For a Rainy Afternoon (4 page)

For Robbie and our rainy afternoons.

Emotion choked my throat. We’d done that together. Sitting at the café table staring out at the rain on the road, against the windows, wondering how short summer would be, and whether the rain would go. She had admitted to me that rain against the glass reminded her of someone, but she never explained who and I had never pushed.

I turned another page, and realization hit me as I saw a list of titles. This was an organized handwritten notebook of recipes. The handwriting of the main recipes wasn’t Maggie’s, but the notes in the margins were. Well, at least some of them. Against a few of the recipes more than one hand had made amendments. The recipes were organized in sections with some pretty unusual titles. This was the kind of document a mother might have passed to her daughter. A bible of failsafe recipes. Under each one was a qualification for the right time to use the recipe. Under Chocolate Slab it said “for sad times.” Then there was Meatloaf with Mushroom Gravy—for finding what was lost along the way—and Zucchini Bread—for inspiring passion. I smiled at the notes next to Roast Pork and all the Trimmings. Clearly Maggie’s attempt at this had been thwarted by the temperature in her range being too high. There was a note to put the pork in the oven on high for ten minutes, then turn it down for a further…. I peered closer, but I couldn’t see how long per pound of meat. What seemed to be a grease stain had made the paper thin and see-through. Notes picked up farther down the page. Something about applesauce, but most of it was illegible. Shame.

The rest of the folder was paperwork to do with the station house, copies of deeds held in the bank along with statements of every penny that passed through the account. The station house didn’t make a lot of money, but there was enough to cover outgoings and the statements showed that. I’d never seen the level of information that was in here. An accountant’s card clipped some of the statements together; farther down the pile there was the name for a bank manager, a lawyer, in fact, contact details for everyone down to the thatcher who had worked on the roof of the old part of the place six years before. I closed the folder and shuffled everything back into place. The post office was officially open at nine, and a check on the time had me startled that over an hour had passed as I’d flicked through the paperwork.

I dressed in my work uniform of neat jeans and a short-sleeved shirt and made my way out to the main post office. Half of me was hoping that Jason would be standing outside the door waiting for me to open up just so we could talk about what was going on here. Reception wasn’t good in the shop, but I managed to pull up a web page on my phone and I googled: Jason Young, Writer. There were some matches. But the Internet was so slow at rendering each page I gave up.

The morning was treacle slow, and I just wanted it over. People from the village came in and did what they usually did: bought stamps, posted mail, gave me parcels from catalogs to return. Conversation ranged from the weather to the birth of Eva’s granddaughter. Hell, I even managed to appear I was fully invested in a three-way talk about the chances of Manchester United, and that is saying something as I am more a Formula One fan than a follower of football. The only person who noticed this weird fugue-like state I was in was one of Maggie’s friends, Sylvie, who nodded in greeting and said nothing at all. She simply patted my hand and left with a soft smile. Somehow she knew my thoughts were utterly focused on something other than the press and pull of small village commerce and the signings at Man U.

By 5:00 p.m. the unusual day had become more mundane, and even though the excitement of the news I had received had trickled past shock and straight on to a weird state of
holy shit
, I was still able to cash up, tidy away coffee mugs, and restock the chocolate display before locking up and pulling the small blinds at the leaded windows. The knock on the door wasn’t unexpected. The station house stocked the essentials and out here it felt like people ran out of things just as I was about to shut. I opened the door with a patient welcoming smile pasted on my face that literally melted away in an instant when I was faced with the last thing I was expecting.

Jason. Not just Jason. Wet Jason. Soaked to the skin, his white shirt so see-through I could make out the cinnamon nipples on his chest. His hair was spiky and wet as well, and I peered past him just to check that the heavens hadn’t opened in the last ten minutes. A major rainstorm might well explain the fact Jason, who was very all damp and scowly, stood at my door near drowned.

