Page 41 of Watch For Me By Candlelight

Automatically, her mind whirling with thoughts she couldn’t quite put words to, Kate checked all the doors on the way past the cottages — they’d all been locked up, but she checked again. Anything to stop her thinking of Theo standing outside Will’s cottage as she escaped back into the museum.

She cast a glance around the reception area. Jenna had left it reasonably clean and tidy, she noticed now, apart from her ‘Naughty but Nice’ mug which she had hidden behind the cash register. Kate picked the mug up and dropped it into the sink, cold, beige coffee dribbling down the plughole. The mug could stay there until Jenna was next in. Kate just wanted to head upstairs, and try to work out her feelings.

She ran up the stairs, and hurried past the computer in her flat. It made her think of Chris again. She hadn’t heard from him since she’d phoned him briefly the other day. And she realised he hadn’t even asked how her day had gone during that phone call. She’d had an email from Maeve that afternoon and even a one-line “how are you, we’re fine” email from her parents. But nothing else from Chris. Not even a text. He could have made time for that, surely. But she shook the thought away.

Kate started her shower off, deciding she’d call his mobile later on, just to say “hi” and ran through it seemed, at least, fifty scenarios which may or may not happen during their conversation. Afterwards, she dried off in her largest, fluffiest towel and slipped into some grey flannel joggers and a white sleeveless top. She padded, barefoot, across the slate floor of the kitchen, her hair damp on the back of her neck.

Kate picked up her mobile phone and headed back down the stairs into the garden. It seemed horribly disloyal to hide inside, away from the sunshine. She went to the top of the garden and sat on the wall, facing the river with her legs dangling outside of her boundary. Balancing her bare feet onto a natural shelf in the dry-stone, she dialled Chris, the extraordinarily loud quacking of her ducks breaking the peacefulness of the late afternoon.

His phone rang four times before he answered. Kate was slightly taken aback; she had kind of expected it to go straight to answerphone. She had her polite little message all prepared to leave. Hey Chris, call me when you’re home! Or words to that effect.

Instead, he caught her off guard. ‘Kate? Kateeee! Katie-kate!’

She rolled her eyes heavenwards. He sounded completely drunk. He never called her those silly names unless he was half-cut — and there were definitely sounds of a party in the background; music, laughter, giggling. Hang on — giggling? That implied girls at the party and from the group of women Kate understood worked at his office, they were definitely the sort of girl who worked hard and played hard.

‘Are you out with work?’ she asked.

‘Yeah — yeah I am. We closed a major deal today. Got to celebrate. Whoah! Saffy! Stop it. It’s Kate!’

He laughed and there was a shriek from somewhere close by. Yes, Saffy. Of course. She was bound to be one of the women who liked to “play”.

‘So what time did you close the deal?’

‘Uhmm — eleven? Yeah. Something like that. Amazing!’

‘And you’ve been partying since eleven?’

‘Pretty much, yeah. God, I am so drunk. But it’s so worth it. Saffy! No.’ There was more laughter and Kate clutched at her phone tightly, the anger bubbling up inside her.

‘I need to talk to you, Chris. When can we get together?’

‘Sweetheart, I’ve been drinking. I can’t drive up to the Wilds of Wanney.’

‘I’m not asking you to come here right now. And don’t call me “sweetheart”.’

‘No, no, sweetheart. I knew you’d be busy. I’ve been busy too. Or I would have been up sooner.’ He was clearly attempting to sound soothing, yet only succeeding in sounding very drunk. ‘Didn’t want to cramp your style.’

‘You couldn’t cramp my style if you tried.’ She focussed on the river and traced the course of it to the right, where she knew, upriver, the Faerie Bridge would be straddling it, squat, mellow and sturdy.

‘Yeah, yeah.’ He clearly wasn’t listening to a word she was saying. So what was new? ‘Look, I have to go now. I think we’re moving onto another bar. Don’t want to lose them. Okay — so maybe next week you can pop down? I think I’m free Sunday, so if you come Saturday afternoon we can go out for dinner, then have Sunday together, yeah? Hey!’ He must have moved the phone away to shout after someone as there was another bout of raucous laughter followed by a faint comment on where the best cocktails were. There was a crackle, then he came back on the line. ‘Right. I have to go. Seriously, this has been such a great day! It’s going to get messy.’ He laughed and there was another shriek. ‘Okay, I’m coming! So Katie-babes. See you next week?’

‘I work weekends, remember? I’ll be down—’ she began. But he’d already disconnected the call.

* * *

Kate passed an absolutely hideous night. She kept replaying Theo’s kiss in her mind. It had been so perfect, so absolutely what a kiss should be, and she hadn’t wanted him to stop. Ever. And yet, she shouldn’t have allowed him to kiss her at all. Torn as she was between guilt and lust, the hours ticked by as she watched the bedside clock; and she was dreading that somewhere a clock would chime and she’d drop into one of those little scenes again and witness something that would tie her even closer to Cat and her lover, just to confuse her even further. But nothing happened.

It was no surprise, therefore, that she was up at the crack of dawn, heading off to the bakery to get half a dozen rolls. She might have thought she’d bump into Theo by doing that. Or she might not have thought that at all.

But she did think, very hard, about Chris. If one kiss from Theo made her feel like that, and she truly didn’t seem to give a damn if Chris was out getting inebriated with Saffy — or half of London, come to that — then should she really be hanging onto this relationship? It was going nowhere, and it hadn’t been going anywhere for a long time.

* * *

She pulled up in front of the house in Chiswick and wiped her sticky hands on her denim skirt. It was that very same day, the day that she had wandered hopefully to the bakery and lingered a little too long outside. It was now late afternoon, and Chris had no idea she was coming.

To be honest, Kate had no idea how she even got to Chiswick, or even at what point she finally made the decision to go there; but before she knew it, she was on the A12 looking for her exit onto the M25. Two hours had never passed so quickly or so mindlessly and she was still a little astonished she had made it.

Kate got out of the car, walked up to his front door and put her key in the lock.