I made my friends promise that they wouldn’t breathe a word to anyone else about the secret they had discovered, and then I stashed the folder away in the cubby hole beneath the window seat in my new bedroom. Throwing myself into my work was a sure-fire way to forget all about it and, having had a couple of days of not doing much at all, there was plenty for me to get stuck into.
By the time the first week of November was rolling by, I was feeling much more like my old self. I had purposely left my phone switched off, had bypassed all social media and was settled in my new space. I was sleeping better than I had in the Rose Room, but I couldn’t help wondering how Mum was getting on in her quest to find herself a new life away from my father, and possibly Wynbridge. I did think about getting in touch with her, but I didn’t want to risk doing or saying anything which might put her off or, worse still, stop her going altogether.
I also began to wonder how the pair had coped with the many adolescent trick-or-treaters who descended every Halloween and wreaked havoc on our estate. These weren’t the cute youngsters escorted by parents in their quest for cheap candy, but a hardcore group who, bored with life in a small rural town, had to be told harsh words and threatened with phone calls to the police before they would abandon the quest to egg every door in sight and disband.
I smiled to myself as the vision of Evelyn launching devilled eggs popped into my head, and I wondered how much longer it would be before the sharpest edges of Gavin’s public humiliation would be smoothed away and I would be able to smile at some of his antics, too. No doubt that would take time, but I’d get there in the end. This particular Hurren had the knack of being able to laugh at herself. It had formed a key part of my defence stratagem over the years.
‘What’s so funny?’ Jamie asked as he passed me on the galleried landing and spotted my smile.
‘Nothing,’ I shrugged, expertly twitching my feather duster, which formed part of my work-kit, along the bannister. ‘You know me, I’m just happy in my work.’
‘Fair enough,’ he nodded, carrying on towards the top of the stairs. ‘Oh,’ he added, turning back, ‘before I forget, we’ll be leaving at about four this afternoon.’
‘For what?’
‘The fireworks in town, of course. You haven’t forgotten, have you?’
I had forgotten, actually. Living and working at the hall, time had already started to merge and I was losing track of my days. If I wasn’t careful I would end up forgoing my usual Sunday duvet day to carry on with the cleaning. That said, a single whiff of Dorothy’s legendary roasts would be enough to remind me what day it was.
‘No,’ I called down the stairs as Jamie carried on making his descent, ‘I haven’t forgotten,’ I lied.
The Wynbridge fireworks display didn’t launch from the town centre, but from a generous farmer’s field on the outskirts of town, which, apparently, because of the proximity of the river, wasn’t much good for either growing or grazing. There was always an enormous bonfire to accompany the impressive display, as well as a hog roast and cider from nearby Skylark Farm, and a couple of stalls selling glow sticks and sweets to further stimulate the already wired kids.
I could only remember one year when I hadn’t put in an appearance, and the Wynthorpe clan – Molly included – were always in attendance. Even Angus agreed that letting off fireworks at the hall, which would send Floss cowering and diving for cover, would be selfish and irresponsible, and he happily travelled further afield to satisfy his desire to indulge in the delights that erupted every 5th of November in Guy Fawkes’ name.
‘I’m really sorry,’ I told Dorothy after lunch when I had taken to my bed, ‘but I’m not going to be able to make it tonight. My head’s absolutely thumping.’
‘You do look a little flushed,’ she frowned, pressing the back of her hand to my head. ‘But then, so would I if I was in bed, fully clothed, having just eaten a hot meal.’
I pushed the eiderdown back and sat up feeling annoyed at having been caught out and ashamed that I had tried to trick her.
‘I just can’t face it this year,’ I croaked, ‘it’s too soon.’
‘Well, there’s no shame in that,’ she frowned, ‘but why lie about it?’
‘Because I don’t hide away from anything, do I?’ I snapped. ‘And I don’t want anyone, especially Gavin, thinking that I’m hurting so much that it’s stopping me from living my life.’
‘But you are living your life,’ Dorothy reminded me. ‘You’ve left home and moved in here for a start. That’s a huge step.’
