One Winter Morning Read online

  ‘Want one?’ he offers.

  My mouth is full of wine, so I decline with a shake of my head, deciding privately that there’s no way he can be expecting a kiss at the end of the night. Not even Billy would be foolish enough to season his mouth with such a strong flavour if he thought there was any chance of it coming into contact with mine. He does keep glancing over at me, though, perhaps not in a suggestive way, but more with an expression of concern.

  I made a pact with myself after my disastrous lunch with David that I would put on a stoic face during this date. It’s not that I don’t trust Billy or don’t want to share things with him; it’s more that I need to be the old me tonight – to prove not only to myself but to David, too, that I am getting on with my life. I don’t need an intervention in the shape of my so-called real mother – I am going to get through all this grief and guilt on my own terms.

  It would not have been fair of me to turn up and dump these latest woes on to Billy – he knows me as the girl who punctuates her sentences with laughter, the prankster who teaches the youngsters down at the stables how to bury the toes of their riding boots into the soft surface of the indoor school, then cartwheel right out of them. It’s that Genie he fancies, not the shadow of what Anna’s death has left behind.

  ‘Genie?’

  I look up to find Billy right beside me.

  ‘Sorry – what?’

  ‘Your go.’ He gestures to the table. I have two balls left, he has three.

  I line up the first shot, squinting along the cue until I’m happy with the angle.

  ‘Shit,’ Billy mutters, as the ball thunks into the corner pocket.

  ‘Aaargh!’ he adds, as the final yellow sails effortlessly in after it.

  I only have one attempt at the black, but it’s all I need.

  ‘Victory!’ I declare, downing the remainder of my wine.

  Billy suppresses a belch.

  ‘There I go again,’ he says with a smirk. ‘Being a proper gentleman and letting the lady win.’

  ‘Best of three?’ I ask, ignoring his comment, and Billy sighs.

  ‘Oh, go on then.’

  I head to the bar for refills, ordering myself a shot of tequila, which I quickly slam while Billy’s back is turned. The alcohol is having the desired effect – my edges are beginning to feel fuzzy, and the awkwardness I felt when I arrived a few hours ago is slowly being extinguished. Perhaps I do fancy my friend the farrier after all? Maybe Anna was right.

  My adoptive mother adored Billy. Whenever she and he happened to be at Mill House Stables at the same time, she would make a beeline for him, and I would often catch them talking about me. It was obvious from the way Anna giggled and looked over in my direction, and I knew what she was saying without needing to eavesdrop – she was telling Billy that he should persevere. That eventually, I would realise how great he was and fall madly in love with him.

  My late mum was nothing if not a romantic fantasist, and I know that the real reason I’m here on this date – if I can even call it that – is because I want to make her happy in some small way. There is so much I have to make up for, but I have no idea how to begin.

  Shrugging off my melancholy, I venture back to the table and listen while Billy tells me a funny story about his father’s retirement plans, which to date have included pottery, ju-jitsu, birdwatching, and now, apparently, he’s adding pond-building to the list.

  ‘He spent all of Sunday digging the hole, then found out how much it was going to cost to line it with sand and scrapped the whole project. I think my mum might bury him in it!’

  Billy’s dad hung up his blacksmith’s hammer in August, handing the reins of his business over to his eager protégé. I have known the family since I first started learning to ride, back when my legs were too short to reach the stirrups, and it has been a case of one amusing anecdote after another ever since.

  I make it through three more victorious games of pool and two more illicit orders of tequila before my carefully constructed armour begins to chink. Knowing me as well as he does, it doesn’t take Billy long to notice that I have fallen silent, and that I’m not biting my lip because I’m concentrating on the game, but in order to stop myself from crying.

  ‘You’re regretting saying yes to this date now, aren’t you?’ he asks.

  ‘I would never regret spending time with you,’ I tell him honestly. ‘You’re one of the people I like most in the world.’

