Page 47 of The Wedding Dress Repair Shop
Thom said, ‘They did. I caught them together only a few months after she and Leo married. But she swore she’d been drunk and it was a one-off and I believed her. She and Leo had been close, ever since stage school. I suppose Iwantedto believe her, just like I did when she came back to Leo after the first time she’d dumped him for someone else and said she’d made a huge mistake.’
‘I suppose finding her with Marco that time was part of the reason why you never liked him and didn’t think I should go out with him?’ I said.
‘Yes, but it had been a long time before, and I wasn’t sure at the time how far it had gone. I should have told you.’
‘It probably wouldn’t have made any difference even if you had,’ I admitted. ‘I fell for him hard and I really believed he’d totally changed his life around and wanted to settle down.’
‘I’m still sorry things didn’t work out for you,’ Thom said. ‘And Ishouldhave kept in contact. I know you wouldn’t have told Marco where I was, if I’d asked you not to. I made a wrong decision and hurt you badly – and myself, too, in the process.’
‘All those years when I was worrying about you, you were happily living here,’ I said, flaring up again.
‘I was never entirely happy without you, Garland,’ he said simply. ‘The day we had that last quarrel, I’d meant to finally tell you about the cottage here and the puppet workshop, because I wanted to leave London and move up here permanently, even though I knew I would see so much less of you.’
‘You were going to tell me?’ I lifted my head and looked at him, though his arms round me didn’t slacken. ‘That was always your secret retreat, so I never asked you where it was. I respected your need to get away sometimes.’
‘Just as I never asked you where you bolted to when things got too much for you,’ he pointed out.
‘Oh, that was just an old caravan on a farm near Tring, with no mod cons. It used to drive Marco mad when I vanished there, because I’d keep my phone off till I was home again.’
‘Our last secrets revealed!’ he joked, and this time he really did smile and I could see all the fascinating little gold specks in his amber eyes …
‘It’s serendipity that we’re back together again,’ he said, then gave me another hug and let me go, before looking more seriously down at me.
‘Am I forgiven?’
‘I’m working on it.’
‘Good, because when I saw you on the workshop doorstep yesterday – was it only yesterday? – it felt exactly like the time we bumped into each other at the theatre, after you’d moved to London. I felt so happy,’ he said simply.
‘My feelings were definitely more mixed,’ I said, and come to that, they still were! This was Thom, but somehow the relationship had changed. I pushed that thought away to examine later.
‘Do you want to share my Cornish pasty and chocolate eclairs?’ I offered, bringing the situation back down to earth. ‘If so, you make some more coffee while I heat up the pasty.’
‘Done,’ he said. Then added, uneasily, ‘That cat’s been very quiet in the utility room, hasn’t he?’
‘He’s probably in his box. He took a fancy to one of the cartons I brought his food in.’
And when we tiptoed in and looked, he was fast asleep in the bottom of it. He looked almost cute, apart from the asthmatic wheezing noises.
After lunch, Thom said he’d better get back to work.
‘I’ve got two more faces to carve forThe Murder in the Red Barn: Maria and her stepmother.’
‘Oh, yes, I remember you telling us about that last night. I’d love to see them when you’ve finished,andthe play.’
For some reason, Thom looked slightly uncomfortable, but perhaps I’d imagined it, because he said: ‘Yes, you must see the workshop – and your dad’s old tools are all there – another link to you I could never break. I’ve learned that you can never entirely escape your past, and some things, deep down, you don’t want to.’
He turned on the doorstep as I was letting him out. ‘Are you coming to the book group later?’
‘I might, just briefly. I had coffee earlier with Pearl and she asked me again. I’ll see how tired I am by evening, and I still have lots of unpacking to do.’
‘OK – there’s all the time in the world to get to know everyone,’ he agreed, then gave me a smile that seemed to turn my heart over, and strode off, long hair blown about by the wind – not so much Captain Jack Sparrow as theLast of the Mohicans.
Rosa-May
Lady Bugle assured me that, once she felt herself equal to it, I could accompany her to the Pump Room, where she daily promenaded and drank the water, as well as other diverse entertainments, such as concerts of Ancient Music and the Sunday service at the Abbey. This sounded like a prospect of glorious dissipation compared to my current immurement in her tall, gloomy house!
And indeed, right from my first visit to the Grand Pump Room, life did take a turn for the better, for this most elegant building, near the Abbey church and the Roman springs, was evidently also a meeting place for the fashionable.
