The Cheesemaker's House Page 8

  Owen materialises beside us and thrusts a glass of wine into my hand. “Dry white, isn’t it?” he asks.

  “I was just admiring your herbs.”

  “Oh, they’re very much the poor relation next to Margaret’s glads. Come on, let’s sit down – Adam’s getting some of his gorgeous nibbly bits out of the oven.”

  The food is excellent. The nibbly bits turn out to be melt in the mouth savoury palmiers and tiny cheese straws. Next there is pasta, with a creamy sauce full of delicate herbal flavours and shreds of parma ham. The dessert is naturally the piece de resistance; mille feuille packed full of fresh apricots and peaches, nestling in the lightest whipped cream I’ve ever tasted.

  “Where on earth did you learn to cook?” I ask Adam.

  “When Owen and I were sharing a flat in Leeds, at first I didn’t have a job so I watched loads of daytime TV and found I was really interested in the cookery programmes. I managed to find work as a kitchen porter in a restaurant and I absolutely loved it. Luckily the owner had a bit of faith in me and sent me on day release to learn how to be a pastry chef. I worked for him until Owen’s gran got ill, then I got a job as sous-chef at Crathorne Hall so I could be around to help Owen out. I learnt an unbelievable amount there and ended up doing the cakes for their afternoon teas. It’s what I’m best at, but I still like doing other things.”

  “You’re so lucky having a job you love.”

  “I know. I just wish Owen...”

  “I do love the café, Adam, you know that.”

  “But you’re wasted there.”

  “It’s what I want to do.”

  Owen clenches his jaw and I’m scared they are about to argue, but Adam just pats his hand and says, “Sorry mate. I didn’t mean to be ungrateful,” and Owen offers to make some peppermint tea. I am surprised when he walks over to the herb patch and picks the mint fresh, but I don’t know why I should be. If the herbs were his grandmother’s he’s probably been doing it all his life.

  I have drunk just a fraction too much wine and I lean back in my chair. Adam and Margaret are talking about a TV programme I’ve never seen and I let my mind drift, trying to imagine what Owen’s childhood was like. I half close my eyes and I can see a fair haired boy following an old woman along the herb garden. They seem to be playing a game where she hides the labels on the plants and he tells her what they are and I find myself drawn in, intrigued. I can hear the whispering of their voices, but not catch the words. Then Owen puts the teapot and mugs down on the table with a clatter and I wake up.

  Chapter Twenty

  Adam picks me up just after eight on Monday morning.

  “You’re bright and early,” I say as I jump into the car.

  He snorts. “I’ve already been into town once – Owen got the six o’clock train.”

  “Where’s he gone?”

  “London.”

  “He went before, didn’t he? Does he have friends there?”

  “No; it’s business.”

  “What, to do with the café?”

  In response, Adam turns up the radio. “It’s too early for all these bloody questions,” he tells me. Perhaps he’s not a morning person.

  Within a couple of hours he is perfectly cheerful. I prepare the café for the day then help him to make sandwiches ready for the lunchtime take out trade. Adam explains he’d really prefer each one to be made to order, but now the café is getting busier it’s just not possible. He’s not wrong; from eleven o’clock onwards I am rushed off my feet, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.

  By the time Adam and I wash up and put everything away it’s pretty late.

  Adam leans back against the kitchen table. “Fancy a quick pint?” he asks.

  “I do – but I really can’t leave William any longer. Margaret was popping in to let him out at lunchtime, but he won’t be very happy by now.” I have a sudden thought. “Perhaps we can walk the dogs to The Black Horse instead.”

  “I’d like that. For a moment there, Alice, I thought you were going to turn me down because you had a date.”

  I have a vague suspicion his question might be loaded. I pick my words carefully. “No date, no boyfriend.”

  “Really? Owen thought you and Richard...”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” I snort. “He’s not my type at all.”

