‘This is beautiful,’ I say of the last one, glancing up to find him watching me. ‘Wait, what is that…’ I push the rolled-up sleeve of his dark-green shirt further up his arm and can barely believe what I’m seeing. ‘You got an alpaca tattoo?’ My eyes are wide with delight. It’s only an outline of the animal, but it’s instantly recognisable.
He nods, giving me a bashful smile.
‘Did you do them yourself?’
He chuckles. ‘No, they were done by a professional.’
‘I was only asking because they’re unfussy, not because they look amateur. I like the simplicity of them.’
He pulls his arm away and reaches for his pint glass.
I down the last mouthful of my gin and tonic.
‘Same again?’ he asks.
‘I’ll go. And we should probably order. It gets busy here.’
‘Do you know what you want?’
‘The chicken. You?’
‘Bangers and mash.’ He gets up from the table.
‘I’ll go,’ I repeat, edging out from the bench.
‘My shout.’ He bops me over the head with the menus and strides across the beer garden.
I watch him go, amused.
He returns with another gin and tonic for me. ‘Is this okay? I forgot to ask what you wanted, but I can get you something else if you’d prefer.’ His glass of lemonade is still half full.
‘I was going to switch to soda water,’ I admit, but take a sip of my gin and tonic anyway. ‘Thanks for this, though. It’s only because I didn’t want to drink alone. What are you like drunk?’ I ask curiously.
He smiles. ‘Um… Happy?’
‘Really?’ I love the sound of this. ‘When can I see you blathered?’
George shrugs. ‘I don’t know. You’ll have to come for a few with me in Ripon sometime.’ He frowns. ‘But then you’d have to catch a taxi.’
‘That’s okay.’
‘No, I should be the one to do that.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s more…’ He thinks for the right word, before settling on: ‘chivalrous.’
‘Chivalrous?’ I bark out a laugh. ‘Do we live in the Dark Ages?’
‘You know what I mean,’ he mutters.
‘Why don’t you come to the farm one night for dinner, then?’ I ask with a grin. ‘Next Saturday after Mum’s knitting workshop? We could give you a lift back to ours.’
‘I work Saturdays,’ he says with regret.
‘Sunday, then? I could pick you up.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
He returns my smile with a nod. ‘Okay.’
I’m curious about something. ‘Why are you working at the pub instead of Forestry England?’
‘There’s nothing available in this area. They have my CV.’
‘So you’re staying in North Yorkshire permanently?’ My heart has sped up.
‘At least for a while. I’m technically on sabbatical, so I can go back to my job in Devon if I need to.’
I do not like the sound of that.
‘Do you still have a place in Devon?’
He nods.
‘What’s it like?’
‘It’s nice. Only small, but right by the sea. It’s an old fisherman’s cottage.’
‘Do you have any photos?’
‘Um…’ He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, then hesitates, pushing the device back in his pocket. ‘They’re a bit buried. I’ll find them another time.’
Is he being deliberately evasive?
‘Have you rented it out?’
‘Er, sort of.’
I frown at him.
‘My ex is there right now,’ he explains.
They were living together?
‘Did you co-own the house?’ Is this why he doesn’t want to show me photos? Because she’s in all of them? Exactly how serious are we talking?
He shakes his head. ‘No, it was mine. She’s looking for somewhere else, but I don’t want to rush her.’
‘What’s her name?’ I don’t know why I’ve asked. I don’t even want to know, but it seems wrong to reduce her to a ‘she’.
‘Annie,’ he replies.
‘We used to have an angora rabbit called Annie.’
He laughs under his breath. ‘I know.’
‘How long were you together?’
‘A couple of years. We lived together for one of those, but broke up a few months before I came here.’
‘You’re not running away again, are you?’
He looks shocked and then affronted. ‘Absolutely not!’
‘It’s none of my business if you are.’
‘We broke up because my heart wasn’t fully in it. Ernie had been telling me for years that I needed to come back here and make peace with you all. Annie knew that too.’
‘So she’s back in Devon, waiting? Waiting for you to make peace with us so you can go back to her and get on with your life?’
I realise too late that the gin has already taken effect. My defences are down again.
‘I don’t know what I’m going to do yet, Leah.’ George’s eyes flash at me and I experience a strange thrill. ‘But I can’t see Annie and me ever getting back together. We want different things. She wanted to take our relationship to the next level; I didn’t.’
‘Marriage?’
‘She wanted a baby, but I can’t give her one. Not that I can’t… I mean, everything’s working down there. I just… can’t.’
‘You’re not ready?’
‘I’ll never be ready. I don’t want kids of my own.’
I don’t know why this news hits me so hard that I feel oddly winded. What’s changed in him? He wanted to parent Sophie when he was still a child himself… Did he grow up and realise he didn’t have the capacity to be a dad after all?
At that moment, our food arrives.
‘This is kind of a heavy discussion we’re having,’ he says lightly, or at least, trying to sound it, once the waiter has left us to it.
‘Yeah. Sorry about that. I’ll let you eat in peace.’
‘Anyway,’ he says. ‘Annie and I are not getting back together.’
I don’t know why he felt he had to repeat that part, but I can’t ignore the wave of relief I felt when he did.
Chapter 22 Then
I’m lying in bed, listening to the wind and rain lash my window. I can’t get to sleep – my head is too full of George. He’s like an impossible problem I’m trying to solve.
He seemed to be all right when we were at Theo’s house last week. We went three more times during half term and had so much fun, playing snooker, exploring the grounds without fear of Theo’s uptight family sticking their noses in, and raiding Acton’s video collection to watch movies that were way too old for us (Kill Bill: Volume 1 and The Silence of the Lambs).
I can’t imagine how Theo felt to be abandoned by his family during the school holidays. I think he genuinely appreciated our company. He was probably the happiest I’d ever seen him: on top form, quick and witty, and yet still his usual self-deprecating self. He cracked Becky and me up, and he made George laugh at times too, but I could tell George’s mind was elsewhere. Theo and Becky wouldn’t have known anything was up. George put on a decent show, and this week at school, he’s also been fine around them, but at home, it’s a different story. He has been incredibly distant with me.