To hurt Bertie might tip him over the precipice to which he clung. Lily couldn’t do it, not until he was perfectly himself again. But nor could she contemplate living the rest of her life without Nathan. Hadn’t she lost enough loved ones already? First Dick, then Emma, and then her own precious Amy, the pain of which she still nursed like an aching tooth.
It was certainly true that rumours had ruined her relationship with her family. She would dearly love to heal the breach. But how?
Lily wrapped the fudge in greaseproof paper and took it to Ferryman Bob, who was to be her emissary.
‘Please say, to my father’s face if you can, that although I may find it hard at times, and am still falling a little by the wayside, I am trying to be respectable and responsible. My own person.’
He asked her to repeat this until he had carefully learned it off by heart, since she refused to write them down. ‘That would be too formal,’ Lily insisted. But he took her message willingly enough, without truly comprehending it.
She sat by the folly all the next day hoping for a reply. None came.
Winter came, holding the lake in its iron grip, an Arctic spectacle of icicles falling from every fence and tree, great banks of snow blocking the lanes and shrouding the woodlands in a sparkling canopy of white. Lily found herself growing restless from being confined so much indoors and when one day the sun came out, glinting blue-white on a fresh fall of snow, causing the ice-bound lake to glitter as if studded with diamonds, she begged Bertie to take a walk with her.
Obediently he came. He never refused her anything. ‘Come and eat, Bertie dear,’ she would say, and he would eat. ‘Do come and sit with me, Bertie, and we’ll read the newspaper together,’ and he would come and listen as she read. But even during his favourite occupation of walking, he rarely smiled and never instigated any conversation on his own account.
This day proved to be different. Perhaps it was the freezing air, or the exhilaration of being outdoors again after the monotonous routine of life within Margot’s over-stuffed rooms. Or the mystical glories of the ice-bound mountains glimmering enticingly in the morning sun.
He trekked happily through the thick drifts of snow with her, very nearly laughed when she tossed a snowball at him, and even tossed one back at her. She urged him to help make a snowman for Thomas and he did so, lending it his bright red scarf and woolly hat.
Lily watched with joy as something seemed to unfurl and blossom within him. It came slowly at first, his smiles stiff and unnatural. And if most of this newborn pleasure was derived largely from the lake, what of it? Frozen white from shore to shore, he told her how rarely this occurred over the years. ‘Though it happens more often with the smaller lakes, like Carreckwater. People have been known to hold parties and dances upon it.’
‘I doubt we’ll risk it, Bertie.’
‘We could go skating.’
‘It might not be thick enough.’
‘Thomas would love it.’
‘He might drown if the ice breaks.’
But the old reckless light was back, however momentarily, in the brown velvet eyes. ‘Have you ever had a ride on an ice yacht, Lily?’
She laughed. ‘You know I haven’t.’
‘I used to do it all the time when I was a boy. You must try it, this very day. We’ll check, but I’ll swear the ice is thick enough along this eastern section, and there’s just the right amount of wind.’
How could she refuse? He looked so bright and happy, almost his old jolly self. Lily felt a weight lift from her heart to see the anguish banished from his eyes, for even one day. ‘Not Thomas, though. He’s far too young.’
‘I’m not, I’m not!’ But though the probe Bertie pushed into the ice told of a good thickness, Thomas was placed firmly in Betty’s arms and only allowed to watch Mummy and Daddy sail up and down on the ice yacht. Though he jumped up and down with excitement and shouted, ‘Let me, let me,’ his pleas fell upon deaf ears.
The ice heaved and squeaked alarmingly as the flat-bottomed yacht with its metal runners sped over its surface, tacking into a strong headwind, skirting the rocky base of Hazel Holme and bumping terrifyingly over frozen waves till they reached a smoother stretch and could swing about.
‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ Bertie yelled.
‘It’s freezing. I can’t feel my face. Is it still there?’ Laughing, he told her that it must be because her nose glowed like a beacon in the middle of it. Then, daringly, Bertie reached over to kiss her as she struggled to change sides before they turned about. It was the first time he had touched her in months.
