“You still love me, don’t you, Tolly?” she had said finally and breathlessly, her tongue close enough to flick his earlobe with its tip.

  He had nodded quickly.

  “Say it. Say it out loud for me.” There was an urgency in her voice that was unfamiliar to him: a yearning. She sounded far younger than her years and he turned his head to look directly at her. She had tears in her eyes. Sad tears—and for once they were real.

  “Tell me that you love me,” she demanded petulantly, her eyes turning from sad and fearful to fiery.

  “I love you. You know I do.” He caved in as she knew that he would.

  “Yes. I know you do . . . I just needed to hear it from at least one person today.” And with that she turned away, her barriers back up as she dismissed him before her mother returned from the hotel bar.

  Through the haze of his confusion, he had become acutely aware of three things in that moment. The first was that he was able to see that Augusta wasn’t as sure of herself as she pretended to be. Even now, on the cusp of saying “I do,” she knew that her soon-to-be husband was hardly besotted by her, and it scared her. She hadn’t conquered Everest after all, she’d simply fooled herself by getting to base camp. In fact, if it hadn’t been for her being in the early stages of a supposed pregnancy, they would not be getting married at all. She knew that. Charles knew that and Ptolemy now knew that too.

  The second thing he realized, with absolute clarity, was that despite knowing he was being used, it would be his lifelong job to look after Augusta. To make sure that he was available for her should she need him. It was a visceral feeling in his bones—potentially helped by the hand resting on his crotch. A feeling that he was unable and unwilling to defy.

  He belonged to Augusta and in some small way—even if only in his imagination—Augusta belonged to him.

  The third and final thing that he realized was that it was possible to feel intense hatred for someone at the exact same time as feeling intense love.

  July 2023

  6:30 p.m. The night of Charles’s death.

  Augusta had sensed Ptolemy watching. Just as he did most evenings. She’d felt his eyes all around them tonight. A feeling that he had been peering in through the front window and then through the back, as though watching her in a play. It had been so many years now that she was used to it. Almost comforted by it. The only time that it had really proved to be a problem was when she had been worried that he would tell Charles about their five-year affair.

  However, tonight she was pleased that Ptolemy had been here, had seen it. She had never seen Charles so angry and so distant. She knew that this time she had truly lost him. The sense of duty and loyalty that had kept him with Augusta had finally been shattered by his feelings for someone else. She could feel it in her bones although she had hardly let him get the words out of his mouth. All she knew was that it had something to do with that strange-looking witch of a woman—Minerva Leek. Of all the women that he could choose, a woman who dressed in black rags, hardly combed her hair and fancied herself to be some sort of white witch. It was extraordinary, but not only that, it was an absolute insult to Augusta after she had presented herself as the picture-perfect and dutiful village wife for over three decades. He told her that it wasn’t what she thought, but he’d already revealed that he wanted to leave and that it was because of Minerva, so who was he trying to kid now?

  She had slapped him around the face, calling Minerva every name she could think of under the sun. He had grasped her hand violently and flung it away from his face before she had time for a second swing. They had stood staring at each other in shock before Charles had left the house to go—she imagined—to the allotment to cool down. It had never got to such a heated stage before, and she sincerely hoped that Ptolemy had seen that bit. She wanted him to see how little Charles valued her after all these years of her self-sacrifice and martyrdom.

  Despite knowing that he had been watching, she still jumped when there was a knock at the back door a few minutes after Charles had left. Sure enough, it was Ptolemy standing drenched in the rain. His face was tense with concern and his round glasses were steaming up. His bow tie was still present but he was bedraggled, and she could smell the strong odor of wet and musty tweed emanating from his jacket.

  “Are you all right—did he hurt you?” His voice was stressed and tight, which comforted her for a second. She had no desire for him to cross the threshold into the house, so she kept him on the doorstep, with large drips from the porch tiles falling onto his head.

  “No, Ptolemy, I’m not. It’s awful. He’s been having an affair. He’s been sleeping with a slut from Cringlewic. How could he, Ptolemy—after everything I’ve sacrificed! I gave up my LIFE for him. My entire life. I didn’t want to live here in this village with these people! I did it for him!”

  Ptolemy raised his arms and stepped towards Augusta to comfort her, but she immediately pulled away, into the house. She didn’t want him to touch her. Not anymore.

  He sighed and retreated, frustrated. He looked down at his sodden shoes. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Anything you can do? Perhaps just turn back the clock. Wave a wand and take me back to a time before I met Charles Papplewick. Can you do that, Ptolemy? Can you make Charles Papplewick disappear for me—and return all my wasted years? I wish I’d never come here. I should have married you, Ptolemy.” She smiled at him sadly and closed the door in his face.

  9:45 p.m.

  It was several hours and several shots of vodka later when Augusta belatedly realized what she had said to Ptolemy and how he might have interpreted it. He had left immediately. No hovering, no loitering.

  I’m being silly . . . she thought to herself. I was just being metaphorical. Yet Charles had failed to return, and the rain was unrelenting.

