Page 40 of Once Upon a Thyme
‘I thought that maybe you’d got something nasty on him or the band.’
Zeb didn’t speak for a moment and I had to look over my shoulder to check that he was still there. He was tipping his chair casually back with the sun slicing through the window frame to tattoo him with shadow. ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘Ihaven’t. But I think someone might.’
‘The band?’ I had a brief thought that perhaps Mika had persuaded Simon to give us whatever we wanted. Perhaps hehadfelt guilty about how he’d treated me, and this was his way of making himself feel better.
Zeb shook his head. ‘Not sure.’ The chair came back to earth with a clonk. ‘Anyway. Do you fancy doing something tonight? I know we’re about a million miles from the nearest cinema, but we could… go for a walk? Or something?’
He spoke quickly, as though he had to get the words out before common sense cut in and strangled him.
I let the china drop heavily onto the draining board. ‘What?’
‘You, me, somewhere that isn’t here or your mother’s kitchen? Might be nice.’
I turned with a slowness that seemed to be weighted with doubt. ‘What?’ I asked again, although the words had made perfect sense.
‘Sorry, did you have something else planned?’ Zeb stood up, unfolding himself from behind the table. ‘What do you usually do in the evenings?’
‘I pop in on my mum, I tidy up the gardens, do a bit of pruning and I… I watch TV. Mostly,’ I added, honestly, because often I did none of those things; I sat at this table and stared out at the day lowering itself behind the trees and watched the dusk creeping in around the hedges. Also, I dreamed. I dreamed of what could be, what couldhavebeen and I looked at my loneliness with a degree of introspection which probably wasn’t healthy.
Sometimes I told my hopes and dreams to Big Pig, but I wasn’t going to tell Zeb that either. Tears pressed behind my eyes but I froze my face and swallowed hard. Self-pity mingled with unaccustomed confessions were making me emotional, that was all.
‘Or do you already have a date for tonight?’
‘Who the hell would I possibly have a date with?’ A half-laugh coughed out over the tightness in my throat.
‘Mika…’ Zeb said slowly and carefully.
‘Isn’t real. Oh, he’s real enough, but he doesn’t wantme. He’s just playing. I knew it really, but sometimes it’s just nice to dream about something that isn’t this house and this garden and doing my mother’s laundry because she can’t get downstairs and making sure she’s had something solid to eat!’ The words burst out, surprising even me. ‘He’s got a lovely house in London and a huge garden andsomebodymust be cutting his lawns and planning his borders and I just thought, why shouldn’t it be me?Why shouldn’t it be me?’
I was crying now with the rim of the sink pressing into my back harder and harder as I leaned into it, trying to use the sensation to stop the tears. Zeb took a tiny step forward to approach me, but he stopped. ‘He’s a player,’ I said, trying to push the tears back in with the angle of my wrist. ‘Ofcoursehe’s a player. He even told me he was,Simontold me he was. It’s just… it feels as though this place has knocked all the dreams out of me, you know? It’s “get up, weed, plant, tidy, sell, sweep gravel, feed the animals” all day, every day, like there’s no other life out there. This is all I’ve ever known, I’ve been living here and doing this since I could toddle and it’s like some giant Groundhog Day.’
Somewhere in the back of my head Sensible Tallie was telling me that, yes, this might be how I felt deep down, but equally deep down I knew that I was very lucky. I had a job, a roof over my head, a mother who loved me. There were people out in the world who would kill to have even one of those elements, so what right did I have to be dissatisfied?
None. I had no right. I should pull up my Big Girl Pants, realise that this was my life, and then grit my teeth and get on with things.
But Emotional Tallie, who didn’t usually get much of a say, other than crying when one of the guinea pigs died, had taken control for once and was becoming slightly hysterical.
Zeb looked somewhat taken aback, which wasn’t surprising. It can’t be every day that your employer breaks down in tears in front of you and admits to wanting something else.
‘Er,’ he said. ‘Do you think another cup of tea might be a good idea?’
His diffidence made me snort a laugh. ‘No. No it’s fine, I’m all right really. I just sometimes get a bit… and you were there. Sorry.’
He’d rolled up his sleeves again. Whatwasit about the sight of those bony forearms that made something inside me go peculiar? The way the cuffs of his shirt flapped against his skin or the vulnerability of the veins that showed on his wrists?
‘I thought you loved it here.’ He soundedcheated, as though I’d somehow swindled him out of something.
‘I do. No, really, I do.’ I sniffed mightily and wiped my eyes on the hem of my T-shirt. ‘It’s just that sometimes it all seems so… narrow, do you understand what I mean? As though if I never left this place I could just keep doing this until I die. Ticking over but never actuallyliving. I love it here but sometimes I just feel as though there should be…more.’
Zeb came out from around the table and sat on the edge of it, nearer to me. There was an expression in his dark eyes that gave me a similar feeling to seeing his bare wrists, as though my heart were twisting sideways in my chest. ‘Of course I understand,’ he said softly. ‘That is exactly how I feel. It’s how I felt about being a chef, to be honest, and it’s how I feel about the financial advice thing. Yes, it’s great, it’s a wonderful job and I know I’m doing a good thing, but I want there to be more. Something else. I’m not great with pressure, that’s my problem, I’m a born backroom bloke, but something in me wants there to be… yes, like you said, more. Living, rather than working and sleeping. Having something, someone, a life. I’ve always been restless, looking for something and I didn’t realise that the something I was looking for – could be this.’
We stared at one another with the dawning realisation that we had a lot more in common than we’d ever suspected.
‘But what else is there for me?’ I asked finally. ‘I mean apart from imagining running away with a famous folk-rock band member and living a swish and fancy life in London with a gorgeous garden and a converted chapel.’
‘You’d have hated London though, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes, of course I would, but that’s not the point.’ I sighed. ‘It would be something else. I’d be – I don’t know, achieving something. I don’t want fame and fortune, I just want…’
