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Us. It had crossed Thea’s mind that Lucas might be married, and she’d decided that was none of her concern. All the same, she wasn’t sure that she wanted to play happy families with him.
‘What about tomorrow morning? I don’t want to interrupt your evening.’
‘I’m working anyway. And there’s an old acquaintance I’d like you to meet.’
‘Who?’ He’d married someone she knew? Thea really didn’t want to know now.
‘You’ll see. I’ll text my address. Dinner’s in an hour.’
‘But … Lucas?’ She glared at the phone. He’d rung off.
It would serve him right if she just didn’t turn up. She could text him the reporter’s mobile number and leave him to deal with it. But not turning up might look as if she cared. Her phone beeped, and she looked at the screen.
She couldn’t remember the number, but this was the road his parents had lived in. Large houses set well back from the road behind iron railings. The kind of place that simply screamed money and respectability. Lucas had loved his family but had always claimed he wanted a different way of life.
Numbness settled over her. If he could look her in the eye, when he’d trashed all the values and ideals that had meant so much to him, then he really wasn’t the person she’d once known. If he could pretend that it didn’t matter, he was nothing to her.
She texted back her reply, together with the contact number for the newspaper reporter. Then she grabbed her coat and bag and made for the hospital car park.
The house was easy to find. It had to be the smallest in the road but it was still imposing enough, and stood next to the house that Thea had been to when she and Lucas had visited his parents. Travelling the world, eh? He hadn’t gone very far.
Even the dividing fence between his house and his parents’ had been taken out, one drive serving both properties now. Thea parked in the space next to Lucas’s car and took a moment to steady herself.
Climbing plants wound around the Victorian-style portico of his front door, and instead of a bell there was a heavy brass knocker in the shape of a dolphin. Almost as soon as she knocked on the door, it opened.
A teenage girl answered. Dark-eyed, with dark hair, she looked suspiciously like Lucas, but none of the sums added up. The girl was definitely a good bit more than seven years old. The thought that Lucas had been even more of a fraud that she’d bargained for floated into Thea’s mind.
‘Thea?’ The girl grinned at her as if she knew her. ‘Come in.’
She stepped into a large hallway and the girl closed the front door behind her. ‘You don’t know who I am, do you? I’m Ava.’
‘Lucas’s niece?’ The last time she’d seen Ava she had been six years old, and they’d played football together in the back garden while Lucas and his brother had argued about medical aid in the developing world.
‘Yes.’ When Ava smiled, she looked even more like Lucas. ‘I suppose I have changed a bit.’
‘It’s so nice to see you, Ava.’ It was such a relief to see her. Unless Lucas had another surprise hostess tucked up his sleeve somewhere. ‘You’re staying with your uncle?’
‘I live here.’ Ava wheeled around with impetuous energy. ‘I’ll show you around.’
‘Thank you. Where’s Lucas?’
‘Out back, lighting the barbecue. I’d stay clear if I were you. I always do.’ Ava danced back towards Thea, leaning in close as if she had a secret to impart. ‘He’s not very good at it.’
‘Which naturally makes him cross.’ Lucas never had liked being outmatched by anything.
‘Yep. He gets over it. When we see smoke signals coming over the horizon, it’ll be safe to come out of hiding.’ Ava opened one of the doors leading from the hallway. ‘Sitting room.’
Thea peered past Ava into the comfortable, bright sitting room. ‘Very nice.’
‘Dining room …’ Ava was on to the next room before Thea had a chance to even cross the threshold of the first.
‘Equally nice.’ Thea grinned at her.
‘Kitchen …’ Another door, which revealed a gleaming kitchen. ‘We won’t go in there.’
‘Very wise. Leave the cooking to Lucas.’
‘Do you remember when we roasted chestnuts in the fire on Bonfire Night?’ Ava didn’t stop for an answer. ‘Would you like to see my room?’
‘I’d love to. If you’d like to show it to me.’ Thea draped her coat over the banisters and put her heavy bag down in the corner. She felt suddenly lighter as she followed Ava up the stairs and into a large, stylishly decorated room.
‘I went on holiday with Gran and Grandpa, and when I got back Lucas had decorated it as a surprise. What do you think?’
