One Small Act of Kindness

  ‘No!’ She swatted him playfully. ‘For showing us that romance doesn’t have to stop once you’re married.’

  Jason caught her hand and kissed the tender inside of her wrist. ‘I can show you that.’

  ‘We should go home,’ she said suddenly. ‘Or not home.’

  Libby glanced outside. It was still quite light, at ten past nine, and a warm evening. The High Street wasn’t exactly Piccadilly Circus, but it wasn’t quite as dead as she’d expected it would be. A Friday-night bonhomie seemed to have spread over Longhampton – although she was prepared to accept that could have been the wine.

  ‘That bandstand in the park,’ she said suddenly. ‘Have you been back, since you were a teenager?’

  ‘I can’t think what you mean,’ said Jason, with a straight face. ‘I never went to the bandstand. That’d be my brother you’re thinking of.’

  ‘Never too late to be a rebel,’ said Libby. ‘Shall we get the bill?’

  Jason didn’t need to be asked twice. He signalled for the nearest waiter, making a scribbling sign in the air. So many dinners, thought Libby, remembering how many times she’d seen him make that gesture. So many drinks, so many taxis home – Jason had always wanted to treat her, look after her.

  It must hurt him, she realised, not being able to do that. When the numbers weren’t doing what he wanted them to anymore, and she didn’t trust him to try.

  She felt a vibration in her handbag and looked down. ‘I’ve got a call,’ she said, ‘from the hotel. Take it?’

  ‘Better had.’ Jason sighed. ‘Probably Mum trying to change the Sky to John Nettles Gold and getting stuck on DIY SOS by mistake.’

  ‘Hello?’ Libby pressed the phone to her ear. The restaurant had filled up since they’d arrived and it was quite hard to hear.

  ‘Libby? It’s Alice.’

  Alice, Libby mouthed at Jason.

  He grinned and ran his foot up the side of her calf.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you on your night out,’ Alice went on, ‘but I thought I should let you know . . . Gethin just called. He’s on his way over.’

  ‘Gethin rang? Oh my God! Alice! Do you want us to come back?’ She widened her eyes at Jason to convey the exciting news. Thoughts of the bandstand slipped from her mind, to be replaced with the mysterious Gethin.

  Libby had wondered a lot about who would come for Alice. Tall? Dark? Blond? Chiselled and moody, like Luke? No, someone reliable, a teacher, or a farmer . . .

  ‘Um, no . . . No, you don’t have to come back. I just thought I’d let you know, in case . . .’ Alice sounded anxious.

  ‘We’ll come back,’ said Libby. ‘See you soon. No, it’s no bother. Bye-bye!’ She hung up. ‘Gethin’s just called. He’s on his way to the hotel.’

  There was a moment’s hesitation.

  ‘What happened to the bandstand?’ asked Jason.

  ‘Well, what if there’s a scene?’ Libby’s imagination was whirling. ‘What if she doesn’t recognise him? What if—’

  ‘Admit it – you’re just curious,’ said Jason. ‘That’s fine. That’s the Libby I married.’ The corner of his mouth twitched. ‘I’ve got to admit I’m kind of curious too. Let’s get a cab.’

  Libby smiled. Gethin had come back. She and Jason had survived their worst year. There were happy endings in Longhampton.

  Margaret was right. It was all going to be fine.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It had all happened very quickly, and then, when it was over, Alice sat stunned, struggling to separate what she felt from what she knew. Before the accident, she’d never realised they were two different things.

  She had spent the evening behind the reception desk, turning the old guestbook into a database for Libby. Excel spreadsheets had obviously been a big part of her temping life because the rhythms of clicking and typing had come back to her fingers quickly. She’d enjoyed inputting the data, watching it stack up and knit together to form patterns and trends.

  Which counties had the most guests. What the most popular surname was. Who’d stayed the most often. Who were the oldest and youngest guests. Who’d come back with different partners. Alice’s brain was hungry for information and liked the feeling of making a contribution to the ordering of the hotel. She clicked ‘save’ often.

  The phone hadn’t rung all night, and she’d almost forgotten it was there when it suddenly pealed out. Alice was in the middle of deciphering a scrawly guest information card and reached out with her right hand, without looking.

