Helena did not speak for the entire journey to their new home. For the most part, she was pretending to be asleep, her legs tucked beneath her in the back seat of the car, blanking out her equally silent parents. She was daydreaming about Matthew�s hands on her body, the new sensations she had discovered during the night on the island, and so she did not notice the steady increase in the number of buildings, and their proximity to the road. There were no lakes or mountains here, and it hit her suddenly that they really weren�t going back.
I was overwhelmed by this feeling that something so incredibly important had happened to me; so significant, but so unfinished. Even before I started the new school, I felt different. And then, from the moment they heard my northern accent -
Which you�ve lost.
Survival. Part of my protective coating. Matthew�s forehead was crossed with deep lines, which darkened into a frown as he regarded her over the debris of their meal. That bloody boat, he said. If only I had been at home�
I guess you never learned to deal with the what-ifs, Helena said gently.You just can�t live like that, you have to put it behind you. Despite herself, she wondered what it would be like to wake up in his arms, but found it hard to imagine, because she was not in the habit of waking up in anyone�s arms; she tended to get involved with men who were unwilling, or unable, to stay the night. Under the table, her leg rested against his. Childhood sweethearts never survive university anyway, she said. Something else would have come between us sooner or later. Emma Sharkey, for instance�
He leaned forward, putting down his glass and glaring at her steadily. The main thing Emma and I had in common was that neither of us found it so easy to forget the people who had left us behind, he said, in a low growl.
I didn�t wilfully forget about you, and I didn�t move on to bigger and better things. I just couldn�t do anything about it, I couldn�t process all this new information, so in the end, I just put it away and didn�t think about it anymore.
I know, I know, I�m sorry. It�s very late, he said, standing up. I need to get back to the farm.
Helena followed him out of the dining room, feeling the wine slosh into her limbs as she moved, making her unsteady. Matthew took her arm, and all her senses breathed in the comforting roughness of his thick shirt against her face.
They stood in the darkened doorway of the hotel, just out of reach of the deceptively delicate swirl of the snowflakes, and for a long moment, neither of them spoke any words, but seemed just to read each other�s faces. Only the tips of his fingers remained on her arm, but she felt them throughout her body.
I�ll come and pick you up tomorrow, we�ll see if the power is back on at the Gatehouse, he said, and she nodded agreement, willing to comply with anything he suggested at that moment. Goodnight, Nell. She moved her head as he bent to press his lips to her cheek, so that his kiss fell in her hair, and as she remained frozen in the doorway, he turned away and was gone.
She walked slowly up the stairs to her room, and locked herself in, drawing the heavily floral curtains over the unceasing snowstorm. She sank on to the tightly made-up bed in a cloud of alcohol and romance, indulging, as she sometimes allowed herself to do, in a fantasy conversation, maybe a little gentle kissing, with an imaginary, perfect man, whose warm body would curl around hers, protecting her while she slept, and whose blue eyes would already be smiling at her when she awoke. Of course, the man was not quite so imaginary as he normally was.
She could count a handful of relationships and encounters, but she felt strongly about none of them, not even the last, disastrous affair that she had returned to Leasdale to forget. She closed her eyes and was accompanied into sleep by the thought that it was not that she had never loved anyone, but that she had never allowed herself to be loved.