shoulder as she half dozed in the afternoon light, marvelling on how blessed she felt to have discovered such a sense of harmony with someone else again. Oliver and she were a perfect fit. She couldn’t imagine him ever not being in her life now.
‘Funny to think that we’re not going to see each other for a week.’ She caught the woody citrus scent of his after-shave as he rolled to face her.
‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘I wish I could come with you.’
‘I wish you could too.’ She could picture them in Cornwall together, staying at a local B-and-B, introducing him to everyone, tramping the cliff path, pottering about in the family boat, eating crab sandwiches on the beach. He could even have come with her to visit the couple of artists she hoped to persuade to exhibit at the gallery. ‘And next time you will. But I’ll be back in a week and by then you’ll be ensconced here and you might even have found some work.’
‘Don’t.’ He groaned and rolled back again, his arms folded behind his head as he stared at the ceiling.
‘Couldn’t you widen the field a bit?’ she asked tentatively.
‘For God’s sake, I’m doing the best I can. Just leave it to me.’ He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up, rubbing his head.
‘Come back.’ She ran her hand down his back, resting it on his waist. ‘I was only making a suggestion.’ But she couldn’t stop herself thinking that the wider he cast his net, the sooner he would find something.
‘I don’t think so.’
Her heart sank. Why was it that, despite the intense closeness she felt they had, she sometimes had to tread on eggshells around him? It was as if there was still a part of him he kept hidden, despite the ‘no secrets’ pact they had made. She could put her hand on her heart and swear that he knew everything about her, her marriage and her family, her work, her hopes and fears. Would he be able to swear she knew everything about him? She thought not. Now was clearly not the moment to find out.
‘I’ve got a better idea,’ he said. ‘Why don’t we test-run the wet room together?’ Smiling again, storm over, he took her hand and together they went next door, any tension between them evaporated.
*
As she replayed that afternoon in her head, she looked out of the train window, a slight smile on her lips. They were passing Dawlish, her favourite part of the journey south where the track hugged the coastline, waves slapping against the sea wall below them, the white and pastel houses of the town on the north side giving way to the rich red sandstone cliffs. She gazed south to the horizon where the sea and sky fused into one another, the vast expanse of inky blue water only interrupted by the flash of a white sail with seagulls wheeling above.
Her usual enjoyment of the journey had been hijacked by her memories of the last weeks, and by her projections of those to come. She felt as if her life had divided into two parts that she had to reconcile as soon as possible. Before and after Oliver. As the train rushed towards the before, she was beginning to acknowledge that the potential difficulties Bea and Kate had signalled were all too probable. As long as she was with Oliver, the realities of the situation were sufficiently misted to make it easy to ignore them.
As the train drew into Truro, she began to feel more and more nervous about how the children might react. What would she do if they didn’t give Oliver the welcome she’d been so sure of till now? Then, there was no more time for thought. There they were, sun-kissed and smiling: Matt racing down the platform, flinging his arms around her; Emma holding back but looking pleased to see her. By the exit, Ellen caught sight of Mary, Simon’s mother, a trim, diminutive woman in her late seventies who had refused to let age get the better of her. She was the picture of a proper countrywoman, with her unruly grey hair, ruddy cheeks, blue Barbour waistcoat and loose trousers.
‘Mum, come on. If we’re quick, we can get back in time for you to go out in the new dinghy. The tide’s just right.’ Matt pulled at her arm.
‘Hang on, hang on.’ She laughed. ‘Give me a chance to say hello to Em. How are you, darling?’
‘She’s got a boyfriend,’ Matt mocked in a sing-song voice.
‘Shut up, Matt. It’s not true, Mum.’ Emma hugged her tight.
‘Yes, you have. You’re always down at the beach with him.’ He managed to dodge the slap aimed at him.
‘Stop it, you two, I’ve only just got here.’ Ellen walked between them to prevent any further disagreement. ‘Hello, Mary.’ She embraced her mother-in-law. ‘Not too exhausted?’
‘You know we always love having them. And you look as though you’ve benefited from the break.’
‘Look at your hair, Mum. You look like M in the James Bond films.’
‘Thanks so much, Matt. She’s only about twenty years older than me. Don’t you like it?’
‘Very much indeed. Makes you look younger, whatever Matt says.’ Mary led the way to her battered old Peugeot estate and they all piled in, shouting greetings to Tilly and Rex, the excited pair of springer spaniels bouncing around in the back. They drove down the familiar high-hedged narrow lanes, non-stop chatter from the rear seat, arriving at the Neill’s family home, a large nineteenth-century stone farmhouse close to a small hamlet in the Percuil valley. During the school holidays, the house was Holiday Central, alive with cousins and their friends who dashed in and out, snatching up and dropping off riding kit, surfboards, wetsuits, swimsuits, towels, tennis rackets, car keys, bicycles, and distributing sand wherever they went. The two dogs followed the crowd, wagging and barking with excitement. Mary was immune to the hubbub, enjoying having the young life around her. Bob, Simon’s father, hid himself in their private sitting room whenever it got too much. Simon’s brother and sister, Pete and Julia, lounged around the garden with their partners, coming in to contribute to a meal, get a book or a drink, or give the youngest children a lift somewhere. The atmosphere was the same relaxed chaos that it had been every summer Ellen could remember being there.
By the evening, Ellen had been out in the dinghy without capsizing it, helped with supper and caught up with snippets of what Emma and Matt had been doing over the last weeks. She was helping with the washing-up when Mary said, ‘Darling, you didn’t eat much at supper. Are you all right?’
‘Just because I normally eat like a horse, I know. No, I’m trying to lose a few pounds. Oliver’s persuaded me it would be a good thing.’ His name slipped out without her thinking and there it lay between them, large and glaringly obvious. Her prayers that Mary wouldn’t notice went unanswered.
‘Who? I don’t remember hearing that name before, do I?’ She put a plate back in the sink and stopped to scrutinise Ellen. ‘I knew there was something different about you, apart from the new hair, of course.’ Two and two made four with no effort at all.
‘You’re such a beady old thing,’ Ellen protested. ‘OK. Hands up. I was going to tell you but I was waiting for the right moment.’
‘Seems like you’ve just found it.’ Mary put a hand on Ellen’s arm. ‘Don’t worry. I’ve been expecting this for years. Can’t think why it took so long. Anyway, I couldn’t have wished for a lovelier daughter-in-law.’
As they washed and dried, Ellen poured out the whole story, grateful that they were having the conversation at a moment when they didn’t need to look each other in the eye – exactly as she’d engineer an awkward conversation with Matt or Emma. She told Mary everything, feeling only a smidgeon of guilt when she omitted to include the minor detail of the rent payment. When she’d finished there was a short silence while Mary peeled off her rubber gloves.
‘It all sounds a bit of a whirlwind.’ She hesitated over her choice of words, obviously not wanting to give the impression that she disapproved. ‘Are you sure you know him well enough to make such a commitment so soon?’
‘I know more every day. And the more I know, the more I like.’ Ellen brushed aside any potential