Читать книгу The Wish - Alex Brown - Страница 7

Tindledale 1976

As the hot evening air furled around their bare bodies hidden among the medley of wild flowers in the meadow, the two young lovers lingered for one last kiss before parting and hurriedly pulling their clothes back on.

‘We can’t carry on like this,’ the man murmured, catching a frond of the woman’s wavy blonde hair and twiddling it between his fingers. Nuzzling the side of her neck, he drew in the sweet, sultry scent of her new Blasé perfume, knowing that, no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t seem to resist her. And it had been this way since the very first time he had caught sight of her, when he’d started at the senior school in nearby Market Briar. Thirteen years old and pulsing with teenage boy hormones, he had fallen for her beguiling ways, the teasing, lingering looks, letting him think he was in with a chance, when all the while he never was. Not really. He knew that now. But that had made him want her all the more, so when she had eventually given him a kiss behind the old abandoned caravan in the Tindledale Station car park, he had thought he’d died and gone to heaven … and he had been kept dangling, trapped in the never-ending cycle of lust and loathing ever since. Simply unable to resist coming back for more whenever she wished.

‘Why not?’ she pouted and pulled her hair away from his fingers before pushing it back over her shoulders. After slipping her clogs on, she dashed over to the layby to retrieve a packet of Player’s cigarettes from the glove box of a coffee-coloured Ford Cortina.

‘You know why …’ he started, swiftly swiping the Afghan coat that they had been lying on out of the grass and going after her, vowing to call it a day. He lifted her wrist and traced his thumb over the big, shiny engagement ring on her finger. ‘You’re getting married.’

She snatched her hand away and flipped open the Zippo lighter, sucking on the cigarette until the tip sizzled and glowed flame red. ‘And you’re not! So stop worrying.’

She made a circle shape in the air with the cigarette before blowing a couple of smoke rings into his face. ‘We’re having fun, aren’t we?’ She handed him the cigarette and he managed a couple of puffs before she gestured to get it back.

‘Sure,’ he shrugged, slinging the coat onto the back seat of the car before pushing his hands deep into the pockets of his flared jeans. ‘But—’

‘No buts! Come on, why spoil the moment?’ They stood in silence, side by side, resting their backs against the car doors as they took in the view. Tindledale. The little village they had both grown up in. ‘Help me with this,’ she instructed, lifting her hair and indicating for him to fasten the buttons at the back of her floaty blouse. ‘I deserve a bit of fun. And you … my love,’ she paused and gave him a lingering look, ‘are far too nice. That’s your problem! Always has been,’ she laughed, almost mockingly.

And as the golden glow of the sun dipped down on the horizon, framing the fields full of strawberries, sheep, cows, apple, pear and plum trees, he knew that it was time to face the truth. She was about to marry someone else and he needed to tell her straight. He had to, because he couldn’t carry on feeling this way. It was wrong. And he needed to be free. Free to find someone else. Someone to love, properly, and not in secret, feeling brimful of shame and confusion.