Home for the Holidays Read online

  They were both aware that when she realised neither of them had a condom, she’d been so frustrated she could have screamed. Actually, she had screamed, just a tiny bit, and he’d laughed and applied himself to relieving her frustrations in ways for which no condom was required.

  She glanced behind her to the window. Twilight. She sighed and gave up on the idea of coffee.

  If Ben was surprised to hear a knock on his door in the middle of the evening he was downright astounded to open it and find his caller to be Alexia Kennedy.

  ‘What an unexpected pleasure.’ He was aware of sounding sarcastic but this afternoon’s interchange had stung.

  ‘I came to tell you something.’

  He looked past her into the darkness. He hadn’t heard the approach of a car. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve walked here.’

  ‘OK. But I’ve had two large glasses of wine so I didn’t drive.’

  It was hard not to notice how she hugged her thin jacket around herself. He took a tentative step back. ‘Do you want to come in to tell me?’

  Equally as tentatively, she stepped inside.

  As she seated herself in one of the armchairs he shook from his mind the image of the laughing, eyes-dancing Alexia lounging on the floor on Saturday evening, back propped against the same chair as she drank whisky. And, later, naked and glistening Alexia exploring his body with inquisitive hands.

  Glad he’d already lit the fire in view of the way she extended her hands to it, he took the other chair. ‘What’s up?’

  She wasted no time on small talk. ‘A man was looking for you at the pub. He said it’s important that your brother sees you, that Imogen needs your help, and that “we”, whoever that is, would like to know you’re all right. I decided that some of those messages might be important and as I don’t have your phone number I came over.’

  ‘Thank you for going to the trouble.’ Part of him wanted to consider why she had. Her collar, he noticed, bore small white polka dots, an unexpectedly frivolous detail of the same otherwise no-nonsense outfit he’d seen her in earlier.

  She narrowed her eyes as if trying to measure his muted reaction. ‘The man was in his sixties with thin sandy hair—’

  ‘I know who he was.’ He rested his head on the chair back, knowing he had to prioritise. ‘It is possible that one of those messages might be important.’ Not the one about his brother, Lloyd – or, at least, he doubted it would prove to be anything new.

  But Imogen …

  ‘Would you mind hanging on while I make a quick call?’ Without waiting for an answer he jumped up and made for the kitchen. There, he opened his contacts list and tapped on Imogen.

  She answered after two rings, voice breathy with surprise. ‘Ben?’ She sounded so familiar that for an instant he felt as if the past had slipped into the present, as if he might be calling to say he could get home on Friday so they could go out to dinner. He could almost hear the reply she would have made: Or we could stay home, just the two of us … and then you never know what you’ll get on the table, her slight Berkshire burr caressing the words ‘could’ and ‘never’. He’d have laughed and lowered his voice to suggest …

  He snapped his mind back to here and now. ‘Yes, it’s me. Are you OK?’ It made something in his chest feel odd to voice the commonplace, caring question he’d asked a thousand times.

  ‘Yes. Well, so far as … you know.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ he answered awkwardly, compassionately, hearing what she wasn’t saying.

  ‘Why are you calling?’ Was that a thread of happy anticipation in her voice?

  Guiltily hoping it wasn’t, he kept his voice steady as he explained. ‘I think it’s just Dad being Dad, but I got a message and wanted to check you weren’t in any trouble.’

  ‘I won’t ask what’s going on between you and your dad this time, but thank you.’ A pause. ‘Did you get your … you know, the divorce …?’

  ‘The nisi? Yes.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Obviously you did?’

  ‘Yes.’ Another pause. What was she waiting for him to fill the silence with? Had it been hope he’d detected in her voice? If so, when she spoke again she’d smoothed it carefully away. ‘It seems odd to discuss it so casually. But I suppose it’s good that we’re not at each other’s throats.’

  ‘Yes.’ They never had been at each other’s throats. Cold anger on Ben’s part and bitter remorse on Imogen’s had been how they’d seen off their marriage. Maybe he’d have felt better for a few screaming matches. ‘Well, sorry to disturb your evening. I just wanted to …’

  ‘I’m touched you did, but I’m fine. And you—’

  ‘I’m fine, too.’ He didn’t want to prolong the call. Before he slid his phone back into his pocket, however, he sent his parents a one-line text assuring them that they needn’t worry about him.

