The Long Call (Two Rivers #1) - Ann Cleeves Page 0,27

a phase that would pass. Jonathan would set off on his travels again or find someone more interesting. Instead, he’d found a new project. The Woodyard. It had been a time of local authority cuts and the day centre where he’d worked had been under threat. Jonathan had been transformed from a laid-back guy, who moaned about the restraints of his work but left it behind at the end of the day, to an activist, passionate, consumed, organized. Matthew would arrive from Bristol to Jonathan’s tiny flat in the oldest part of the town, tired at the end of a busy week, to find it full of people. Earnest people talking money, funding applications and lobbying, and arty people like Gaby from Hope Street, painting posters and planning social media campaigns. Businessmen in suits and radical activists all in the same place. Matthew had been intimidated and retreated into work. He’d been certain that Jonathan would find someone more interesting to spend his life with.

Matthew had been thrown by the change in Jonathan, the fact that he could be so serious. Until then he’d been the serious one, the worrier. Jonathan had drunk beer and sat in the sun. He’d always slept at night. In those days of planning and activism, every waking hour had been spent thinking about the Woodyard project. And he’d made it happen. Here it was, just as the planning committee had hoped. A glorious community hub bringing people together. Jonathan was general manager of the place. It was over-seen by a board of trustees, but he was the man on the ground. With his assistant, Lorraine, he ran the centre.

Matthew had feared that once the Woodyard was up and running, Jonathan would become bored and restless again. That he’d run away. So, Matthew had kept his distance. No point getting too close. No point setting himself up to be hurt. Then, one Sunday afternoon in early autumn, Jonathan had taken him to meet his parents. The first time and Jonathan had been nervous, jittery. Not at all his usual self. They’d sat around a kitchen table scattered with farm accounts, wary dogs at their feet. Matthew had been reminded of the visits he’d made with his father to the customers who had never been able to pay on time. There’d been the same shabbiness, a sense in the air that was almost desperation. This couple, Matthew could tell, might live in a beautiful place, but they were poor. Like the dogs, the family had been wary. He’d had no real idea of what Jonathan’s parents made of him.

On the way back to Barnstaple, where Matthew would pack his bag before returning to Bristol, Jonathan had pulled into a layby near a little stone bridge. It was at the edge of the moor where the landscape became gentler. They’d got out and stared into the water. The trees on either side were changing colour and were reflected in the stream.

‘What did you make of them?’

Matthew hadn’t known what to say.

‘They’re not my parents. Not really.’ This wasn’t the confident Jonathan. The hand on the stone parapet was shaking. ‘I’m adopted. They didn’t tell me, though. I found out by chance when I was sixteen.’

‘That’s why you left home?’

Jonathan had paused for a moment. ‘Among other things. I got angry. A bit wild. Got thrown out of school.’ He’d been looking out at the hills, but turned back to Matthew. ‘Will you marry me?’

It had been the last thing Matthew had been expecting and it had taken him a while to realize this wasn’t a joke. Even then it had occurred to him that Jonathan wanted a father as much as a husband – although there wasn’t so much difference in their ages – but he hadn’t cared. He’d have agreed whatever the terms.

‘Yes!’ He’d shouted it so loud that they’d have heard it back at the farm, so loud that they were both shocked by the sound. He was, by nature, a quiet man. ‘Of course I will.’

The next day he’d asked for a transfer to the Devon force. Miraculously there was a vacancy and they were desperate for someone to start quickly. The following weekend, they’d gone to look at the house by the estuary, and they’d bought it, despite the danger of flooding. Matthew, so cautious and risk-averse, had decided it was time to be reckless.

* * *

Now they were in the Woodyard garden, eating lunch. It was odd to be here in his