‘Don’t you dare,’ she scolded. ‘You’ll have us both over.’ She shuddered at the memory of another accident so long ago. A lifetime?
‘You’re my beautiful ice maiden,’ he yelled above the scrape of blades and the roar of the wind. ‘What a sport you are, Lily.’
‘I’m not made of ice at all,’ she shouted back. ‘I’m a warm-blooded woman, and I need thawing out.’
They stopped frequently to fortify themselves with steaming hot cups of coffee, enjoying the happiest afternoon ever. With one small chubby hand clutched in each of theirs, they took Thomas out for a trial skate on a very safe thick corner of the ice. Oh, and didn’t he love it? The little boy was pink with excitement by the time Betty took him inside for hot chocolate and his nap. A perfect family day.
Bertie said, ‘I thought I might start designing again soon. Then I mean to build a power boat this summer while you’re busy with your little business.’
Swallowing the protest that her ‘little’ business was meant to keep them, Lily merely smiled encouragement. ‘That would be wonderful.’ Perhaps soon, she thought, he would also be ready to talk, and then surprised her by doing so there and then.
‘Sorry I’ve been such a silly ass, Lily.’
‘You haven’t.’
‘Made a bit of a pickle of our marriage, eh? Must have driven you demented. All that nonsense with Rose and then Nan.’
‘Nan?’ The shock of this new information caused a trickle of cold sweat to run between her breasts. Not Nan as well. How could he? Bertie looked discomfited, hardly able to meet the expression of disappointment in her eyes. ‘I was grieving, as you were, after we lost little Amy. Couldn’t quite get a grip on things, don’t you know?’
‘Oh, Bertie.’ Lily remembered Ferryman Bob mentioning how he’d ferried him back and forth quite a lot at that time. She’d paid little attention. Now she saw where Bertie had found his consolation, in a life of debauchery. She couldn’t help but shudder at the thought, and Bertie couldn’t help but notice.
He shuffled his feet like a naughty schoolboy, wondering how he could explain to her about his feelings of uselessness. How he’d suffered his own sense of loss and guilt for his beloved child. And how later, in London, he’d kicked over the traces good and proper, not wanting to face the future. Preferring to punish himself by living with the lowest of the low because of bitter feelings of inadequacy. No, he couldn’t tell her all of that.
‘I’m no good, old thing. Don’t deserve you, my lovely Lily.’ His voice was mournful, sad. ‘The likes of Nan are all I’m fit for now.’
What could she say? Was this the moment to call an end to this mockery of a marriage? Dare she simply agree that she too was far from innocent, that they had married for the wrong reasons and, fond though she was of him, that was no basis for a lifetime together? ‘I don’t blame you, Bertie,’ she managed, and her heart softened as he grinned with relief.
‘Should’ve known you’d understand, old thing.’
Lily knew she should explain that she loved Nathan. She wanted an end to this farce so she could be with him. But Bertie was saying that at least they were still good friends, that they could surely start again.
‘But…’
‘We’ll give it a try. What d’you say?’ Taking her agreement for granted, he urged her back on to the ice to skate further out, now that Thomas had gone.
‘Bertie…’ she began, but got no further as an all too familiar figure emerged from behind snow laden holly bushes. ‘Nathan?’ She felt as if her eyes were playing tricks on her, forming a mirage out of the ice. But, no, he was real enough.
Bertie said, ‘Ah, there you are, old chap. At last. Thought you were never coming over to see me. Didn’t you hear I was home?’
The two men in Lily’s life now stood face to face, considering each other. Bertie in his plus fours, Fair Isle sweater and peaked cap, and Nathan less stylishly attired in fisherman’s jumper and dark trousers tucked into his boots.
In that moment it occurred to Lily that although Bertie had been home for several months, he’d never thought to call on his one-time friend either. She knew, of course, why Nathan had not come to see Bertie. But why had Bertie not gone to see him? She looked into her husband’s face and saw the reason. It made her heart jump. Dear God, he knew. It was written there, plain as plain in his brown eyes.
Yet he sought a fresh start for them both. He’d accepted her forgiveness as if by right. Would he now offer his? Lily wished she could read his sad, injured mind.