‘I know.’
‘You need to stop being so hard on yourself, missy,’ she told me, sounding stern. ‘If you don’t want to come to the fireworks, then don’t come.’
‘But I don’t want everyone else to think—’
‘You need to stop worrying about what everyone else thinks, Hayley. Try doing something for yourself for a change. Try that on for size and see how it fits.’
‘Well, I’m fairly certain my father would say that moving here was a pretty selfish move and that’s worked out OK, for me at least.’
‘Exactly,’ Dorothy agreed, ‘and you should think of that brave move as your first step over the starting line.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What I mean,’ she said firmly, ‘is that you mustn’t stop now that you’ve started. You’ve spent far too many years living your life and doing things a certain way because you were trying to please parents you could never satisfy no matter what you did.’
She had a point.
‘If you don’t want to come tonight,’ she went on, ‘then that’s entirely up to you. Spend the evening doing something you want to do instead. Take a bath, watch a film, finish my jigsaw, start a new hobby or perhaps pick up an old one.’
My ears pricked up at the mention of an ‘old hobby’ and I hoped Anna and Molly hadn’t broken their promise to keep quiet about my skills with a pencil and paper.
‘And in the meantime,’ she said, ‘I’ll just tell the others you’re giving tonight a miss. Simple as that.’
‘Thank you, Dorothy.’
‘You aren’t the only one staying put,’ she said, heading for the door. ‘Gabe has already said that he won’t be coming either.’
The hall was disconcertingly quiet once everyone had gone, and I realised that I wasn’t used to being there on my own, especially after dark. I knew the place like the back of my hand, but that didn’t stop it feeling a little spooky once it was devoid of the Connelly clan.
The living and breathing ones, anyway.
As a rule, the ghost stories about the obligatory ‘grey lady’, who somehow haunted every property in the UK over a hundred years old, didn’t enter my head, but even the dogs were a little restless down in the kitchen and I decided that it would be a lovely idea to share the dinner Dorothy had prepared for me with Gabe over at his place.
‘Hayley,’ he said, taking a step back as I brushed past him and into Gatekeeper’s Cottage, my arms weighed down with the insulated bag full of food, and Floss and Suki trailing close behind, ‘oh, OK. Hi. Come on in.’
‘Thanks,’ I puffed dumping the bag and pushing Floss’s inquisitive nose in the opposite direction. ‘I wondered if you fancied sharing my dinner?’
‘All right,’ he nodded, ‘thanks. I’ll just get dressed.’
‘Why is it,’ I said, because it would have been impossible not to comment on his post-shower state of undress, ‘that you are always half naked when I turn up here?’
‘Beats me,’ he shrugged, taking the smaller of the two towels, which was wrapped around his shoulders, and rubbing his dark hair until it stood up in all directions. ‘But if you’d been just thirty seconds earlier you’d have caught me completely in the buff.’
‘Damn,’ I laughed as I pulled off my coat, ‘I need to work on my timing.’
‘I’ll be two minutes,’ he laughed back as he headed up the stairs.
‘So,’ said Gabe after we had finished eating dinner on our laps and the dogs had finally settled in a heap in front of the little wood burner, ‘how come you haven’t gone with the others? You don’t strike me as the type to turn down a party.’
‘I just didn’t fancy it this year,’ I sniffed. ‘I don’t usually miss it, but I didn’t much feel like lurking about in the shadows.’
‘Were you worried about bumping into Gavin?’
‘Head straight for the heart of the matter, why don’t you?’
‘Sorry,’ he smiled, looking anything but. ‘But I wouldn’t have had you down as the sort of girl who’d let a guy like him off the hook, Hayley. I don’t mean that I would expect you to be bad-mouthing him all over town or anything, but I am surprised that you’ve been keeping your head down and avoiding the place completely.’
‘I haven’t been avoiding it,’ I snapped back. ‘I just haven’t needed to go in for anything, that’s all, and if you knew the whole story then you’d know . . .’
