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Matt let himself back into the cottage and dodged the curtain of water falling down the stairwell. His feet squelched on the hall carpet and by the light of the torch he could see that the wallpaper was beginning to peel. Finding the hall cupboard, he twisted the stopcock and flipped the mains electrical switch to off. Then he opened a door at the end of the hallway, figuring correctly that it led to the kitchen, and made for the sink. Turning both taps on, he let the water run, hoping that the water tank in the loft would drain quickly.
He knew that the longer he stayed there, the more Beth would be worrying and that he should get back to her. He didn’t want her to have to see the cascade of water that had greeted him when he first entered, though. The place was enough of a mess, without that. Matt heard a gurgle as the tank finally drained and turned off the kitchen taps as the water coming through the ceiling slowed to a steady dribble.
He trudged back to the car and knocked on the window. She turned, a brittle smile on her face, and the electric window whirred downwards. ‘Can I help you?’
She was tough. Not many people would have even attempted a joke in this situation. The reassuring smile that Matt had pasted onto his face warmed as respect washed through him. ‘Yeah. I was wondering if you might like to swap that six-year-old you have there for a cottage. It’s a little wet at the moment, but it’s basically sound.’
She pretended to think about it for a moment. ‘Okay, you’ve got a deal.’ The central locking on the car sounded and she climbed out, waiting while Matt unbuckled Jack’s seat belt and chivvied him out of his booster seat.
He had half expected her to run straight into the house, but she was standing stock still, searching his face in the dim light. ‘It’s not …’ Matt shrugged and handed her the flashlight. ‘You’ll be wanting to see for yourself, won’t you?’
‘Yes. Thanks.’ Her smile was beginning to wear a little thin at the edges, and he caught her cold hand in his and led her up the front path.
Beth stood in the hallway, cold water creeping into her shoes, and watched as a piece of the wallpaper she had hung so carefully just a few weeks ago peeled slowly off the wall and landed on the carpet in a sodden mass. Smile. The words of the old song that her grandmother used to sign with her echoed in her head and she gave it her best shot.
‘Perhaps that wallpaper was a bit much for a small hallway.’
Matt tilted his head to one side thoughtfully. ‘Yeah. Perhaps.’ He’d picked Jack up so that his feet didn’t get wet, and had him safe and secure in his arms.
‘At least I’ve got the hang of it now. Putting something else up will be easy. And the insurance will cover it.’ She was babbling, trying to make out that everything was okay when it wasn’t. She went to sit down on the stairs, and then jumped back to her feet as she realised the stair carpet was as wet as everything else.
‘It’s more than just the money, though, isn’t it?’ His quiet comment cut through all her pretence of being able to cope with this.
‘Yes. I’ve only been here for eight months. It was … it is the first time I’ve had a place of my own. I did everything myself.’ It had almost been a point of honour. Beth had wanted to show everyone, herself included, that she could manage her life on her own terms after Pete had left her.
‘Then I’ll bet you’ve already done plenty of things that seemed impossible at first. The initial shock is always the worst.’
Was he really so sure about that? ‘I could kick myself. You know, I’ve never even been up in the loft to look at the water tank or the pipes. The surveyor said they were okay and I just took his word for it. Maybe if I’d ….’ She tailed off before her tears choked her. It was already too late to mend the damage that had been done to her dream. Everyone who had ever said that she couldn’t fend for herself had just been proved right. And she’d proved it with her own stupid negligence.
‘It’s not your fault.’ His tone was gentle but firm. How did someone get to be that sure about life?
The belief that she could cope with whatever life threw at her had just been unceremoniously ripped away, leaving her naked and shivery. And even though he was saying all the right things, Matt’s solid dependability wasn’t helping. The temptation to look as pathetic as she felt and cling to him was too much to bear.
Beth straightened herself, ignoring the handstands her stomach was doing, and swung the torch beam up from the carpet, trying to inspect the damage calmly. ‘I can do this.’
‘Yes, you can. It’s a bit of a mess right now, but this is the worst of it. The water’s off now and I’ve drained the tank.’
Thanks for reminding me. It was Matt who’d had the presence of mind to do that straight away, not her. Beth turned away from him, wiping her face with the sleeve of her coat.
‘The back room isn’t so bad,’ he continued. ‘It’s worst in the hall and the sitting room.’
Beth nodded, trying not to start crying again and feeling the tears trickle down her cheek anyway. What the hell—a few tears weren’t going to make this place any wetter.
‘Come and take a look.’ He took her hand, holding it tight, and guided her to the small dining room, which lay behind the sitting room. She could see a few dribbles of water running down the walls but the carpet was dry to her touch and the furniture looked undamaged.
