Water, Stone, Heart - By Will North Page 0,39
simply a section of the loft space. It was sparely furnished: a wrought-iron double bed that stood atop a multicolored rag rug; a dresser; a tall Victorian wardrobe, its door slightly ajar with an ivory silk robe hanging from the corner. A few books were stacked on a side table with a lamp. That was it: no television, no other decoration. Almost a hermit's cell. Suddenly feeling a bit like a voyeur, he went through to the bathroom and washed up.
The salad was nearly gone and they were well into the second bottle of wine when Nicola asked Andrew how long he planned to stay in Boscastle. They'd got past the basics: family, school, career—at least the parts each was willing to share.
“Just a couple of weeks. I signed on to the hedge project for a week and came a few days early to beat the jet lag. Then, I thought I'd spend a few more days poking around Cornwall before I leave.”
“Why are you really here?” Nicola asked.
He smiled. “For the salad—which was pretty terrific, by the way, despite your negative advertising.”
She made a face. “You know what I mean; why are you here, in Boscastle, three thousand miles from home … building a stone wall for God's sake.”
“Hedge,” he corrected.
“You're hedging, all right.”
Andrew ran his fingers through his hair and looked past her to the window that opened onto the lane and the river, both now in darkness. He listened to the music of the river tumbling over its rocky bed as it hurried to the harbor. Finally, he returned his gaze to Nicola. In the light of the curious collection of candles she'd set on the simple pine dining table—some short and squat, some slender and tall, all of them white—her eyes shone like freshly mined anthracite. The coppery highlights in her long, wavy brown hair flashed in the changing light of the candle flames.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time. Still does, actually.”
“Is that supposed to be an answer?”
“It's all I have; you ask as if you suspect I'm an escaped felon.”
“Are you?”
He laughed and drank some wine. “No. Though it feels that way sometimes.”
“Because you left your wife?”
He looked up at her sharply. “I didn't; she … we … separated.”
“How many years ago?”
He took a breath. “One.”
Nicola blanched. “Bloody hell. I'm so sorry; I had no idea it was that recent. What an incredibly rude question.”
“Nonsense; how could you know?”
“It's just you seem so … I don't know … calm. Under the circumstances.”
“Do I?”
“On the outside, anyway.”
“Yes, well, I suppose I do.”
“And are you?”
A surge of emotion took him by surprise, a kind of panic. The truth was, he didn't know. He looked around the room, as if the answer were hidden there—on a shelf, under a chair, on the mantel. Had he, during the course of the past year, reached a certain state of calm, of peace? Or had he simply stuffed away his anger and fear? He knew there was at least some truth to Katerina's charges. It was true, for example, that some part of him cringed at expressing strong emotion, as if it were unseemly. Or simply a sign of weakness. But he had loved Kat, and he had expressed it often, in little and big ways—in part to earn her affection, which she rationed. He also knew he was over Kat; her affair had made that easier. But the sense of failure still dogged him. Maybe his calm was just resignation, a kind of giving up.
And the funny thing was that during the last year, no one—least of all himself—had really taken the time to consider or ask how he was, how he felt, or to wait long enough for an answer. Now Nicola waited.
He brought her face back into focus and shook his head. “Probably not.”
She reached across the table and touched his hand.
“Good,” she said, smiling. “You'd be a freak if you were.”
“Thank you … I think.”
“No, really. Look, I'm not even sure why I asked; it's none of my business. But now that I have, I'll just say that I didn't tell you the whole truth when I said I couldn't be happier about my divorce. I was shattered for months—and I was the one who left! Somehow that didn't make it any easier.”
She paused and regarded him silently for a moment, her eyes soft as a doe's.
“She left you, didn't she?”
Andrew sighed. “Is my inadequacy that obvious? Yes, she left me. We didn't separate.