Page 79 of The Christmas Invitation
‘I’ve given up asking anyone out now, because they all want more commitment than I can give. It doesn’t seem fair to them.’
I suppose that when you’ve lost the love of your life in tragic circumstances, itwouldmake it hard to settle for second best, even after all this time … especially if you’re still carrying a load of guilt about your late wife around with you.
‘What about you?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Are you seeing anyone? I mean, other than Mark.’
‘Look,’ I said through gritted teeth, ‘stop winding me up about Mark! I’ve only just met him and I’m not remotely interested in him romantically. OK?’
‘OK,’ he agreed. ‘I’m not sure he feels the same way about you, though.’
‘He’d better learn to, then,’ I said. ‘And no, I’m not seeing anyone.’
Then I thought my answer might have given him the impression it was because no one was interested, rather than the choice it really was, so I said, ‘I got engaged to Rollo Purvis six years ago. We might have done it earlier, except his motherreally didn’t like me and she was the one who paid for his flat and car and everything.’
‘Didn’t it work out?’
‘No, but not because of his mother. He asked me just before he went off to do his annual summer stint at a creative writing retreat in the States, then something happened just after he got back and … I broke it off.’
He didn’t ask me what had happened. Perhaps he could see from my face that it wasn’t something I wanted to talk about.
‘But he’s still around, isn’t he? Clara mentioned he’d rung you at the house.’
‘We kept in contact, but only as friends – that was his idea – but not any more since he tried to use me to get access to Henry!’
‘So, if you haven’t been seeing anyone since you broke off your engagement, what do you want out of life?’
He seemed genuinely to want to know, so I said, ‘I’d like a little cottage in the country. All my friends are married and having families and some have moved out of London already. Fliss was the last – remember Fliss? Tall, sandy hair and freckles, doing graphic design?’
He nodded.
‘We’ve been sharing a flat for ages, but she’s just got married and I realized there’s nothing holding me to London, now.’
‘But isn’t it easier to get commissions if you’re based in London?’
‘Not any more, and I do have connections there now: there’s a gallery that will show my work. Anyway, I’m on the Royal Society of Portrait Painters website and get most of my commissions through that. It’s where Clara found me after seeing the portrait I’d painted of one of her friends.’
‘One of life’s strange coincidences,’ he said, a trifle sardonically. ‘Of all the painters that must be on their site, she chose you.’
He regarded me for a moment, frowning as if he was trying to puzzle me out again, then he rose to his feet. ‘Come on, let’s have a quick look round the rest of it.’
The gallery and craft shop could be reached from a door on this level, but I wasn’t allowed to linger for long in either, though some of the paintings looked excellent and there were several amazing papercut pictures, one or two of which were literally leaping out of their frames.
‘Those are made by Tabby, the wife of Randall Hesketh, who runs the mill. She’s got a workshop downstairs,’ Lex explained. ‘We haven’t got time to browse today, though, because the others will be ready to go shortly.’
‘I’d love to come back and have a better look around, but I don’t suppose I’ll be here long enough,’ I said, reluctantly following him out and down the stairs. There was a mix of workshops on the ground floor: jewellers, potters, leather workers, painters … The last one we came to was that of Tabby, Randall’s wife. The workshops had stable doors, presumably so that the people working inside could open the top for viewers, or not, as they liked. Tabby’s was open and at the far end of the studio, with her back to us, sat a tall slender woman with long, dark brown hair, intent over something on the table before her.
Papercut pictures hung along the walls, materials were stacked and rolled everywhere and scraps of paper littered the floor around her feet. She was so absorbed, I didn’t think she even registered when anyone looked in.
‘We won’t disturb her,’ Lex said softly, moving away. ‘I occasionally meet up at the pub in Little Mumming withTabby and Randall, and Jude Martland and his wife, Holly, other friends who live nearby. But not recently, because Tabby and Randall had a baby boy a few months ago, and Holly’s on her third, so my friends are procreating like mad, just like yours.’
‘It’s an age thing,’ I said absently. ‘We hit the mid-to-late thirties and realize if we want children we need to get a shift on.’
He gave me an unreadable look, but didn’t say anything. As we went through swing doors and back into the mill, we spotted Clara and Henry waiting for us. Teddy was watching another cracker demonstration and we collected him on the way out.
‘I saw Mercy in the shop,’ Clara said to Lex. ‘She had Tabby’s baby with her – a sweet little thing.’
‘We saw Tabby in her workshop, but we didn’t disturb her,’ he said.
We all piled back into the car and Lex into his pick-up and we followed him back down to the road, though by the time we’d waited for a cyclist to pass and pulled out, he’d vanished.