Bertie opened his gold cigarette case and held it out. ‘Got no Turkish left old chap. Only gaspers, I’m afraid.’
Nathan declined and, turned to Lily. ‘You look half frozen. Why don’t you go inside and leave Bertie and me to chat about old times?’
Nothing would have induced her to leave them alone together at that moment. Lily gave a brittle little laugh which sounded false even to her own ears. ‘Why don’t we all go in and have a hot toddy?’
‘No, no,’ Bertie protested. ‘Nathan hasn’t had a skate yet. Care for a race, old boy?’
Nathan met his shrewd gaze and gave a half-smile. ‘Why not?’
‘A mile down the lake and back, and jump the gap. What d’you say?’
The blood drained from Lily’s already pale face. Close to the centre of the lake a current ran too fast to freeze and several feet of open water cut through the ice. ‘The gap? You can’t seriously mean to try...
,
‘Why not? Bit of a lark, eh? Nathan ain’t afraid of taking a risk, are you, old boy? Get away with anything, he can. Luck of the devil, don’t you know?’ Grinning at his rival. ‘Best man takes all?’
‘Right,’ Nathan said, in his softest voice. Unusually for them both, they didn’t lay down a bet. But Lily recognised they were talking of more than a race.
Lily watched with her heart in her mouth. She couldn’t believe this was happening. Why had Nathan accepted such a foolish challenge? Why had Bertie issued it? But she knew the answer, only too well. A reckless passion burned in them both, showing itself in the grim set of their faces, in every line of their straining bodies.
Skates were put on and adjusted, a distance set and agreed. ‘Down the eastern side as far as the folly, then swing into the centre of the lake, jump the gap, and cross to the western shore.’
‘That tall beech as the finishing post?’
‘Agreed.’
‘This is madness,’ she said, trying one last time to stop them. ‘How will you ever get back?’
‘Walk around the lake, silly.’
Lily was instructed as to how to start them off. How to time them with Bertie’s pocket watch. How to wave her handkerchief in acknowledgement when the first one crossed the finishing line. She couldn’t even think of finishing lines. Her eyes were riveted upon the swiftly running ribbon of black water that marked the centre of the lake.
Bertie didn’t kiss her as he set off. Neither man asked her to wish him luck, nor begged for a favour as the knights of old might have done. But it was a similar contest, all the same.
They started slowly, muscles straining, arms swinging, Nathan’s balance less certain than Bertie’s because of his stiff arm. Little by little they gathered pace and the two figures rapidly diminished as they sped away. She wanted to call them back, to wake as if from a deep sleep and find this all a nightmare.
They skated on, strong and determined.
It was perfectly clear to Lily’s anxious eyes that each was putting everything he had into the race. Whatever the outcome it must be seen through to its conclusion. Though they looked like two dolls skimming swiftly away over the frozen ice, they were men, filled with anger and the desire for revenge: Bertie because of his wife’s betrayal, and Nathan because he believed Lily had been treated badly.
Nothing she could say now would bring them back. She called their names anyway, just in case, but the wind tossed her voice carelessly back.
Lily had never felt so alone. The silence of the lake was broken only by the swish of blades against ice, the whisper of the wind in the trees. A dozen sensations and questions fought for supremacy in her mind. Would they be safe? Would the ice hold? Which one would win? More to the point, which one did she want to win? And if one fell ... But she could not take this thought any further.
One moment Nathan was ahead by a fraction, the next it would be Bertie. The distance to the gap was lessening and the nearer they got to it, the thinner the ice was. Lily could hardly bear to look, daren’t even breathe.
They were almost upon it. Nathan reached it first and took off, leaping, legs splayed, high into the air. For an endless, heart splitting second that seemed like a lifetime he hung perilously over the rushing black water. Almost at the same instant Bertie too leaped the gap which from this distance appeared thin and narrow though Lily knew it to be five or six foot wide at least, and deadly. Then with a loud crack Nathan’s blades touched the ice, skidded, rocked, swerved a little. He was safe. It needed only for Bertie to land and the agony would be over.