  Then, gingerly, he examined the state of his heart. The usual swirl of grief and guilt about Imogen had been absent as they talked. Not long ago the call would have been enough to plummet him into a black mood.

  As if movement would keep the darkness at bay, he crossed to the door to the sitting room and gave it a tiny push. He could see Alexia sitting where he’d left her, fidgeting and casting glances at the front door as if considering using it. He pushed the kitchen door properly open and cleared his throat. ‘Want to feed Barney?’

  She turned, an uncertain smile following a moment of surprise. ‘OK.’

  She joined him in the kitchen and while he dealt with the necessities of preparing supper for a baby bird of prey she gently slid Barney’s tub into the centre of the floor. Out of the corner of his eye Ben watched her crouching alongside the downy little bird, chuckling at his loud, wide-beaked hehhhhhhhs and his half-hops, half-flops around his tub. ‘Hello, fluffball.’

  ‘Hehhhhhhh,’ replied Barney.

  Once the meal was prepared Ben joined them, settling himself on the floor so that Barney’s tub was between him and Alexia. He offered her the tongs.

  Her big brown eyes flipped up to gaze at him. ‘What do I do?’

  ‘Get a piece of meat and offer it to him. Touch it to his beak. He’ll do the rest.’

  ‘Hehhhhhh,’ rasped Barney encouragingly.

  Gingerly Alexia used the tongs to select a morsel of chicken and approached the business end of Barney.

  ‘Hehhhhh-nom-nom-nom.’ Barney did his bobblehead thing as if to shake the food down inside him. ‘Hehhhhhhh.’

  Alexia laughed. ‘The rest’s coming don’t worry.’

  ‘Hehhhhh-nom-nom-nom.’

  Ben looked on, holding an old plastic plate that had become Barney’s dinner service as each morsel travelled from it to the young owl’s ever-open maw. Alexia’s attention was all on Barney, eyes smiling as she gravely exhorted him to mind his manners. ‘You’ll be putting your elbows on the table next.’

  Eventually, she lifted up empty hands to show the little owl. ‘It’s all gone.’

  ‘Hehhhhhhh.’ Barney cocked his head sceptically.

  She showed him up her sleeves. ‘Look, empty.’

  Discarding the plate on the floor and pulling out a clean bedding towel, Ben slid careful hands into the tub and scooped Barney up, offering him to Alexia, who shook the covering out across her lap and made a baby owl sized hollow in it.

  While she continued to chat to Barney, Ben donned disposable gloves to clean out the tub then returned to sitting on the chilly floor, reluctant to suggest moving to a more comfortable spot in case Alexia took it as an opportunity to leave. Although he shied away from actually acknowledging that part of the reason he’d wanted to check on Imogen was to leave him free to talk to Alexia, he was aware of some level of contentment watching her with Barney. He didn’t want a polluted atmosphere to continue between them.

  They’d shared a bed and it was completely his fault that it had gone so badly wrong. Until the trouble with Imogen, Ben had considered himself a decent bloke who knew how to treat women. For his own sake, if no one else’s, he wanted to red
iscover that person.

  He drew in a breath. ‘Sorry to leave you to your own devices just now but I needed to make that call. The man who was looking for me was my dad.’

  She flicked him a glance under her thick dark lashes. Then she returned her attention to Barney, still exploring her lap and noisily declaring, ‘Hehhhhhhh’.

  Ben ploughed on before he could change his mind. ‘Imogen’s my wife. Ex-wife when our divorce becomes final in a few weeks. She’s fine. Dad’s obviously trying to flush me out.’ He paused to marshal his thoughts. ‘My parents know how close I am to Gabe so I suppose Dad guessed I might not be too far away from Middledip. Annoying that he’s right.’

  Alexia raised her eyes to look at him properly, though her arms still formed a pen for Barney. ‘They don’t know where you’re living? They must be worried about you.’

  He extended a finger to stroke Barney’s delicate foot. ‘I have a difficult relationship with my parents and it’s particularly troubled at the moment. My brother, Lloyd, he’s their golden boy and when he screwed up they sort of blamed me.’