  Augusta toyed with the idea of calling Ptolemy and checking that he had returned home, but decided that it would be best not to involve him any further. She grabbed her rain mac and her wellington boots and made her way quietly and quickly out the back door and along the lane. There were only occasional streetlamps, but she had the light of her mobile phone to guide her through the areas that she couldn’t see properly. By the time she got to the allotment, the rain was bucketing it down and she regretted her decision to leave the house. She was sure that Charles would just be brooding alone in his potting shed, sitting out the rain before returning home. It was only as she got closer that she could make out the faint glow of lamplight coming from one of the buildings at the allotment. She knew it must be Charles as nobody else would be stupid enough to be out here in the middle of the night and in the pouring rain.

  She was closer now, and as she looked up she could see that there were two people in the potting shed. One was undoubtedly Charles but the other she couldn’t quite make out. She felt the faint taste of bile rise into her mouth for a split second as she imagined Ptolemy confronting Charles and revealing their own affair that had carried on for years.

  “Please, Ptolemy, please don’t tell Charles anything,” she mouthed silently as she simultaneously crossed her fingers and attempted to get closer. If there was one thing that would be worse than having her husband of thirty years abandon her, it was the thought of not being able to claim the moral high ground as he did so.

  She was only yards away from the side window now, the light from her phone facing down towards her feet. She just could make out the back of the person who was with Charles. By now, she could see it wasn’t Ptolemy. It was very obviously a woman with dark hair wearing a mackintosh and gesticulating with her hands. The coat was flapping as she waved her arms about. What were they doing—arguing? Laughing? The rain was too loud to hear whether they were shouting or talking. Who was it? She peered closer. Did she recognize the coat? What was it—was it navy blue? Sou’wester style, with a flash of bright almost fluorescent yellow lining. She saw the dark hair again. Minerva? Minerva Leek—his bit on the side. The other woman.

  Incandescent with rage and humiliation, Augusta turned on her heel, slipping as she did so, covering her hands with mud as she held them out to break her fall. It had come to this. Her husband had obviously been sneaking around, conducting an affair in his allotment and had probably been doing so for quite a while. How could she have been so stupid? So blind to what was going on? And there she was worried about herself and Ptolemy. She had a mind to start it all up again with him. He would look after her. He would never have treated her like this—abandoning her for a woman twenty years her junior.

  She walked the rest of the way home, crying miserably to herself and shivering from the cold rain, her wellingtons covered in mud and feeling as though they were wet from the inside out. She never normally cried like this—even when she had finished half a bottle of vodka and her emotions tried to get the better of her. She had spent too many years being strong and pretending that she had a heart of stone to break down now, but this was too much. Even for her. She rarely admitted it to anyone, not least herself, but she did love him in her own way. The problem was that she’d never really had him. She’d always known that and so had spent their marriage toying with him, testing him and torturing him for not loving her back, when perhaps all she’d needed was to be honest with him and tell him what she felt. Perhaps she could try tomorrow? Perhaps she could convince him before he actually packed up and left. Yes, she would try that. What did she have to lose? After all, on the one hand she now finally realized how much she loved him and didn’t want to lose him—on the other hand, she couldn’t possibly lose out to that bitch Minerva.

  10:58 p.m.

  Charles was exhausted. Everything that could have gone wrong had gone wrong today. He was officially the most hated man in Pepperbridge if the onslaught of anger and accusations that had been directed to him today was anything to judge by. Here he was in what was supposed to be his oasis of calm, his potting-shed shelter, his retreat from the world, surrounded by his flowers and vegetables, his most treasured books and small mementos of the parts of his life that he was most proud of. Things that he didn’t want to keep in the house that he shared with his wife for fear that she would ridicule or destroy them. Photos of the Three Musketeers in primary school, a book of love sonnets that Clover had given him over forty years ago, old maps with plotted-out routes of the places that he’d once wanted to visit and travel to. Then there were the more important things. The copy of his will which he had changed twelve months ago to include the family he hadn’t been aware of. He had transferred everything over into Silvanus’s name under the guardianship of Minerva. It was only right that the house that had belonged to his parents and grandparents before him should go to his own daughter and grandson. He knew that Augusta would feel hurt by this, but they had not had any children of their own, and Augusta was still in possession of a very healthy inheritance of her own that she had hardly used, having lived in the Papplewick family home for her entire married life. It might even be the best thing for Augusta to go somewhere other than Pepperbridge in the long run—especially after they dealt with the issue of a divorce. She wouldn’t want to stay here after that particular indignity, he imagined, and she had always complained that she despised having to remain in the village, after all.

  He looked around again and made the sad decision to contact the council tomorrow and let them know that after thirty years he would be handing over the lease to his allotment plot. It was time to give someone else the escapism that it had brought him. For the first time in decades, it no longer brought him peace. It was time to leave behind this life. It was time to leave Pepperbridge.

