Martha sat on the sofa while Ben rummaged in the kitchen. She was surprised by how calm he seemed. When she’d first woken up, it had taken her a few seconds to work out why her bedroom seemed lit up like a Christmas tree at an office disco. Then she realised it was an ambulance outside and she feared the worst.
She had found Ben looking taciturn as ever, his lips pinched as his looked down at his father, his voice little more than an angry growl as he berated the paramedics at work on Peter.
Son and father were more alike than they realised, both of them doing their best to hide their true feelings. She knew what was really going on in Peter’s mind most of the time, she’d got used to the subtle clues about his feelings, how he hid them behind his gruff manner. But the main difference between him and his son was that she didn’t know Ben enough to know what was really going on in his head. He went from furious to upset to calm in the time it had taken to load Peter into the ambulance. But then out of nowhere, he’d invited her in for a cup of tea. She could hear him in the kitchen and she marvelled again at his ability to stay calm through all this. If Peter was her father, she would have brushed aside his protests, she’d have been pacing up and down next to his hospital bed at that moment, not making tea at home.
She felt guilty when Ben returned. Her momentary anger at him for not being upset enough vanished when she saw the look on his face. He looked hurt and the sight touched something deep inside her, made her want to comfort him. He was carrying a tray with a bottle of wine and two glasses. “I thought this might be a better option than tea,” he said with a shrug.
“Wine at gone three in the morning,” she replied, glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece. Had only fifteen minutes gone by since she was woken by the ambulance? It seemed a lot longer.
She thought Ben would sit on the armchair but he came and settled in on the sofa next to her. As he did so, their sides brushed together and she felt a shiver pass through her. She told herself it was the remains of the cold night outside.
The fire was dying in the grate but enough warmth filled the room to make her eyes sag as she sipped at the wine. For a long time neither of them said anything but at last Ben turned to look at her. “I think you should have the castle,” he said quietly. “If anything happens to him, I mean. I can’t think of anyone better suited to look after the place.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to him,” she replied, placing her hand on top of his and squeezing lightly. “They’ll put him right.”
“It’s not that,” he replied, looking down at her hand in surprise but not moving his away. “If he’s not able to work, he has to sell.”
“Who told you that?”
“He did. There’s some condition attached to the terms of the place. If he can’t work, the place has to go.” Ben was silent for a brief moment. “Unless…”
“Unless what?” Martha asked but Ben had turned away again. He took a sip from his glass before putting it down on the table beside him. When he looked at her again, she saw something else there, something she hadn’t seen before.
“What?” she asked as he continued to stare at her.
“Can I be honest with you, Martha?”
She nodded, feeling her heart flutter as if she knew what he was about to say. “What? What is it?”
“I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”
“What? What about?”
“About my father, about the castle, about my life. I haven’t got a clue. You want to know something? I thought I was coming down here to say bye to the old man. I thought he hated me. Then I find out that he’s not dying. Now he is again. But he doesn’t want me by his side. My mother has run off with the biggest arsehole this side of the Scottish border and to cap it all, I then go and meet you.”
“You sound furious.”
“I am. I didn’t want to meet someone like you. I was all settled with living alone and not speaking to anyone but the fish and then I come back down here and find someone who makes me want to be part of the world again and I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to be doing.”
He leaned back on the sofa and sighed, his eyes fixed on the wall in front of him. When he spoke again, the anger was gone from his voice. “I should have stayed up there. Then I wouldn’t have known about any of this. I should have unplugged my phone, I shouldn’t have taken your call.”
“I’m glad you did,” Martha said, shifting in her seat to look at him, taking in the way he was trying to get his emotions locked away again. She didn’t want it to happen. “I’m glad we met.”
“You are?” he asked, glancing across at her.
She nodded slowly, feeling her throat turn suddenly dry as his eyes fixed on hers. “It might be the wine, it might be the fact that it’s nearly the morning, or it might be that I can’t keep this inside anymore. But I like you, Ben. I didn’t want to. I don’t want to. But I do.”
“Why don’t you want to?”
“It’s complicated, I can’t really explain.”
“Then don’t,” he whispered, shuffling towards her, his hand sliding on top of hers. She felt the heat coming from his fingers and that sensation passed through her skin, reaching somewhere deep inside her. Was he about to kiss her? He looked as if he was. Where had that come from? A few minutes ago she was furious with him, terrified about Peter. And now, now he was looking at her with such intensity that she could barely match his gaze. It was as if he was a blazing log and she a block of ice. The more he looked at her, the more she melted and if he kept looking at her like that, she thought she might just vanish entirely.
The person she thought she was seemed to have gone from the room, replaced with someone new, someone she didn’t know. All she knew was she hoped she wasn’t wrong. She hoped, in that moment, that he was about to kiss her because if he wasn’t, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to handle the disappointment.