  Billy reddens at that, the colour spreading across his cheeks and down his throat.

  ‘People you like?’ he repeats, a note of reluctant resignation in his tone as I reach for my glass of wine.

  I know what he wants me to say. He wants me to admit that I like him in more than a friendly way, that I agreed to come here tonight because I feel the same way that he does, because I want to be more to him than just that daft and haphazardly blundering lass from the stables with the hair that’s nearly long enough to sit on. The girl who shares her Pot Noodle with him when he takes a break from shoeing the horses and makes him cups of instant coffee on cold winter mornings. I almost wish I did love Billy in that pure and passionate way, because then it would all be so easy.

  The memory of my lunch with David hits me hard, landing like hooves in the centre of my chest.

  ‘Genie?’

  Billy has finished his pint and wants to know if he should get another. He is one of my dearest friends, but when I look up at him and see the unmistakable glimmer of hope in his eyes, all I want to do is run away, back to the security blanket of home, where I am free to wallow as much as I want. I feel uncomfortable here now, but it’s not because I’m on a date with Billy – it’s because I actually hate pretending to him that everything is fine. He deserves better than this fake version of me, and this clown act that I’m having to put on tonight is exhausting.

  Lifting my glass of wine, I drain it forlornly.

  ‘Come on,’ says Billy, his fingers warm in the crook of my arm.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, returning once again to the word I seem to use more often than any other these days.

  Billy shakes his head, deflecting my apology.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he says. ‘I get it, Genie – you don’t have to explain.’

  I’m not sure I would even know how, but I don’t say as much to him.

  Billy looks at me without a trace of disgruntlement. His concern, as ever, seems purely to be focused on how I feel, and what I want. Not for the first time, I feel lucky to have such an incredible friend. I certainly don’t deserve him.

  ‘To be continued, Nash,’ he says, grinning at me as he pushes all the remaining balls into the nearest pockets. ‘Get your coat on and I’ll walk you home.’

  3

  It is the day after David pulverised me with his revelation, and Hayley is running late.

  My best friend has many talents, but timekeeping is definitely not one of them – it’s one of the many things we have in common, our chaotic disorganisation. She said that she would aim for just after four p.m., and it’s almost five now, the December sky beyond my windows an inky black. As soon as I reach for my mobile to call her, however, I hear the distant chime of the doorbell, followed shortly by the muffled sound of David’s voice, then feet on the stairs.

  I have been friends with Hayley Thomas ever since the summer of our very first Pony Club Camp. Back then, she was saddled with a rotund and very greedy piebald pony called Boris, while Anna and David had arranged for me to loan out a chestnut gelding named Fox, who jumped like a stag but spooked at everything.

  On day two, I was studiously warming up for the under-tens’ showjumping competition when a bystander noisily opened a packet of crisps. Fox shot off sideways in fright, only to collide heavily with a rather exuberant Boris, who had also clocked the exciting packet and was determined to eat the contents. Hayley, who was up on his back, had pulled one of her reins to slow him down just as I yanked my own, and the two of us had collided in the air like skittles, our
ears left ringing inside our hard hats as we struggled to regain control of our respective steeds.

  From that moment onwards, we barely left each other’s side at Camp. Hayley has always been able to make me laugh, but she has also listened, supported, berated and been there to hold my hand – or my hair back – as required, just as I have been for her. She is the only person I have told about my lunch with David. Immediately, she suggested that she should come over today so we could talk it all through.

  ‘I’m so sorry!’ she says now, giving me a repentant smile as she closes my bedroom door behind her and hurries towards where I’m sitting to give me a one-armed hug.

  ‘The men came to remove the muck heap just as I was getting in the car, and I couldn’t risk leaving them to their own devices,’ she explains, pulling off her thick woolly hat with such vigour that strands of her hair stand up in the static.

  Hayley is tall, lean and blonde, much like a sunflower, while I am petite, rounded and dark-haired, not unlike a blueberry.