  He began to pack up a few things with the intention of returning to pack up properly when he knew where he was going to go. He would return to Augusta tonight, but he would go to one of the spare rooms, and hopefully he and Augusta could talk more sensibly tomorrow. He wanted to put the record straight. She had jumped to conclusions about Minerva, and he had seen red when she had accused her of being a “dirty trollop.” He regretted his actions but that wasn’t good enough. He really wanted to apologize to Augusta. He knew that he had been a miserable husband. He knew that his heart had never been in their partnership and the truth was that he should never have married her. He knew it when Clover had returned to the area with a daughter he had devastatingly assumed had been from another relationship. He had been deeply hurt seeing her playing happy families with another man’s child. A man whose child she had evidently wanted to keep so soon after she chose not to have his own.

  Still, he’d continued to love her regardless, and had strained to catch rare glimpses of her over the years. Always keeping a watchful eye over her daughter, and then on Minerva’s son when she eventually grew up to have a child of her own. When he had heard that Clover had died from cancer, he had been as devasted as though they were still in love and had seen each other every day from the beginning. He had turned up to the woodland funeral and stayed at the back, hoping that he wouldn’t be seen, but he had noticed when Minerva had caught him watching silently with tears in his eyes.

  The feeling he’d had on the day that Minerva approached him in this very potting shed to reveal to him that she was indeed his own daughter was immeasurable. Clover had disappeared but she had kept his baby safe and well after all. How he hadn’t deduced that fact he didn’t know, but having home-schooled Minerva until she was nine years old, Clover had chosen to register her daughter as a year below her real age, thus concealing the true year that she had been born. Possibly on purpose, or possibly as a genuine concern about the gaps in Minerva’s formal education, but whatever the reason, it took a letter left for Minerva from her mother for both Charles and Minerva to realize the truth about her real parentage. It had given them both the missing link of happiness that they’d so needed throughout their lives.

  Through Minerva, he’d found out that Clover had never had any intention of giving up their child. She had felt horrified and guilty that Charles had been considering giving up his place at Cambridge and his aims to further his education for her and the baby. Even Clover’s mother had tried to reason with her to tell him the truth, telling her that she would regret not giving them a chance. Of course, in the end, he hadn’t risen to great things anyway. He had needed Clover by his side to achieve that.

  11:38 p.m.

  The rain had stopped, leaving large and noisy occasional drips drumming down onto the roof, and he knew it was time to face the music and return home to Augusta—for a while at least.

  The potting shed door began to open before he had reached it, startling him. He jumped. Who now? he thought with a resigned inward groan, steeling himself for another angry onslaught. Who could it be? Augusta come to find him? A drunken Marianne returning for another swing at him, or Nancy with her forty-year-old grudge?

  It was none of them. His unexpected visitor was probably one of the few people that he was genuinely pleased to see after the events of earlier on that evening. Dear old Ptolemy Oates, his school friend, his best man and his long-time best friend, although he hardly saw him these days.

  “Hello, old friend.” Charles sat back into his chair with relief and smiled at the familiar face. “Long time no see! How’s the world of medical science treating you and what are you doing up and out at this time of the night, old boy? I thought that you were a ‘jammies on and in bed by ten with a mug of cocoa’ type of man!” He chuckled amiably.

  The drip, drip, dripping continued slowly on the roof, each drop echoing slightly quieter than the last as it eventually came to a stop, with just a faint low rumble of thunder still present in the distance.

  “Oh, you know. I was passing on a late call out and I saw a light coming from over here. I realized it must be you. Thought I’d give you a bit of company before I head home.” Ptolemy’s face remained impassive, the apparent jollity of his tone not quite reaching his face.

  “Well, that’s good of you! I’m afraid there’s not much space in here, but if you’re prepared to perch, I can knock up a quick pot of tea and we can catch up.”

  The two men sat in comfortable silence for a while, listening patiently to the kettle ascend to its slow whistle.

  “Charles?”

  “Yes, “Ptolemy?”

  “Did you know that I was in love with Augusta when you slept with her?”

  Charles hesitated. It had always been a topic of deep guilt and shame for him. One that they had never before brought up in conversation, and his face hung suddenly weary and filled with regret.

  “Tolls . . .” Charles began, reverting back to his friend’s childhood nickname. “I honestly didn’t mean for any of it to happen. I was drunk that night, I wasn’t thinking. I know that it’s no excuse, but I can honestly say that it was never my intention to come between the two of you. I swear to God. It just, it just happened . . .” Charles finished lamely.

  He remembered the night horribly well. There had been a party at the social club. Charles had started drinking far too early and had excused himself to return home to sober up. Much to Ptolemy’s surprise, Augusta had nominated herself to chaperone Charles while Ptolemy, who at the time was driving a little red two-seater MG, dropped off two of his female friends who lived in a village in the opposite direction. He would then drive back through Pepperbridge to collect Augusta and return to his family home in Pudding Corner.

  By the time Ptolemy had returned, Charles had passed out in bed and a naked Augusta, wrapped in a sheet, had come to the door telling Ptolemy to pick her up the following morning. To this day Charles wasn’t aware what, how or why it had happened. He had hardly any memory of the events that night at all.

 

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