Five Winters(76)

When he knocked ten minutes or so later to tell me he’d finished, I grabbed some towels to cover the wet patch on the sofa until I could clean it properly.

Buddy was still asleep, oblivious to the drama he’d caused. There was no sign of Mark. His coat had gone. Had he left while I was collecting the towels? Then I saw him through the french doors, outside on the patio, so I got my own coat and went out to join him.

“Just needed a bit of air,” he said.

I nodded, folding my arms around my body to keep warm, looking up into the bare branches of the plane tree.

“Remember those baby owls in the trees in the back garden when we were kids?” Mark said suddenly.

I did. Mark had seen them from his bedroom window and had come down to get a better view from the garden. I’d been the only one around to share his excitement. Sylvia, Richard, and Rosie had all been out for the evening—Sylvia and Richard for a meal, Rosie at the cinema with her boyfriend at the time.

“They were so soft looking, weren’t they? So . . .”

“Snuggly?”

He smiled. “Yes.”

We stood side by side, watching and listening, but there were no owls today, baby or otherwise. Just a dog barking somewhere and the sound of an occasional car passing in the street.

When Mark began to talk, it was almost as if he were speaking to himself, trying to work things out in his mind.

“Grace was just so beautiful. So perfect. She knocked me off my feet when we met, you know? But it wasn’t just her looks. I loved her self-confidence, the way she knew exactly what she wanted.”

“And what she wanted was you?”

“Yes, at the time. It was dazzling. We were both dazzled, I think. But it didn’t last. God, even on our honeymoon, if I’d bothered to look, things weren’t right. She didn’t want to go to the Eiffel Tower, can you believe that? Insisted we go to see the architecture in the financial district instead. I mean, sure, it was impressive. But better than the Eiffel Tower? I don’t think so. Even then, that early on, I was giving way to what she wanted, letting what I wanted slide.”

I wondered if really, Buddy—poor little Buddy—had been an act of rebellion. A way of Mark asserting, Here, this is me. This is something I want. Time for you to compromise and give way to me for a change.

“You know, at his age, Buddy would soon be snapped up from a rescue centre. You wouldn’t need to worry about him finding a good home.”

“What? So I could go back and carry on as before?”

“Does it have to be like before? Couldn’t you go to couples therapy or something?”

He sighed. “I doubt Grace would. Why would she, when she thinks she’s perfect and everything that’s wrong is all my fault?”

He had a point.

“I’m not sure love can be trusted anyway. Well, not love, but the whole being-in-love thing. Not if it means you can’t really see a person. Because you need to be able to really see a person, don’t you? To judge whether you’ve got a good future together or not?”

I looked at him. Saw a grown-up version of the boy I’d first met at the age of four. Even the way he was plucking restlessly at his jumper with his fingers made me think of a mealtime when he hadn’t wanted to eat something—I forgot what, but I did vividly remember the way his bottom lip had stuck out and his fingers had plucked at his T-shirt.

“Maybe people in successful relationships love each other warts and all,” I suggested.

“Or maybe they don’t have warts.”

“Everyone has warts. Metaphorical ones, at least.”

“Doctor, doctor,” he joked. “I’ve got metaphorical warts.”

I wanted to be able to think of a clever punch line to create a moment of light relief, but nothing came to mind. Instead, I just started shivering, because it was seriously cold out there, and the cold had got through my coat.

“Come on,” Mark said. “Let’s go back inside. I don’t want your catching pneumonia to be on my conscience along with everything else.”

Inside, I laid the towels on the sofa so we could sit down. Buddy was still fast asleep in one corner of the room—a tiny, tucked-up ball of fluff.

Mark poured more wine. “No, much better to accept it’s over, I think. Even if I went back, I’d never be able to forget the way she looked at Buddy. She recoiled, Beth. From a puppy.”

Since this was also incomprehensible to me, I didn’t know what to say. So I just said, “D’you want a cup of coffee? I’m going to make one for myself.”

“Let me make you one. It’s only fair, since you did all the cooking.”

“It is very hard working, zapping things,” I agreed.

Mark smiled. “You always have managed to cheer me up,” he said, reaching out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “How do you do that?”

My mouth was suddenly dry. When I tried to speak, no sound came out until I cleared my throat. “We’ve . . . just known each other for a long time, that’s all.”

Mark’s hand was stroking its way down my neck now. He had never, ever touched me in that intimate way before. And he hadn’t looked at my mouth like that before either—in the sexually charged way Jake had looked at it when we’d run into each other in the street.