  ‘Hehhhhhhh,’ added Barney, looking wise.

  The expression in Alexia’s eyes melted into one of compassion. ‘Was it your fault?’

  ‘I can’t see how.’ Ben, to his surprise, found himself feeling better for bringing even a small part of the story out. It was a bit like being horribly nauseous but feeling relieved when you could actually throw up. ‘There was an accident. Lloyd was driving. He was drunk. Imogen was his passenger. She’d been drinking too.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Alexia breathed.

  He nodded jerkily. ‘There was no reason for them to be together in the early hours of the morning. Lloyd – well, he’s single and he can be with anyone he likes in the middle of the night. Except my wife.’

  ‘Do you mean they …?’ Her eyes darkened with dismay.

  ‘Imogen denies it. Lloyd’s been strangely silent on the subject.’ He coughed. ‘Sorry. I don’t usually unburden myself like this. I started out meaning to give you background on why I acted the way I did on Sunday after … well, Saturday.’

  ‘I suppose it explains some of your moodiness.’

  He flinched, but he understood why she felt able to be that direct. Copping the fallout from a situation in which one felt blameless did tend to make for carelessness with the feelings of others.

  As he watched, Barney began to cuddle bonelessly into the crook of Alexia’s arm, his eyes slowly closing. Ben could remember slipping into sleep with the same arms across his naked chest. ‘Imogen and I, we agreed the only option was to end things, but I didn’t cope well. At all. Had to be pulled off Lloyd. Refused to forgive Imogen. Her family was completely on her side, which I admire, but we lived in a small town so battle lines were drawn.’

  Gently, Alexia lifted Barney and the towel off her lap and back into the tub, returning it to the dim recess under the worktop where he could sleep off his dinner. Then she shuffled herself a few inches closer to Ben. ‘Didn’t her family acknowledge that you were the innocent party?’

  His swallowed. The sympathy in her big brown eyes almost undid him. ‘Imogen was disfigured in the crash. Her left arm’s massively scarred and damaged. She won’t regain full use of it. She has some scarring on her jaw and neck, too. Her family say that I only wanted her when she was fit and beautiful. Their family name is Goodbody so they said stuff like “No use for a Goodbody now she hasn’t got a good body, eh?”’

  She looked appalled. ‘They don’t consider the – the other circumstance?’

  ‘That she was involved with my brother? Not so much.’

  ‘Wow.’ She frowned, chin on fist. ‘But if your brother wants to see you, can’t he come looking for you himself?’

  ‘Not really.’ He had to force the final words past a sudden obstruction in his throat. ‘Lloyd’s in Spring Hill open prison. The poor blameless lady in the car his vehicle ploughed into died. He does get short visits to the outside on Release on Temporary Licence, now his sentence is well underway, and so long as he keeps his nose clean. Although as one of the purposes of a “ROTL” can be to maintain family ties he has to submit a plan for where he’ll be and who with. I won’t co-operate with any plan that involves me. I don’t think there’s anything new to say.’

  ‘You don’t visit him?’

  ‘I don’t want to see him while he’s in there.’

  Silence. Then her hand crept onto his leg. Warm. Comforting. Non-sexual. ‘So there’s some positive feeling between you.’

  He stared at her hand, small and delicate against the coarse denim of his jeans. ‘There’s feeling all right, but you’re only assuming that it’s positive. I can’t analyse it. What if subconsciously I want to gloat?’

  ‘Seriously? You’d do that?’ She sounded shocked but she didn’t move her hand.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he admitted, ‘but I’m frightened just at the possibility and what that would make me.’

  ‘He might want to apologise and explain.’

  ‘He had time to do that while he was awaiting trial. What I got was silence.’ He sighed. ‘Sometimes I fester with resentment.’

  ‘I can imagine. You have a lot to deal with.’

