Am I making a terrible mistake? I wonder, not for the first time. My dad and my elder sister both tried to talk me out of coming here. After all, I’ve only seen this man once in the past twenty years. I step forwards again and go to grab the knocker, but then I spot a metal handle hanging down to my right and so I pull on it instead. I hear a loud chime sound inside the house. Seconds later, the door opens and he’s standing there. Alexander Riley. My heart beats madly. He’s smiling and it warms me through. Any doubts I had evaporate as I look up into his handsome face.
‘Katie,’ he says, sweeping me into his arms and squeezing me so tightly I can hardly breathe. He smells amazing. ‘Come in. Welcome.’ He releases me, takes my hand and leads me into the house. ‘Would you like something to drink?’ He doesn’t pause for me to answer. ‘I hope your drive wasn’t too long,’ he gushes as we walk side by side through the entrance hall, away from a huge pine staircase leading upstairs.
‘Here’s the sitting room. Go on through and I’ll bring you some tea.’ He pushes me gently into a spacious room to the left with high ceilings and a log fire burning at the end of it. ‘I’ll bring your stuff in from the car later. I’m so glad you’re finally here.’ And with that, he disappears.
I stand with my back to the fire for a couple of minutes, admiring the built-in bookshelves. Many of them have books on them, but there’s more than enough space for some of my paperbacks when I bring up the boxes I’ve stored at my dad’s house.
Feeling exhausted after the journey, I sink into an armchair. I look out of a sash window at the other end of the room. This one has thin wooden bars, too, in keeping with the Georgian period, no doubt. They’re supposed to be decorative, I imagine, but I find them disturbing. The windowpanes are black now; night has fallen quickly.
Alex soon comes back carrying a tray with sandwiches, biscuits, a teapot and two mugs. He puts it down on the coffee table. Then he walks over to the sideboard and pours himself a Scotch. Holding the glass in one hand, he puts his arm around me from behind my armchair and, stroking my breasts and then my tummy, he plants a kiss on the top of my head. Then he bends over the coffee table, and from a little bowl on the tray he takes two ice cubes, which chink as he drops them into the amber liquid. He drags a heavy armchair nearer to mine and sits down.
I watch him as he does all this, his blue eyes bright with excitement. Tall with dark curly hair, he’s very good-looking. I know he has an incredible, muscular body under those jeans and that sweater. When he smiles, dimples appear in his cheeks. He has an aquiline nose. His sideburns are way too long, but I find this endearing. His face has the healthy glow – even in winter – of someone who spends a lot of time outdoors. I have so many photos of him – I’ve kept all the photos he sent me in his emails – but none of them really do him justice.
‘I’m finding it hard to believe we’re finally together,’ he says, picking up the teapot and swirling it around. Then he pours tea into a mug that already has a little milk in it. ‘Do you take sugar?’ he asks.
It seems strange, this question, when we know each other so well. At school, I hardly talked to him. I fancied him like mad, but I kept that a secret from everyone, especially him. Both my sisters had more to do with him than I did back then. But since we reconnected about seven months ago – initially thanks to Facebook – we’ve exchanged hundreds and hundreds of emails and phone calls. We’ve spent hours and hours chatting on FaceTime.
We’ve talked about our respective families in detail. I’ve never met Alex’s children, but he has told me all about them so I feel as if I have. I know that Alex’s favourite dish is shepherd’s pie and that his favourite dessert is tiramisu. I could tell you his place of birth, his date of birth, his hobbies and interests and his tastes in music. I know so much about his education and career that I could probably write his CV.
He read Wuthering Heights when I told him it was the best book I’d ever read and he watched The Piano because I told him I loved that film. Once, he sent me a purple silk scarf and another time, I received a pink T-shirt because these are my favourite colours. He knows I adore roses and lilies and he has had bouquets delivered to both my place of work and home. He knows I hate take-offs and landings on planes. He’s familiar with my deepest fears and darkest secrets. He could even describe my sexual fantasies.
But he has no idea how I drink my tea. I do take sugar, usually, but I can see that Alex hasn’t put any on the tray, so I shake my head.
Alex talks non-stop when he gets excited – I know this from our numerous phone calls – and he babbles away as we eat. He says that tomorrow we’ll visit Grasmere. He mentions a famous gingerbread shop, which he says is open almost every day of the year. And he promises to show me William Wordsworth’s house and his grave.
I love the idea that this Romantic poet, whose works I studied at school, links my old home to my new home. I’ve come from Somerset to the Lake District; William Wordsworth did the opposite. He moved from Cumbria to the village of Nether Stowey, which is only about fifty miles from Porlock, where I grew up. And slightly closer to Minehead, where I lived until this morning. Eventually, Wordsworth returned to his roots. He was homesick. I hope I won’t be.
I have that familiar nervous feeling in my tummy as I wonder again if I’ve made the right decision coming here. But it’s a bit late to be asking myself that question now. The rain starts to beat down all of a sudden and Alex gets up to pull the thick curtains across the two sets of bay windows. Before sitting back down in his chair, he kisses my cheek, and once again I’m reassured and content.
We chat for ages, although Alex does most of the talking. Even though it can’t be that late, I yawn. Alex immediately leaps up and clears away the tray. Then he insists that I stay by the fire while he brings in my things. I protest and get up to help, but he won’t hear of it.
‘You lost a lot of blood,’ he says. ‘You’re not to take any more risks.’
It wasn’t a lot, really, but I’m not going to argue.
The car is packed to the hilt with boxes, suitcases and bags, and it takes him about forty minutes. I feel a bit bad about letting him lug in all my stuff by himself, but I really don’t want to go out in the rain. I’ve had a long drive and it’s all too easy to persuade myself I’m only doing what I’ve been told. So, closing my eyes, I enjoy the heat emanating from the fire.
When he has finished, Alex comes back into the sitting room, combing his wet hair with the fingers of one hand and holding his other hand out to me. He pulls me out of my chair and leads the way upstairs. He has left the boxes and bags in the entrance hall, which he calls ‘the vestibule’, but he has brought my cases upstairs to the master bedroom, which is similar in size to the entire ground floor of the house I’ve just moved out of in Somerset.
It’s cold up here and I’m almost reluctant to take off my clothes. After taking a shower to warm myself up a bit, I climb into bed naked, next to Alex, who is waiting for me. He makes love to me with just the right mixture of passion and tenderness. This is only the second time I’ve been to bed with him and I’m surprised at how natural it feels.
He falls asleep with his arms around me. At first, I relax and breathe in time with him, but after a while he starts to snore. I’m cold again and I begin to shiver. I slip out of his embrace and get out of bed. I manage to feel my way to the en suite bathroom and I turn on the light in there. Leaving the door open just enough to see what I’m doing, but hopefully not so much that the light will wake up Alex, I move silently across the carpeted floor of the bedroom to the suitcase that contains my nightwear. I look over my shoulder as I unzip the case, but he doesn’t stir.
When I climb back into bed a minute or two later, I’m snug in my fleece pyjamas, but I’m wide awake. I can’t get comfortable. The bed is lumpy and the quilt is tucked in tight around my feet, which I hate. For a while, I toss and turn.
After