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It was actually after ten when Adam finally arrived, but I hadn’t minded waiting for him. It was waiting with a purpose, with an outcome, and it felt different. It was a waiting that danced with me, and on my skin.
My hallway was a little bit small for him, and he had shed his wellies and waders and his high-visibility jacket, coming to me in shabby jeans and a green cotton shirt. And, suddenly, he was not ridiculous at all, this bold and rough-cut man, gilded by candlelight.
“Can I get you anything? Tea or coffee? There’s Horlicks.”
He looked impressed. “Camping stove?”
“Tea-lights-and-oven-tray arrangement.” I cleared my throat modestly. “MacGyver-like.”
“Oh, petal. Cuppa cha would be grand.”
He sounded desperately grateful, and it seemed a pathetic offering after the day he’d probably had, but I was glad there was something I could do.
Something I could give.
It’s all I’ve ever wanted, really. Someone to make tea for. To know how they like to drink it, and share some pieces of time with them at the end of long days, and short ones, good days and bad, and everything in between.
The dining room adjoined the kitchen, so I left him there while I brought my pre-simmered saucepan of water back to a boil. There was half a loaf left, from when I’d baked the day before yesterday, and it was still soft and fragrant, so I sliced it, buttered it, and brought it through with the tea.
Adam was standing in front of one of my bookshelves, running a torch across the spines. “Interesting collection.”
“Oh, I d-don’t read them.” I reached for a book at random, slidingThe Various Contrivances by which Orchids are Fertilised byInsects(1877, green cloth binding, gilt title) from among its fellows and offering it. “Riveting stuff.”
“So, what, you just have them?”
“I…I…” I didn’t know how to explain. “I f-find them in charity shops, and I repair them, and I give them back. Sometimes I keep them if they have stories.”
His hands moved gently overOrchids, and I shivered slightly. “What about this one?”
“It was severely water damaged, among other things, so I had to bleach and de-acidify all the pages, and rebind it. It took me months.”36
“It’s incredible work, Edwin.”
Oh my. His long fingers tracing the gilt lettering on the spine. His touch so careful, and so certain. The way the fabric would warm beneath his palms.
“Beautiful,” he murmured.
I panicked. “Um. Tea?”
He put the book away, and we sat down together at the dining room table. It felt a little odd, somehow. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had someone in my house.
The table itself I had come across by chance at a farmhouse sale, and I’d bought it immediately, to Marius’s confusion. It was nothing special, but in its simplicity I had imagined it easily in this bright, equally simple room. I had thought it might become the heart of something. But when I sorted through my memories, I found none. Which left only now, and Adam, who took his tea with lots of sugar and lots of milk, and sat there all arms and elbows,entirely at ease. “This bread is gradeley.”
“It’s w-what, sorry?”
“Really good,” he explained with his mouth full of it.
“Oh.” I squirmed beneath his praise. I’d started baking the year after Marius left. It had been a way to pass the time, but I’d grown used to it. Even become quite good at it. And the house felt different when it was full of the scent of warm bread. “I s-sometimes make elderflower wine as well. Not always quite s-so s-suc…” Urgh. I groped for another word, but some piece of long-surrendered stubbornness rose up inside me, and I wouldn’t let go. “Suc-cessfully.”
“Do you pick your own elderflowers?”
“Of course. It’s the best part.” Rambling the lanes and the meadows with the freshly risen sun warm at my back. My arms full of creamy blossoms, gold-flecked with pollen and heavy with the scent of summer.37
“There’s lots in the hedgerows near my village. Do you have a wicker basket?”
“And a gingham dress.”
He laughed, and suddenly summer did not seem so very remote. “I hope you take care not to stray from the path in the wild woods.”
