Crow Stone. Jenni Mills

personally when I suggested letting the waiter finish it.’ I lean back in triumph. ‘Anyway, we’d better get the bill and go before he’s brave enough to get stuck into the remains of that bottle.’

      Gary leaves a generous tip, I notice. As he helps me into my coat, those long, sensitive fingers brush my shoulder then jump nervously away–a bit like this evening’s conversation. It hadn’t occurred to me before: why is the site foreman taking me out for dinner, and not the mine manager?

      He’s still laughing when he orders drinks at the hotel bar. ‘You’re not going to play the same trick here, are you? I don’t think my blood pressure can take it twice in one evening.’

      ‘Nick’s rule was never do it anywhere you wanted to go back to.’

      ‘He sounds like quite a character, your ex.’

      ‘Take it from me, he wasn’t.’

      Gary carries the drinks over to a table on the veranda, overlooking the weir. At least, I assume it overlooks the weir, because we can hear it, white noise in the background. The view must be lovely on summer evenings, but all that’s visible tonight is our own reflection in the window glass, Gary with his square, solid face, as full of dents and clefts in the lamplight as limestone, me with choppy hair that will never sit smooth however well it’s been cut, and a heart-shaped face too sharp to be pretty. I look a bit less sad tonight, but still tired and secretive. We could be a couple who have known each other so long we’ve run out of conversation, or two strangers too shy to know what to say to each other.

      ‘So what does he do, your ex?’

      ‘He was a journalist, of sorts. He could have been quite good, but he spent too much time in the bar.’

      ‘I thought that’s what journalists do–and still manage to write.’

      ‘Slurring doesn’t show up on a page. Nick was a broadcaster.’

      ‘Ah.’

      ‘He still does some freelancing, but mostly he sits in the pub he bought with the proceeds of selling my house, and drinks away the profits. Aberystwyth doesn’t have a lot of hard news.’

      Gary’s on fizzy water, I notice. He follows my eyes to the bottle, and shrugs. I’m on decaff. Nick would have been laying out the lines of cocaine by now. I live dangerously, and pop into my mouth the chocolate mint that comes with the coffee.

      ‘Do you have kids?’ asks Gary.

      ‘No, thank God. I’d probably not have had the nerve to throw Nick out if I had.’

      ‘I can’t believe that. You don’t exactly strike me as submissive.’

      ‘It’s different when you have children to think about. I couldn’t have done this job, for instance. We’d have been dependent on Nick. You got kids?’

      Something unreadable crosses Gary’s face. It might be indigestion, revenge of the steak au poivre, but I don’t think so.

      ‘One. Living with my ex-wife.’

      ‘You get access, though?’

      ‘No.’

      I wait, but he doesn’t elaborate. Asking outright seems rude, but I ask anyway.

      ‘It’s complicated. She’s with a South African driving instructor, who keeps an Alsatian dog he calls Ripper. Jeff claims he taught it to tear the balls off black men. I keep away, just in case. It looks colour-blind to me.’ He swallows a big mouthful of fizz, and his eyes crinkle, in the way they seem to do when he’s searching for the proper way of putting things. ‘But that’s enough about me. Do you mind if I smoke?’

      ‘Only if you don’t give me one.’

      He pulls a pack of Extra Mild out of his jacket pocket and proffers it.

      ‘I’m supposed to be giving up,’ I say, bending towards his lighter. ‘I always try at the start of a new job. Never succeed.’

      He snatches the lighter away. ‘Then don’t let me encourage you.’

      ‘Fuck off.’ We’re already sparring, like I do with Martin. I grab his hand and pull it back. He clicks the wheel and I light the cigarette, fingers still curled round his hand, protecting the flame. Why am I doing that? I don’t like touching people. I let go, and take a long pull on the filter.

      He lights one for himself.

      He’s looking at me. ‘Why did you pull that trick in the restaurant tonight?’

      I don’t know.

      ‘I told you, I get pissed off with pretentious.’

      I wanted you to notice me.

      ‘Doesn’t anyone ever call your bluff, Kit?’

      ‘Sometimes. That’s what makes it exciting.’

      He taps ash off the end of his cigarette, very carefully, on to the edge of the ashtray. ‘I just hope you don’t behave like that underground.’

      ‘It’s because I don’t behave like that underground that I need to play games in posh restaurants.’

      ‘I see.’

      He doesn’t. He’s looking at me very intently now, as if he’s trying to get inside my mind, and although I’m trying to hold his gaze, all my instincts tell me to pull the shutters down and look away.

      ‘Bloody hell, Gary, these cigarettes taste of nothing.’ I have to keep talking; there was almost a moment there. That couple I can see in the window looked very serious. ‘If you’re going to kill yourself, you might as well do it on something you know you’ve smoked. I need a refill of coffee to get some sort of buzz going.’

      He gets up, putting his cigarette carefully on the side of the ashtray. ‘Are you sure you don’t want something a bit stronger with it? A brandy? Whisky, maybe?’

      ‘Oh, go on, then. Laphroaig, if they’ve got it.’ My weak spot, rough and smoky. ‘And another chocolate,’ I add.

      ‘Please.’

      ‘Please.’

      I watch him going to the bar to fetch the coffee. Not many men would jump to it like that. He has nice shoulders in the charcoal jacket, a comfortable walk. There are muscles shifting under the material. But he probably loathes me by now for being such a madam. The cigarette he left in the ashtray twists a long spiralling thread of smoke into the air, then stutters a set of little puffs, like an SOS.

      It feels too hot in here. My jumper’s damp from perspiration, sticking to my back.

      – walking slowly down the steps towards him, my eyes fixed on that deep pale V of his chest, his long hair curling on to his collar-bones. He would smell my sweat as I held out my hand, just like I smelt his—

      For a moment I almost forgot I’d known him before, in another life.

      It couldn’t be clearer that he’s forgotten me. If he remembered, there’s no way he’d have invited me to dinner tonight or any other.

      What the fuck am I doing? I must have been mad to come back to Green Down. Suddenly I’m tired, too tired to understand why I took this job against my better judgement.

      I know, I know, it’s Friday night, not yet gone eleven, Saturday tomorrow. I don’t have to be at work, I can stay up late and then lie in. But I’m knackered. I’m going to drink the Laphroaig he’s bringing back to me, smoke another of his tasteless cigarettes, say, ‘Thank you for a lovely evening,’ and head for bed.

       Chapter Eight

      Our kitchen smelled even damper than usual: soapsuds and wet wool. Mrs Owen knelt like a woman at prayer, a mat