Page 84 of The Way We Are Now

‘Tea would be good,’ I said. ‘Earl Grey if you’ve got it?’

‘I’m sure we have somewhere.’ He disappeared with my coat, Florence immediately following after him. Did everyone fall in love with Theo Mandeville, even the bloody dog?

‘So,’ I said, once he’d returned with tea for me and a glass of white wine for himself. ‘What did you want to explain?’ When he didn’t reply, I went on, ‘You said you wanted to explain?’

‘Anna, I wasn’t in a good place.’

‘Well, I know that,’ I said crossly. ‘But you shut me out. Totally.’

‘All I wanted was to play squash professionally.’

‘I know that too.’

‘But without that, without that career, what on earth was I going to do? As a squash player, I could have made my own way in life. Let Vivienne and James take over at the helm on the estate. You know I never wanted to take over from my father. I didn’t get on with him. That’s why I’d gone to New Zealand the first time round.’

‘But you could have let your sisters run the estate anyway.’

‘And what would I have done with myself?’

‘Found a career? Lawyer? Doctor? Vet? Like other people do. We all have to work to earn a living.’

‘With half a history degree, half a hand and a shattered arm?’

‘History teacher?’ I said, determined to find something Theo could have done.

‘I knew I didn’t want to stay on at Leeds. I didn’t particularly enjoy academia. Can you just see it? Sir Theo Mandeville teaching at the local comp? A posh bloke with a disability.’

‘Oh, don’t give me that,’ I said crossly. ‘You could have got a job near me teaching at one of the schools you lot go to.’ Theo gave me a look at the ‘you lot’ words again.

‘Anna, I didn’t want to be a bloody teacher. My fallback, if I hadn’t made it as a squash player, was always to farm.’

‘Yes, on the estate,’ I said.

‘But you’d never have come and lived on the estate. You know that and I know that. If I hadn’t made it as a professional squash player, I’d have returned to New Zealand and become a sheep farmer. That’s why I went back to Christchurch after the accident. I hoped maybe that somehow you’d find your way – if I could have made a success of it out there – to come out to join me. Do your law stuff out there…’

‘What? In the middle of a whole load of sheep?’ I smiled at that.

‘Exactly!’ Theo said almost in triumph. ‘You never would have, Anna.’ Then he sighed. ‘Anyway, with this bloody hand and arm, I just couldn’t hack it. I stayed eighteen months and, knowing there was no way I could build a life for myself – and for you – out there, I had to come home, tail between my legs. Extremely depressed.’

‘Theo, we all have to compromise at some point in our lives,’ I said now.

‘You haven’t.’

‘Theo, I lost you. I got on with my life. One big compromise!’

‘OK, so tell me honestly,’ he now said. ‘Knowing that I was going to be taking over the estate as my parents always envisaged, would you have stayed with me? Stayed with me and lived on the estate with my parents? Would you have married me and eventually become Lady Mandeville?’

‘We could have lived in a cottage in the village,’ I said mulishly.

‘Anna, you were heading for London. Nothing was going to stop you doing that.’

‘We could have seen each other at weekends,’ I went on.

‘Would you have come up to the hall, knowing you weren’t welcome? That my parents and sisters blamed you for how I ended up?’

‘Sometimes you just have to stand up to people,’ I said. ‘We could have worked it out.’

‘I guess, if I’d been thinking properly, we’d have found a way.’ Theo looked terribly sad and I wanted to touch him, hold him.