  ‘Good evening. The Swan Hotel, Longhampton. How may I help you?’

  ‘Is this . . . ? Alice, is that you?’

  The voice was quiet, soft. Welsh.

  Alice froze. It was him. Gethin. But was that a memory, or because she knew he was going to call, and she knew he would be Welsh? The dark cloud in her head expanded again, blotting out all the details she wanted to grasp.

  ‘Hello?’ he repeated, less certainly.

  ‘This is Alice.’ Her mouth was dry. ‘Is that Gethin?’

  ‘Yes! Alice. Oh my goodness, Alice, what a relief!’ He sounded emotional. ‘I’ve just this second walked in and found your note on the mat. I can’t . . . I can’t understand what’s happened. What are you doing in a hotel? Where are your keys? Why didn’t you come home?’

  Do I know that voice? Alice felt as if she were floating above herself, trying to analyse every detail of her reaction. She’d almost stopped wondering when Gethin was going to call and this had caught her unprepared.

  ‘I’m coming over right now,’ he went on. ‘I’ll be with you as soon as I can. Do you need anything? Do you want me to bring some of your things?’

  ‘No, I’m fine.’ My boyfriend’s coming to get me, Alice told herself. He sounds upset and worried and confused. She felt like grabbing her unresponsive heart and shaking it, but it wouldn’t do anything.

  Maybe it was the medication. Mr Reynolds had told her it took a while to get prescription drugs out of your system. It had only been three weeks, after all.

  ‘You stay right there,’ Gethin said, as if she were calling from the edge of a cliff. ‘And don’t you worry, Bunny – I’m on my way.’

  He’d hung up.

  Bunny. Alice had stared at the phone in her hand for a few long seconds. Her legs felt twitchy even though she was sitting down, as if they wanted to get up and run and run and run.

  This is where my life restarts. Like the ‘play’ button’s been pressed again.

  Then, with shaking hands, she’d phoned Libby.

  When Libby and Jason pulled up fifteen minutes later in a taxi, Alice thought Gethin had somehow managed to get there even faster than she’d thought and at last a swarm of butterflies surged up through her chest.

  But it was Libby in her red date-night dress who came hurrying in, high heels scuffing on the tartan carpet. She hadn’t even had time to put on her jacket; it was flung over one arm, along with her little evening bag. Her face was flushed with excitement, and her lipstick was smeared where she’d reapplied it in the back of the cab.

  Alice noticed the tiny new diamonds in her ears. They were sparkling almost as brightly as Libby’s eyes.

  ‘Is he here yet?’ she demanded breathlessly, scanning the reception.

  ‘No, not yet.’

  Jason hadn’t followed her in – he poked his head round the front door. ‘Lib, have you got some money for the taxi?’

  ‘What?’ Libby frowned, then popped open her bag with some difficulty. Alice could see she was a bit worse for wear. It was quite endearing to see Libby trying to pretend not to be drunk.

  ‘Petty cash,’ she said, and opened the drawer with the cash box in it and handed Libby a twenty-pound note. ‘Give me the receipt. You were hurrying back for hotel business.’

  ‘You so have a job here.’ Libby pointed at her, a little wobbl
y, and swayed back to give Jason the money.

  Alice took a deep breath and poured herself a glass of water from the cooler. Libby came back in with Jason and the three of them stood awkwardly round the check-in desk. The longcase clock ticked underneath its dust sheet.

  ‘So . . .’ said Jason after a few moments. ‘Have I got time to go upstairs and change? What time did he ring?’

  ‘About twenty minutes ago?’

  ‘Oh, we’ve ages yet.’ He loosened his tie and undid his top button. ‘He’s got to get here from Stratton. I’m going to change.’

  ‘Do you have to?’ Libby looked disappointed. ‘You look so nice in that suit.’ She stroked his arm. ‘You can take the jacket off if you want. Roll up your sleeves . . .’

  ‘You do look smart,’ said Alice. ‘Both of you.’ There was a different sheen to them tonight, a breath of urban confidence that made them unfamiliar. It wrong-footed her somehow.

  ‘It’s Friday night,’ protested Jason.