This wasn’t so bad. ‘Thank you for helping out. I’ll be okay now.’ She wanted him to go before his reassurance became completely indispensable. Then she could inspect the damage, have a good cry and work out what she was going to do next.
‘No, you won’t.’ Jack lay motionless against his shoulder, obviously tired and bored. ‘You’ll freeze in this weather with no heating and in a wet house. If you want to stay with a friend then I’ll take you wherever you need to go, but I live five miles down the road and I have a spare bedroom that’s warm and dry. Come and stay with us tonight. There’s nothing more that we can do until tomorrow.’
Beth stared at him. Warm and dry sounded like heaven at the moment, but she couldn’t. She would rather be here, however uncomfortable it was. ‘I’m fine, really.’
Matt gave a little gesture of impatience, and Jack stirred in his arms. ‘No, you’re not fine. And you most certainly won’t be fine tomorrow if you spend the night here.’ He gestured up and to the front of the house. ‘If your bedroom’s above the sitting room, then it’s going to be wet through. It’s already below freezing outside and you’ve no heating.’
Cold disappointment dripped into Beth’s heart. He was right, of course, but she still didn’t want to admit that she was reliant on the hospitality of a virtual stranger. She stared at Matt, unable to think of anything to say that sounded even vaguely rational.
‘Are there any friends or family close by that you can call?’
Beth shook her head. ‘On any other evening I’d call Marcie. But it’s her wedding anniversary tonight and she’s been planning it for weeks. And my parents are away in America, visiting my younger brother.’ She could probably make it down to Charlie’s place in London before midnight, but if she did he’d still be reminding her about this in thirty years’ time.
‘So come back to our place. The hospital’s vetted me, so the chances of me not being an axe murderer are pretty much in your favour.’ The veneer slipped and an irresistible grin broke through. ‘And my son will vouch for me.’ Jack was dozing fitfully now and didn’t seem disposed to vouch for anyone at the moment. ‘When he wakes up, that is.’
Beth’s resolve wavered. The heat of Matt’s smile was about the only thing around here that was much above freezing. ‘I don’t suppose that anywhere I want to go includes a hotel, does it? There’s one a few miles down the road.’
‘Right in one. No hotels.’
If she was going to take him up on his offer, she may as well do it gracefully. Beth smiled up at him and saw a glimmer in his dark blue eyes that looked suspiciously like triumph. ‘Then your spare bedroom sounds like a lifesaver. It’s very kind of you, thank you.’
Matt had left Jack curled up in a chair in the dining room while he had helped her wipe the puddles from the few good pieces of furniture she had and prop them up off the soaked carpets. The sofa cushions had been arranged on their ends around the sitting room so they could drain a little and he had rolled up the old rug, which was completely beyond saving, and dumped it in the back garden.
She had drawn the line at letting him into her bedroom but after seeing the waterlogged state of her bed had reluctantly called him to help her tip the mattress on one side against the wall. They had gathered up her soaking quilt and some of her clothes and put them into plastic bags in the boot of Matt’s car and Beth had picked up her photo albums and her jewellery box and tucked them away on the back seat. Almost as an afterthought she had fetched her laptop, which seemed to have survived the deluge, and had found that Matt had picked up her textphone and was carefully wiping it dry.
With one load of clothes in the washing machine and another in the dryer, Beth finally allowed herself to relax into the sofa in front of the open fire at Matt’s, watching the logs sizzle and spit as heat drove the moisture from them. Jack had claimed a place next to her and Matt had prepared soup with French bread for them all.
‘That was nice. Must be home-made, it’s got chunky bits.’
‘My mother makes it. My parents live close by and she delivers it by the gallon and puts it in the freezer.’ Matt was sitting on an easy chair, drawn up by the fire, inspecting her textphone. He had changed into jeans and a sweater and his short fair hair was dishevelled from where he had been running his hand through it, making him look even more like a grown-up version of the child that was currently dozing in her arms.
Beth tried not to look at his hands as his long fingers set to work, teasing the back off her phone. Capable hands, which looked as if they could be as gentle as they were precise. He wore no wedding ring and she wondered whether he had done once.
‘So you grew up around here?’
‘Yes. You?’
‘London.’ Beth tucked her legs under her on the sofa, letting Jack slide into her lap, feeling herself relax in the heat from the fire. ‘My family’s pretty scattered now, though. My parents moved down to the South Coast when Dad retired and my younger brother’s in the States. He’s a member of a Deaf Theatre Company over there.’
‘Sounds interesting. What does he do?’
‘He’s an actor. They’re based in New York but they take their productions all over the country. He loves it.’
‘The pull of an audience can be very seductive.’ There was an edge to Matt’s voice.
