The Apple Tree by Elvi Rhodes

Author:Elvi Rhodes
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Relationships, Family Saga, Yorkshire, Sagas, Dales, Fiction
ISBN: 9781446486535
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2011-07-29T23:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

Ben stood on the platform. The train was overdue. He looked at his watch again. Ten minutes late and no reason given why. But no matter how long he had to wait he would not move from this spot lest when she arrived she wouldn’t find him there, as he’d promised he would be.

In the five-and-a-half weeks she had been away he had missed her every single day. In a way it had been – though this was an exaggeration – like the first few months after Moira’s death. He had truly and grievously missed Moira, but he had gradually come to terms with the fact that he would not see her again, at least not in this life, and he was by no means sure about the afterlife. There were too many unanswered questions there. But Lottie he had known he would see again. The time and place had been fixed. Friday afternoon at ten past three on Shepton station. They had kept in touch, he by letter, she by telephone. He was better with a pen in his hand than he was at speaking; she had proved not much good at writing but fluent on the phone.

The train came in, leisurely, as if it was not the least bit late. Doors opened and people stepped out, but there was no sign of Lottie. Where was she? Had she changed her mind? Had she decided not to come – and if so, why? His spirits plummeted. Now, at this moment, he realized how very much he wanted to see her again.

And then he saw her. She was stepping out of a compartment in the very last carriage. She spotted him at the same time as he saw her and with some difficulty – she was impeded by a handbag and a magazine in one hand while with the other she was guiding a wheeled case – she waved to him. He waved back and set off at a brisk walk to meet her. He would have liked to run, like a small boy, but he didn’t find it easy to show his feelings.

‘How are you?’ he said formally, taking the case from her. ‘You look well.’ He wanted to tell her that she looked beautiful, her skin glowing, her eyes shining. A sight for sore eyes. And he had her to himself for the best part of five days. Today was the Friday before the May bank-holiday weekend, which he still thought of as Whitsun, and she wouldn’t return until Tuesday afternoon.

‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘You look suntanned.’

‘I’ve been working outside a lot,’ Ben said. ‘I’ve been helping Joseph Clark with the lambing. I don’t think you saw Joseph last time you were in Kilby. His land marches with mine – it used to be mine. He’s a man short at the moment and we all muck in, help out when it comes to lambing.’

He stopped speaking, realizing that they were standing still and that almost everyone else had left the platform.

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