  Adam can barely keep the look of triumph from his face.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I wait outside with the dogs while Adam goes into the pub for the drinks, the evening sun warming my bare arms and face. For the last hour or so I have been positively fizzing inside, wondering if Adam’s rather artificial question could possibly mean what I hope it does. I am eager to turn the conversation towards Owen and when Adam sits down opposite me I lose no time in asking him how they became friends.

  “The stock answer is when Owen was at uni in Leeds. But the full version is rather longer, and not something either of us talks about.”

  “Oh, that’s OK, I didn’t mean to pry,” I say, trying not to sound too disappointed.

  “No, I am going to tell you, because I want you to understand what a special guy Owen is. He’s a bit tired and stressed at the moment – it’s making him moody, but it’s not his fault – and I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong impression about what he’s really like.

  “I didn’t settle very well at school and I was always in trouble as a teenager. By the time I was eighteen I was into drugs and got caught selling some to a young lass so I ended up in prison. That’s where I met Owen. Not that Owen was inside, obviously, but the Christian Union at Leeds Uni ran a prison visiting programme and Owen signed up for it.

  “Prison was awful for me. I’d thought I was tough, but life inside for a young gay man was brutal, to say the least. But I had a good social worker who put me forward for this visiting. The first bloke they sent was a complete arsehole, really condescending, and I nearly didn’t give it another go, so I was ready to fight back all guns blazing when Owen turned up.

  “At least, I’d meant to, but instead of some bigoted do-gooder I was confronted with a little lad trying to stop his voice from shaking as he pushed a bar of chocolate across the table and said ‘I didn’t know what to bring – if you’d prefer something different next time, let me know – if you decide you want me to come again, that is’. His whole attitude was so unlike the guy before; there was no question that he didn’t see me as an equal, and that persuaded me to give it a real go. I was pretty desperate for a friend, anyway.

  “When I look back on it now, Owen was the first person who had been genuinely interested in me for who I was. He was such an innocent he’d never met anyone remotely like me; and I’d never met anyone like him either. Well, Alice, he’s kindness personified and once I began to realise there were no hidden agendas, I let myself trust him and we got on like a house on fire.

  “My release date coincided with the start of Owen’s second year and before I even came out we’d decided we were going to share a flat. Owen had plenty of student friends but he was far too serious to get involved with all the normal horseplay and he said he wanted a life outside the university as well.

  “We had really high hopes but initially it was a disaster. I’d expected Owen to have all the time in the world for me but the reality was that he had to study very hard. I didn’t have a job and I soon fell back in with my old crowd and old ways. I don’t know, maybe I was pushing Owen to make me his number one priority and show the sort of commitment I felt for him. Only back then I wasn’t canny enough to realise it.

  “It came to a head one night when I came back to find him waiting up, absolutely furious. He accused me of taking drugs, and when I denied it he actually ripped the sleeve off my shirt to expose the needle marks. I was gobsmacked – I didn’t know he had it in him. The next thing I knew he was throwing my stuff onto the landing and we were yelling at each other like a couple of banshees until one of the neighbours came out and told us in no uncertain terms to put a sock in it or he’
d throw a bucket of cold water over us.

  “It made me realise how much I had to lose. We sat up all night and well into the next day, talking about what we both needed to do to put things right. I agreed to go on a rehab programme, and he agreed to give me all the support I needed while I did it. I promised not to see my old friends again, so I wouldn’t get drawn back into crime. He explained he couldn’t watch me rip my life apart – he was training to be a pharmacist – he knew more about drugs than most people, after all.

  “And he stuck to his word – despite all the studying he had to do he was always there for me. You see, Alice, without Owen I’d have just pissed my life away. And I’m not the only person around here who owes him a great deal.”

  “How so?”

  Adam shakes his head. “That’s for him to tell you when he’s good and ready. All I’ve done is share my story, not his.”

  My voice sounds very small. “I’d like to hear Owen’s story, get to know him better...”

  “You care about Owen, don’t you?”