‘Oh, Nathan’s got his priorities right. He’s just married a really nice girl—she keeps him grounded.’
‘Smart guy.’ The bitterness in Matt’s tone was unmistakable now and he changed the subject quickly. ‘Are your parents deaf as well?’
‘My father is. Mum’s hearing.’ Beth took a deep breath. She may as well say it. She was proud of who she was and was damned if she was going to hide it as if it were some kind of embarrassing secret. ‘I have autosomal dominant deafness. That means …’
He silenced her with an amused look. ‘I know. One dominant gene, inherited from your father, and not a recessive gene inherited from each parent.’
Of course he knew. Genetics 101. ‘Yes. Mum and Dad knew pretty much what to expect when they had children. With the dominant gene there was always going to be a fifty-fifty chance of each of us being deaf.’ Her throat constricted suddenly as if she was being choked.
‘But your mother saw past that.’
‘Yeah. Just as well for me and my brothers.’ Pete hadn’t. Neither had his mother, who had already persuaded him that he was perfect and didn’t have much difficulty convincing him that his children should be, too.
Beth looked down at the child dozing in her lap. She was surrounded by all the things that Pete had promised her and then reneged on. All the things she had sworn she wouldn’t think about any more. She began to feel sick again.
‘Are you okay?’ Beth focused back on Matt with an effort of will and saw concern in his face. ‘You look very pale.’
‘Yes, fine.’
‘Sure you don’t feel dizzy? Or hot and cold?’
‘No. Neither.’ The room had stopped lurching now, and the heat from the fire was warming her again.
‘Nausea?’
‘No.’ The feeling had passed and Matt’s obvious frustration at her lack of symptoms was making her feel much better.
‘May I take your pulse?’
‘I’ll do it.’ Beth wasn’t sure if her heart really did beat twice as fast whenever he touched her but she wasn’t taking any chances. She counted off the beats against the second hand of the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘Dead on sixty.’
‘Hmm. Very good. Excellent, in fact. Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘I’m not in shock.’
‘You probably are, very slightly. Anyone would be after tonight.’ He sighed and gave up. ‘I suppose there’s no harm in offering you a non-medicinal drop of brandy.’
Beth giggled. The way this man could take her from the depths of depression back to laughter in a matter of minutes was frightening. ‘That sounds more like it. Thanks, just a splash.’
He rose and opened the glass door of a cabinet fitted in the alcove beside the chimney breast, withdrawing two cut-glass tumblers and a brandy bottle. Pouring a couple of mouthfuls into each, he placed one next to her and returned to his seat with the other. Jack stirred, reaching out for her, and Beth coiled her arm back around him. Tipping her glass towards Matt in a silent toast, she took a sip of the brandy and settled back against the cushions. Crisis over.
It made Matt smile, seeing the two of them like this on the sofa, Jack curled up in Beth’s arms, sleeping peacefully. Her eyes were luminous in the firelight and she looked even smaller, even more fine-boned in the rolled-up jogging pants and sweatshirt he had lent her.
He picked up the textphone, which lay beside his chair, and finally managed to prise the cover free. Water dribbled out over his jeans and he brushed it away, sending the drops fizzing into the fire.
Looking up, he realised that she had been watching him and heat started to build in his chest. The thought of her eyes on his hands, his lips, became almost too much to bear and he smiled awkwardly.
‘We’ll leave this open to dry out overnight and try it in the morning. It should be all right.’ It seemed so natural to say we and he liked the fact that she gave the slightest of nods in response, as if she, too, accepted that for tonight at least they were a single unit. For the moment, anyway, she seemed to have abandoned her stubborn independence, melting into the small family by the fireside, somehow making both him and Jack whole again.
She was sipping the small portion of brandy he had allowed her, watching as he laid the phone out to dry by the hearth. ‘So how’s Jack settling in?’
‘It’s early days but he seems to be doing well. He loves being near my parents and his new school is great. I think it’s made a big difference, getting away from the old house. He sleeps a lot better now.’
‘That’s good. A decent night’s sleep always helps you face the day.’
‘Yeah. I used to get up in the middle of the night and find him sitting downstairs, waiting for his mother to come home.’ Matt pressed his lips together. Jack had done that regularly before his mother had died, as well as after.
Her fingers tightened around Jack’s shoulders, as if she wanted to pull him close and hug him but was afraid of waking him. ‘Well, he seems to be ready to talk a little about how he feels. It was a privilege to be there this afternoon.’
‘I’m thankful that you were.’ Matt could see why Jack had opened up to Beth. It was hard not to. But there were things he would never tell anyone, not even if Beth taught him the signs for them.
