‘Gracious, Kate, you look glorious!’ Mum observes. It’s not like her. ‘What’s changed?’
I’m on holiday? It’s warm? New dress? Massive emotional meltdown?
‘How are you, Mum?’
Now Justin’s told me the truth about Mum’s struggle, it’s easier to spot the cracks in her fa?ade. Practised happy face, hyper-efficiency, quick turnaround when the conversation sneaks in her direction.
‘Oh, I’m having a wonderful time! Charlie is divine when I have him all to himself. How’s Hugh?’
‘He’s fine.’ Although I’m not sure that’s strictly true either. He’s on a beach walk now, but he’s been quiet since the op shop. That’s the thing with Hugh. He’s generous with everything but his own story. Maybe this is just what he does after work. Goes for walks. Who knows? He’s a closed book.
‘What happened to that man?’ Mum asks. It’s an odd question.
‘What do you mean?’
‘The obvious question, Kate!’ she says. ‘Who broke him?’
Broke him? I didn’t know this was a question that needed answering, or why even the thought of it fans a flame within me that I hadn’t realised was even smouldering. Hugh Lancaster could be commander-in-chief of the enduringly unattached. Surely it’s him doing the heart breaking. And even if he does have relationships, they’re never significant enough to mention at work, not even Yum Cha Ruby, who he kept seeing for months.
Which is when it hits me. Maybe it’s not his relationships that are never significant enough. Maybe it’s us. The team of people at work. Me, Sophie, the finance and comms people and those who work on raising funds for specific areas of the university, here and overseas – all of whom he regards well professionally, there’s no doubt. Hugh might be in my inner circle, I realise now, but I am not necessarily in his. I’m not cleared for this highly sensitive material. The details of Hugh Lancaster’s love life exist on a need-to-know basis, and his colleagues do not have that level of approval.
I do have a want-to-know, though. A really-want-to-know.
‘Oh, I don’t know, Mum. He never talks about that stuff,’ I finally say.
‘Broken men play their cards close to their chests,’ Mum explains, playing fast and loose with stereotypes as usual.
She needs to stop talking about him being broken. I simply cannot have that.
‘But if you can push through that wall, a man like Hugh will give you everything.’
That’s fine, but I don’t want Hugh’s everything.
‘I’m not the woman for that job,’ I argue. ‘We just work together, Mum. Remember?’
She finds this hilarious, apparently. ‘Just colleagues? You can’t be serious! He was Cam’s close friend. Charlie calls him Uncle. You tried to matchmake him with your best friend. Even I’ve got him in my phone contacts. This is not a normal professional dynamic, Katherine. There are only so many ways you can try to insert the poor man into our family and you’ve exhausted nearly all of them.’
That’s not what I’ve been trying to do. Is it? I start to feel woozy. Must be from the sleep deprivation. Or maybe from rocking in the hammock. I stop that at once and sit upright.
‘When Grace said you’d want to go to the writers festival, I told her you’ll never make that leap. Becoming a successful writer would involve giving up the day job. Which would sever the connection you and Hugh Lancaster have developed over the last four years.’
I plant my feet more firmly on the deck. ‘Mum! Stop! You’ve been watching way too much Dr Phil. The reason I’m not a writer has nothing to do with the threat of losing Hugh.’ Surely I’m not that messed up? ‘It’s because I’m fecking terrified!’
It comes out fast and forthright and chased by hot tears of frustration. At myself.
Even Mum is temporarily silenced by this volcanic admission. She’s also unimpressed by the language and would usually tell me to have some decorum, Katherine, but manages to hold her tongue.
I think of the hundreds of episodes on the writers’ podcast. Hundreds of other authors who were no doubt equally scared to put themselves out there and risk being shot down in the flames of criticism and rejection. But they put themselves out there anyway, didn’t they? That’s the difference between them and me.
‘Kate, your husband died at thirty-eight,’ Mum says, as if I need reminding of that fact. ‘If that isn’t enough to clarify the consequences of not taking these chances while you can, nothing will be.’
Are we still talking about the writing? It’s hard to argue with her logic, anyway. At least on this one point.
‘Well! Enough chitchat. Must sort out Charlie’s dinner and catch up on Grand Designs. Oh, that Kevin McCloud. Utterly dreamy man.’ She ends the call abruptly on that note and leaves me stunned. I feel like I’ve been involved in a hit and run.
The point about not taking chances while I can is irrefutable. But the part about letting my day job – and Hugh – stand between me and the only true career dream I’ve ever held couldn’t possibly be right. Why would anyone willingly place themselves in such a self-limiting situation?
And if it was true, the only sensible path would be to resign, surely. And work somewhere where I’m far less . . . entrenched, while I really throw myself at my book. Perhaps then I could shift gear with Hugh so it’s more of a run-of-the-mill, out-of-work-hours friendship. If he’d even want that?
But even thinking about resigning makes me feel shaky. And maybe that makes Mum’s point too.
Then I watch as Hugh’s tall frame and familiar gait trudges towards the house over the path from the sandhills in the twilight. Dark hair, brooding expression – all very Matthew Macfadyen traipsing towards Keira Knightley over the moors at the end of Pride and Prejudice.
And something unfamiliar clenches in my stomach.
‘Hey,’ he says, stopping about three steps before the staircase meets the balcony, while I lean on the railing with lashings of trepidation.
It’s a level of informality to which the two of us are not accustomed. He never says ‘Hey’。 It would normally be ‘Hello’ or ‘Hi’ or ‘Evening, Kate.’
It catches me off guard, as do the grains of sand caught in the stubble on his chin. I fight an intense desire to reach over the railing and brush the sand off his face.
As if he can read my mind, he steps back and leans against the railing behind him, folding his arms across his chest, looking up at me with those penetrating blue eyes.
‘Nice walk?’
He nods contemplatively.
‘What demons are you wrestling?’ I hear myself ask. It’s a perfectly normal conversation-starter, surely. No stranger than a lot of the other things I’ve said to him over the years.
What I specifically want to know is who broke you?
I thought he might laugh, but he doesn’t. Nor does he furnish me with a straight answer. ‘What game are we playing, here?’ he asks. ‘Truth or dare?’
At the very idea of that, and before I can stop it, I find myself taking in the full length of him. Sandy feet. Long limbs. Athletic torso, up through that dark stubble and back to those blue eyes, now with an amused twinkle I don’t see nearly often enough.