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wanted to know his body as well as I knew my own, and I raged with frustration that I did not.

“Who is that?” Bob asked, and I came back with a jolt, feeling myself go cold. I’d lost a sense of time and Alex, more subtle, more sensible—perhaps less in lust—than I, had walked by without even a glance.

“Hmmm?” I said. “Who? Sorry, Bob, I was miles away.”

“That boy.” He pointed to where Alex stood, near the conservatory door, talking to Mary. “You were frowning at him as if he’d done something terrible.”

I laughed, and I sounded hysterical to my own ears. “I didn’t even see him. I was thinking about the dreadful golf I played this morning.” Ruthlessly I bored him with a rendition of my round until he made an excuse and slid away from me.

At my cue from Valerie, I escaped to the chill of the garden, gratefully muffled against the frost that was already settling on the grass. The children’s Guy was propped up by the shed and I laughed out loud at the sight of it. He was in a large brown suit and my oldest bowler hat.

“He doesn’t look like you,” said a voice. Alex was pressed against the wall near the shed door. He had on a dark bobble hat and a black Crombie that came down to his knees. His face shone with the light of a thousand untasted kisses. “Perhaps in a few years…”

I glanced towards the house and stepped forward into madness. I had to force myself to break away from him after far too short a time. “Come help me light the bonfire,” I said. I held his hand tightly for a moment longer, wishing we weren’t wearing gloves. “The children will be out in a moment.”

“All right.” He hefted the Guy onto his shoulder and together we positioned the macabre thing on top of the pile of wood. I lit the bonfire and, as I did so, noise erupted from the house as the visitors poured from the back doors, some holding lanterns, others torches, casting erratic firefly lights across the herbaceous borders. The children arrived at breakneck speed and demanded giant sparklers, which they were not allowed until they had given one to everyone else.

I mingled for a while, the taste of Alex sweet and heavy on my tongue, while Guy burned and we all cheered. It wasn’t until Phil joined me, offering to light the rockets, that I realised I hadn’t seen Claire and her artist.

“Val thinks she must have seen my car outside and driven off,” he said when I pointed this out.

“Makes sense.”

“I met your new neighbours, by the way. They seem…nice.”

I lit the Catherine Wheel, and we both stood off to one side as it spectacularly failed to spin. “You are a snob.”

“Guilty as charged. They could hardly speak of anything except their genius son, though. You never mentioned he was a genius.”

“He’s aiming for Oxbridge.”

“Oh, that explains why they moved him to St. Peter’s. Is that their boy?” He nodded towards the edge of the crowd where Alex was showing the children how to write their names with sparklers. I had a twinge of guilt that they’d never done that before.

“Yes.” I pretended to sort through the remaining fireworks as Phil lit rockets and the party guests oohed and aahed.

“Looks like a nice kid.”

“Seems so. The children like him.”

The subject drifted away from Alex, thankfully, after that, and the rest of the event was a non-event.

Only one other memory stays clear, precious and crisp. The fire was at its height, but the fireworks were done. Most people had gravitated back to the house, but I was picking up the silver foil from the potatoes. As I straightened up, I saw a figure wearing a short coat and bobble hat and carrying a lit sparkler facing me, spelling “I Love You” in mind-imprinting golden fire.

Chapter 15

I had to carry the memory of the stolen kisses with me for some time after Guy Fawkes’. Even though it was dark enough at seven at night to collect Alex from his after school club and drive somewhere where we wouldn’t be seen, the fates conspired against me, making every Wednesday between Guy Fawkes and the end of term too busy for me to do just that. Time slipped away from me and before I knew it, the schools had broken up and Valerie was littering the study with Christmas wrapping paper, ribbon and endless, endless lists.

I had one small consolation in that I had heard back from the Railways Board and they had asked for a reference. After a day of indecision, I submitted Phil and waited for further developments. I didn’t expect to hear before Christmas, and I wasn’t disappointed.

That Christmas was strange. I look back at it now as if I were a man pressing his nose against a house’s windows, watching the family he doesn’t have experience a celebration he can’t share. And while I was living it, it felt exactly the same way. Nothing had changed on the surface; the usual flurry of shopping, hiding presents, over-excitable children, bundles and boxes of jars and tins for the elderly, and endless evenings making paper chains while complaining of the taste of the glue.

But all the time I went through the familiar, it was if Edward—this new Edward—had never done any of these routine tasks before. I was Hyde, but my secret was now too near the surface for me not to be aware of it.

I remember that Alex and his family went away, and I remember the ache I had. Dull and empty, I threw myself into celebrating Christmas, but it was surface gloss. Though I don’t think anyone else noticed.

We’d had one small meeting between Guy Fawkes’ and New Year’s. School had just broken up. I was about to take the Bentley to the garage to be cleaned and serviced and was tidying it up before I did. I