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Joss turned to go.
‘Are you disappointed – about the party?’ Alice asked.
‘Kinda. I mean, I like Emily a lot. I’m guessing she likes me, but I picked up a vibe that her mum doesn’t want me dating her daughter. I know what she’s thinking – I’m too old for her.’
‘What do you mean? You’re only around thirty, aren’t you?’
‘I’m thirty-five.’
‘So?’
‘And I’ve done things I’m not proud of. I’ve screwed up.’
‘You’re not the only one,’ Alice said with a heavy sigh.
They stared at each other.
Joss said, ‘I don’t want to go back to my room and stare at four walls.’
‘Me neither.’
‘Shall we see if we can find a drink? There’s bound to be some wine or something in the kitchen.’
Alice thought about it for all of two seconds. ‘Yes, let’s do that.’
Chapter 35
In the hallway, a standard lamp illuminated the desk, casting the rest of the reception hall, with its oak furniture, wooden flooring, rugs, and the snug under the stairs, cloaked in shadow. She couldn’t imagine anyone else would be up at that time of night.
She stepped up to the reception desk, feeling her heart pounding in her chest, and looked about her before walking around the desk. She sat down in the comfortable office chair and swivelled in her seat, turning to face the cupboard behind her, which had glass-fronted cupboard doors. Inside was a row of leather-bound books similar to the one she had signed on her arrival. The ledgers. She reached for the cupboard doors, expecting them to be locked. They weren’t.
And the best part was that the ledgers were dated, with the years and the months written on the spine. ‘Perfect.’ She put the torch down, her hand moving along the row, her mind full of indecision over which year to start with.
‘The beginning would be the obvious place to start,’ Alice said to herself. She frowned at the thought of finding out that her husband and Wendy had met here so soon after she’d married him. With a shaky hand, Alice reached for the first ledger.
She swivelled around in her chair, placed the ledger on the desk, glanced at the time and realised that the task could take her all night. She opened the book. Although the pages were yellowed with age, the handwriting was still legible. It didn’t take long to find the entry that she and Jeffrey had made. She shook her head. Young love. She remembered now that she’d written their names and drawn a heart shape around them, addingJust Married.
They hadn’t been young newlyweds, like Freya would be if she married Theo this year, which everyone anticipated they would. Alice and Jeffrey had been in their mid-thirties; they had both been dedicated to their careers, eventually findingthe onelater in life. Alice hadn’t cared. She’d still had plenty of child-bearing years ahead of her to start a family – or so she’d thought.
She flicked through the rest of the ledger, wondering if this Wendy character had been someone from before the time they were married. But Jeffrey had never mentioned her.
There hadn’t many guests that year. She recalled that the guest house had just opened and still needed a lot of work; she shook her head, recalling that she’d thought it seemed a lot to take on for a young widow with two small children. In the intervening years, she’d obviously made a success of it, and had remarried and had another child – Emily.
Emily reminded her of Freya in so many ways. She knew why; they were both young, full of life.Oh, to be twenty-odd again, mused Alice, staring into space and forgetting what she was doing there.
She snapped back to reality and closed the ledger. There was no mention of Wendy or Jeffrey returning that year. The other guests had not only given their names, but they had provided their addresses. Some had been there with friends, others were couples with children; there were no single people who might be meeting up here. Nothing suggesting that her husband had visited the guest house again that year.
Alice sighed in relief. She looked at the long row of ledgers, twenty-five in all. Alice felt like skipping the next two years’ ledgers because she and Jeffrey had returned there two more years in a row, and she still couldn’t imagine he would have met someone while she was here with him. Apart from anything else, what opportunity would he have had?
But I had an opportunity …
Alice frowned. ‘This isn’t about me,’ she said under her breath, ignoring the voice of conscience that kept popping up at the most inopportune time. Alice pursed her lips, replaced the first ledger, and took down the second one from the bookshelf. She swivelled in her chair and sat staring at it, almost afraid to open it. It wasn’t the thought that this woman Wendy might be in it. That wasn’t it. It was something else entirely.
‘What are you doing?’
Alice jumped at the sound of a voice behind her. She swivelled around in the chair, still holding one of the books.
Joss offered her a lop-sided grin. ‘Look what I found.’ He held up two bottles. ‘I thought we were having a drink together?’