  I nod. This is no time to lie; not to Adam and not to myself.

  “Not in a just-good-friends sort of way?”

  I nod again.

  “Well thank fuck for that.”

  I start to giggle uncontrollably. Then Adam joins in with a horrible noisy cackle that makes William jump up from my feet and bark. So we laugh even more, until the tears are rolling down our cheeks. I finally manage to stand up.

  “Come on,” I tell him, “time I was getting back – William’s hungry.”

  As we round the last bend into Great Fencote I am surprised to see Owen striding along the edge of the green towards us.

  “Adam – it’s Owen.”

  “Where?”

  “There, you idi...”

  But when I look again, Owen isn’t there. With a horrible sense of déjà vu I break into a run, dragging William behind me. The only place Owen can be is behind one of the trees and I am determined to prove to myself he’s there. I keep them in my line of vision as I run – it’s only a couple of hundred yards – and when I get to the green William and I circle them. No Owen. No-one there at all. But then William lets out a low growl.

  Adam has caught me up. “Alice – what are you on about? I’m not picking Owen up from the station until eleven o’clock tonight. He’d have phoned me if he was getting an earlier train.”

  “I saw him, Adam, I know I did. He was walking towards us, under the trees.”

  “It must have been a trick of the light, pet.”

  But I know it wasn’t. I also know that I don’t understand what I’ve seen – it makes no sense. I am fully awake, I have taken not a single tablet and I have drunk all of half a pint of beer. I say goodnight to Adam, feed William, and start to cook my supper, all on autopilot.

  If it hadn’t happened before it might be different. But this is the third time; and two of them in broad daylight. I turn off the heat under my pasta. All the elation of the early evening has disappeared. What the hell is going on?

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  If I couldn’t get my head around it last night I’m doing no better this morning. I take my coffee to the bench by the pond, determined to think this through logically. Who, or what, have I seen on the village green a total of three times now? The thought it might be a what occurred to me at about three in the morning, but in the bright light of day I remember that I don’t believe in ghosts.

  The obvious answer is that it is Owen, and he was playing some kind of trick on me, but I cannot begin to imagine what it might be. It’s still in the back of my mind that Matt called him creepy, but it’s so much at odds with the story Adam told me that I can’t believe he’s right.

  So I decide I need to focus on what I do know: twice I have seen Owen when he is supposed to be in London, but I only have Adam’s word he was actually there. However the other time it couldn’t have been Owen; it might have been him sitting under the tree, but he couldn’t have been walking towards Kirkby Fleetham when he was calling me from the opposite direction.

  So I have the facts, but they don’t make sense. Surely I can’t be imagining Owen’s there? Did just talking about him with Adam make me want to see him so much he materialised in my mind? Is my fondness for Owen bordering on obsession, even? Now that is a very worrying thought and I push it away, but all the same I am aware I’m thinking about Owen and hoping my phone will ring pretty much all day.

  My phone does ring the next morning, but it’s Adam telling me he’s made another batch of pasties and asking if I can pop around to the house this evening to collect them. It is only after I hang up that I wonder why he doesn’t just drop them off like he did before.

  When I arrive Adam bundles me inside.

  “You’ve got time for a quick drink, I hope?” he asks.

  “Yes, that would be nice.”

  As we pass the bottom of the staircase he yells, “Owen, Alice is here,” and without waiting for a reply he leads me into the garden.

  It takes an age for Owen to appear and Adam is getting fidgety. The penny begins to drop he is setting us up, but before I can say anything Owen strolls through the kitchen door and with a nonchalant “Hi Alice” throws himself down on the chair next to Adam. I almost laugh because he is so obviously freshly washed and shaved. But I changed myself, and put on some lip gloss; we are both trying really hard – too hard, probably.

  Once Adam disappears it is difficult to keep the conversation going. Looking around for inspiration I spy the herb bed.

  “Margaret said your grandmother planted the herbs and that you look after them now.”

