Читать книгу A Summer to Remember - Sue Moorcroft - Страница 12

It had been good to get a full day’s work in, Aaron thought, as he drove into the village late on Tuesday afternoon. He’d just about finished planting out the terraces in Titchwell. A heatwave was predicted and he was already anticipating customers not watering their gardens and then blaming him for dead plants and lawns with gaping cracks.

He was due to pick his mum up to collect Aunt Norma from King’s Lynn hospital and wanted to be at the ward at seven when it opened. Then he was meeting Genevieve later.

A quick stop at home to shower and grab a sandwich, then he set out again for De Silva House. Yvonne was uncharacteristically quiet when she climbed into his truck.

On the journey, through Hunstanton and on to King’s Lynn, Aaron tried to get the conversation going but his mother replied only absently, even to his enquiries about Daisy. He settled for concentrating on the traffic and listening to Capital FM.

Aunt Norma was ready when they arrived, a plaster cast on her ankle and a livid bruise on her temple. The nurse who organised her discharge said she was being sent home with a walking frame. ‘Bloody thing,’ Aunt Norma called it. Aaron brought the truck up close and settled her into the front seat and she wasn’t much more talkative than Yvonne while Aaron negotiated the overcrowded traffic system out of King’s Lynn.

It was only as they were on the more open road that she shifted her plastered foot irritably and demanded, ‘Aaron, what are you doing allowing Awful Alice’s cousin to park herself in the village?’

Aaron glanced across at her. ‘Clancy? I couldn’t do much to stop it. She acts for Alice. And I don’t suppose she even gets paid for that,’ he added, realising he’d never before thought of it. He received an income stream from the rental but all Clancy saw was the profits vanish, half in his direction and half in her cousin’s. ‘I told her about Evelyn leaving and suddenly she was moving in.’

Aunt Norma sniffed. ‘But what about Lee? How does he feel?’

His great-aunt was old and just out of hospital so Aaron kept his own tone level. ‘You’ll have to ask Lee. I hope that now he’s moved on with his life he’ll be OK with Clancy. She didn’t ask Alice to—’

‘You seem to be on her side,’ Aunt Norma commented sadly. She was known for being pretty forthright in her views.

He glanced at the old lady again as he continued to trail the car in front, wishing the traffic would speed up. ‘I’m not taking sides,’ he said quietly. ‘Alice treated Lee shamefully and I was as worried about him as anyone. I tried to persuade Clancy the job wasn’t for her but I failed.’ Then, when neither his mother nor aunt replied, he added, ‘If Lee has an issue with the way I’ve handled things then he’s welcome to raise the subject but I’m not going on a witch hunt. Life’s been pretty crap to Clancy, from what she’s told me.’

Aunt Norma sniffed again. ‘There’s no need to say crap.’

Aaron swallowed his laughter. Was he thirty-six or thirteen?

It was turned nine when he’d eventually helped Aunt Norma into her annexe at his parents’ place, driving up the slope, walking beside her as she puffed her way up the ramp that delivered her to the first floor. ‘Thank you, Aaron,’ she said stiffly. ‘You get off now.’

Aaron kissed her soft cheek and said she could call him if she needed anything. His mother gave him a hug, then Aaron took Aunt Norma at her word and left.

Once home, he released Nelson from the confines of the kitchen, rubbing the hairy head as Nelson reared up on his hind legs and pawed the air with whimpers of joy. ‘Come on, you silly hound. Let’s give you a run.’ He walked a circuit of the clifftop, watching the scrubby trees waving, throwing the ball so Nelson covered plenty of ground, then whistled him so they could turn off to Genevieve’s home in Trader’s Place.

When he arrived at The Mimosas, a pretty name that seemed to him to be trying to compensate for the less-than-pretty brick-built cottage, it was to find Genevieve three-quarters of the way down a bottle of wine, sitting out in her garden in the twilight looking balefully at the corner of her home, propped up for safety until the builders began the necessary dismantling, underpinning and rebuilding.

‘Hey,’ he said, pulling up a mismatched garden chair to join her, leaning down to brush her lips with his. ‘Feeling down in the dumps about the cottage?’