‘Jack said his mother died in a car accident. I’m sorry I didn’t realise that when I brought him down to see you this afternoon. It must have been a shock to hear that he’d almost been knocked down.’ She twisted her fingers together.
Matt’s heart felt as if it was actually melting. The sensation was an odd one and not entirely pleasant. ‘Thank you, but it’s okay.’ He spread his hands in a gesture of reassurance. ‘He was there with you and I could see he was all right. And my wife wasn’t knocked down by a car. She’d been working away from home for a week and was driving back to London on the Friday evening when her car skidded on a patch of ice on the motorway.’
Beth’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry. That she never got home.’
She hadn’t been on her way home. She’d been on her way to a hotel, with her lover. Matt swallowed the truth, but couldn’t bring himself to offer up the usual lie. ‘Thank you.’ He opted for a brisk change of subject. ‘It’s getting late. I’d better get this little guy up to bed.’ He rose and lifted the sleeping boy out of Beth’s arms, briefly scenting her hair before he managed to put some space between them again.
Jack stirred and rubbed his eyes. ‘Story, Dad.’
‘You bet. Let’s get you upstairs and we’ll have a story there.’
‘Why not down here?’ Matt knew what Jack was angling for. He wanted Beth to tell him a story.
‘No, mate.’ He retrieved the copy of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men from where Jack had dumped it that morning and tucked it against his chest. ‘Beth probably doesn’t like Robin Hood.’
He could see from her face that she wouldn’t have minded reading Jack’s bedtime story one little bit. He minded, though. Having Beth read to Jack, when his mother had made so little effort to be home in time to do so, would have been like rubbing salt into open wounds.
‘Okay. Just you and me, Dad. The two musketeers.’ Jack snuggled into his chest and the familiar, overpowering need to protect him surged through Matt. He couldn’t risk the possibility of his son going through the pain of abandonment for a second time. He couldn’t take the risk for himself either. As far as Beth was concerned, friendship wasn’t just the best option, it was the only option.
Regret hung in the air for a brief moment, before dispersing under the relentless pressure of his resolve. As if to prove to himself that he could do it, Matt wrenched his gaze away from Beth and then turned, making for the stairs.
CHAPTER FOUR
LEFT alone, Beth collected the mugs and plates from the table by the fire and took them into the kitchen, washing them and putting them away. Walking back into the sitting room, she realised what had seemed odd to her about the place. It was comfortable, practical and quietly stylish but all the furniture seemed new and everything was arranged just so. Apart from a mess of toys and books to one side of the hearth, there were none of the quirky, out-of-place bits and pieces that were collected over time, and which made her own cottage seem like a home.
Almost the only personal things in the room were a group of picture frames grouped on the dresser, and Beth paused to look at them. Matt and Jack. Matt with an older man and woman, and a young woman who was so like him she had to be his sister. She picked up a third picture, one of Jack with a different woman, his arms flung around her neck. The woman was dark, well groomed and looked into the camera with a self-possessed smile that seemed vaguely familiar.
This must be Matt’s wife. The woman who ought to be here with him and Jack, while Beth should be at home, where she belonged. Her fingers trembled as she went to replace the photograph and she started guiltily to find Matt standing beside her.
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’ Once again he had surprised her snooping.
Matt shrugged. ‘What for?’ He picked up the photo and looked at it thoughtfully. ‘That’s Jack’s mother, Mariska.’
Mariska Sutherland. The name rang a bell, too. ‘She was very beautiful.’ She wished that she was not wearing clothes that were at least four sizes too big and feeling unbearably dowdy in comparison.
Matt nodded absently. ‘She was a journalist, and she travelled a lot for her work.’ It was like a well-rehearsed answer to a question she hadn’t even asked.
Beth remembered now. ‘I’ve seen her show. I don’t usually catch daytime TV but I recorded the programme she did on cochlear implants. I thought it was very good—very clear and even-handed.’ All of the air seemed to have been sucked out of the room and she was struggling to breathe, let alone find the right words to say. ‘It must have been a terrible shock to lose her so suddenly.’
Matt gave her an odd look that she couldn’t quite fathom. ‘Yeah. Although she was away from home a lot. In many ways Jack and I were used to being on our own.’ He fixed his eyes on the floor, studying it intently. ‘He went to sleep straight away tonight, though. Stayed awake long enough to ask if you’d be here in the morning and then he was out like a light. I didn’t even get as far as Robin Hood.’
Beth grinned. ‘I don’t have anywhere else to go. Not till tomorrow, anyway.’
He nodded and for a moment their eyes locked. She felt as if she was falling towards him, into him, stopping only to brush the softness of his lips. Beth broke free with an effort and took a step back from him.
