The First Time I Saw Your Face (46 page)

He tried to grab hold of one of her hands, but she pulled away.

‘Jen, tell me what to do to make you believe that I love you and that I’ll never, ever give you any reason to distrust me again.’

‘There’s nothing,’ she said brutally. ‘I can’t love you. I loved the other you. I’m sorry.’

She was so calm and so cold it chilled him. He’d done
this to her, toughened her up, and now it was coming back to haunt him. He went to speak again and she cut him off.

‘It’s pointless arguing. Your mother hasn’t swayed me; Cress hasn’t swayed me. You were so cunning, employed so much guile, I can only believe it’s part of your character. Who knows when it will come out again?’ She got up. ‘This is it. End of the road.’ He felt the lightest of touches on his shoulder before she was gone.

He remained on the seat until the sound of the abbey clock striking the hour roused him. Standing up slowly, he looked around and then walked out of the park and drove back to Doug’s. The house was empty and the forge cold, but the thing Doug had made for him was lying on the table, a note on top of it:

Here you go. Not very happy with the colour of the barley – what do you think? Can have another go tomorrow if you like. Staying at Pat’s tonight.

Mack still had some brown paper left in his room, and when he’d finished using it, he packed his bag and wrote Doug a few words on the reverse of the note and a stupidly large cheque. He looked at his watch. He had a few hours while Jen was still at the library and so he piled everything into the car and drove to Brindley. Sonia looked surprised, but not angry to see him.

‘Just the card, is it?’ she asked. He didn’t answer as he
gave her the money and knew she was still watching him as he sat in the car and got out a pen.

The package was heavy, but he parked at the fork in the track and carried it all the way to the farmhouse, not wanting to alert anyone that he was there. It was warm today, the light on the fields seeming harsh and so different to when he had first come here.

Laying the parcel down gently on the doorstep, he placed the card on top and then drove away, looking only at the track and nowhere else.

‘Jen, I can’t stop long, atmosphere on set is manic after all the time we’ve already lost, but I need you to ring me back. I’m concerned about you. I’ve been trying to get you all week, Jen. You’re doing it again … avoiding me. Leaving messages on my voicemail doesn’t count as talking to me. I know you’re pissed off with me about all those things I said, but this isn’t fair, Jen. I had to say them. I had to be honest with you about Mack. We’ve always been honest with each other. Jen. Talk. To. Me. Oh, bugger.’

‘OK, Jen. Part Two, I’ll talk quickly or the bloody thing will cut me off again. That message you left yesterday and the one you left the day before – they didn’t sound like you. You sound, well, like you’re on medication or something. Jen, sweetie, please, this is torture. Look, don’t get cross but I’ve had a talk with Auntie Bren. She’s worried too. Jen? Are you there? I’m in Make-up. Please ring back. Pretty please.’

Jen looked at the phone, ran her finger over the dent in it where it had hit the fence, and then returned
it to the glove compartment and drove home.

‘You’re all bloody worried about me. All the time. Poor broken Jen.’

It was all right for Cress, her life was like a film, full of living-happily-ever-after. Real life was a little tougher than that.

Nobody had given her a second chance, asked her if she’d like her face back, so why should she give him one?

Cress had said she would understand if she decided not to forgive Mack, so let her prove it. She’d ring her later, ask if she could go and stay for a while. Perhaps Anna Maria would show her a little of Argentina too. She wound down the window and breathed in deeply.

It had been a mistake to touch him on the shoulder just as she left, she had felt his hair brush the skin on her arm. But looking good and being good were poles apart. What use was a man who you couldn’t believe was telling you the truth, even if he was? She laughed and it felt comfortingly bitter.

Alex, who wasn’t on her wavelength; Mack, who wasn’t on her side. Perhaps the men in America would be better.

She glanced in the rear-view mirror and felt nothing when she saw her face. So, he’d been of some use, then.

In the kitchen there was a reception committee waiting, the whole family. They looked as if someone had died and she wondered whether they’d already wrapped whoever it was in the large brown-paper package on the table.

‘Sonia rang,’ Brenda said.

‘Really. What did the nosy cow want?’

She saw the shock on her father’s face and really couldn’t give a stuff.

‘Love,’ he said, ‘that’s not like you.’

