“And I have to . . .”
“I know,” said Nina, not breaking his gaze. She could feel Lennox humming in frustration next to her as the train started, very slowly, to move.
Suddenly, barely knowing what she was doing, and completely surprised by herself, Nina made a run for the steps, and jumped up onto the footplate of the engine, where she kissed a very surprised Marek firmly on the lips through the window, caressing his face; his mouth was soft and warm and she wanted nothing more than to stay with him, but she knew she could not, and as he took his hand off the dead man’s handle to slow the train down, she jumped lightly back down to the ground again.
Lennox had gone back to the Land Rover, and was watching as the train steadily gathered speed, chugging faster and faster. When it was beyond the crossing, he looked at Nina contemptuously and opened the car door.
Nina found herself running after him.
“I can’t take you with me,” he said crossly. “I’m off to Kyle’s, remember.”
The lamb, she could now see, had a great tear in its flank and was whimpering.
“Oh,” she said. “Can I hold him? Poor little thing.”
“No,” said Lennox curtly. “Haven’t you got a railway to get yourself killed on?”
“Why are you so mean all the time?”
“Because I’m trying to save an animal’s life. So sorry if that interferes with your utterly ridiculous love life.”
“There’s just no need for that,” said Nina, white hot with anger. “You’re my landlord, not a policeman.”
Lennox fired up the Land Rover angrily.
“While you’re parking trains willy-nilly and doing God knows what at all hours in public, I think I’m allowed an opinion.”
The lights of the Land Rover lit up the remains of their picnic, the champagne bottle lying sadly on its side in the damp grass. They both stared at it.
Lennox turned around one last time to look at Nina, who was shaking with fury and cold in the night air.
“Do you know anything about him?” he said. “Because I know men who travel far and work the longest, the hardest shifts. And it’s always . . . it’s always for their families.”
And with a lurch, the Land Rover was gone, leaving Nina alone and furious in its wake.
Nina watched the red lights disappearing into the distance. Hateful bloody horribly embittered old divorcé. How dare he? How the hell was it his business? And what the hell did he know?
So she hadn’t asked Marek much about his background, but it had been so lovely and delicious, just falling into it, the whole romance of it. He never spoke about Latvia, so she never asked, it was that simple. She didn’t . . . she didn’t want to think of it: that somewhere on a cold and snowy plain, in a little village, or a Soviet apartment block, there were people waiting for him. People relying on him.
She was turning around to stomp back toward the village when the Land Rover returned and the door opened.
“So I can’t leave you here on your own in the dark, although he apparently can.”
“I’m fine.”
“Yes, but you think climbing dying trees and dancing about on railway lines is also fine, so excuse me if I’m not sure I trust your judgment.”
Lennox drove her rapidly home in silence, then headed off again still with the lamb in his jacket. She barely thanked him.
Nina couldn’t sleep. She was thinking back to the feel of Marek’s mouth against hers. His beautiful soft mouth, his big, solid hands. She knew there was a poet in there. She was sure of it. They couldn’t communicate much, but she was sure she could feel him inside. Couldn’t she?
Around 4 A.M., she saw the lights of the Land Rover scrape the roof and knew Lennox must be back, but that merely made her cross again. She heard a soft baaing as the car door opened, and a gentle murmuring, which annoyed her even more, seeing as he patently had it in him to be perfectly kind and sweet, as long as you had four fricking legs.
She was still cross when she heard the chickens start squawking two hours later as Lennox set off for work and she realized she’d barely slept a wink. Her shoulders were up around her ears; she was so stressed, it was worse than being back in the city. She pulled herself out of bed and stood in the shower for ages, but it only made her long for bed more than ever. No. She had a job now. That was how it was.
Only Surinder was sleeping peacefully on the sofa as Nina wandered over to fiddle with the expensive coffee machine in the kitchen, then stomped crossly out to the van. The weather steadfastly refused to reflect her mood and the sun beamed down in a most uncharacteristic fashion. Nina blinked and put her sunglasses on for practically the first time since she’d arrived.
Chapter Twenty-two
A Book for the Furious: Nina almost laughed when she saw it because it was so precisely what she was looking for, an enormous tome of revenge stories, ranging from pouring molten silver into the eyes of a thief, to launching a pirate fleet.
I don’t care, she thought. I don’t care about him. But she did want to see Marek again, to kiss him again under the moon.
She sighed and glanced at her watch. Edwin and Hugh were crossing the cobbled square to sit and have a pint in the sunshine, and Nina waved to them. They waved back cheerily and asked her if she wanted to join them, and she didn’t know how to explain to them that she couldn’t drink because a) she was driving a van and b) it was just past eight o’clock in the morning. But she knew what they wanted really, and dug it out: the newest labyrinthine saga from the subcontinent; Hugh had developed a real taste for them. It was a thank-you, really, for everything they had done for her, helping her buy the van. Hugh would always insist on paying, and Nina would make sure there was no price written on it and purse her lips and say, I’m terribly sorry, Hugh, that one is one pound fifty, and he would look pained and she would offer to discount it even further and he would gallantly refuse. So they got tremendously cheap books and she got to say thank you, and everyone was happy.
Ainslee was usually sidling up at this time; even though Nina welcomed her wholeheartedly every single day, the girl still acted like she wasn’t wanted, creeping toward the van bent over, as though trying to hide. But today she was nowhere to be seen.
There was, however, someone else. A grubby, cheeky figure dressed in a ragged T-shirt and shorts displaying very scabbed knees: Ainslee’s little brother.