this do?Harriet wondered as she picked up a basket of toiletries wrapped in cellophane. It was brand new, so it must have been an unwanted gift, but the question was, would Darlene like it?

The boot sale was just as busy this Saturday as it had been the last time she was there – busier, if anything – so Harriet put the basket down and moved on. There must be something…

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