‘It might be,’ she snapped, wishing he’d get off her back. ‘From now on it might be. Oh, here we go, those looks are flying back and forth again.’

She felt Danny’s arm round her shoulder. ‘Jen, Sonia rang to say she thinks Mack’s gone. He bought a card; saw him writing it in his car. And Mum found this on the doorstep.’ He nodded towards the package.

She shrugged his arm away. ‘I hope he has gone. I told him to go. He’s wasting his time up here.’

‘Jen,’ her mother said, moving towards her, ‘has something else happened today? What’s wrong?’

‘What’s wrong? What’s wrong? I’ve got a great scar on my face; I can’t be an actress, which is the only thing I’ve ever really, really wanted to be; I have to take all kinds of crap from people I don’t even know; and the person I loved, who made me feel so glad I’d survived that crash, guess what? Turns out he was a lie. Beginning to end, a great big fucking lie.’

‘Do you think we should call Dr Crawford?’ Ray said to Brenda.

Jennifer was going to make some smart-arse comment when Bryony came swiftly round the table, grabbed hold of her and shook her. ‘Open the package, open the card on top of it and stop being a ruddy drama queen. One’s enough in this family.’

‘Cress calls you the Amazon, do you know that?’ Jennifer said, right in her face.

‘Good,’ Bryony retorted, ‘that means you won’t be able to stop me if I open this for you, will you?’ Bryony let go of her, pinched the brown paper on the package and then pulled, and a huge strip of paper came away. They could all clearly see it was something Doug had made, but what it was did not become obvious until Jennifer moved Bryony aside and tore off the rest of the paper.

Brenda made a little ‘Oh’ noise when she saw the mirror but there was no sound from anyone else as they looked at Doug’s craftsmanship. Here was a twist of metal, with a delicate green gleam, looking like the tendril of a plant; there a clump of ferns fanning out across a corner. Sheaves of barley lay beside a tiny kingfisher worked into a mesh of reeds, before the countryside gave way to the delicate metallic blues and greys of the coast – to fronds of seaweed, pebbles and shells. Ray put his hand out and touched the mirrored glass near the ferns and it looked as if his fingers were about to drop into a stream. When he moved his hand to the glass next to a razor clam, it seemed as if he was dabbling in a rock pool.

Brenda handed Jennifer the envelope and she opened it, still looking at the mirror.

‘“For Jen, an ugly mirror until you look into it. Chin up, sweetheart, and break a leg”’ she read.

‘Oh God,’ Jennifer said feeling her lungs struggling to fill with air, ‘he always knew exactly what to say.’

CHAPTER 50

Mack watched the lads on the beach playing football, shouting and throwing themselves in great lunging bellyflops after the ball. Slowly, feeling his breath catch as the cold slapped at him, he walked into the sea.

He paused as he got used to the numbing sensation and then took a few more steps, aware that the water had nearly reached the bulky turn-ups he had made when he rolled up his jeans. A few more steps and the water was up to his thighs, the weight of the waterlogged material now making it harder to move his legs. The numbness was dying away, to be replaced by a sensation of intense burning, and after a few more steps he felt his whole body start to tremble. A sharper lick of pain engulfed his groin as the water reached it.

‘Offside,’ the lads were shouting, ‘off bloody side.’

He wondered how hard it would be to just keep walking, and whether the pain at the end would be greater than the pain he felt in his chest. He’d been so hopeful after Phyllida’s visit, so stupidly hopeful.

Whatever else happened in his life Jen would always be there, just offstage, as she had been that time he’d seen her sitting in the prompt light and knew he loved her.

He looked towards the skeleton of the castle. Was he saying goodbye to Northumberland forever too? He guessed he was. Ghosts everywhere now, not just on this beach.

He made a move forward, intending to turn, but stumbled as his instep connected with a sharp piece of rock. Managing to right himself, he heard one of the lads on the beach start to screech, a weird high-pitched noise as if his voice hadn’t broken yet. And then the sea around him was suddenly churning, spray splashing right up his back and he felt someone grab at him before he fell forward. He went right down, sea water in his mouth and up his nose and felt his palms connect with sand. Hands were pulling at him, and he tried to get away from them, shouting and flailing around, great waves of fear engulfing him along with the water.

It’s Alex; he’s decided to kill me.