‘It’s beautiful. He did all this?’
Ava nodded. ‘Yes. He said that I needed something a bit different now that I’m older. I think it’s turned out pretty well.’
‘It’s very sophisticated. I like the curtains.’ A bold, confident pattern of yellow, purple and green, the shades somehow blending perfectly together.
‘It’s an old fifties print. We went up to town to look at some fabrics. Lucas said it was for the conservatory.’
‘And you fell for it.’ Thea grinned.
‘He’s good with surprises, he never lets on.’
‘No, he doesn’t, does he?’ The time that Lucas had started driving, saying that they were going out for a pub lunch, and hadn’t stopped until they’d reached the ferry for France. When they’d reached dry land again they’d driven all night and watched the sun come up over the bright, glittering waters of the Mediterranean.
That was the old Lucas. The one who would have taken such delight in planning a surprise like this. The one that Thea had told herself was lost for ever.
Ava was gazing down, out of the window, and opened it in response to something below. Lucas’s voice floated upwards, along with a puff of charcoal smoke.
‘Are you listening for the door, Ava?’
‘Yes.’ Ava shut the window again abruptly and Thea suppressed a smile. What was it Lucas used to say? If you want the right answers, you have to ask the right questions.
Maybe she should take that advice too. But if she wanted to know why Ava was living here and not with her parents, she should either wait for Ava to volunteer the information or ask Lucas.
‘That’s a great place to work.’ She pointed to the desk, which sat in deep bay window on the far side of the room.
‘Yeah. I think that was a hint.’ Ava grinned wryly.
‘Exams next year?’ Thea couldn’t remember whether Ava was fourteen or fifteen now.
‘No, two years. I’m choosing my GCSE subjects now.’
She must be fourteen, then. ‘What do you want to do?’
‘History. I’m not sure about the rest, yet. I want to be an archaeologist.’
‘That sounds great.’
‘I’ve already been on a dig—last summer. They didn’t let us do much on our own, but it was pretty cool.’ Ava’s eyes lit up with enthusiasm. ‘Look.’
She grabbed Thea’s hand and led her over to the desk. Inside the alcove, a pinboard was fixed to the wall, covered in photographs. ‘That’s Lucas and me, with my find.’
Lucas had his arm around Ava’s shoulders and they were both pulling faces for the camera. Suddenly, seven years seemed like nothing. His hair looked as if it had been styled by the wind, and he was wearing a rock-band T-shirt that had seen better days. Longing reached into her stomach, gripped hard and then twisted.
‘That’s fabulous.’
‘Isn’t it? It’s Samian ware. That’s high-quality pottery from Italy or France that the Romans used to use.’
Thea dragged her eyes from Lucas’s face and focussed on the piece of broken pottery that Ava was holding up. ‘How interesting.’
‘Yeah. That piece of pottery came from something like that.’ Ava indicated a museum postcard of a glossy red bowl, with moulding around the base, pinned next to the photograph. ‘I saw it in one of the side trenches, where the settlement put all their rubbish, and they let me pick it up after it was photographed. I was the first person to touch it since it got thrown there. Can you imagine that?’
All that Thea could imagine at the moment was Lucas. ‘It must have been an amazing feeling.’ The board was like a memory board. Ava as she remembered her, a six-year-old with her parents. Then, growing up, with Lucas. Something must have happened and Thea dreaded to ask what that might have been.
‘There’s one of you here somewhere.’ Ava scanned the board and pointed to one at the top. Some older photos of Lucas, and in one of them he was sitting outside a tent, his arm around Thea.
‘Ah! I remember that. We were at Glastonbury.’ She’d looked so different then. It wasn’t just the hair or the clothes, she’d looked carefree. Thea wondered if Lucas found her as changed as she did him.
‘What did you do there? Lucas says you danced all night.’
Not all night. Thea and Lucas had loved to dance, but there had been another pastime that they’d loved even more. Alone in their tent, however many people were passing by outside and despite the lumps in the ground under her back. Or his.
‘Yes, we danced all night. Got pretty muddy and didn’t have any pieces of Samian pottery to show for it.’
