The Things I Know(43)

‘It is to me. And it should be to you.’ He gazed deep into her eyes, as if thinking about what else he wanted to say, his parting words. He thumbed the skin on the back of her hands. ‘I feel sick, sick and sad. I can’t help it. I want more of you, Thomasina, more time, more sex, more everything. You are amazing,’ he whispered now, leaning forward to kiss her again on the mouth and run his fingers through her long hair. ‘I can’t think that I won’t see you again.’

‘Well, you must. It’s for the best – like you said, it’s not straightforward. It’s life, it’s geography and circumstance . . .’ she paraphrased.

‘Goodbye, Thom.’ He let go of her hands and walked slowly back towards the farmhouse, where he would gather his bag and climb into a wretched taxi that would carry him away from their fairy tale.

‘Goodbye, Gray,’ she whispered into the ether, as the chickens clucked and the cattle lowed, as if they too sensed a shift in the air, picking up on the fact that, suddenly, all was not right in their world.

I know I have a pain in my chest and my heart.

I know I feel a little lost.

I now know that the phrase I have heard since my childhood is a big fat lie.

I know it is not better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, because I now know what I’m missing and what I’m missing is Grayson Potts.





EIGHT

Grayson Potts left, and Hitch felt down in the days following. But this was different from her usual lows – she felt sadder and more lonely than before she ever knew of his existence. Changing the bed linen now in readiness for a new guest, she slowly ran her fingers over the pillow on which he had laid his clever head and pictured him swiping his long fringe with his finger and tucking it behind his ear.

‘I’ve written my address on a piece of paper and left it by the side of the bed.’ She practised her cockney accent. ‘If you need anything, if you want to come and visit or if you’re ever passing . . . as if I’d ever be passing! What d’you think, Grayson, that I just click my heels and, hey presto?’ She shook her head.

‘Who are you talking to, darlin’?’ Her mum’s voice took her by surprise.

‘Myself,’ she admitted.

Her mum stared at her from the doorway with her hands on her hips and a duster in her hand. ‘You do that a lot, my love.’ Her tone was at best accusatory, at worst suspicious, undercut with a cloying note of pity that made Hitch want to scream.

‘I do.’ She laughed. ‘I have no one else to talk to.’

‘You have me and your dad and Emery.’

Hitch rolled her eyes. ‘As if I’d want to talk to Emery about anything, and you and Dad are too busy to talk about anything that matters . . .’ She let this trail.

‘What is it you want to talk about that matters?’

‘Lots of things!’ she fired.

‘Like what?’ Her mum looked a little perplexed.

‘Well, I don’t know!’ she shouted. Her mum again stared at her with a quizzical lift to her eyebrow.

‘Is this about that young man who stayed?’

‘Partly.’

And partly because I want to make plans and I don’t know where to start, and partly because I have big ideas. I want to travel, but if I stay here, I can’t earn enough money to make any changes. And partly because I’m done with it all!

‘For the love of God, Hitch, you only knew him for five minutes! He probably does it all over the country: goes and stays somewhere, chats up the ladies, and then on to the next! And I’m not saying you shouldn’t have fun – I think you should – but you can’t put any stock in it.’

‘I don’t think he’s like that, Mum.’ She pictured his earnest expression, his lack of guile, his unsuitable footwear and the sight of him bending low, trying to make friends with Daphne. ‘Not him. He was different.’

‘Well, if you say so, and when you figure out what it is you want to talk about that’s so important, come and find me. Everything is going to be okay, I promise.’

She smiled at her mum’s sweet, if irritating, cliché and would have found this invitation to confide in her heartening, were it not for the slow shake of her mum’s head that again suggested her exasperation.

Hitch flopped down on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

‘I liked you being here, Grayson.’ She reached for the square of paper in her jeans pocket with his address on it, signed with a single kiss. ‘I liked being near you and I liked talking to you,’ she whispered into the atmosphere.

‘Hitch?’ her mum shouted from the bottom of the stairs.

‘What?’ She sighed, closing her eyes and wishing she could take a few more minutes to reflect on the man she missed and the exquisite feeling of his mouth on hers . . .

‘There’s something up with the chickens.’

She jumped up from the bed as if scalded and raced down the narrow staircase. She might lack the energy and enthusiasm for much else, but where her girls were concerned, she had rocket fuel in her feet and a devotion that was sky-high.

‘What’s up with them?’ she asked, a little breathless, as she fastened her fleece jacket. Her mind ran riot with all the possibilities – another raid by a fox, sickness or escapees.