Page 48 of The Affair
She winced at the resolve in his words. ‘God, Jared. You’re not being rational. There’s no way on this earth we can be friends,’ she said, her voice rising. ‘After what happened between us? Surely you realize that could never work.’
He gave her a smile, which implied she was being simple. ‘I really don’t see what the problem is. I can be around you all day long and not give a single thing away. Can’t you?’
Connie let out a frustrated sigh. ‘You’re missing the bloody point. What the hell do you hope to gain by being here?’ She took a deep breath, preparing for another strike. ‘OK, let me tell you again. I don’t want to see youever again.’ She spoke loudly and slowly. ‘Orhave any contact with you of any sort … I just want you to leave the village, never come back.’ It sounded harsh, even in the circumstances, and she winced at her own words.
He didn’t seem upset, however. He nodded calmly. ‘So you keep telling me, Connie. And I hear you.’ He paused, his gaze suddenly fervent. ‘But what you don’t seem to get is that I can’t just let you go. I can’t simply discard the feelings I have for you, like so much rubbish, just because you’re married. Your marriage has absolutely no relevance to how I feel about you.’
Struggling to make sense of what he was saying, Connie tried one more time to gather a coherent argument. Something that would finally convince him that he was whistling in the wind. ‘Of course it has relevance, Jared.’ She spoke forcefully, although she did not raise her voice – it was vital that he listen. ‘It means we can’t be together.’
Jared lifted his hands in the air triumphantly and grinned. ‘You say that, but here we are,together. The sky hasn’t fallen in. Riley still sleeps by my feet, the cottage still stands, Devan is none the wiser.’
Connie, up against the barricade of his skewed logic, felt only tired. ‘You don’t know what this is doing to me,’ she said quietly. Her choc ice was still in its cellophane, untouched on the table – although Jared had munched through his, spraying shards of dark chocolate onto his T-shirt – and she knew that inside the shell it would now be mush.
Jared, hearing her despair, was instantly by her side.Before she had a chance to stop him, he was leaning down to envelop her shoulders in his arms, but she stiffened, quickly pushing him off and rising from her stool to face him. ‘Listen. I’m sorry if I misled you, Jared. Truly I am. But this has to end … right here, right now.’
He reached out and squeezed her upper arms between his palms. Shuddering inwardly, she shook herself free, moving back out of his reach.
‘Never apologize, Connie,’ he said, his words uncomfortably intense. ‘If I hadn’t met you, my life would be totally meaningless – like it’s always been, till now.’ She noticed the tears again, blurring the turquoise. But unlike last time, they did not move her. Instead they frightened her.What the hell does he mean, ‘till now’?
‘Riley!’ she called sharply to the sleeping dog and turned to pick up his lead and her coat, both of which she’d slung on the hooks in the hallway. When she turned back, Jared was between her and the front door. For a split second she wondered if he would prevent her leaving – she couldn’t read the expression in his eyes in the half-light.
She moved purposefully forward, heart pounding in her throat. At the same time, Jared stepped towards her, and swooped. His mouth was almost on hers, his arms reaching around her body, but she jerked away with a loud, ‘NO!’
Riley, sensing something wasn’t right, bounced up between them, paws on her jeans, driving his nose intoher thigh, barking furiously. It was what he sometimes did when she and Devan kissed.
Forced to let her go, Jared actually laughed. ‘Guardian of your virtue,’ he said, rubbing the dog’s head affectionately.
Coat under her arm as she clipped on Riley’s lead, Connie straightened and roughly pushed him aside.
‘Don’t go,’ she heard him call, as she yanked up the stiff iron latch and ran down the wet path to the gate, dragging the dog behind her. It was late and raining hard. No one was about at this hour. Without looking back, she crossed the road and reached the corner that led into the arcade, only letting out her breath when she knew she could no longer be seen from Jared’s cottage.
Closing her own front door with relief, she let Riley loose and leaned against the wall in the dark hall, burying her face in her hands. She wasn’t crying. She was too furious to cry.Good job, Connie McCabe.Bloody great job. You’ve just made a bad thing a whole heap worse, you stupid woman.She should never have gone.
21
Neil and Brooks adored fireworks, Connie loathed them, and Devan was ambivalent. But they always attended their friends’ bonfire party, it being a three-line whip. Neil was simply unable to fathom why anyone would not enjoy such a life-enhancing spectacle. Every November, regular as clockwork, he would start on at her. ‘You really need to get in touch with your inner child, Con.’
To which she annually retorted, ‘I have. My inner child really hates fireworks, Neil.’
Now she and Devan were driving the dark lanes to Neil’s house in the next village. Connie was dressed in so many layers that she felt as if she’d been mummified. But it was unseasonably cold, temperatures hovering around two degrees. On her feet she had an old pair of moon boots, found at the back of Caitlin’s cupboard from a school ski trip – lilac, glittery, furry, with tiny images of Disney princesses, quite hideous. But at least numb toes were not going to be her problem tonight.
Devan glanced at her, chuckling as he drove. ‘Were there any clothes left in the wardrobe?’
‘You can tease all you like,’ she replied, ‘but when you’ve been standing on that windy terrace for three hours, no sensation from the knees down, your noseturning black and snapping off into your mulled wine, you’ll regret your decision to choose style over substance – even if it is Barbour, even if you do always feel the need to compete with Brooks.’ Which was a hiding to nothing, anyway. Neil’s husband, a retired Barclays’ executive, always dressed in immaculate Italian chic and had the honed, broad-shouldered physique of an athlete.
Devan was laughing as he turned into the open gates at the house. ‘Smile, please. Don’t want to curdle the mulled wine.’
Connie did smile, because despite putting on a jokily cantankerous show for Devan, she was secretly pleased to be there, to be out. It was the first time in two weeks – since that night in Jared’s cottage – that she’d been social. She knew it was impossible for Jared to have become friendly with the entire village already, but she wasn’t going to risk it.
‘I still get really tired by the evening,’ was the excuse she’d given Devan for not coming with him to a talk in the village hall. It was by a famous TV forager and naturalist, who was going to show them how to pick the right mushrooms – she’d bought tickets months ago. She was still coughing, and she did get tired, but still …
‘I’m worried I’m coming down with something,’ was the get-out for Fiona Raven’s book launch in Bridgwater – to which she was supposed to be going with Neil. In other circumstances she would have loved to catch up with past colleagues and giggle with Neil at their old boss’s predictable gush and swagger.
Devan had begun to notice. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ he’d asked her a couple of nights ago, when she’d declared she was going to bed immediately after supper – really just wanting to get away from Devan so she could stop pretending. ‘You seem so tense at the moment. Is something bothering you?’
‘No.’ She’d feigned surprise. ‘I’m fine.’
He’d frowned and searched her face. ‘You’re not worrying about your job, are you? They’re not going to sack you for being ill, Connie. It was only two tours you cancelled.’