  “Some of them pre-date Gran, even. See that rosemary – it was planted by her grandfather when they first came to the house.”

  “Really? I didn’t know it lived that long.”

  “It’s unusual, I admit.”

  “Want to give me a guided tour?” It’s something to say.

  We wander along the herb bed and Owen tells me the names of the more unusual plants. The evening air is filled with their scent as he rubs his hands over them, stroking them almost, to release their perfume. I notice how gentle his touch is and my insides turn almost liquid. We crouch close, next to the camomile, but I’m not really listening to what he’s saying because all I want is for him to make love to me.

  I stand up. “Margaret said there wasn’t much your gran didn’t know about herbs. Was she a good cook?”

  “Yes, she was.” He hesitates before carrying on, looking at me as though weighing me up. “But she used the herbs for other things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Medicines” he says, not taking his eyes off mine.

  “Medicines? Did they work?” I am now genuinely interested.

  His face takes on a stubborn mask, like it did when he was trying to stop me working at the café. “Of course they did.”

  “So is that why you became a pharmacist?”

  He gapes at me. “You spotted the connection. I don’t think anyone else ever has – except Gran, of course.”

  I shrug. “It seems logical.”

  For a moment I think he is about to say something else, but he closes up and we walk back to the table in silence. The moment of intimacy has passed, but I can still smell the camomile. Even as he walks me and my bag of pasties home it fills my nostrils. There is no hug at my garden gate, but when he says goodnight there is a whole world of unsaid words in his eyes. Sadly, neither of us has the courage to speak.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Adam clearly isn’t going to let things rest there. It is quite early next morning when I receive a text: ‘Owen didn’t ask you then?’

  ‘Ask me what?’

  ‘I’m going to wring his fucking neck.’

  I am still laughing to myself when my phone rings and Owen’s number appears on the little screen.

  “Good morning, Owen,” I say. “How are you today?”

  He sounds distracted. “Fine…fine…Alice – would you li
ke to come out to supper with me on Saturday night?”

  “I’d love to, really I would.” There is a silence at the other end of the phone. “Owen?” I venture “Is Adam by any chance standing next to you with a gun at your head?”

  “No – a kitchen knife in my kidneys actually – and don’t think I’m joking.” Suddenly we’re both laughing and I can hear Adam’s cackle in the background. I think it’s going to be alright.

  On Saturday afternoon I am like a teenager getting ready for a first date. I change my mind several times about my outfit but in the end decide on the same skirt I wore to church when Owen said I scrubbed up well. I also choose quite a tight embroidered T-shirt and my very best underwear; at least that way I feel sexy underneath even if I’m a bag of nerves everywhere else.

  When Owen arrives he is smartly dressed in navy chinos and a shirt striped in the exact blue of his eyes. They are such a deep blue, almost purple in fact, and are by far his most striking feature. He’s not conventionally good looking, I don’t suppose, but seeing his generous lips break into a smile or those devastating eyes appear as he pushes his hair away certainly puts butterflies into my stomach.

  He takes me to a pub high up on the Moors. It seems to be in the middle of nowhere but the tables outside are packed with people admiring the stunning views. We make our way through the chatter to the quiet calm of a low beamed bar, where Owen knows the manager.

  “Friend of Adam’s,” he tells me. “He’ll look after us.”

  All the way in the car Owen has chatted constantly, pointing out local landmarks, and now we are busy choosing our food and ordering drinks, but I know there will be a moment when an uneasy silence falls. It does, and as I don’t want to talk shop, or about myself, or appear too nosey about him, I ask what his grandmother was like.

  He puts his head on one side. “It’s a long time since anyone’s asked me that,” he replies. “You see, everyone I know knew her too; we’ve always lived here...” he trails off, gathers himself then continues with a false brightness. “I think the last person to ask me was Adam, and that must have been about ten years ago. He was quite anxious about meeting her for the first time.”