Dearest Rose (21 page)

Ted stopped, brought up short by the note of fear in her voice. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I don’t, I’m not … Is this about sex?’

‘Sex?’ Ted’s eyes widened. ‘Yeah, sure, if you want it to be.’

‘No! No, I don’t want it to be. I want it to be completely clear that that is not going to happen. Do you understand that? I don’t want to be kissed, or touched or … or … I just don’t, I really, really –’

‘Hey, it’s OK,’ Ted said, raising the palms of his hands to her. ‘I’m not Jack the Ripper, you know. If you’re not up for it, I get that. It’s cool. Doesn’t mean we can’t hang out, though, does it? I want to take you somewhere,’ Ted said, opening the passenger door of his truck for her.

Rose hesitated, eyeing the truck warily.

‘It’s OK, I haven’t been drinking, like I said. And I’m not
a
murderer or anything. My mum would properly kill me if I was.’

‘I’m not sure …’ Rose looked at the open door, seeing a corner she wouldn’t be able to escape from.

‘You’re really frightened of me, aren’t you?’ Ted took her hand, clearly perplexed by her reaction. ‘You’re trembling!’

‘It’s just … I’ve had quite a sheltered life,’ Rose said. ‘I don’t want to lead you on, I want to be clear.’

‘And you have been,’ he said. ‘Look, Rose, you don’t have to be scared of me. I’m just Ted from the pub. I’m not going to whisk you away to the middle of nowhere and force you to do anything you don’t want to, because frankly I’m not the sort of bloke who has to force women to do anything. Normally I’m fighting them off me. I just want to show you this place, it’s my place. That’s all.’

‘As long as you understand …’

‘I understand,’ Ted said gently. ‘I repulse you. It’s OK, I can take it. You are safe with me.’

‘Very well, then,’ Rose said, battling down her irrationality, aware that it was Richard, his shadow, his years of controlling her, that were scaring her just as much as the prospect of being alone with Ted. Whatever happened next, she would not let it be because of anything Richard had done to crush her. ‘Just don’t try anything.’

‘Weren’t you listening? I never have to try,’ Ted grinned as they pulled out of the pub car park.

They drove in near silence for what must have been almost twenty minutes, Rose too self-conscious and uncertain of what was really going on to even look at Ted, and him seemingly
intent
on the twist of country road that revealed itself in the headlights, inch by inch. Instead she gazed out of the window at the alien landscape that unfolded around her, the silhouette of the mountains standing out sharply against the still faintly glowing summer sky. After a while Ted pulled up a track that Rose would never have noticed if she were on her own, and after juddering over its rough surface for a few hundred yards, turned off the ignition, got out of the car and came round to help her out of the truck, lifting her down with his hands on her narrow waist.

‘You don’t weigh an ounce,’ he commented, taking her hand and leading her towards what looked like a copse of trees, which were surprisingly well lit by the moon and starlight. Before long Rose could hear the trickle of water and, watching her feet, she let Ted lead her up a rough staircase of rocks that tumbled alongside the stream, until they came to a kind of plateau cut into the hillside. There amongst the gilt-edged trees, glittering in the moonlight, Rose could see a tiny waterfall, chiming rhythmically as it cascaded down into the stream below.

‘Wow,’ Rose breathed, as Ted spread a blanket out on a rock for her to sit on. ‘This place is beautiful!’

‘I know,’ Ted said softly. ‘When I was a little kid, me and Haleigh used to come here in the holidays. Mum’d pack us a lunch and then send us off for the day. We’d walk here, take us a good hour, stay here all day, just mucking about and that. Haleigh reckoned there were fairies living in the trees, and I used to play commando. Later, when Haleigh got too cool to hang out with me and started getting into lads, I came here on my own, and you know what the funny thing is, it does feel a
little
bit magical. I mean, I wouldn’t say that to just anyone, sounds a bit mental, but it does, doesn’t it?’

Rose smiled as she watched Ted’s profile, as he leant back on his hands and gazed at the night sky studded with stars, through the canopy of thin, windswept trees.

‘You’re quite a sweet lad really, aren’t you, under all that front and rock-star bluster?’ she asked him softly.

‘Me? Sweet? Never,’ Ted said, directing his gaze to her. ‘I’ve never brought anyone here until now. I don’t know why I’ve brought you, really. I just wanted to see your face when you saw it. I knew it would make you smile. And I don’t know why but I get the feeling you don’t smile nearly enough.’

