I stood in the hall a moment longer, studying my flushed cheeks in the mirror. I resisted attempting to tidy my hair, and went through to the kitchen to boil the kettle, drumming my fingers on the countertop while I waited.
It was another forty minutes before Alex arrived, by which time Edwin had grown bored and gone to play in his sandpit. He must have heard the crunch of wheels on gravel though, as he came tearing through the house when Alex’s car pulled up.
“Whoa there! You get stronger every day, young man,” Alex said. Edwin bounced up and down as Alex opened the sports car’s little trunk. “Sorry, nothing for you today, my friend. Thisis for your beautiful mama.” He lifted out a bouquet of luscious pink roses, tweaking a few to disguise the flattening from their journey.
“They’re lovely,” I said, my hands feeling suddenly awkward at my sides.
“Just to thank her for the picnic. It’s really nice of you to let me drop them off. Can I put them in the kitchen?” He hesitated, and I remembered that I was the responsible adult of the house and gestured for him to follow me in.
“We’re going to pick blackberries, but we waited for you, Uncle Alex,” Edwin said, and I frowned.
“Oh, that was very kind of you,” Alex said. “And where has your mother gone?”
Edwin shrugged elaborately. “To see the quacks, most probably.”
Alex raised his eyebrows at me.
I mimicked Edwin’s shrug. “Reflexology?” I felt a flicker of disloyalty to Ruth after her comment about me being discreet, but surely she wouldn’t mind me telling Alex. Alex laughed.
“Is that what your daddy calls them?” he said to Edwin.
“Are you coming with us, then?” Edwin asked him. “To pick blackberries?” He swung one leg as he looked from Alex’s face to mine.
Alex checked his watch. “Where are you going—to the folly?”
I nodded. I was acutely aware of his sunglasses on the windowsill, that I ought to give them back to him. But I held my breath, waiting, willing him to come with us.
“How about I come for a bit?” he said, directing the question at Edwin but glancing at me to check. I released my breath and smiled.
“Sure,” I said, and Edwin cheered and ran to fetch his bucket.
I grabbed keys, but hesitated. “Shall I lock up or—will you need to get through to your car if you come back first?”
He chuckled. “Ah, I see we feel the same way—these country folk leaving their houses unlocked all the time—it’s unsettling. No, don’t worry—you lock up, and if I come back before you, I can always jump the wall by the stables.”
I turned the keys with a smile. We felt the same way.
“So how long are you here for?” he asked as we set off down the garden. “Au pairing, I mean. Is it a long-term thing?”
“For a year,” I said. I watched Edwin skip toward the trees ahead of us. “I missed my A levels. I was in hospital. We—I decided it’d be good to take a year out before retaking them.”
“Not retaking exactly, is it? If you didn’t get to sit them in the first place?”
“No, well...” I pushed away the memory of turning up at the first exam, against doctors’ orders, stumbling out again before the proctor could tell me to turn over my paper.
Alex filled his lungs and gestured at the vibrant garden around us, the cloudless sky. “Well, you certainly picked a great place for a year out. I wish I’d stepped off the conveyor belt for a year at your age. It’s all exams, interviews, work, work.”
I glanced at his expression, hesitating to ask him what it was he did for work, but a whoop from Edwin as he disappeared into the little woods made Alex grin suddenly.
“I might take a year off myself, actually. I think I’d make a pretty good au pair. What do you do all day—pick blackberries, play on the beach? Easy stuff.”
“Hey!” I shook my head, but I couldn’t help laughing. He asked me about my university plans then, and he gave me hisfull attention while I told him about my passion for science and my desire to one day run my own research lab. His gaze remained on my face rather than on the path ahead. I felt as though I walked taller and my limbs moved more gracefully, as if he had high expectations of me and I was rising to meet them.
A piercing scream burst the illusion. My chest constricted. We sprinted through the last section of woodland and found Edwin lying on the ground by the gate, one side of his face streaked with blood.
“Let me look, let me look,” I said, trying to keep his head still as he thrashed around in Alex’s arms.
“I fell off,” Edwin wailed.