“I didn’t know who else to ask. I don’t have reception on my phone,” he began in explanation. I realized I was staring and that I had very deliberately checked out every inch of this new-look Jason, and the flush of scarlet had to be obvious on my cheeks. “We got the electric turned on, and I was running a bath and all this water came down through the ceiling. The tank has split. Do you have maybe a plumber or a builder who knows a plumber or I don’t know….” He ran his hand through his hair, and I noticed scrapes and bruises on his forearm. Two years of first aid practice at uni and I was able to snap into caring mode quite easily. I gestured him in and through the shop into the back kitchen.

“I
S
IT
still flooding?” I asked, because this was really the first priority. Maybe the water could be turned off at the stopcock or something.

Jason shook his head. “I went up and stuffed a watering can in the hole, then taped it up with this silver stuff. I didn’t know what else to do, but for now the water level is lower than the hole. Shit. The water’s gone straight through the bedroom and into the kitchen and hall.” He was absolutely horrified at what had happened, and I imagined Maggie’s perfect home destroyed. The thought of it upset me as well. Her house was an old person’s house, all lace doilies and chintz, with wallpaper that defied time, but still, it had been the sum of her years in that place. Another part of her lost to the world. There it was again, that drama gene that seemed so strong in me at the moment.
Focus.

“I’ll call Andy,” I explained as I picked up the phone. “He’s Maggie’s friend’s son, a plumber. His brother’s an electrician. We can get them out to see what’s up.”

Andy agreed to meet Jason at the house in thirty minutes.

“What did he say?” Jason asked as soon as I dropped the call.

“That the damage is likely already done,” I admitted. Sugarcoating the situation would just cause more angst down the road.

Desolation passed over Jason’s face. “And just like that, it’s all fucked up,” he muttered as he slumped in his chair.

“Go shower here. I’ll leave some sweats and a tee outside the door. Leave your wet stuff outside, and I’ll run it through the machine. Then we’ll go see what happened.”

Jason nodded gratefully and loped up the narrow stairs two at a time. Only after he’d disappeared from view did I wrack my brains as to what I could possibly have left out to embarrass myself. I couldn’t think of anything off the top of my head, everything that could prove really awkward was locked down. I followed him up after a couple of minutes and found the clothes I’d promised, switching them for the soaked-through shirt, jeans, and underwear he’d left for me. The machine was washing when Jason came down the stairs with a sheepish expression on his face.

“I panicked. I’m sorry,” he said immediately upon seeing me sitting at the table.

“No worries. Sit, have a coffee, and then we’ll get up to the cottage.”

He sat and picked up the mug and spent the longest time simply inhaling the steam. He looked good in my sweatpants, which were just about the right length as they were a little long on me. But the green T-shirt was just this side of too small for him and did all kinds of sexy things to the contours of his body. Add in the nipple evidence from earlier, and I was back to staring again. From the knowing expression in his eyes, he had spotted me.

“Thanks for the clothes,” he said. Then he sipped at the coffee, and I could see the tension slip away. Someone was helping him with his problems, and he lost that wide-eyed horrified look in his eyes that he’d arrived with.

“You’re welcome. Finished?” I gestured to the coffee, and he passed me the empty mug to put in the sink next to mine. Finally I locked up, and we began to walk up the incline toward the cottage. We didn’t say anything; I wanted to start a conversation, but nothing seemed right when the tension grew in Jason as we got closer.

From the outside, the cottage was the same, as if no drama had happened inside. But when Jason pushed open the front door, it was easy to see the damage. From the hall I could see into the front room where half the ceiling was hanging from a huge hole and water still dripped around the edges. The wooden floor was slick with a sheen of water, which went through the hall and into the kitchen. No ceiling damage in there, but water trickled from the light sockets.

I let out a low whistle and did a complete three-sixty, checking out the damage. As I turned to the door, Andy arrived with a bag of tools and a grim expression on his face. That was part and parcel for Andy. He was the harbinger of doom where plumbing was concerned. He tutted in the front room, sighed in the kitchen, and took the stairs carefully up to the bedroom. More tutting and a “fucking hell” came from upstairs, and Jason went from anxious to miserable again.

“One day,” he said to no one. “One freaking day and I fuck it all up.”

