Once, when she’d got a distinction for an essay, Will had taken her out to dinner to celebrate. He had only been able to afford an old-fashioned brasserie on the outskirts of town with plastic tablecloths and a dubious taste in decor, but it had still been one of the best meals Alice had ever had. She wanted to forget that, the way she wanted to forget the long walks along winter beaches, the lazy Sunday mornings in bed, all those times when they had laughed until it hurt. She wanted to forget the feel of those hands curving over her body, to forget the taste of his mouth, of his skin. The last thing she wanted was to be able to remember the sweet, shivery, swirling and oh- so-seductive pleasure they had found in each other night after night.
She wanted to remember why it had been such a good idea to end it all.
Will was still talking to Lily. ‘That was a good idea to buy cards.’
‘We went shopping again.’ Lily eyed her father with a certain wariness after his unenthusiastic response to her shoes the day before, but he kept his smile firmly in place.
‘Did you buy anything else?’
‘Some books.’
‘Show me what you bought.’
Lily ran off quite willingly to find the books, and Will glanced at Alice, who immediately turned away, mortified to have been caught watching him.
‘Don’t lift your chin at me like that,’ he said. ‘I know I deserve it, but I really am sorry. I was in a bad mood yesterday, and I shouldn’t have taken it out on you and Lily, but I did.’
Alice’s chin lowered a fraction.
‘I’m truly grateful to you, Alice, for what you’ve done. You’ve made a huge difference to Lily already, and I know I’m going to have to try harder to make things work if we’re going to spend the next month together. Say you’ll forgive me,’ he coaxed. ‘It’ll make it much easier for us all if you do!’
The chin went down a bit further.
‘Would you like me to go down on my knees and apologise?’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Alice with as much dignity as she could muster. She wished he would go back to being grumpy and disagreeable, but she could hardly sulk for a month. ‘Apology accepted.’
‘I really am sorry, Alice,’ Will said quietly, and, in spite of herself, Alice’s head turned until she met his steady gaze.
That was something else she remembered-how those grey eyes could tip her off balance so that she felt as if she was toppling forward and tumbling down into their depths, falling out of time and into a place where there was nothing but Will and the slow, steady beat of her heart and the boom of her pulse in her ears.
And when she had managed to wrench her eyes away it had almost been a shock to find, like now, that the world had kept turning without her. Alice had once been sitting on a train, waiting for it to depart and watching the train beside them turn into a blur of carriages as they pulled out of the station. She had never forgotten the jarring shock of realising that it was another train that had left, and hers hadn’t moved at all. As the last carriage had disappeared and she’d seen the platform once more, it had felt as if her train had jerked to a sudden, sickening halt. It was the same feeling she had now.
‘Let’s both try harder,’ she muttered.
‘All right,’ said Will. ‘Let’s do that.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘DO YOU want to see my books?’
It was a tiny comfort that Will seemed as startled as Alice was by Lily’s reappearance. She was clutching a pile of books to her chest and watching them with a doubtful expression, as if sensing something strange in the atmosphere.
‘Of course I do.’ Will forced a smile. ‘Let’s have a look.’
Lily’s face was very serious as she stood by his chair and handed him the books one by one. Will examined them all carefully. ‘This looks like a good one,’ he said, pulling out a book of fairy stories. He glanced at his daughter. ‘Would you like me to read you a story?’
Lily hesitated and then nodded, and, feeling as if she were somehow intruding on a private moment, Alice got to her feet. She suspected that this was the closest Will had ever been to Lily, and the first time he read her a story should be something special for both of them.
‘That sounds like a good idea,’ she said, firmly quashing the childish part of her that felt just a tiny bit excluded. ‘You two read a story together, and I’ll go and heat up the supper Sara left for us. She left very strict instructions, and I’m frightened of what she’ll say if I get it wrong!’
Alice lingered in the kitchen, giving them time alone together. It wasn’t a bad thing for her to have some time to herself too, she reflected. She had spent all day feeling furious with Will, and there had been something almost comforting in that, but all he had had to do was say sorry and look into her eyes and her anger had crumbled. Like a town without a wall, she was left without defences, and it made her feel oddly vulnerable and uneasy. Will shouldn’t still be able to do that to her.
Oh, this was silly! Alice laid the table with unnecessary vehemence, banging down the knives and forks, cross with herself for making such a fuss about nothing. She should be glad that Will had apologised and was obviously prepared to be reasonable. She
It would be so much easier if she could just think of Will as Lily’s father, if she could wipe out the memories of another time and another place. It was all very well to tell him that she wanted to be friends, but that was harder than she’d thought it would be.
Alice sighed. Her feelings about Will weren’t simple. They never had been and they never would be, and she might as well accept that. Nothing had changed, after all. She had meant what she had said. When her holiday was over, she was going home and she was starting life afresh on her own. No more looking back, no more wanting something from love that it just couldn’t give.
When Alice went back out onto the verandah, Will and Lily were sitting close together on the wicker two- seater. Will’s arm rested loosely around his daughter and she was leaning into him, listening intently to the story.
Reluctant to disturb them, Alice sat down quietly and listened too. The sun was setting over the ocean, blazing through the trunks of the palm trees, and suffusing the sky with an unearthly orange glow in the eerie hush of the brief tropical dusk. Lily’s face was rapt. Will’s deep voice resonated in the still air and, watching them, Alice felt a curious sense of peace settle over her. Time itself was suspended between day and night, and suddenly there was no future, no past, just now on the dusty wooden verandah.
‘…and they lived happily ever after.’ Will closed the book, and his smile as he looked down at his daughter was rather twisted. It was sad that Lily already knew that things didn’t always end as happily as they did in stories.
‘Did you like that?’ he asked, and Lily nodded. ‘We could read another one tomorrow, if you like,’ he said casually, not wanting her to know how much it had meant to him to have her small, warm body leaning against him. It was like trying to coax a wild animal out of its hiding place, he thought. He wanted desperately for her to trust him, but he sensed that, if he was too demonstrative, she would retreat once more.
‘OK,’ she said. It wasn’t much, but Will felt as if he had conquered Everest.
It was all getting too emotional. Alice had an absurd lump in her throat. Definitely time to bring things down to earth.
‘Let’s have supper,’ she said.
‘You’re starting to make a real bond with her,’ she said to Will.
Lily was in bed, the supper had been cleared away, and by tacit agreement she and Will had found themselves back on the verandah. She had thought about excusing herself and spending the evening reading in her room, but it was too hot, and anyway that would look as if she was trying to avoid him, which would be nonsense. They had cleared the air, and there was no reason for them to be awkward together.
Besides, she liked it out here. It reminded her of being a child, when she would lie in bed and listen to the whirr