I stopped myself before I really put my foot in it and revealed too much. As far as I was aware, Gabe had no idea about the blemishes that blighted my past and I wanted to keep it that way. He had already been party to way too much of my dismal private life since his arrival and I had no intention of furnishing him further.
What happened when I was at school, coupled with the few chaotic weeks that followed, had shaped so much of my adult life and I wanted to leave all of that behind now. I was hopeful that my friendship with Gabe could develop without being subjected to full disclosure. After all, even he had admitted that there were things in his own life that he would rather keep under wraps, so it felt fitting that we would take our acquaintanceship forward based on a mutual respect that didn’t involve delving into each other’s pasts.
‘Never mind,’ I muttered.
‘But it’s a shame you didn’t go,’ he said, taking my plate and stacking it on top of his. ‘You could have supplied one hell of a guy for the bonfire.’
‘What?’
‘Just think of the satisfaction you could have got from burning an effigy of your scorching scaffolder.’
I could picture it in my mind’s eye. The flames licking around the straw-stuffed Adonis, complete with tight vest and empty wallet.
‘Who told you Angus called him that?’ I asked Gabe.
‘Angus did,’ he smiled. ‘And if I were Gavin and I knew what was good for me, I wouldn’t be heading back here to collect any poles that might have been left behind.’
I thought about the loan my kind employer was never likely to see repaid. No wonder he was hacked off.
‘And before you start thinking it,’ Gabe added, ‘Angus isn’t worried about the money.’
Clearly Gabe was aware of more than I realised.
‘He’s far more upset about you than his bank balance.’
Dear Angus. He’d hardly said a word about it all to me, but I could tell from the set of his jaw whenever Gavin was mentioned, which wasn’t often, in my presence, anyway, that he was mortified on my behalf.
‘He’s a real sweetheart,’ I sighed. ‘I’m very lucky to have him and Catherine in my life.’
‘We all are,’ said Gabe softly as he topped up my glass of cider.
‘Anyway,’ I said, taking a swig and turning the tables. ‘How come you haven’t gone to town either?’
‘I didn’t want to leave Bran,’ he said with a nod to the pile of dogs after a second or two had ticked by. ‘I wasn’t sure if you could hear any fireworks from here and, obviously, I have no idea how he would react to them, so I didn’t want to risk it.’
‘That’s fair enough,’ I shrugged, but I wasn’t sure I believed him entirely.
A melancholy edge had crept into his tone and there was a faraway look in his eye, which suggested to me that his absence from the party was not all down to his desire to cosset his colossal dog.
‘Anyway,’ I went on, determined to pull him out of his dipped mood before it really took hold, ‘I don’t see why it should just be the others having all the fun. I nabbed these from Angus’s secret stash before I came over,’ I said, waving a massive handful of supersized sparklers. ‘Come on. I’ll go halves with you. We’ll leave the dogs in here.’
Gabe and I stood in the cottage garden, chilled by the crisp evening breeze with the stars shining above us, and drew – sometimes rude – shapes in the air.
It didn’t take long for Gabe to get caught up in the moment, and we laughed until our sides hurt. I don’t know which of us started the descent into silly primary school humour, but it didn’t matter. In those few minutes we were conspirators, laughing in the darkness and letting off steam that we both clearly needed to be rid of.
‘God, I love the smell of these,’ I shouted, inhaling the acrid tang.
‘That’ll be the mix of chemicals they’re made up from,’ said Gabe knowledgeably. ‘Most likely the saltpetre.’
‘Oh, will it now?’ I laughed.
‘Last ones,’ he declared, handing one of the pair to me and lighting it from his.
I spun around waving my arm madly up and down, trying to beat the burn out, but Gabe stood quite still and it wasn’t until his sparks were almost at an end that I realised he was spelling out a word, possibly a name, over and over again.
‘What are you writing?’ I asked, interrupting his concentration. ‘That looked like a name to me. You haven’t got a secret lover stashed away somewhere, have you Gabe? You aren’t hankering after someone you’ve left behind on the other side of the world?’
