‘Are you thinking of those two oaks before the bend?’ Charlie asked.
‘I am,’ Joe confirmed.
‘They should have been felled long before now,’ Charlie tutted.
‘If this wind keeps up,’ said Joe, ‘that might not be an issue.’
‘If either of those are down, you won’t be able to get through at all,’ Charlie pointed out.
‘I don’t mind staying,’ I told them, thinking I didn’t much fancy heading out with the threat of falling oak trees hampering our journey back to Wynmouth. ‘As long as you’ve got a bed and a spare toothbrush I can borrow.’
‘I can manage the toothbrush,’ said Joe, ‘but there’s no bed, I’m afraid. No one sleeps in Mum and Dad’s room.’
‘And Jack’s room is still like a bloody shrine,’ Charlie tutted.
His tone was disapproving and, even by candlelight, I could see how red Joe had turned.
‘Sofa then,’ I said quickly, ‘makes no difference to me. Besides, if this racket keeps up, we won’t any of us be getting much sleep anyway, will we?’
That turned out to be not strictly true. Once the kitchen was set to rights, Joe, Bruce and I moved through to the sitting room, taking the candles and the radio with us, and Charlie said he’d changed his mind about going out and was going to have a bath and turn in. He hadn’t been gone all that long before we heard him snoring somewhere above us.
‘He had an early start,’ Joe grinned, reaching to turn the radio up a bit. ‘And he’s not used to relaxing in the tub. He’s a two-minute shower type of guy as a rule.’
I smiled back.
‘I wonder if it had bubbles,’ I giggled.
‘Or a bath bomb,’ Joe suggested.
I was about to throw essential oils into the mix but was pulled up short by the radio.
‘Whatever is it?’ said Joe, reaching for my arm which was resting along the back of the sofa. ‘You’ve gone as white as anything and you look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘This song,’ I stammered, feeling a little dizzy again.
Joe listened for a moment.
‘It’s “Perfect”, by Ed Sheeran,’ he said, ‘it has the loveliest video. Not that I’m much of a fan of romantic rolls in the snow. It’s too cold for a start.’
It wasn’t the official video that I was concerned with, it was the far more intimate showreel running through my head. As I listened to the lyrics about a hundred things rushed into my formerly befuddled brain and none of them made much sense.
‘What is it, Tess?’ Joe asked again.
If my memory served, I had kissed Sam on the beach, under the stars and behind Hope’s back. And, worse than that, I’d absolutely loved doing it, so much so that it felt as good as my first time. In fact, I now knew with the utmost certainty that Sam had been my first time.
‘Tess,’ said Joe, now squeezing my hand and sounding even more concerned. ‘Talk to me, for god’s sake.’
What could I tell him? Certainly, none of what I had just remembered. He hadn’t been my first fabulous kiss – Sam had – but what had happened down at the beach huts all those years ago to prompt them to swap places? And, more to the point, why hadn’t I understood this after the kiss at the party? Or maybe I had?
It must have been the effect of all that rum which made me forget again. I had no doubt been punch-drunk, literally, all week. Perhaps I had realized the truth before I drank myself into oblivion and had felt so felt guilt-ridden for going behind Hope’s back and so deeply shocked that I had let my cup be topped up in order to forget again.
Then my thoughts flicked to Sam. He’d been the archetypal bear with a sore head all week but surely he should have been on cloud nine. My memory loss had ensured I had been oblivious to what had gone on and consequently I hadn’t breathed a word to his girlfriend. We might have kissed, but I certainly hadn’t told and that should have put him in a half-decent mood at least. Unless he had been too busy worrying that I would remember and then drop him in it? And what about that first time? Never mind Joe simply remembering me, did he remember what he and Sam had done from way back then?
‘Tess!’ said Joe again, much louder this time.
‘Oh god, sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. I was miles away.’
‘No shit,’ he frowned. ‘Whatever is it?’
I shook my head, freeing it of the dizziness, but still not knowing what to say.
‘It’s not my cooking, is it?’ Joe demanded. ‘You don’t feel ill, do you?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘of course not.’
‘That’s all right then,’ he said, sounding relieved as he released my arm.
‘Although I do think that wine was pretty strong.’
‘You’re right, it was,’ he said, ‘and we drank the lot once we’d decided you were staying over.’
‘No wonder I’m whacked,’ I yawned, ‘I feel as though I could sleep for a week.’
‘It’s all this fresh, country air,’ he smiled, accepting my explanation. ‘Do you want to turn in? I can get you a sleeping bag and that toothbrush, if you like?’
‘Would you mind?’ I asked.
‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘Come on, Bruce,’ he added, nudging the dog off the sofa. ‘You best sleep in my room tonight, my lad.’
‘You can leave him here with me, if you like,’ I said, looking at Bruce’s martyred expression and thinking that I wouldn’t mind the company. ‘There’s just about enough room for two.’
‘No, best not,’ Joe laughed. ‘Once this storm blows itself out later, he’ll be back to his bouncy and mischievous self in no time, and he’ll be up and about long before you’ll want to be. I can guarantee it!’
It turned out he was spot on about that.
Chapter 23
Just as Joe had predicted, Bruce was up early the next morning. However, I had heard someone, presumably Charlie given where the snores had emanated from the night before, moving about overheard even earlier and then slamming the outside door. Turning over, I’d disregarded the rumpus because it still felt like the middle of the night but when Bruce came bounding in a little later it was considerably lighter and his exuberance was impossible to ignore.
‘For pity’s sake, Bruce,’ I groaned, trying to push him away, which wasn’t easy because I was bound up in the sleeping bag. ‘Get off.’
The action of giving him a shove only served to further excite him and it wasn’t many seconds before the inevitable happened and his tail brushed the coffee table completely free of the piles of paperwork, folded-up newspapers and remote controls which had been quite happily settled there, completely minding their own business.
‘You,’ I said, as I struggled to sit up, ‘are a total pain in the butt.’
He cocked his head to one side, as if weighing the accusation up, then rushed out of the room again, his claws scrabbling on the tiled floor, before he reappeared with a tea towel which he dropped on my lap.
Clearly, it was time to face the day, but first I had to corral the mess on the floor into a heap so I could put it back on the table – although how long it would stay there with Bruce’s rapidly rotating rudder still in the vicinity was anyone’s guess.