Ava’s laugh was cut short by footsteps on the stairs. When Lucas appeared in the doorway it was as if time had rolled back, catapulting her into the place where she loved him. Maybe it was the photographs on Ava’s board. Maybe because of the way he was dressed. Jeans that fitted him like a glove and a rugby shirt that emphasised his broad shoulders so much better than a jacket and tie.
He threw Ava a reproachful look, which melted into the warmth that had been missing from his face over the last two weeks. ‘Do you ladies want to eat tonight?’
‘You want me to lay the table?’ That was obviously Ava’s job.
‘I’ve already done it. Perhaps you’d like to get Thea a drink?’
‘Oh. Yes. We were just talking about Glastonbury. She’s told me all your secrets …’ Ava continued provocatively.
‘All of them?’ A flicker at the side of one eye as his gaze met Thea’s.
‘Every one of them. How we danced all night.’ That was all Ava needed to know, and anyway it wasn’t her place to give away Lucas’s secrets. Suddenly it mattered a great deal that there were things that only she and Lucas shared, that only they remembered.
He gave her an almost imperceptible nod and then an exaggerated shrug for Ava’s benefit. ‘Guess I’ve been rumbled, then. What do you want me to agree to this time?’
‘Nothing yet. I’m storing it up for use later.’ Ava shot him a grin and Lucas laughed, putting his arm around her shoulder.
‘Okay. I’ll consider myself warned. Now, hurry up, or dinner’s going to be burned to a crisp.’
‘She seems like a handful.’ They’d eaten and Ava had disappeared into the house. Lucas tilted the half-empty bottle of wine towards Thea and she shook her head. ‘No more, thanks. I’m driving.’
‘She keeps me on my toes. Most difficult thing I’ve ever done. Most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.’ He propped his feet up on the empty chair opposite him, leaning back to catch the evening sun.
‘You’ve done a great job. How long has she lived with you?’
‘Since she was seven. Her parents were killed in a car crash.’
Thea had steeled herself to hear something like that, but it was still a shock. ‘I’m sorry, Lucas. I liked your brother and his wife very much.’
‘Yeah.’ He ran his finger thoughtfully around the rim of his glass. ‘They were good people.’
‘When did it happen?’
‘They were killed four days before I was due to leave for Bangladesh. We were all at my parents’ house, for some family time before I went away, and they’d gone out to run some errands. Left Ava behind with me.’ His voice was flat, matter-of-fact. ‘I had to tell Ava that her mother and father weren’t coming back, my mother couldn’t do it.’
‘That must have been terribly hard for you.’
‘All I could think about was her. I promised her then that I’d look after her, and I have. My mother and father talked about adopting her, but then my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. So I adopted Ava and Mum concentrated on getting well.’
‘She’s okay now?’
‘Yeah, she’s been clear for four years now. Ava’s home is with me, but she spends a lot of time with my parents. It seems to work.’
He still hadn’t answered the most important question. ‘And what about you?’
‘Me?’ He put his hand on his chest, as if to check that he was really the object of her concern. ‘What about me?’
He’d lost his brother and sister-in-law. His mother had been seriously ill, and he’d given up his own dreams to take on the challenge of caring for a grieving six-year-old. ‘It was a lot for you to deal with as well.’
Lucas shook his head. ‘Not as much as Ava or my mother. They were the ones …’ His words tailed off into a remembrance of grief.
‘You always seemed to want to go to Bangladesh so much.’
‘I did, once upon a time.’ Did he class his time with her like that too? A distant fairy story, which had no bearing on reality?
‘But not now?’
He turned to look at her, his gaze searching her face. ‘No, not now. We all have dreams, and then we grow out of them.’
They were almost the hardest words she’d heard tonight. ‘Is that why you asked me here? To meet Ava?’
‘You rang me.’ He seemed to relax the tight grip he had on his emotions a little. ‘I’m glad you came. Ava remembers you and she’s been wanting to see you again.’
No mention of his own feelings. It was as if the tragedy of losing his brother and the sudden responsibility of a child had quenched the passion that had so defined Lucas. Seeing him so changed … It would almost have been better never to have seen him at all.
‘It’s been good to be here.’
* * *
There was something he needed to get out of the way. Lucas told himself that it was all about their professional relationship and nothing about the personal. ‘I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d refused to work with me. After the way that I left.’
