Page 45 of Jenny James Is Not a Disaster
“That sounds like a lot of fun,” replies Charlie, clearly trying to visualize it.
“It was. You know, a hundred years ago, when I was a lad, and life was a simpler thing...”
“Your life seems pretty simple now, to be honest,” says Charlie as we amble back up the path. “You’re not exactly high-maintenance, are you? I mean, you don’t even have Netflix.”
“This is true,” Luke responds, smiling. “I am but a simple creature.”
I smile, but I know that isn’t in fact true at all. He may appear simple on the surface, but his life has been anything but. I imagine him here, in his late teens and early twenties, young and carefree. The younger him had no idea of what joys andwhat pains lay ahead—but I don’t suppose any of us do. That’s not part of the deal with life, is it? We can plan and work and set a course, but none of us can be sure of where we will end up. Maybe the trick is accepting that, and just trying to enjoy what you have when you have it.
We walk along a small pathway to a place with the amusing name of Magpie Lane and make our way to the famous Covered Market, home of the Cookies of Yore. It is a marvelous place with a medieval feel, traditional butcher shops and greengrocers nestled in rows with boutiques and craft stores and cafes. We fuel up on chocolate chip and macadamia nut and continue our exploring for the rest of the morning. We have our lunch at a pub called The Bear, which has a collection of thousands of different ties in frames on its sloping walls, and we call into shops and visit a surreal place called the Pitt Rivers Museum, which has a macabre display of shrunken heads that totally freaks me out. Not knowing where life will take you is one thing—but I bet none of these chaps expected to end up as part of an exhibit on the other side of the world, being gawked at by twenty-first-century tourists. Charlie, naturally enough, is fascinated. After that, we make a long walk to a place called Port Meadow, where we swim in clear water as cattle at the side gaze down at us with curiosity.
The day is long, and full, and tiring. As we lounge on the riverbank drying off, watching children play and lapwings soar in the sky, I realize that I could quite easily fall asleep. Charlie is snoozing, with Betty tucked into the crook of his arm, and Luke is sitting up, chewing a long stalk of grass and gazing out at the landscape.
“I was really happy here,” he says quietly. “Had so many good times. Feels like a million years ago now. I stayed involved withmy college for a while, came to events, stayed over for reunions—they call them gaudies, because why use a normal word when you can use one that’s based on Latin? But after Katie got sick, everything felt too hard. I couldn’t face the prospect of seeing all those old faces, catching up with old friends.”
“Having to tell them about Katie?”
“Yeah. That, I suppose. I mean, it’s not exactly a great conversational gambit, is it? ‘Hi, how are you, haven’t seen you for years—I’ve been fine, apart from my daughter dying...’ I hated telling people about it even when I had to, and the idea of putting myself in a situation where I had to do it repeatedly for a whole night... well, that wasn’t my idea of a good time. So I dropped out of the whole circle. Dropped out of everything really.”
“Are you not in touch with anyone from your old life? Friends, family?”
I ask this as though it is strange, but in reality I am exactly the same.
“Not really,” he says, frowning as he thinks about it. “Sally, obviously. But, thinking back, it was so easy to leave everyone else behind—work colleagues, people I knew socially—that I suspect none of them were especially important relationships anyway. I didn’t find it hard to not look back. I just kept driving. Sometimes I wonder if I was just a coward, running away like that.”
I sit up next to him, lay my hand over his. “You did what you felt you had to do. Don’t judge yourself so harshly. This is the way you live for now, and it’s helped you survive. One day, things might be different, you might be different. This is one moment, not forever.”
He turns to look at me, and there is an intensity in his eyes that momentarily startles me. “Right now,” he says, twining hisfingers into mine, “maybe I wouldn’t mind that. If you had to pick a moment to last forever, this wouldn’t be a bad one, would it?”
I feel a flush of heat that has nothing to do with the fading sun, and everything to do with the touch of his skin against mine. Everything to do with those green eyes, that wide mouth, the hair I always want to stroke. Everything to do with Luke.
“No,” I murmur, “it really wouldn’t.”
We are silent, both still, as though afraid to speak or to move in case we break some kind of spell. The sounds around us seem to become faint, the rest of the world retreating into the background. I am immobile, frozen, both desperate to know what will happen next and terrified of it.This is indeed perfect, I think—this moment.Nothing needs to come next. I wish we could hit the Pause button, that I could sit here nuzzled against this man, holding his hand, feeling this sense of peace and communion and underlying want.
Of course, I don’t have a Pause button, and the world stops for no woman. Charlie wakes up, snorting loudly as he stretches his arms, and Betty decides to run off and bark at a duck. The spell is broken, and I pull my hand away from Luke’s, shaking my head to clear the fuzz. We make eye contact for one second more, and he smiles.
“Okay?”he mouths quietly, and I nod.
Yeah. I’m okay, I think. Nothing another dip in the river wouldn’t cure, I’m sure.
“Can we get some food?” Charlie says, and I laugh out loud. I can always rely on Charlie’s stomach to save me from the most tempting and dangerous of situations.
Chapter 14
I am vaguely concerned that there will be some lingering awkwardness between me and Luke, and then tell myself off for being an idiot. Or a silly moo, as his gran might have said. Nothing happened—nothing at all. We barely held hands. Certainly nothing to worry about... and yet worry I do.
I suspect it’s not just awkwardness I am concerned about; it’s how it made me feel. The fact that it made me feel at all, perhaps. That part of me—the part that shares heated moments with handsome men in wild beauty spots on sunny days—isn’t just dormant; it’s dead. Or at least I thought it was.
The idea that it might have just been lying there, curled up in a sleeping ball waiting for its chance to jump up and ambush me again, is frightening. I am wary of such things—I am wary of romance, of love, of passion. Of my own inability to manage them. The last time I felt anything resembling this was almost two decades ago, and it did not end well. I know that I was only seventeen then, but still—I am aware of the frailty of my heart, and I do not want to risk it being broken, or even gently bruised. The rest of my life is topsy-turvy, and the least I can do is tryto protect myself from any other potential pain. Luke is, in the nicest way possible, messing up all my usual settings.
If Luke is having any of these concerns at all, if he feels even slightly disconcerted by the Thing That Didn’t Happen but Might Have, he hides it well. We go back to Joy, and Charlie revels in the fact that we are in a suburb rather than a wilderness by ordering a pizza. The deliveryman is surprised to be knocking at the door of a motorhome, but it was a good call, as we are all by that time ferociously hungry.
As we eat, I check in on the Sausage Dog Diaries and read some of the comments that have been left about my earlier posts. I giggle at one that mentions a photo of Luke emerging bare-chested from a river.
“Hey, guys, there’s a new comment on the blog,” I say from my spot on the sofa. “ChazOnWheels666 says Luke is ‘pretty hot for an old man.’ Charlie, is that you?”
“What makes you think that?” he replies, grinning. “Sorry... couldn’t help myself!”