‘I’ve smiled a lot more since arriving here,’ Rose told him.

‘That’ll be down to meeting me,’ Ted said, his expression hard to read in the darkness, but the sound of his voice light and playful. He was flirting, that was what flirting was, Rose thought, relieved that being alone with Ted out here, with no one around for miles and miles, didn’t make her as frightened as she’d feared, or indeed frightened at all. Ted was right, she knew that he wouldn’t hurt her because she sensed it. She was so used to feeling the exact opposite. Life with Richard had worn away all her instincts except fear. She was glad she’d come here, glad she had this opportunity just to be with another person and know there would be no terrible consequences.

‘Rose, can I ask you something?’ Ted said softly. ‘Not about kissing or anything.’

‘I suppose,’ Rose said.

‘Were things really bad with your husband?’

Rose was surprised by the question, surprised that Ted cared how things were with Richard, assuming that whatever problems
Rose
had at home, they would be low down on his list of interests.

‘Yes,’ she said bluntly, feeling that here, in the middle of all this beauty, it would be pointless and wrong to lie. ‘Yes, things were very bad. Still are, I suppose, although I haven’t spoken to him since I left.’

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Ted asked her.

Slowly Rose shook her head. ‘Not here, not in this lovely place. It’s too … special.’

‘Fair enough,’ Ted said with a simple shrug.

‘Do you know what?’ Rose said, touched by his frank concern. ‘You’re OK.’

They sat quietly for a few minutes more, Rose finding that the more she listened to the cascade of the waterfall, the more relaxed she was becoming, approaching something as close to peace as she’d felt in … forever. Suddenly it wasn’t just miles that separated her from Richard, from the life that had imprisoned her, but it seemed like universes too, as though somehow she’d travelled light years through the stars that spun over her head. Perhaps it was possible, her new beginning, her fresh start. It felt possible in that moment, as if really she could wash away the pain and the hurt of the past until she was clean and smooth, like the pebbles in the stream, soothed by the never-ending flow of water. Even with her dreams of Frasier becoming a different reality than she’d hoped for, maybe, even then she could still be happy.

Rose was taken by surprise when Ted suddenly lunged forward and attempted to kiss her, shattering her serenity in a second. Squealing, she scrabbled backwards, away from him.

‘Ted!’ she exclaimed. ‘I thought you –’

‘I know, and I do, I just … I really want to kiss you.’

Rose stared at what she could make out of his expression in the darkness.

‘You don’t just lunge at someone,’ she protested, the fear that had temporarily surged through her dissipating as quickly as it had built up.

‘I know!’ Ted said, rolling his eyes like a teenager. ‘I just … it’s such a pretty night … and … I was just checking that you were completely sure you didn’t want to kiss me.’

‘I’m such a mess, kissing anyone now would be a mistake,’ Rose said. ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’

‘Oh God.’ Ted looked so despondent that Rose almost wanted to reach out to touch him. Almost. They sat there for several moments in the moonlight, in silence, Rose thinking of the look on Richard’s face when she’d last seen him. Of the way her father did his best not to look at her, of how Frasier had so politely shaken her hand and said goodbye, and it was as if, for just that moment, none of it, not a single second of what had come before or what would come afterwards, mattered at all.

‘Kiss me, Ted,’ Rose heard herself saying out loud.

‘What?’ Ted looked sharply at her.

‘Just kiss me, I’m ready,’ Rose said anxiously, before clamping both hands over her mouth. ‘Wait … OK. Ready. Now I’m ready.’

Rose watched warily as Ted took her hand in his and ever so gently tugged her towards him; their eyes met, his shining blackly in the moonlight, at the same moment their lips met. Rose closed her eyes then, feeling the warmth of his lips gently pressing against hers, his fingers sliding up from her wrist to
her
forearm. After a few seconds more with no obvious signs of protest, he gently opened her mouth with his tongue and Rose felt his fingers tighten around her arm, his other hand resting on her waist as he kissed her properly.

‘OK,’ Rose said, breaking contact as soon as she felt that she might get a little too lost in the moment. ‘OK, great. Thank you.’

‘Thank you?’ Ted said, his face still close to hers, his lips still moist. ‘So how was it so far for you?’

‘Nice, thank you,’ Rose whispered back, caught between wanting to experience that altogether pleasant sensation again, and wanting very much to run in the opposite direction now.

‘Same for me. You are a very good kisser,’ Ted said sweetly, and Rose couldn’t be sure in the half-dark, but she thought he might actually be blushing.

