said, once the gate noises had died away. ‘It’s not fair otherwise.’
‘What?’ I jumped to my feet, almost unaware of the action until I felt the van sway.
Mary wasn’t looking at me, she was gazing towards the stove, where the fire burned low. ‘He’s halfway to falling in love with you and I think you know that.’
‘I know no such thing!’ I grabbed the edge of the table. ‘We’re just – we just…’ I tailed off, unable to finish the sentence.
‘Don’t you be disingenuous with me, madam. You know perfectly well what he’s doing with all that “sewing isn’t very macho” thing; he’s checking up to see what you think about it. And you’re giving it the “fashion designers are men”.’ She put on a high-pitched voice for that, which I assumed was supposed to be me. ‘You like him back. So, he needs to know.’
‘Do I? Like him back?’ I stared at the door Gabriel had recently gone out of, almost as though I could see his image embossed on it. Tall, dark and handsome. Of course.
‘Your pupils go so big you look like you’ve had an eye examination whenever you talk to him, Now, sit down again, unless you’re going to fetch some more biscuits.’
I sat down on the little stool that put my chin level with the tabletop. I had the feeling that Granny Mary rather enjoyed talking down to me.
‘I met Luc when I was doing my year living in France.’ I looked at my hands in my lap so as not to see her expression. ‘We got married and had Poppy before I finished my training, and then I went into teaching.’ Now I looked up. ‘There’s never been anyone else. And I was so young…’
‘I don’t mean that, as well you know. Your inexperience with men is probably a good match with Gabe.’
I wondered if Granny Mary knew about Gabriel going out with Karen. I had the feeling that ‘inexperience’ and ‘Karen’ did not go together.
‘He needs to know about you being Katherine Bryant.’
Now I looked up. ‘No.’
‘You can’t base a relationship on lying by omission, Katie.’ Her voice was much more gentle now, the voice I’d heard her using to Patrick. ‘It explains so much about you. Don’t you think he deserves to know?’
‘No!’ I said again. Then, ‘It’s not that he doesn’t deserve to know. It’s just that that part of my life is nothing to do with me now.’
‘If that young man falls in love with you without knowing who you really are, then it isn’t really love, is it? I bet he’s told you about himself, about how it’s been, with the blindness maybe coming on and all.’
I thought about the other things Gabriel had told me. About the bullying, the hiding from school, dropping out of the swimming team. He’d wanted me to know him, warts and all. While I was still hiding behind being Katie Gerauld, divorced wife and mother. ‘Yes, he has,’ I said quietly.
‘Well, then. Even if you think it’s not who you are now, it explains a lot about the way you are, especially with your daughter. If he knows about your past, it stops you looking quite so bonkers in the present, don’t you think?’
Mary stood up and slowly began gathering the mugs from the table, putting them into a little plastic bowl on the side.
I took a deep breath. ‘So what about you, then, Mary? What’s your story?’
‘Deflection won’t get you anywhere, Katie.’ She still spoke gently. ‘But, since you asked… I worked too hard. Top-flight microbiology. We did a lot of good, but – well, it doesn’t come with much of a social life. I always promised myself, when I retired I’d buy a little caravan and do some travelling and, here we are.’ She rinsed the mugs and set them to drain on the shelf above the fire, with her back to me. ‘I sold a very nice house in Bracknell, as it happens, to buy Patrick and the van and keep us on the road. Not such a bad life.’ She sniffed and then said again, more dreamily, ‘Yes. Not such a bad life.’
Then that bright blue stare switched back on and laser-sliced its way around the van until it came to rest on me again. ‘You tell him, girl.’
‘Or what?’ I felt a bit stronger now, almost as though having that little glimpse into her world had given me another perspective. ‘Or you will?’
‘Oh, no.’ She wiped both hands