Book Club Reads: 3-Book Collection: Yesterday’s Sun, The Sea Sisters, Someone to Watch Over Me. Amanda Brooke

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СКАЧАТЬ she gasped, ‘can we not do this now?’

      Tom sighed and gently kissed Holly on her forehead. ‘You lead the way,’ he said with a flourish of his hand, pointing the way back to their guests.

      There was gentle laughter rippling around the dining table but Tom and Holly brought their awkward silence into the room with them.

      ‘Are you all right, Holly?’ Diane asked.

      ‘A little bit too much cooking wine, I think,’ Holly admitted. She lifted up her glass of water and tried to let go of her anger and fear, but once again the ghostly shroud in the garden caught her attention. If only the moondial would loosen its grip.

      ‘I expect it’s taking a while getting used to this lean and keen stranger who just appeared on your doorstep,’ replied Diane.

      ‘Hey, I’m no stranger,’ challenged Tom.

      ‘No stranger than usual,’ Holly added. Their eyes met for the first time since returning to their guests. A wordless apology passed between them and as everyone laughed at her joke, Holly sensed the tension leaving the room.

      Diane was next to have a go at Tom’s looks. ‘You have lost a fair bit of weight on this trip, but at least your hair’s starting to grow back. I never thought I’d say this, but after years of nagging you about the knots and tats in your hair, I think I actually miss the long-haired Tom.’

      ‘Me too,’ smiled Holly. ‘But any version of Tom is better than none.’

      ‘Hear, hear,’ Jocelyn said, raising her glass. ‘He looks pretty tasty to me.’

      ‘Tastier than this dinner anyway,’ muttered Holly. ‘But you’ll be pleased to know that Jocelyn has provided the dessert. Anyone hungry?’

      The afternoon ebbed away with no more cross words. Tom and Holly said their goodbyes to their guests as the final rays of sunlight gave up the ghost for the night.

      ‘Tell me truthfully,’ Tom asked as they closed the front door. ‘Are you having doubts about our relationship? Is that what you meant about not being here tomorrow? Because if you are, I won’t give up without a fight.

      I love you, Holly, and if my being away is causing a rift between us, then I’ll stop. I don’t want to lose you.’

      ‘I know you don’t,’ replied Holly with a truth that Tom couldn’t begin to understand, not yet, hopefully not ever. ‘I just think we spend too much time looking to the future, looking at what’s missing, instead of appreciating what we have now. I don’t want you to ever look back and think, hey, I was happy then and I didn’t even know it, I had my wife, I had my dreams and it was enough.’

      Tom looked at her with a deep intensity that made Holly feel uneasy, as if he was looking deep into her soul and was about to uncover the secrets she was keeping from him. He seemed to be struggling to find the words so he simply wrapped her in his arms and held on tightly. ‘Right now, Holly, you’re right. This is enough. This is more than enough.’

       Chapter 10

      ‘Move your hand a little bit. Ooh, that’s good. Now just a little bit more,’ Holly said with growing excitement. ‘No, no, not that much. Now move to the left a bit. Slowly does it, nearly there. That’s it, that’s it. Don’t move!’

      ‘I’m getting tired,’ groaned Tom.

      ‘Stop complaining, we’ve only just started.’

      ‘This wasn’t exactly how I imagined spending my time at home. Semi-naked, yes. Experimenting with lots of positions, yes. Standing in the middle of your studio, holding a plastic doll? Not exactly part of my plan.’

      ‘We’ve already wasted a whole weekend in bed,’ Holly reminded him.

      ‘Wasted?’

      Holly grinned and acknowledged every aching muscle in her satiated body. ‘OK, not wasted. Trouble is, I may be able to take time off from the teashop while you’re home but I can’t afford to fall behind schedule with Mrs Bronson’s commission. I love you and adore you and, if nothing else, this only gives me more time to stare at your gorgeous if not slightly undernourished body.’

      Holly had practically completed the base. A dark, nebulous spiral had emerged from the large stone block and, unlike the scaled version, this one had the finer detail. There were eerie suggestions of figures which made up its curves, depicting the generations that came before, the foundations from the past that supported the future.

      The upper section was going to be more of a challenge and Holly wanted to work up some additional sketches before she started constructing the wire skeletons which would support the mother and child figures that were to be moulded from clay. She had persuaded Tom to strip down to his waist and drape a dust sheet around himself, holding a baby doll in his arms. Tom wasn’t exactly the figure of the mother she had in mind, but he was certainly less of the man she had waved goodbye to.

      ‘Well, if you’d seen what it was like, you’d have come back half-starved too. It wasn’t that we weren’t well catered for, we were. But I couldn’t switch off what was happening around me, none of us could,’ Tom had told her.

      When he had set off to Haiti he had been a highly polished, slick anchorman in the making with his cropped hair and shiny suit, but his transformation had shocked Holly. He’d appeared on screen reporting in Haiti and each time Holly had seen him, he had looked just a little bit less polished, a little less slick. In some ways, Holly had been glad to see him reverting back to his old dishevelled self, but he had gone beyond dishevelled and had acquired a look that was gaunt, tortured even. It was more than evident that the changes weren’t only physical.

      ‘Well, you’re home now. I know you’re not going to be able to forget what you’ve seen, but you can’t fix it, not everything, not on your own. You are making a difference, Tom. It’s a demanding job but it’s the job you always dreamed of, and who knows where it will lead to?’

      ‘Straight back to the studio, that’s where. It’s only a secondment, remember. What difference will I be able to make then?’

      ‘You’ll make a difference,’ Holly said, in a weak attempt to reassure him. ‘Now stop moving and keep your arm straight.’

      ‘I know I shouldn’t complain, it’ll be worth it in the end. I can’t wait to be a dad,’ he said with growing excitement as he cradled the plastic doll in his arms.

      ‘We’ll see,’ whispered Holly, desperately trying to focus on her sketch and not resurrect the drunken argument that had been so narrowly avoided at the disastrous Sunday lunch.

      ‘What’s happened, Holly? Last time I was home you were so keen to start a family. Now, every time I raise the subject, you’re freezing me out again.’ Tom had kept to his pose so he wasn’t looking at her, but still he sensed the sadness that was threatening to overwhelm her.

      ‘What if we can’t have children?’

      ‘Of course we’ll be able to have children. Just look at this baby-making physique.’ Tom flexed non-existent muscles in a rather scrawny arm as if to prove the point.

      ‘Would СКАЧАТЬ