‘Really?’ she asked him. ‘Only … really?’

‘Yeah, a lot of girls are very, you know, full on. Sometimes kissing can be like fighting off a man-eating tiger. But not with you. Kissing you is very lovely.’

‘Lovely,’ Rose said, testing the word on her lips, just as much as she’d tested Ted’s lips. For so very long kissing had been a thing to be endured, a hated thing, an expression quite often of contempt and control. Never, not once, not even at the very beginning, had Rose ever kissed Richard and thought it was lovely. But that is exactly what it was like with Ted. It was soft, sweet, innocent and … lovely.

‘Could we kiss again?’ Rose asked Ted. ‘I mean just kissing. Nothing else, no touching or getting heated. Just like we were before. Just like that. Can we kiss like that, but for longer?’

‘How long?’ Ted asked her, sweetly amused by her list of kissing criteria. ‘Should I set a clock?’

‘Until I want to stop,’ Rose said, suddenly burying her head in her hands. ‘Oh God, I know what I sound like, I sound like a nutter. A grown woman wanting to kiss like a twelve-year-old, but if you knew –’

‘I don’t need to know,’ Ted interrupted her. ‘I’m just ridiculously happy that kissing me makes you feel nice. And I’m very, very happy to keep on kissing you until the sun comes up, if that’s what you want.’

Before Rose could think of anything else to say Ted was kissing her again, this time pressing her very gently backwards until she found herself half lying on his blanket. Rose closed her eyes against the starry sky, and felt her skin tingle and fizz with pleasure, her hands lying chastely at her sides, and Ted’s hands holding her ever so lightly. Kissing Richard had never been like this, she thought dimly, and without knowing it would happen she heard a sigh become a tiny moan, and realised that noise had come from her throat.

‘I have to say,’ Ted breathed into her ear, ‘I’m finding kissing you very nice indeed. Say if it gets too nice.’

‘I will,’ Rose whispered back. ‘I think I’m fine for now, though.’

Rose wasn’t sure of how long they went on that way, simply kissing as the stars wheeled above them, the water splashing by, the world as oblivious to them as they were to it, but suddenly from nowhere, she felt something shift inside her, a rush of longing, or desire that she was completely unfamiliar with bubbling up, and for one moment, without her even realising it, her arms had wound themselves around Ted, and she was pulling his body tightly against hers. Panicking as she came to her senses, Rose pushed him away and sat up, catching her breath.

‘Oh,’ Rose said as his lips were about to close over hers again. ‘Oh goodness.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Ted said anxiously. ‘I didn’t mean for that to happen. Have I scared you?’

‘No,’ Rose caught her breath as she looked at him, feeling the heat in her cheeks. ‘I scared myself. I’m sorry, Ted. But I think I need to stop kissing you now.’

‘But not because I’ve done something wrong?’ Ted asked her, genuinely worried. ‘Because, honestly, there’s something about you that makes me feel … stuff I’m not used to. I don’t really know what it is, or why, and at this moment I don’t really care about much, except that … I really,
really
liked kissing you, Rose.’

Rose shook her head, unable to believe what he was saying, scared by knowing that kissing Ted had stirred her own embers of desire, a feeling that she wasn’t ready to confront yet, not for anyone.

‘That’s so sweet,’ she told him again, a little unsteadily. ‘But now I think I need to go home.’

‘I know,’ Ted said, holding out a hand. ‘And although you are killing me, I can accept that. But, well, if the mood ever strikes you again, if you ever need some more therapeutic kissing, then I’m available.’

Rose looked at him, biting her swollen lip, and wondered what on earth had she done?

Chapter Nine

ROSE WOKE UP
early the next morning, along with the first of the dawn light to filter through the thin curtains, with a terribly uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach, as if she had done something really badly wrong. Then the slight tingle in her aching lips, and the sore skin around her chin, made her remember. She’d spent quite a large portion of last night kissing Ted. Catching her lip between her teeth, Rose darted under the covers, fearful that if Maddie caught the expression on her face she would be able to tell instantly that her mother had been kissing inappropriately. Now it seemed like a dream, the long languorous minutes that almost made up an entire night she had spent under the warm night sky, with the sound of the water in the background and Ted’s lips on hers. Ted, it turned out, was an exceptionally good kisser, not that Rose had much to compare him to, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that between them they’d recreated a part of her past that had never been. Her teenage kisses under the stars, the ones she had never had until the age of thirty-one.