‘Okay, okay.’ He seems to have lost all of his shyness and he’s lording this up. ‘I was thinking about what you said. You know, the night you kissed me …’ He lingers on the words and I roll my eyes. ‘And, I’ve been to see Bruce today.’
‘You could have led with that.’ My interest piques and I unfold my arms and encourage him on.
‘I wanted to know more about Jimmy. I didn’t exactly know why at first, but the more he told me, the more I knew you were right.’ His face is animated, though a little sorrow swells in his eyes. ‘These are stories that need to be told.’
Sliding a hand into his pocket he takes out a folded piece of paper. The back of it seems to have something already printed on it, but the side he opens is filled with notes scribbled in pencil as though he has jotted down his thoughts on the first page he found. He hands it to me with a slight tremble.
Before I can grasp it, however, he snatches it away. ‘Are you okay?’ His eyes are fixed on me as he speaks and his gaze is so penetrating that I take my seat again beside him, in the hopes I can hide in his periphery.
‘I’m fine.’ He readjusts himself, to look at me again. ‘I’ve been ill.’
‘My grandmother told me you haven’t taken a sick day in two years.’
I don’t look at him but I know he has his eyebrows raised. His face is far too open now he hasn’t got a fringe to hide behind and the fullness of his expression is overpowering.
‘It’s none of your business.’ I clam up, and reach for his notes. He whips them away again before I lay a finger on them.
‘I won’t show you until you tell me the truth.’ He knows he has something to bargain with, something I can’t help but be curious about, and I lean back against the cushions of the sofa in a huff. ‘How can you kiss a man and then just disappear without a word?’ I shoot him a sidelong glance and he looks genuinely hurt.
‘You’re Arthur Cavendish, Hollywood’s sought-after bachelor, who has had half of Soho pressed against his lips on the front pages of gossip mags. Don’t act like you’re bothered about my moment of weakness.’ That’s all it was, as I have been reminding myself these last days: weakness. ‘I’m lonely, you’re not hideous, you’re a man, I kissed you, then I panicked. Okay?’
‘Not okay, not really.’
‘I knew what would happen if I stuck around. You’d tease me mercilessly. The whole village would know; they too would find it hilarious, and then I’ve lost all of my good reputation as a woman who works hard and isn’t distracted by every pretty boy who walks past.’
‘That’s what you think of me?’ Arthur frowns and I nod.
‘You’ve distracted me from my responsibilities. I just needed a couple of days to recalibrate. Think about a fewthings.’ I finally look at him fully, trying to keep myself firm. ‘Good enough?’ I hold out my hand for him to give me his notes and he places them down in my palm absently.
The very first thing scrawled in his urgent handwriting reads:
The Road Not Taken – Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
I read it over and over. I feel him watching me closely, scanning each of my minuscule expressions, trying to gauge my thoughts. Seeing his handwriting, feeling the warmth of his thigh pressed against mine, and the lingering emotion that has stuck around since the kiss, my mind swirls in a way that I know only writing can help. My thoughts are so muddled, I need an outlet, a place to let out emotion and pretend it’s not mine.
The poem is all I needed to know that we’re on the same page. Folding the scrap of paper, I shove it into the pocket of my dressing gown and leap up, heading for the stairs.
‘What day is it today?’ I poke my head back into the living room where Arthur hasn’t moved even a twitch since my sudden burst of energy.
‘Er, Tuesday, I think,’ he answers, a little perplexed.
‘Perfect.’ I grin. ‘Give me three days. I shall meet you in the Big Apple on Friday at seven.’
‘Wha—’ Finally Arthur gets to his feet and follows me from the living room, brows knitted together and his hands flailing as though they too are trying to find the words to say.
‘Oh,’ I remember just as I open the front door and he instinctively steps through it, ‘try not to let my sheep out again, eh?’
‘How did you—’ he begins but I close the door before he can finish.
So I crack open the kitchen window and call to him as he reluctantly retreats down the garden path, ‘No one has secrets in New York, Artie lad.’ I grin before snapping shut the window and heading straight for the shower.
The next three days pass by in a blur. All of the minutes that I’m not at the farm, or behind the bar, I am writing. Even when I am behind the bar, I’m secretly scribbling away under the optics as soon as I can worm my way from the regulars for thirty seconds. For the first time in two years, the words return to me and I write as though my fingertips are on fire and I will explode if I can’t get them out fast enough. It’s like I’ve lived with a blocked nose for months on end, and I can finally remember what it’s like to breathe clearly. This is my way of feeling human, and I don’t think I had quite realised how alien I had been feeling before now.
Arthur has been around and about, but this has all been the perfect excuse to avoid him, or talk to him as little as possible on the farm. He too seems distracted, as though every time he sees me, he is thinking of something else, or perhaps writing in his own head. I’ve never known him so quiet. I hope whatever it is that fills his head has taken the place of that damned kiss, and then perhaps he can erase it from his memory altogether.
When he pensively opens the door to the pub on Friday, however, and I blush at the sight of him, I think it might still be a little while before I’m able to forget.
