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“Yeah, for a long time. I’ve been married twelve years, and we split up nine months ago. It was nice of Jay and Lucien to invite me over, but I don’t know whether seeing them all so happy together made the whole holiday celebration thing more or less bearable than being on my tod.”
Christ, it was like we were mirror images of each other. I couldn’t have expressed my emotions being at my sister’s any clearer myself.
Evan punched some numbers into his phone and held it to his ear before shaking his head. “No answer from Jay again. I’m not surprised; they had the world and his wife over to stay. Friends from France, too, old friends of Lucien’s. Everyone he wants to talk to is in his house already, so I suspect he’s turned his phone off. I don’t know the landline number.”
Me neither. I only had the contact number for the estate offices, and no one would be there today.
“Looks like you’re stuck with me another night, then.” I hoped I sounded suitably phlegmatic, even if in my head I was wondering what food I could scrape together for him, and whether the bedding on the spare bed was too musty from disuse. Zeus was back on the sofa, busily licking his ancient wrinkly balls.
“I feel dreadful, Rob,” Evan replied, like the totally well-mannered middle-class boy he was. “Imposing on you like this. You’re a busy man. I can’t apologise enough.”
“It’s fine, honestly. I can’t offer you silk sheets like up at the big house. I haven’t got caviar and champagne either. But the spare room has a lumpy mattress, and I can probably rustle up some supermarket vino, if that will do.”
CHAPTER 4
After lunch, Evan indulged in a little snooze in front of an old western. His ribs and ankle must still have been bloody sore, even though he made minimal fuss. Lucy had packed me up some sausage rolls, so I polished those off, increasingly aware he must think I consumed an extremely pork-based diet, while Evan made do with marmalade on dry toast, an apple, and a slice of Christmas cake. The snow finally stopped falling; I was surprised there was any left in the skies to be honest.
While he slept, I took the tractor out and cleared beyond the yard, then all the way down the track in preparation for the milk tanker. He’d not make it today—the driver had already confirmed—but with a bit of luck, tomorrow should be manageable. My own bulk tanks were big enough for a couple of days, so I wasn’t unduly worried.
Afternoon milking happened around four o’clock, taking me nicely up to dinnertime. Secretly, I hoped Evan hadn’t heard from Jay, and judging by the tantalising smells emanating from my kitchen when I kicked off my boots, he hadn’t. The fire had been lit too, and he’d found my old radio, permanently tuned to the sports commentary, and switched it to something musical. A saxophone warbled out a mellow tune to the accompaniment of a tinkling piano. Jazz. That fucking figured.
“Hi!”
“Hi! You didn’t need to go to this trouble. Especially with your ankle. And one arm.”
Evan had donned an old flowery apron of my mother's. He'd dispensed with the broom-crutch in favour of perching on one of my kitchen chairs next to the stove, his swollen ankle propped on another. Zeus snored at his feet. The combination of simple domesticity and practical maleness was a potent one. “It’s no bother. It’s not like I can do anything else. Relax. Go and shower or do whatever you usually do after a day at work.”
Sprawl on the sofa and scratch my balls until the Rossingley Arms opens? Probably not what he wanted to hear. And had I been ordered to shower? Was that a hint? Despite the chill, I’d worked up a sweat shuffling the herd in and out. Sluicing the floor down usually resulted in a pile of cow shit latching onto some part of me.
“I found rice and a couple of carrots that have probably seen better days.” He gave the pot a stir with his good arm. “And some turkey leftovers for you, and frozen peas for me. So we’re having a very cobbled-together, un-Christmassy stir fry. Hope that’s okay. I hope you like the flavour of soy sauce too, and not much else.”
Whatever was cooking, I’d take it. Sounded like he’d concocted the healthiest dinner I’d eaten in ages. “Absolutely fine. I’ll…um… go and slip into something more comfortable.”
A beat of silence followed; then Evan politely smiled. Fuck, I sounded like I was auditioning for a 1970s sitcom. I fled, cringing all the way up the stairs and into the shower.
Red wine mixed with codeine loosened Evan’s tongue, and I exploited it to the max. Personally, I thought it a dubious combination, but he was the doctor after all. He declared himself more a beer man, generally, of which I approved. Unfortunately, I had none.
“So, a surgeon, eh? That’s cool. What do you specialise in?”
As if to demonstrate, he speared a chunk of carrot and sliced it neatly in two, with surgical precision. “I’m a general surgeon. Bowels, bellies, bottoms. Burst appendices, septic gallbladders, strangulated…”
“Okay, okay, I get it, thank you. I was quite enjoying my dinner up until now.”
To show I was teasing, I grinned at him. I was doing more than that. Inner gay me was actually flirting and having the best night in years. He didn’t realise, of course, because I flirted abominably, and outer me acted like a straight bloke. I’d never entertained a man for dinner in my kitchen; the closest was my annual Christmas drink with Freddie. I could almost kid myself this was a date if I overlooked the fact my companion wasn’t here out of choice and also recently married to a woman, albeit unhappily.
We’d chatted nonstop for the last couple of hours, skirting the personal stuff but delving into everything else. His favourite sport (rugby—hence the broken nose), films, television, dairy farming, holiday destinations. Everything and nothing. Twenty-something me would never have guessed that if thirty-six-year-old me could choose, it would be to find someone with whom to spend an evening exactly like this. Someone I liked enough to want to stay up all night talking with. Sure, thirty-six-year-old me wanted sex too, but on its own, it no longer completely scratched the itch.
“So, you and the earl’s husband, Jay, you said you trained together?”
“We did,” he agreed proudly. “Lived together, took exams together, survived night shifts together. We…er…became less close when he met Lucien—my fault as much as anyone’s—and then I married Paula. Jay’s been incredibly supportive since she left me, though. It’s brought us closer again.”
“That’s good to hear.” Since she left me. I wondered what he’d done, or what she’d done. “It’s a hard career, medicine. Or so I’ve heard. The sort of career where I imagine people become married to the job.” Was I fishing? Absolutely. Not having ever had a sustained relationship myself, the ins and outs of other people's fascinated me.
Evan shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Something like that. That’s…er…that isn’t the full story, actually.”
An awkward pause stretched between us. He took a large swig of wine, then stared down at his empty plate, as if lost in his own head.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.” I so meant to pry.