  ‘I know. That’s what I meeeeean.’ Libby slid her arms round his waist from behind and murmured into his ear. ‘Keep the lovely suit on.’

  Alice hadn’t seen Libby so playful before. Her sleeveless low-cut dress was showing off a lot more of her soft skin than normal, and her usual sensible manner had been replaced with a rather charming kittenishness. Charming because it was quite unexpected. Alice realised she wouldn’t have linked this Libby with the Libby making lists for the builders and worrying what she’d forgotten.

  Jason laughed and kissed her. He seemed different too, Alice thought. Was this how they’d been in London? ‘And I thought it was me you fancied, not my tailor.’ He peeled her arms away. ‘I won’t be a minute. I’ll let Mum know what’s going on – I’m sure she’ll want to say hello too.’

  When he’d gone, despite Libby’s complaints, she sank down behind the desk in the chair next to Alice and sighed contentedly.

  ‘Nice evening?’

  ‘Very.’ Libby leaned back and surveyed the reception, smiling at something in her head. Then she turned to Alice, all eagerness. ‘So, did it all rush back? When you heard his voice?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Oh. Oh well, maybe when you see him. I wonder what he looks like.’ Libby swung on her chair. ‘I see you with someone . . . quite tall. Dark. With glasses. Sensitive but strong.’

  ‘Clark Kent.’

  ‘No! A nice, normal guy.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s all that helpful, actually, trying to work out what he’ll be like. What if I imagine something he’s not? I don’t want to be disappointed.’

  Libby turned a soulful gaze on her. Her eyeliner was flicked at the edges, proper cat’s-eye flicks. She’d obviously taken a lot of time over her appearance this evening. ‘Did he sound like he missed you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then that’s all that matters.’

  Alice couldn’t disagree with that.

  A few minutes later, Jason came back down. He looked more casual in jeans and a blue shirt, but the air of difference still hung around him, like an Instagram filter. Looser, more intensely coloured.

  It was the connection with Libby, Alice realised, watching him trail his fingers across her shoulders as he passed. It made them both more vivid. Love. Love did that. When it worked.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that, Lib. I put on the jeans you like,’ he protested, and they exchanged a private glance that made Alice get up and switch the coffee machine on in the office.

  They were still sitting behind the check-in desk, not saying much, when car headlights turned into the drive.

  ‘That’s him,’ said Libby unnecessarily.

  Alice got up, then sat down again. Her knees felt watery. Did she have time to go to the loo? Did she need to? Did she want to be sitting down or standing up?

  Libby reached across and put a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘Calm.’

  Jason sprang to his feet. ‘One of us should get up or he’ll think he’s walked into an X Factor audition.’ He cleared his throat and headed for the door.

  Libby reached across and grabbed her hand. Alice’s pulse raced. It seemed like an eternity between the sound of the engine stopping, the door shutting, the crunch of feet on gravel and then the front door opening. She got to her feet, her head feeling as if it was only barely connected to her body, and heard Jason’s voice, jolly and welcoming.

  ‘Hello, Gethin? Pleased to meet you. I’m Jason Corcoran. Come in, come in . . .’

  And then he was there. Gethin. Her boyfriend. Standing next to the cabinet full of local jams and corn dollies, looking for her.

  Alice’s eyes, sharpened for detail over the past weeks, swept over him. Was he what she’d been expecting? Gethin was shorter than Jason, and stockier, with thick brown hair that curled over his ears and down into his big, puppyish brown eyes. He had an expressive face, clouded with concern until he saw Alice – at which point, a smile spread across it, like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. Small white teeth, nice mouth. Handsome. Gentle.

  He looks like a nice guy, but I don’t know him, thought Alice, and an icy trickle of fear ran down her back. If her memory didn’t reboot when her boyfriend of over a year walked in, would it ever? But he knew her. And he looked so relieved and happy to see her that she persuaded herself that this was the next best thing. He’d mirror back who she was.

  ‘Alice!’ His smile was so delighted she felt her mouth smiling back automatically. ‘Come here!’

