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“Rachel—” Ben began, before she turned around, one hand flung up, palm outward.
“Wait. Let me speak first.”
Ben frowned but then he jerked his head in a curt nod and Rachel took a deep breath before continuing, “Please don’t feel you have to explain your actions the other night, when we had supper,” she said, her voice stiff, her body rigid. “I was feeling rather emotional, what with my father and his health concerns, and frankly, just being back here in Mathering. It brings up a lot of memories, a lot of old feelings.” She tried for a rueful smile, and thought she’d managed it. “It reminds me of who I was, even though I’m not that girl anymore.”
“No?” Ben interjected, the word sounded as if it had been bitten off and spat out.
“No, definitely not,” Rachel replied firmly. “So, sorry, it all got a bit much for me, and I was carried away for a moment. But that’s all it was. So, you definitely don’t need to worry, and we don’t need to talk about it, because it is absolutely never going to happen again.”
“Good to know,” Ben replied after a brief pause. His voice was toneless, his expression typically inscrutable.
Rachel let out a breath that she told herself was relief. “Okay, then,” she said, and Ben jerked his head in another curt nod. It seemed their conversation was over. “Right,” Rachel said, for no reason, while Ben simply stood there, utterly immobile, reminding her of a brick wall. He still hadn’t spoken, and Rachel decided she might as well leave it. She’d said what she’d needed to say. She gave a jerky sort of nod of farewell, and then she slipped past him back into the noisy crowd of the hall.
Another dance had started, and Rachel glimpsed Harriet dancing with someone she didn’t recognise, a guy about her age, tall, with dark hair. Quite handsome, actually. Her sister’s head was thrown back, her cheeks were pink with exertion, and she looked happy and carefree. Rachel didn’t want to disturb her or kill the mood, but as she stood on the side of the hall, she knew she felt far too flat and even sad to stay at the ceilidh for another moment longer.
Her conversation with Ben, its clarity, should have brought relief, but it hadn’t, or at least not yet. She felt even more mixed up than before, and strangely dispirited. She decided she’d walk home; it was three miles, but she could use the time to clear her head, especially after bolting down that double G&T.
She slipped out of the hall without so much as meeting anyone’s eye and headed out into the night that felt chilly and damp. It was just turned October, and it felt it. Rachel buttoned up her coat and quickly texted her sister to tell her she was heading back, and then, with her hands in her pockets, she struck out down the Pickering Road, towards home.
It took forty-five minutes to reach the farm, walking briskly, her head down against the wind that had kicked up. She tried to keep her mind blank, but memories kept slipping through the cracks, taking up residence where she definitely didn’t want them to be.
The first time she’d danced with Ben, at that sixth form disco years ago, she’d felt dizzy with excitement, with happiness. Afterwards, she’d wondered if he was going to go back to ignoring her, but then, a few days later, at the bus stop on the way home—Harriet had stayed after school for a club, so it was just the two of them—he’d asked her if she wanted to see their new puppies. They’d walked silently up the lane and into the Mackeys’ barn, where their springer spaniel Jill was set up in her own stall, eight squirming little puppies all around her. Rachel had dropped to her knees, squealing in delight at the sight of them.
“Can I hold one?” she’d asked eagerly, and Ben had scooped up one of the puppies, cradling it close to his chest before he’d handed it to her. Rachel had oohed and aahed and kissed its tiny, velvety nose. When she’d looked up from the puppy, her breath had caught in her chest because Ben was looking at her with a blaze of intent in his eyes. She’d simply stared at him as, very slowly, he’d leaned forward and then brushed his lips against hers. The puppy had scrambled out of her hands as her mind had spun and her heart had thundered and she’d felt as if she might actually explode with happiness.
Three months they’d had together, as a couple. Three pretty perfect months at the end of sixth form, before she’d had to get her head down for exams and then when she’d resurfaced, everything had changed.
We can still be together,she’d told him, her voice wavering and then breaking as he’d continued to pitch hay, his back to her, not saying a single word.I’ll be back for holidays, the whole summer. Ben?
He hadn’t replied, hadn’t said anything at all. Rachel had stood there, staring, waiting, desperately hoping, and she’d got absolutely nothing back.
Is this it then?She’d finally flung at him, meaning it as a challenge, a dare, and he’d nodded, the same curt jerk of his head that he’d given tonight. Knowing she was going to cry, to sob, and not being able to bear having him see her, she’d whirled out of the barn, ran all the way home, and basically never talked to him again…until now.
And look how that turned out.
With a sigh, Rachel opened the front door of the farmhouse, determined not to think about Ben anymore. Not to remember. All around her the house felt cold and dark, its room bleak and depressing with their old furniture, the peeling wallpaper, the dispiriting sense that nothing here ever actually changed.
“Dad?” Rachel called softly as she walked back to the kitchen. It wasn’t that late, but her father liked to go to bed early. “Are you still up?”
The kitchen light was still on, and as she came in, Fred ran up to her, whining in a way she’d never heard him before. Frowning, Rachel stroked his head, before noticing that the tap was still running.
“Dad?” she called again, and this time she heard the edge of fear in her voice. She went to the sink to turn the tap off, and that’s when she saw him, crumpled on the floor, unconscious.
Chapter Fourteen
Rachel sat onthe hard plastic chair in the A&E waiting room of James Cook Hospital in Middlesbrough, one knee jiggling manically. She chewed her lip, which already had a bloody welt in it, and checked her phone for about the twenty-seventh time. The last several hours had felt like a complete blur. When she’d seen her dad lying there on the floor, she’d dropped to her knees and frantically checked his pulse, which, after a few fraught seconds, she’d thankfully felt. He hadn’t looked good, though, his skin papery white, a great big bump on his poor head, a trickle of blood dried down his cheek.
She’d called 999 and then waited by his side, willing him to wake up, her mind feeling as if it were full of static. What had happened? And how could she have left him alone for so much as a minute?
On the way to the hospital in Middlesbrough, an endless hour-long journey where she’d fortunately been allowed to accompany her father in the back of the ambulance, she’d texted Harriet to tell her what had happened, and then they’d rushed her dad into A&E while she’d sat here in the waiting room, having no idea what to expect.
She’d been sitting in this chair for over two hours, and she still hadn’t heard from Harriet. Rachel thought about texting Ben, but then realised what a stupid idea that was. Still, shewantedto text him; she wanted him to be here. Even stupider. But it was hard handling this alone, because just like she’d told Ben, even though her dad had been distant, he’d beenthere, and she wasn’t ready to lose him. Not by a long shot.
It might have just been a bump on the head, she reminded herself, not for the first time, and nothing necessarily more serious than that. He’d been at the sink, he’d lost his footing, and he’d hit his head on the corner of the counter. It could happen to anyone.
“Miss Mowbray?”
Rachel looked up to see a youngish nurse in blue scrubs smiling at her in a way that made her think it was bad news.
