Dee: Bee man definitely isn’t her husband?
I don’t think so. He doesn’t live here. Plus, I don’t think married couples have sex in hallways. What if Jasper doesn’t know about their affair, then when I meet him, I’ll have this secret on my conscience? Why does my perfect meet-cute have to be so bloody convoluted?
Muffled voices, and then—I release my fingers—silence, blissful silence.
“Oh, my queen,” Keith purrs.
“You are incorrigible.” Maude laughs.
“I prefer the blue sofa in your sitting room, softer cushion,” says Keith.
These two are clearly at it like rabbits, doing it in every room of the house. Most of the relationships I’ve been in have involved sex very much in bed, under the sheets, with the lights dimmed to “mood.” Apart from Australian Shayne, who couldn’t have horizontal sex on account of his back and had a preference for the stairs, but that was just a bit bumpy and uncomfortable. Oh wow, am I actually jealous of Maude’s sex life?
“Shall we have some Earl Grey in the garden? I made those buttery biscuits you like,” says Maude.
I am jealous. Especially now they’re having postcoital biscuits—those are the best kind of biscuits. Another message from Gran lights up my screen.
Gran: I agree, the Tate Tower is rather phallic. I told Pam we should have done the OXO Tower—far more distinctive. Where’s the Coat Alcove, maybe we’ll tackle that landmark next?
It takes a while for Keith and Maude to get dressed, and then, chatting away, they walk to a room off the hall, which I assume to be the kitchen. This is my best chance to escape. It’s like Shawshank Redemption, I’ve just got to hold my nose and wade through the sewer of fear to freedom. Taking a deep breath, I dart, gazelle-like, through the hall—it would be too noisy to try and open the large oak front door, but the garden door is still wide open. I run past the kitchen, pause for a split second to glance at a picture on the wall, sprint around the house, pick up the bag from behind the pillar on the porch, and then I’m off down the driveway faster than I’ve ever run in my life.
As I’m sprinting, in flip-flops, my heart pounds against my chest: with adrenaline, with the fear of being caught, but also with excitement, because the picture I glimpsed on the wall on the way out told me something: Jasper Le Maistre is the beautiful man from the airport.
Hot Suitcase Guy is Hot Tampon Man!
Though I must not him call him that.
Jasper, he is now just Jasper.
4 September 1991
Dearest Al,
I can’t believe the summer is over. I yearn for the sound of the sea. I miss Jersey and I miss you like a limb. Do you have to start the Greece job so soon? It will mean I only see you twice before Christmas. Phone calls and letters are no substitute for your company, your touch, your face.
I have a confession to make. I took the coin back with me to Bristol. I wanted it to be a surprise but now worry you might notice it gone and think it lost. I am going to make a setting for it, a glass-fronted locket, so it can be worn as a necklace, the two halves set together as one. I hope it will be ready for next weekend and you can take it back to your grandmother. Won’t she be thrilled, Al? Don’t give away the secret before I have it made.
Miserably missing you,
Annie
Chapter 14
Having started to walk down Trinity Hill, I manage to intercept a bus to take me the rest of the way into town, so I’m back at the Weighbridge in ten minutes. Strangely, they don’t seem to have bus stops here—they just write bus at intervals along the road where the bus is going to stop.
“Any luck with the manhunt?” Ted asks when I meet up with him outside the hotel.
“Not really,” I say. I don’t want to tell Ted what I witnessed at Maude’s house; I’m too embarrassed to admit I walked into the woman’s home like that. I do tell him I found out that Jasper is due back from a lifeboat training exercise this evening, so I expect to get my suitcase back soon. He must have dumped the case before leaving and not even realized the mistake yet.
“I bought you something,” says Ted, handing me a brown paper bag on his lap, which I open with a curious frown.
“Jersey wonders,” he says. “You wanted to try the local cuisine. I know this lady who still makes them the old-fashioned way, only fries them while the tide is going out.”
Inside the bag are a dozen small knots of baked dough. I take one out and bite into it, then offer them back to Ted. They are soft and sweet and still warm, and I let out an appreciative moan.
“Oh, those are good,” I say, covering my mouth with a hand. Ted gives a small nod.
“They remind me of— Have you ever been to New Orleans?” I ask and he nods.
“Beignets?”
“Yes!” I grin, amazed he knows what I’m talking about. “Beignets are the best.”
The summer we were twenty-six, Dee and I did a road trip across the States. It was one of the most exciting holidays I’ve ever been on; we felt like Thelma and Louise, but without the sad ending. “When were you in New Orleans?” I ask.
Ted pauses and his face changes. The laughter lines around his eyes fade.
“My wife, Belinda, she loved traveling,” he says softly, and I’m worried I’ve unsettled the clear water of our conversation by reminding him of his wife.
“Not you?” I ask.
“I used to,” he says, eyes straight ahead. “When we met, we were fueled by wanderlust. We both worked in conservation, took jobs in far-off places and lived out of backpacks. We were boundless.” Ted sniffs. “I was the one who changed, I guess, decided that I was going to retrain as a doctor. I had to root myself in order to study, and then I found I’d outgrown the wanderlust.”
“But she hadn’t?” I ask gently.
“She said she was happy to stay still for a while, but I always sensed this restlessness in her. I think she associated standing still with having a conventional life. In the note she left, she said she didn’t want a life full of gas bills or school-gate mums, washing the car, picking up milk, trips to the hairdresser.”
“But you wanted all that?” I ask.
“Trips to the hairdresser?” Ted says with a rueful smile and pats his beard in a way that makes me smile. “Well, yes, maybe the rest of it.” He shrugs. “Though mainly I just wanted her.”
Looking at Ted, I imagine this is what heartbreak looks like, and I wonder for a moment if true love really is worth the risk. My mother said she never fell in love again after Dad died. If she’d had the choice, I wonder if she would she have swapped those four intense years with Dad for a lifetime with someone else, even if the intensity had to be diluted.