Page 21 of Love Is: Two Bodies One Soul

‘No!’ Millie frowned. ‘Not like your father. He hardly drinks at all nowadays.’

‘Can I have some wine?’ Georgina asked hopefully.

‘No, you can’t,’ Millie and George said in unison.

‘Not fair.’ The child slumped into a sulk.

Sally pulled chilled Viognier from the fridge and waved the bottle momentarily in the air. At ease in a kitchen that had not been her own for a decade and a half, she found four glasses and poured wine for the adults. All Owen’s memories of Christmas 2001 flooded into his head. Special food he’d never tasted before, expensive alcohol, Sally’s fussing over him, making him feel safe. He, a neglected, unexpected orphan, unable or maybe unwilling to refuse the offer she’d made that Christmas Eve. A mutual tenderness between two lonely people. Nothing more, or so he’d thought. He glanced at Mathew, and all the guilt from that Christmas returned.

* * *

After lunch,the family went to the park. George and Millie walked ahead, George steering the pushchair, his older children running in front, playing tag with Mathew, while Owen and Sally dawdled at the rear.

Owen had noticed Sally surreptitiously glancing at him throughout the meal and assumed now she was walking with him so that they could talk privately. Was she gearing up to tell him the truth about Mathew? He waited.

She linked arms, snuggling close. ‘Are you all right, lovie? You left most of your lunch, and you were quiet, even for you. Is something wrong?’

Her question ricocheted furiously inside Owen’s head. Is something wrong? Outraged and not trying to conceal his anger, he glared at her. Obviously, there was something bloody wrong. Had she not realised he’d worked out Mathew’s identity? It was bad enough that Margaret was robbing him of his daughter, but Sally – Sally had kept his son a secret. Unable to hold back any longer, the question burst out of him in a rasping undertone. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Tell you what, lovie?’

His fury clashed with the puzzlement in her eyes. ‘About Mathew, about my son.’

‘Mathew isn’t your son.’ Surprised, she pulled her arm free of his and stepped back, staring at him as though she thought him mad.

‘Don’t lie to me.’ Owen grabbed her, dragging her roughly behind a nearby laurel shrub, its shadows smelling acrid with damp earth and dog pee. He wanted to shake the truth from her and had to engage what little restraint he had left as he spoke the damning evidence: ‘The boy is the image of me.’

‘Aw, lovie, I know he looks like you, but he’s not your son.’ She reached up, her fingers gently touching Owen’s face, caressing the stress-rigid muscles in his jaw.

Despite himself, he leaned into her hand, needing the tenderness, wanting to regain the trust he’d had, memories of their short time together filling his head and his body with longing.

‘Lovie, I am sorry,’ she said, turning his chin so that he had to face her. ‘I wish I could say you are Mathew’s father, but you aren’t.’

‘But he’s—’

‘And if you were my boy’s father, don’t you think I’d have told you?’ She paused, and Owen saw the sparkle in her eyes before she said, ‘though I might have tried to persuade you to become George’s stepdad.’

‘Iesu Grist! What would George have made of that?’

Sally laughed. ‘Not much, and it would have been wrong. Forget the age difference, and all that … you had your own life to live. You couldn’t be a replacement for my Matthew, no matter how much you looked like him. It would never have worked—’

‘And George might have taken out a contract on me,’ Owen interrupted.

‘Exactly.’ Sally smiled wryly.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. I don’t regret our night together. I’d not known such tenderness for a long time, not since my Matthew. It was love but fleeting. What’s that old saying? “Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”.’

‘Tennyson, from his poem In Memoriam.’

‘Is that where it comes from? I never knew. Sally looked thoughtful. ‘Henry has a book of his poems. I’ll have to read it.’

‘Are you happy with Henry?’ Owen changed the subject. His feelings in confusion, he needed space to think.

‘I am. Henry’s a good man.’ Sally locked eyes with him as if she sensed he was trying to escape into his own thoughts. She knew him too well, even now. ‘And,’ she said more firmly, ‘Mathew is definitely Henry’s son.’

Crushing disappointment, mixed with relief which seemed traitorous, was followed quickly by shame. Owen stepped away, stared at the ground, feeling foolish and sorry he had been rough with Sally, confused to realise she had just declared her love for him. Sad that it had led nowhere. Grist! His head was in a spin, and he’d only had one glass of wine with the meal. He swiped his hand through his hair and, coming back to the one remaining uncertainty, he asked, ‘You’re sure?’

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