‘Yup,’ she answered flatly, putting down her wine glass to accept Nelson’s panting, pawing expressions of adoration. ‘Amongst other things. Like, whether we’ve got a future.’

Aaron had been about to go and get himself a wine glass but instead he dropped into the chair in surprise at this opening gambit. ‘Where did that come from?’

She sighed, still tousling Nelson’s grey hairy ears. He’d taken up station with his head on her lap and looked well happy with the situation. ‘I’ve been thinking about it ever since Clancy came up with the idea of me moving into the B&B. You were so relieved! You obviously don’t want me to move in with you.’ Her eyes glittered in the fading light.

He put his hand over hers, feeling bad that she’d read him so accurately and it had hurt her. ‘But you love your cottage.’

She shrugged. ‘Does that mean I’m forced to live alone in it for the rest of my life?’

‘Well, no,’ he acknowledged. ‘But we’d never talked about living together and suddenly you were hinting that we should, and as if it would become a permanent thing. Taking such a major step out of expediency, because your cottage needs work—’

‘—is not happening,’ she finished for him, her voice tight with tears, forehead furrowing with misery. She gulped a mouthful of wine.

‘I didn’t put it like that—’

But she wasn’t listening to him, just gazing at the sagging corner of her house as if it held all the answers. ‘We’ve been together a year. To be absolutely clear – do you ever foresee us taking our relationship to the next level?’

‘Hey,’ he said gently, patting the hand that lay unresponsive under his. ‘What’s going on? I feel as if I’ve missed half a conversation.’

‘Do you ever foresee us making our relationship more committed?’ she insisted.

‘I don’t discount it,’ he answered carefully, as she was clearly intent on making him lay all his cards on the table. ‘We’ve had a great relationship and, if you’re asking me to be honest, then I’m happy as we are.’

She turned to face him. ‘Clancy says women shouldn’t be defined by the love of a man, but I’m going to ask you. Do you love me? And yes or no are the only acceptable answers.’

Aaron tried to get a grip on the conversation, which felt as out of control as a kite in a hurricane. He hated upsetting Gen but that familiar prickle of resentment at being made to feel the bad guy was there too. He made his voice gentle. ‘Backing me into a corner isn’t going to help this situation.’

Slowly, her blonde hair lifting on the evening breeze, Genevieve upended the wine bottle over her glass, watching it fill almost to the brim. ‘So that’s a no then.’

‘I didn’t say that!’ He’d never asked himself whether he loved Genevieve, or any past girlfriends. He’d never wanted to settle down before he was thirty and then, when he was exactly that age, what happened to Lee had made him wary. Lee had given his whole heart to Alice and she’d ripped it up and tossed it over her shoulder as she shook the dust of Nelson’s Bar from her feet.

Genevieve went on as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘I feel as if you’ve been playing me along.’

Once more, he was taken aback. ‘I didn’t realise we had different expectations, that’s all.’

‘I’m thirty-four. It didn’t occur to you that I’d want children?’ Her eyes were huge with unshed tears.

He decided there was no right answer to that because it had, in fact, been in the back of his mind, but not in a positive way. ‘I’m sorry you’re upset,’ he said.

‘So am I,’ she responded slowly. ‘I deserve more than a man who neither loves me nor sees a future with me.’ Tears began to leak from the corners of her eyes. ‘I obviously feel more than you and I don’t want to spoil the memories of what we’ve had for the last year. Let’s not bicker or blame. Let’s part as friends, both of us free of unrealistic expectations.’ Then, as Aaron sat, stunned into silence, she gave a half-laugh, half-sob. ‘I think you should go now, before I make a bigger idiot of myself than I already have.’

‘Are you sure this is what you want?’ he asked, rising uncertainly to his feet. Genevieve just looked away and shooed him with a wave of her hand. Aaron had little choice but to click his fingers to Nelson and leave for home, his thoughts circling madly.

How had he just gone from being cautious about his relationship moving too fast to it exploding in his face?

And … how much did he mind?