  He held out his hands and she walked towards him and he threw his arms around her in a bear hug. Over his shoulder, she could see Jason exchanging a soppy look with Libby. Gethin wore a white polo shirt, and black-and-white trainers, and he smelled of clean clothes and coffee, she noted. He had one hole in his earlobe but no earring.

  ‘I’ve been so worried,’ he said, with an extra squeeze.

  She winced in pain. ‘Careful! My ribs!’

  ‘Oh no! I’m sorry, Bunny!’ He sprang away from her as if she were on fire. ‘What happened? God, sorry, sorry. What else is sore?’

  ‘Just the ribs. I cracked them. On the wing mirror of the car, they think,’ she added automatically.

  ‘The wing mirror . . . Oh my God, what happened? You said you’d been in an accident – was it a car accident?’ He looked horrified.

  ‘You’ve got a lot to catch up on,’ said Libby, and Alice felt relieved it was Familiar Libby back again, taking control of the situation, herding everyone where they needed to go. ‘Let’s go and have a cup of tea upstairs.’

  Even as everyone was fussing and flapping about her, Alice still felt as if she were hovering over the situation. It would have been more appropriate for them to have gathered in the drawing room for the big denouement, she thought, rather than round the kitchen table, where Margaret was now dispensing sweet tea and gasps of amazement.

  She’d clearly decided that she approved of Gethin – he called her ‘Mrs Corcoran’ and had shaken her hand – and so started running through some of the ‘lovely’ Welsh regulars, on the basis that Gethin might know them. It was to his credit, Alice thought, that he politely considered the possibilities before admitting that he didn’t.

  ‘. . . Now, the Pritchards, I think they were from Llangollen,’ said Margaret with a Welsh gargling noise.

  ‘Very good accent,’ said Gethin, and sipped his tea, casting a glance across the table at Alice as he did. His eyes twinkled as if he couldn’t quite contain his relief to see her, and she smiled back, adding ‘sense of humour’ and ‘nice to mothers’ to the list forming in her mind. It was a habit she couldn’t break, listing. Giving herself something to refer back to.

  She ran through the story of her accident as undramatically as she could, now with the added detail that the police weren’t pursuing either driver, as she seemed to have caused the acc
ident and couldn’t remember how it happened in any case.

  ‘It’s for the best,’ Margaret agreed. ‘Move on.’

  ‘But you could have been killed!’ Gethin’s big eyes were wide with horror.

  Alice had a funny déjà-vu moment that she thought was a memory until she realised that was what Luke had said. When they’d been walking down the hill last weekend. His brooding sideways glance flashed in her mind and she blinked it away, focusing on Gethin instead.

  It was funny that he called her ‘Bunny’, she thought, when he was the one who looked like a rabbit: all eyes, and soft brown hair, and smooth skin. But handsome with it. There was strength in his arms, and legs.

  ‘But I wasn’t killed,’ she said. ‘Or even seriously hurt. I just don’t have any memory of the past year or so.’

  ‘So you don’t remember me?’ He raised his eyebrows up into his thick fringe, obviously hoping she would say, ‘Of course I do!’

  Alice hesitated. How could she lie? Even if she wanted to, Libby and Jason would know. Awkwardly, she shook her head and this time saw him flinch. She felt awful.

  She grabbed at the feeling. That must tell me something, she thought. That there’s a connection, the remnants of something like Libby and Jason’s glow.

  Libby leaped into the gap. ‘I’m sure it’s all in there,’ she said. ‘Quite a lot came back just last weekend, didn’t it? You never know, once you get home and put your own clothes on, settle in your own place . . .’

  Gethin seemed stunned, then smiled bravely. ‘Of course.’

  I live with this man, thought Alice. The terrible feeling increased. I sleep with him. We’ve seen each other naked; we’ve told each other secrets; we’ve cried and laughed and touched and tasted each other . . .

  Nothing.

  ‘So, if it’s not too nosy of me, how did you two meet?’ asked Margaret.

  ‘Oh, it’s . . .’ Gethin glanced across at Alice. ‘I don’t know if I should say, if you don’t remember . . .’

  ‘Go ahead,’ she said. ‘Unless it was at some dodgy fetish club or something?’

  Margaret spluttered on her tea, and Gethin suppressed a smile.