  He gave that half-laugh that came out all choked and didn’t sound like him. ‘I’m still trying to get to the bit where I explain why I was … as I was with you. The other night – that was the nearest thing to normal I’d felt since the accident, even though I’d gone to your wrecking party angry because I’d received my decree nisi that morning.’ He held up a hand as she opened her mouth as if to interrupt. ‘Yes, it was me who had instigated divorce proceedings so it might not seem reasonable that it affected me. But you have to remember that until the night of the accident I thought I was a happily married man.

  ‘Then you blew in, all smiles and enthusiasm, involving me, being nice and uncomplicated and fun. I was drawn to that. To you.’

  He went on, gaining confidence from her air of concentration. ‘I was desperate to feel normal again, to remember what fun was. I rationalised that my marriage was over all bar one last piece of paper. You and I were both up for an encounter. If you were having liberation sex and I was having angry sex I didn’t see it as an obstacle – although, looking back it would have been better if I hadn’t kept you in the dark about the anger.’

  Her brows flipped up to her hairline. ‘You weren’t angry.’

  ‘I was raging. Just not with you.’

  ‘If you were angry with Imogen, I’d call that revenge sex, not angry sex.’

  It actually made him smile that she’d make him pause in the middle of his confession to argue semantics. ‘It wasn’t revenge for what Imogen did with Lloyd. It was more self-orientated than that. I was trying to lose myself. In you. Blot out everything that was making me furious and bitter.’

  Her mouth made a silent ‘O’.

  He shifted, trying to find a position on the quarry tiles that didn’t make his legs cold and numb. ‘It worked. Until I woke up in the middle of the night and felt horrible. It was like my own mind had turned against me. All the anger had turned to guilt, I felt that I’d been unfaithful to Imogen and hadn’t been honest with you. The guilt and anxiety and everything … I was in a cold sweat. I felt compelled to get away from what I’d done. So I left you alone here. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Are we talking about a panic attack?’

  ‘Probably,’ he admitted, hoarsely. ‘I feel as if I’m making wimpy excuses—’

  ‘Anxiety’s a powerful thing. I’ve seen it all with Jodie because she suffers from anxiety. It takes her over. She withdraws and doesn’t seem to have the capacity to care about things she ought to care about. She might go into retreat from a situation or lash out blindly – you can’t anticipate which it’ll be because her emotions are chaotic. I can understand how it would happen to you in the circumstances. It wasn’t fun for me but I can see it.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated. Her let his hand touch hers. ‘T
he anger came back – but at myself. It consumed me. When the thefts were discovered at The Angel I turned it on whatever shitty bastard has done this to Gabe and I didn’t think what I was saying. I didn’t mean to sound as if I were accusing you.’

  ‘I’m glad you explained,’ she said softly.

  ‘I’m glad I got this opportunity. I’m not trying to excuse myself. I just want you to know why, when you were so great, I responded like a creep.’

  ‘You’ve been let down. That’s hard to deal with.’ She unfolded her legs and shifted around to lean on a cabinet door beside him. ‘Thank you for telling me. I think it was hard for you.’

  He was aware that her hand was no longer resting on his leg but somehow her proximity eased some of the tension from his shoulders. Maybe he felt forgiven. ‘I should be thanking you for letting me spill my guts.’

  ‘That’s something that can make any of us feel better.’ She hesitated. ‘You know, there’s this theory … I don’t know if it’s just psychobabble but it makes sense to me. Women have affairs with the brother of their spouse because they get whatever attracted them to the spouse in the first place but without the day-to-day worries or gripes the spouse brings along.’

  ‘That’s offensive.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it’s meant to be a compliment. More of an explanation.’

  He managed a weak grin. ‘I meant offensive to suggest Lloyd and I are alike. He’s a smooth, hotshot lawyer who loves to party and who’s never been in a relationship for more than six months.’

  Her face cleared as she got that he was joking. ‘And you’re a wizard who lives in the woods caring for a baby owl. You’re right, you don’t sound much alike.’

  As joining in a joke definitely counted as an improvement in the temperature between them, and as she’d been generous in letting him get everything he needed to off his chest, he turned the conversation. ‘How are things with you? Gabe’s been keeping me abreast of developments so I know there’s no good news.’

  She stretched and yawned, then clambered stiffly to her feet. ‘It just gets worse. Jodie’s just admitted that Shane cleared her personal accounts too. I need to get home.’