So caught up in the fun I had completely forgotten about my former desire to base our friendship on the mutual ‘no prying’ foundation, but I needn’t have worried. Gabe obviously wasn’t in the mood to share.
‘How about another drink?’ I suggested when he didn’t answer and I realised that my nosiness was poised to undo all the effort I had put towards restoring his good humour.
‘And some music,’ he smiled, shoving the now-defunct sparklers into a bucket of water. ‘Let’s have a song.’
Ray Lamontagne was Gabe’s last artist of choice for the evening and as ‘Trouble’ struck up, he swept me into his arms and spun me around until I was almost giddy.
The sound of Gabe belting out that he’d been saved was too much for the dogs, and the three of them slunk off into the kitchen freeing up more floorspace for us to twirl around in. However, given the amount of cider we’d drunk, I wasn’t sure twirling was a good idea, but apparently there was no stopping us and, just for a moment, I let myself relax into Gabe’s embrace.
The closer he held me, however, the less amusing the lyrics began to sound, and the less drunk I began to feel, but he didn’t seem to notice. The comforting feel of his firm body pressed close to mine, coupled with the woody scent of his aftershave and his freshly washed hair, was beginning to do funny things to my insides.
In spite of my very best efforts to shut down my heart and its desire to love and be loved, it was suddenly determined to have its own way. I was shocked to realise that lust wasn’t the only thing on the menu.
‘Gabe,’ I muttered, trying to push him away, before my feelings ran away with me. ‘I really should be making a move.’
‘You are making moves,’ he said, pulling me back into him. ‘Great moves.’
‘Not that sort of move, you idiot,’ I said, laughing again because he sounded so serious.
‘You should laugh all the time,’ he said, stopping mid-twirl and looking down at me. ‘You have a great laugh.’
‘Do I?’ I swallowed.
Where were these unexpected emotions welling up from? They were unfounded and unwanted and I quickly put them down to my drink-induced state.
‘You do.’
‘Well, so do you.’
‘You don’t have to say that,’ he sighed, ‘because I know it’s not that great. It’s been out of practice for a while.’
‘Has it?’ I breathed. ‘Why?’
‘It’s had its reasons,’ he said non-committally, before twirling me again, faster this time, ‘but you’ve woken it up again, Hayley. I really can’t remember the last time I laughed so much. It’s been a great evening.’
The alcohol had certainly played its part in breaking down some of Gabe’s barriers, but he was right, we had more than made the most of missing out on the fireworks in town.
‘It has been a great evening,’ I agreed, because it had.
Truth be told, I didn’t think I wanted it to end. I would have been quite happy for it to carry on upstairs and run long into the wee small hours. So much for telling Dorothy I was going to wait before looking out for some no-strings fun, but I knew I couldn’t act on my instincts. Spending the night with Gabe could well end up ruining a relationship with not only a work colleague, but now a very near neighbour as well. I needed to sober up and draw a line under proceedings sharpish.
‘But now I really have to go,’ I said, placing a hand on Gabe’s firm chest to try to push him away.
‘How about a goodnight kiss first?’ he asked, running a finger lightly down my cheek. ‘Just to make the evening really perfect.’
It was on the tip of my tongue to suggest a small one, one that couldn’t last more than three seconds, when my jeans pocket started to vibrate.
‘It’s my phone,’ I said pulling away properly this time.
‘Well, that’s a relief,’ Gabe grinned.
I looked at the screen. It was a text from Gavin. Talk about timing.
‘Anything important?’ Gabe asked.
‘Nothing that can’t wait,’ I told him, stuffing the phone back in my pocket without reading the message. ‘But I really must go. It’s late. The others will be back and I didn’t leave a note.’
‘That’ll be a no to the goodnight kiss, then,’ Gabe sighed, reluctantly helping me into my coat.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ I said shakily, stretching up to peck him chastely on the cheek. ‘How about that?’
‘That’ll be fine,’ he grinned. ‘For now.’