‘There’s no point – there’s nothing wrong with me,’ he stated adamantly and wouldn’t be budged about it.
He must realize the decline in his faculties, and is afraid to have his fears confirmed, which is entirely illogical when there might well be medication to slow the rapidity of the symptoms.
38
The Birds and the Bees
Next morning Sheila urged me to rest and get some fresh air, and somehow I found myself walking up the hill towards the Oldstone, hand in hand with a still slightly morose Nile, Honey pottering happily along behind us.
The weather had mercurially changed and there was a bright sun and only the hint of a breeze. Large clouds were slowly drifting across the light cerulean sky, stately as galleons.
There was no one else about and potentially we gave ourselves piles by sitting on one of the fallen monoliths to admire the view.
‘I wasn’t brought up in Yorkshire, but this area always feels like home,’ Nile said.
‘It did to me too, almost as soon as I’d arrived,’ I agreed. ‘I feel somehow rooted, even though I don’t know my past, and I certainly never want to leave.’
He turned his head and looked at me. ‘Edie told me how you became estranged from your adoptive mother after your father died, but never really settled anywhere.’
‘I almost did once,’ I said wryly. ‘I thought I was going to marry Dan, but I’m not sure that would have ever come off, even if he hadn’t been killed in that accident.’
‘Yes, Edie said he’d never got round to divorcing his wife. And I know you had a breakdown …’ He looked at me, his grey eyes serious. ‘She said you needed time to get over him and to learn to trust another man, but that you have a very loving heart.’
‘She reads too many romances,’ I said, looking away. ‘And Iamover Dan – I won’t forget him, but I’ve moved on from grieving.’
‘She’s very shrewd – and she toldmea couple of home truths, too!’
‘Like what?’ I asked, curiously.
‘I’m not saying, though she told me I was getting too old for gallivanting around, and then there was something about hummingbirds and flowers I never quite got my head round. Perhaps you could enlighten me?’
‘No idea,’ I said innocently, and he gave me a look, then got up and held out his hand. ‘Let’s flit off back to the car then, flower,’ he said in a passable local accent and called Honey away from an interesting burrow.
On the way down he said abruptly, ‘You don’t need to worry about Zelda. I hope we’ll always be friends, but I can’t do what she’s asking me. And she’s so strange lately that I’m starting to think I never really knew her at all!’
‘Why would I worry about Zelda? I’ve never even met the woman!’ I asked tartly, but he carried on as if I hadn’t spoken.
‘You may never meet her, because I definitely want out of the antiques stall now. I’m going to tell her that either we sell up, or she can buy me out, whichever she chooses.’
He sounded very determined and he still had my hand in a strong grip that now tightened. ‘From now on, I’ll want to spend as much time at home as I can.’
‘That’ll make a change.’
‘Wouldn’t you like to see more of me?’ One dark eyebrow rose quizzically.
There wasn’t really any answer to that: I’d like to seeallof him … I went quite hot just thinking about it.
‘You’ll always have to travel quite a bit, for business, though, won’t you?’ I pointed out.
‘Well, you keep vanishing, too – into your writing,’ he said. ‘I suspect you’ll always do that.’
‘Yes. In fact, I’ll be vanishing into it the moment I get back to the flat this afternoon and I may be gone some time …’
Although I was so full of Sunday lunch that I wasn’t sure I’d ever want to eat again, Sheila sent us back to Haworth with enough soup and sandwiches to feed a small army and Nile insisted that I go over to his flat later so we could have supper together and he could be sure I’d eaten something that evening.
What with Sheila’s cooking and all that Edinburgh rock, I was hardly wasting away, but it was rather nice to have someone care enough to think about me.
First thing next morning I emailed the local newspaper, before I got cold feet about the idea, then for the next couple of days slithered off into the Once-upon-a-time, though of course there were interruptions.