‘Get off me, get away,’ he shouted, finally getting his feet down and staggering upright, his wet clothes trying to drag him back under. ‘It’s over for me too.’

Trying to wipe the stinging salt water from his eyes, he waited for Alex’s fist to come at him, but saw Jennifer instead, standing up in the water, gasping and pushing her streaming hair away from her face.

‘What were you doing?’ she shouted at him as she waded unsteadily towards him. She caught hold of his arm. ‘You can’t do this – your mum, Tess …’

When he didn’t answer, just stared at her like a lunatic, she shouted the question at him again, and this time he picked up on the worry underpinning the words.

‘I was just trying to feel numb,’ he said.

‘Just trying to feel numb?’ she repeated, and then gave a little laugh. ‘I thought …’ She looked out to sea and then back at him.

Some time between thinking she looked beautiful wet and wondering why she was here, he noticed she was shivering and tried to take off his jacket, but what with her hand on his arm and the way his clothes were clinging to him, he only succeeded in shrugging it off his shoulders.

‘What are you trying to do now?’ she said, watching his efforts and still holding his arm. He wanted to believe that it wasn’t just to steady herself against the swell of the waves.

‘Trying to give you my jacket, you’re cold.’

‘Oh, Mack,’ she said, ‘don’t do that, it makes no sense, no sense.’ Her anguish was unmistakable now, the hand on his arm really gripping him. ‘I’ve wanted to feel numb too, Mack. I’ve been sick to death of feeling sad and angry. I just wanted to shut down and push everyone away, you most of all. But now, the mirror … and the note …’ He didn’t know if it was the cold or her emotions making her mouth tremble and it didn’t matter: he’d caught that hint of forgiveness in her voice and was soaring into the air on it – the sun was on his back, there was a fairytale castle behind him and a beach the colour of her hair
beneath his feet and he was going to take a chance. He reached forward and took her face between his hands, feeling the smooth skin against one palm and the rough against the other, dived into the blue of her eyes and kissed her, meeting lips that tasted of salt and Jen. As her arms came up around him what was meant to be a tentative kiss bloomed into something more urgent.

They were both shivering wildly, and he revelled in the way it made her body feel against his. He hadn’t thought he was ever going to hold this wonderful, brave, sexy woman again and it made him want to fall into her like he’d fallen into the sea. Remembering the last time they had been here, he pulled away from her, and while she still looked dazed he bent down, put his arms round her hips and lifted her over his shoulder. Slowly, clumsily, he started to wade to the shore.

There were a couple of nasty moments when he nearly turfed them both back into the water, but when they got to the dry sand he lowered her down carefully and just looked at her. The drops of sea water on her eyelashes looked like tears.

‘Sebastian and Viola escaping from the sea,’ she said.

‘Hope not.’ He laughed softly. ‘I’ve never kissed my sister like this,’ and he pulled her into him again, kissing her so intently and for so long that he was aware of people slowing as they walked past, and of the lads playing football whistling and shouting.

He ignored everything but Jen, intent on showing her how much he loved and wanted her.

This time it was she who pulled away first. Her lips had a blue look about them.

‘Parts of me feel as though they are on fire,’ she said, her breath juddering, ‘but if I don’t get these wet clothes off soon I’m going to freeze.’

‘Please, please, may I be the one to peel them off for you?’ he asked, hearing the shiver running through his own words. He took her hand, intending to move towards the road and his car, but saw a movement near one of the beach huts up on the dunes.

‘Come on,’ he shouted, pulling her up the beach, but she jerked him back to retrieve her handbag, abandoned in the soft, dry sand.

‘What about your shoes and socks?’ she said as he set off again.

‘Come back for them later.’

‘But where are we going?’

‘Up here, come on.’

Making any progress over the soft sand was hard in their waterlogged clothes, but they got to the worn, wooden steps leading up into the dunes just as an elderly couple were walking slowly away from the nearest beach hut, the man carrying a large holdall, the woman with what looked like a wet swimming costume in a plastic bag swinging from her hand.

‘Excuse me,’ Mack shouted and struggled up the steps, pulling Jennifer behind him. The couple turned and it was difficult to tell if they were surprised or alarmed. Reluctantly letting go of Jennifer, Mack reached into the
inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out his sopping-wet wallet.