‘Of course you don’t,’ he explodes. ‘I’m not telling you, you already know – it just makes me … fall a little bit more in love with you.’
Inside my chest my heart explodes, a starburst of bright white happiness and utter surprise. Now it’s my turn to stare at him wide-eyed.
‘What did you say?’
‘You heard me.’ He sounds a tiny bit cross and that makes me even happier. ‘And I’ve been fighting it like fuck.’
‘Did you not mean to say it?’ I ask, unable to resist teasing him a little.
‘No,’ he says, grumpily.
‘Oh,’ I say and look down at my lap. Disappointment floods me. Of course he didn’t mean it. He doesn’t want to love me. I’m not the sort of girl – daughter of alcoholics, from a less than salubrious home-life – that someone like him from a securely middle-class background falls in love with.
‘Lydia…’
Now he’s going to fucking apologise. I look up and glare at him.
‘Lydia. I love you and it scares the shit out of me.’
My heart turns a dozen somersaults even as I frown. ‘What? Why?’ I half-laugh. ‘I’m not that dysfunctional, am I?’
He laughs. ‘No, but I am. I’m scared because the thought of relinquishing that control, giving myself up to feelings … it fucking terrifies me.’ He pulls me from the seat opposite him and I manage not to screech as the pain in my leg flares. ‘Lydia. I’ve never felt like that with anyone before. I didn’t really believe it was a real thing. But … there’s something between us. It was there that weekend. It was perfect. You were perfect. That’s why I went running. I wanted to forget all about that weekend. Those feelings … I wasn’t in control of them. They were in control of me. I had to put space between us. I nearly died when I saw you on that plane.’
‘You saw me on the plane?’ Inside I’m buzzing from his words.
‘Yes. Didn’t you feel me staring at you from three rows behind?’
‘No.’
‘And … let’s just say my body never forgot you. I had a semi hard-on the whole journey back to the frigging office on the underground.’
‘Did you?’ I sit up, rather pleased with this admission. For some reason the physical proof of his attraction registers more than everything else he’s said. It’s tangible. A real thing.
‘I did.’
With a sudden jerk, the train begins to move again and Tom looks anxiously out of the window. ‘We’ll be there in a few minutes. It’s only a two-minute walk from the station.’
I take his hand. ‘It will be fine. We’ve survived everything that’s been thrown at us the last few days – dealing with serial killer foxes, wild camping and falling down mountains – what’s a little family party in comparison?’
Chapter Twenty-Five TOM
We walk in through the open gates and across the turning circle in front of the water feature. I wonder what Lydia’s impression of my home is.
I’ve taken the three-storey Edwardian house, half brick and half rendered with generous bay windows, for granted all my life. Even mocked my mother’s efforts to replace the front door after she’d bought it from the reclamation yard and spent three weeks researching which tastefully appropriate historic colour she should paint it. Now it represents the middle-class respectability and security that I’ve never given a second thought to. Lydia never had any of this.
I ring the doorbell. My father throws open the door and immediately glares at us.
‘Tom. Where the hell have you been? And why haven’t you been answering your phone?’
‘Hi, Dad. This is Lydia.’
He doesn’t even acknowledge her. ‘You forgot your mother’s birthday. No card. No call. She’s very upset with you.’
Upset not worried, I note.
‘Sorry, Dad.’
‘It’s my fault,’ says Lydia. ‘I had an accident and Tom very kindly looked after me. He saved my life.’
I’m not sure who’s more taken aback at this, Dad or me. He actually takes a step back and looks her up and down.
‘And who are you?’
‘A work colleague of Tom’s,’ she says. ‘I do hope you’ll excuse our appearance but Tom was very anxious not to miss his mother’s party after he’d missed her birthday.’
I can hardly look at Lydia. Her verbal dexterity and ability to read the room and her response to my dad’s petty snobbery in one quick clever lie have stunned me into silence.
‘Right,’ he stutters. ‘You’d better come in then. You’ll need to get cleaned up before the party and before anyone gets here. Your mother is in the kitchen. Go straight through.’
Dad holds the door open and I slip my shoes off and drop my rucksack, with Lydia following suit, before we pad down the parquet floor towards the big kitchen, which contains every labour-saving domestic device you can think of.
The house is in full party-preparation mode. My parents are great hosts but then it’s all about appearances. Every surface is filled with cling-film-covered bowls and platters. Outside through the window I can see the gazebo has been set up to house a bar and there’s a waiter out there, opening bottles of wine.
‘Tom!’ My mother’s delight instantly fades. ‘What on earth do you look like? I hope you’re going to change.’ Her mouth wrinkles in familiar disapproval and then she takes in Lydia and gives a pointed look at the mountains of food.
‘This is Lydia.’
‘I see.’