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ I wave away her apologies. ‘I bought a cake – do you want some?’

  Hayley’s eyes widen in delight as she eyes the box on my bedside table.

  ‘Is that lemon drizzle?’ she asks, grinning as I confirm that it is. ‘Thank God for that – I’m bloody starving!’

  Like Billy the burger-gobbler, Hayley is always hungry – a trait that I often tease her she inherited from Boris. But unlike her chubby first pony, my friend never seems to gain much weight. Then again, I never used to either – not until I stopped working at the yard. When you’re putting in twelve hours of manual labour a day, only really sitting down when you’re in the saddle, then you quickly burn off all and any calories you ingest – even those that originated in cake.

  After I have cut her an enormous slice, Hayley tells me between mouthfuls that her younger brother Mike has quit his degree course for the third time in as many years.

  ‘Honestly, I don’t know why he doesn’t just get a job like I did.’

  Hayley and I both swerved university and went to agricultural college instead. Being riding instructors is all either of us ever wanted to do, so it seemed pointless to pursue anything else. Now that I can’t see myself ever doing it again, however, I’m at a loss as to what else to try. It’s been more than eleven long months since I turned my back on the job that I once loved, and I haven’t so much as looked at an application form since. I know Hayley worries about me, just as David does, but I can’t seem to motivate myself into doing anything about it.

  ‘So, are you going to tell me how your date with Billy the Kidder went?’ Hayley asks, licking lemon icing off her fingers. ‘Or are you going to make me guess? Hang on – I know! He’s a terrible kisser? Or worse – he’s terrible at the other stuff and you were forced to call a halt halfway through.’

  ‘Stop!’ I implore, lobbing a stuffed-dog toy at her. ‘Nothing happened.’

  ‘Boo to that,’ she pouts. ‘Since when do you kiss and not tell?’

  ‘When I don’t even kiss,’ I reply, and Hayley cocks her head to one side.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she says. ‘And there was me thinking he might have got down on one knee or something – we both know how bananas he is about you.’

  ‘Perhaps not any more,’ I reply with a sigh. Then, as Hayley gives me a questioning look, ‘It’s a good thing, really. Now I know for sure that we really are just friends – that’s all we’ll ever be, and that’s fine.’

  ‘Poor old Billy,’ laments Hayley, helping herself to another slice of cake. ‘But I suppose you can’t force yourself to fancy him.’

  Never able to sit still for more than a few minutes at a time, Hayley gets up off the bed and begins to prowl around the room, picking up and examining first a lipstick, then a necklace, before coming to a halt in front of my bookcase. Battered Jilly Cooper novels sit squashed beside the Enid Blyton adventure stories that I devoured growing up, while the shelf below groans under the weight of my Evangeline And … collection.

  I watch as Hayley pulls out the first book in the series and flicks through the pages, smirking at the sight of my literary counterpart.

  Right from the start, Anna and David wanted me to see my adoption as a positive thing, and he always made sure that I knew the character of Evangeline the time-travelling adventurer was based on me. Rather than paint her as someone tragic and lost, David had made her a pioneer. Evangeline had been chosen to lead a bigger life than the one she was born into, one where her intrepid spirit and natural courage could help others. This was all very well and made for a series of fun stories, but it also left me forever trying my best to match up to my literary twin.

  I had enjoyed the notoriety at first. The Evangeline And … books began to take off when I was in my final year at primary school, a time when being the centre of attention suited me just fine. It was only when the film rights sold, and four big-budget movies were made during my tricky teenage years, that the comparisons started to rankle. I no longer wanted new acquaintances to know that this globally recognisable character was based on me, because they would inevitably look at me differently once they did. It felt almost as if they would stop trying to get to know the real me. I resented the assumptions they made, not to mention their misguided envy, and as the years passed, I started to dislike the character.

