‘Then don’t go,’ said Max.
Every time he looked at her, she noticed how piercing his eyes were, how intense. In every other way he looked his age. His face was lined, his hair grey and his back slightly stooped, the way that older men’s so often were. In all these ways, he reminded Angela of her own father. But his eyes still danced with the light of youth and energy and intelligence. It was his eyes that made him attractive. That and the kind smile that, over the past decade, she had truly come to love. Max Bingley’s smile was as much a part of Fittlescombe to her as the church or the green or the annual Swell Valley cricket match. Max Bingley’s smile was home.
‘It’s not just America. It’s everything. Me and Brett …’ She tailed off. Max found himself waiting with baited breath for her to finish the sentence. When she said no more, he prompted her gently.
‘You’ve changed your mind?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. It’s not that I want to end my marriage. It’s that it has ended. I’m just watching from the sidelines. That probably sounds stupid.’
‘No,’ Max assured her. ‘As it happens, I know exactly what you mean. Have you spoken to Brett?’
She shook her head. ‘He’s away in America. Finalizing things at the new house. He gets back tomorrow.’ She looked at Max bleakly. ‘What am I going to tell him?’
‘The truth?’ Max suggested, gently.
‘It’s not that easy,’ said Angela.
‘The important things in life rarely are,’ said Max.
‘Yes but purely on a practical level. Half our life is already on a boat! We have tenants supposed to arrive in a week. We signed a contract.’ Angela grimaced.
‘None of that matters,’ said Max. ‘Not if you’re really not happy. It can all be undone.’
Can it? thought Angela. Could she really just accept this place at Sussex University? Start a new life, here in the village, on her own? At her age?
‘You never know,’ said Max. ‘Brett may already be thinking the same thing you are. If you’ve watched your marriage crumble, isn’t it at least possible that he has too? Perhaps you’ve both been too scared to say anything. It isn’t easy to rock the boat, but sometimes it’s the right thing. Sometimes it’s worth it.’
Angela took a bite of cake and finished off her tea. She felt so safe here with Max Bingley, so comfortable and happy. But this was Stella’s home, Stella’s life, not hers. She remembered something that Penny de la Cruz had once said to her.
I mustn’t rely on Max. If I do this, I have to do it alone. Start as I mean to go on.
‘I’d better get back.’ Reluctantly she stood up and took her mug over to the sink.
‘All right.’ Max sounded equally regretful. He’d have loved her to stay, but couldn’t think of a reason to keep her there.
‘Do you really think I can do it?’ Angela asked at the door, shrugging on her still-wet raincoat. ‘The Masters, I mean?’
‘Of course,’ said Max. ‘Standing on your head. And the professors at Sussex obviously agree. Your problem is you don’t have enough confidence. You can do whatever you want to do, Angela.’
‘You see, that’s why you’re a teacher,’ she joked, kissing him on the cheek goodbye.
Max watched as she disappeared down his garden path and into the lane. He stood at the doorway, watching the rain fall, long after she’d passed out of sight.
In the background, the muted strains of the Wagner drifted back to him. But they no longer lifted his spirits. Angela Cranley had gone.
Brett Cranley tied the belt on his silk Turnbull & Asser dressing gown and looked at his face in the bathroom mirror. Deep grooves fanned out from each of his eyes, like cracks in a dry river bed. The grey in his hair had spread from his temples all the way back to the nape of his neck, and deep shadows had inked themselves permanently beneath his eyes like two violet tattoos.
I look old.
I am old.