Page 129 of Secret Paths

I hand over the tickets to Alexandra and step away from the raffle table. “I need a minute.”

“All right,” she says even if it is written on her face that all she wants to do is asking me a gazillion questions.

I walk towards the church wall where the noise thins. I do not sit on the bench because sitting would make it easier to stay there and do nothing.

I have done enough of that.

I think of Karim, but not in the way I usually do.

Not as a warning.

Not as proof that love can fail ordinary life and therefore ordinary life should be avoided.

For years, I have treated that ending as evidence. A relationship can be real and still not last. A marriage can be kind and still not be enough. Love can exist and still fail when the shape of life changes around it.

All true.

But Peter is not asking me to return to a life that did not fit.

He is not asking me to become the woman I was with Karim, or the wife I used to be, or some softer version of myself arranged for public approval.

He has already met me without the polish.

He has seen me tired, sharp, hungry, embarrassed, scared. He has watched me fail at lying, fail at cooking, fail at pretending I do not care. He has held me when I came to him because I could not face going home alone.

And he still asked for one afternoon.

Not possession.

Not rescue.

A place beside him.

Across the green, Peter laughs at something the little boy says when he comes back for more custard. The woman in the green coat has gone. Of course she has. She was never the point.

The point is Peter.

The point is that I said I did not want to be seen with him, and now I cannot bear the thought of staying invisible.

I take a breath.

It shakes.

I take another.

I have to do something!

Chapter 14

Peter

Ihave served thirty-two baked apples, lost count of how many people have asked whether the custard is homemade, and watched Ed, one of Hunter’s trainee waiters who has been sent to the fair with me, prevent a small boy from eating cinnamon straight from a spoon.

The boy’s mother apologised.

The boy did not.

Morton Hall’s wedding has swallowed most of the staff, which is how I have ended up behind a trestle table wearing an apron that does not fit and explaining baked fruit to the residents of St Claire.