“I don’t think you can be blamed for a broken water tank,” I reasoned. He didn’t answer, and we stood quietly with our shoes in shallow water and waited for Andy’s assessment. After banging and crashing and a few more colorful curses, Andy came back down the stairs.

“Tank’s broken,” he summarized gruffly.

“I know,” Jason said. He wasn’t being sarcastic, more just a little bit broken himself. I had this impulse to put my arm around his shoulders and pull him in for a hug. I didn’t have absolute proof of his orientation, but even a hetero guy needed a hug every so often. I didn’t, though, even after he glanced sideways at me with sadness in his beautiful gray eyes. “What now?” he asked.

“It’s not safe in here,” Andy pointed out. He was gesturing with a wrench and tapping at the old wall. “Water’s in the ceilings, the walls. The tank’s got rusty and when you ran the water, it just gave way. You’ll need to get a team in to fix it. It’ll cost you a pretty penny.”

My heart sank. That was going to be shitty news for anyone to hear, let alone some visitor from another country who was expecting an English idyll and ended up with a cottage trying to kill him.

“Money’s not the issue,” Jason said immediately. “Can you recommend someone to do the work?”

Andy glanced from Jason to me and back again. “Reckon I can do the plumbing,” he said. “My brother’s an electrician, so we have that. Still, you’ll need an expert in these old houses for the walls and ceilings.”

“But you know someone?”

“My cousin,” Andy offered. I kept back the laugh. No one had work done in the thirty or so scattered and small villages around here without one of Andy’s family being somehow involved.

“When can you start?”

“I’ll get a quote to you by the end of the week.”

“Don’t bother with a quote,” Jason said. “Seriously, just get on and fix the place up. If Robbie says you’re the best, then I trust you.”

I winced internally. That was a lot of responsibility to put on me given Jason didn’t really know me. Good job Andy actually
was
one of the best, or I’d be opening Jason up to all sorts of shitty craftsmanship.

“Okay, I’ll get back to you with a date,” Andy offered. Then he tapped the wall again with the wrench. “Seems like I was only up in the roof a few months back, don’t recall the tank being rusted then. Damn old houses.” He left after giving Jason a card, and then it was just me and a very quiet American standing in the hallway.

“Fuck,” Jason said, breaking the awkward silence. Then in a flurry of motion, he dived into the front room kicking up water in his wake. He reappeared with a faint smile on his face, a laptop bag in his hand, and his suitcase pulling along behind him. “The rest is wrecked, the stuff I unpacked, but this is all okay.”

“Okay, so let’s mop up what we can, spread some towels or something.” I galvanized us into action, and we mopped and tipped until the wood was dry. There was still dripping, so we placed a couple of buckets and saucepans under the worst of it and stood back to survey it all.

“Can I ask a favor?” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a sadly soggy iPhone. “Can I use your phone to call a cab?”

My immediate reaction was to reach into my own jeans and pull out my older Nokia with its buttons instead of a bright touch screen, but my hand stayed as I realized what he’d asked.

“You can stay at mine,” I offered.

“I couldn’t—”

“No sense in driving into town now.” I glanced at my watch and saw it was already past nine. I was hungry and tired and had a perfectly good spare room that I used as a junk room. There was even a bed he could use. “You can stay until you get your head around what you’re doing.” I used my best insistent voice, the one where no one argued. I could see a need for discussion in his eyes, but it deflated in the face of my stubborn statement.

“Thank you, Robbie.”

“Any friend of Maggie’s…,” I began, then trailed away.

“I never actually knew Maggie.”

I huffed a laugh as I took the key out of his hand and locked the door. “That’s mere details. Just don’t murder me in my bed.” I turned to face him and realized he hadn’t moved that far away, in fact he was right-the-fuck-there, and this close up I could see his eyes darkened to a near-black outer ring. This close up I could also smell the scent of him, the tea tree shampoo he’d used in my shower, and the deodorant I also recognized as mine. He smelled good, he looked good, and I swayed a little. Just a few inches closer and we could’ve kissed. Nothing hot and heavy, just a taste to see if I liked it.