Page 126 of Secret Paths

For a second, I think she might turn back. Say something. Anything.

She does not.

I watch her walk away until the bend in the lane takes her.

Only then do I close the door.

The cottage is quiet again.

This time, it does not feel familiar enough to help.

Chapter 13

Mandy

Igo to the harvest festival alone, which is perfectly normal.

I have been going places alone for years.

There is absolutely no reason for today to feel different.

People go to village events alone all the time. They buy raffle tickets alone. They examine oddly shaped vegetables alone. They stand in queues for tea and pretend not to judge the Victoria sponge entries alone.

I am here because Alexandra roped me into an hour on the raffle table weeks ago, before Peter asked me to come with him and before I said no as if he had suggested we merge bank accounts and adopt alpacas.

Since then, Peter and I have been polite.

Polite is awful.

He texted on Tuesday to ask whether my week was better. I said it was manageable. I asked about the branch. He said there had been three complaints, two people cried and one man who announced he would be keeping his money under the mattress from now on.

I sent a sympathetic face.

A sympathetic face.

There are people in legal disputes with warmer correspondence than that.

We have not seen each other. We have not slept together. No late-night messages. No jokes about his dick’s schedule. Nothing that could be mistaken for wanting.

Except I do want.

And that is inconvenient. So I put on a coat, walk to the village green and tell myself fresh air and raffle tickets are a plan.

The harvest festival is already busy when I arrive. The rain has held off, but the grass is soft underfoot and the bunting sags between poles as if it has lost faith in the season. The green behind the village hall is covered with stalls: jam, chutney, cakes, second-hand books, knitted pumpkins, children’s games and a raffle table displaying the usual combination of unwanted bath sets and bottles of questionable liqueur.

Bernard sits beside Mrs Higgins near the cake tent wearing a red neckerchief and the expression of a dog denied legal representation.

I go straight to Alexandra.

She is behind the table, holding a roll of tickets in one hand and a clipboard in the other.

“You came,” she says.

“I said I would.”

“You also say that when you mean probably not.”

“I am a woman of mystery.”