  The larger the Evangeline And … brand grew, the further I retreated. I went from being the noisy centre of a large circle of friends to spending every spare minute at the stables. Horses judge you purely on your own merits, and I found that most of the people working at the yard had little interest in stories about time-travelling children. There are no airs and graces when you spend the vast majority of your time shovelling manure, and while my family might have been well off as a result of my fictional frenemy’s fame, I never acted as if I was, or took advantage of the fact. I think Anna and David did desperately want to spoil me, but aside from delighting in their decision to support my riding obsession with a series of ponies, I resisted their offers of holidays abroad and a new car. The way I saw it, I had a roof over my head, parents who loved me, a handful of trusted friends, a job I was passionate about and a horse, called Suki, that I adored – I didn’t need or want anything else.

  I look up to find Hayley staring at me, a look of concern beginning to take shape on her face. She has the lived-in skin of someone who spends every season outdoors, and her nails, like Billy’s, are framed with the remnants of ground-in dirt. My own hands were not dissimilar once, but the past year’s idleness has softened them.

  ‘You’ve gone pale,’ Hayley points out gently. ‘Were you thinking about your mum?’

  ‘Which one?’ I reply bitterly, and Hayley comes over to sit beside me again.

  I already told her the headline facts over the phone: that my birth mother is a woman called Bonnie, and that David and Anna met her before they adopted me. She doesn’t know everything, though – I still have one last thing to reveal.

  ‘You said that David knows where she is?’ Hayley asks, and I nod.

  ‘He thinks I should go and see her, that it might help me get back to myself somehow – whatever that means.’

  ‘Wow.’ Hayley’s pale eyes are wide.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘That is huge. Are you going to go?’

  My morning cup of tea is still sitting half finished on the floor, and I stare hard at the film that has formed across the top of it. Bringing my knees up to my chest, I wrap my arms around them in an attempt at comfort. When I woke up this morning, both my hands had pins and needles in them because I had been hugging myself so tightly in my sleep.

  ‘Honestly?’ I say, and Hayley murmurs encouragingly. ‘I don’t know. At first, I thought, “No, no bloody way.” But now I’m not so sure. David is adamant that it’s a good idea, and I do want to make him happy after everything he’s been through. But part of me also wants to meet her just so I can shout at her for giving me away in the first place – I guess par
t of me needs to have it out with her. And maybe if I do, I will feel better. But then again, I could end up feeling even worse than I do now, if that’s possible. Oh, I don’t know …’

  My words falter as I realise how weak they sound, and how feeble I’m being about the whole situation.

  ‘This isn’t about David,’ Hayley observes. ‘It’s about you and what you need to do.’

  ‘David thinks my life is stuck on hold,’ I explain. ‘He seems to think that this woman, this stranger, can help me feel normal again. But how can that be? How can meeting the woman who abandoned me make me feel better about losing the one who wanted me?’

  Hayley is shaking her head.

  ‘I don’t know, Genes.’

  For a moment, we just look helplessly at one another, neither of us sure what to say.

  Hayley takes a deep breath.

  ‘David is right about one thing, though,’ she says quietly. ‘About your life, I mean. It does feel like someone has pressed pause on it.’

  There isn’t anything I can say to that.

  ‘Maybe meeting your birth mother is not what you need at all. Maybe what would really help you is coming back to work at the yard.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I sigh, pleating my quilt between my fingers so I don’t have to meet her eyes. ‘I honestly don’t think I could bear it. Too many memories, and too many empty spaces.’

  ‘Don’t you miss it?’ Hayley presses. ‘The horses, the people, the physicality of it all – me?’

  All I can do is sit there, muted as I am by a mixture of exasperation at the situation and frustration towards my own emotions. I was three years old when I first sat on a pony, six when I began taking regular lessons, and nineteen when I began teaching others to ride. For so many years, horses were my passion, my main reason for getting out of bed in the mornings. But now, since I lost my own beloved Suki alongside Anna in such horrifying circumstances, I can barely bring myself to think about them, because it hurts too much.