‘So that’s what men carry in their briefcases, is it? I always wondered.’
Matt grinned. ‘Yeah.’ He tipped the open case so that she could see inside. There were files, pens, a stethoscope case, a toy car and something that looked like part of a model aircraft fuselage. ‘Sometimes Jack’s stuff gets mixed up with mine. The stethoscope’s his.’
‘And the car will be yours, then.’ A picture of Matt and Jack sitting together in the evenings, Matt working on his files and Jack on his model aeroplanes, formed in Beth’s head. She filed it carefully under ‘Rose Tinted’.
‘Yeah.’ Matt spun the model sports car across the desk towards her. ‘My first car was an old Spitfire. Leaked when it rained, needed a screwdriver and a lot of love to get started in the mornings, but it was my pride and joy.’ He shrugged. ‘Had to get rid of it, though. For some reason women seem to expect that driving somewhere means they won’t get their feet wet.’
‘Can’t imagine why.’ Beth leaned towards him. ‘So you had an old Spitfire, you played in the rugby team and…what?’
He shrugged. ‘Nothing, really. I worked hard, played hard. Thought that the world was full of possibilities. Just like any other young guy from the sticks who’s just hit the bright lights of London.’
‘Not so bright, though, when you get up close.’ Beth could almost feel the claustrophobic, protective blanket of her childhood smothering her.
‘Yeah. I gave the car away, to a friend who I knew would look after her properly, got myself a career and got married.’ He made it sound like the end of all his dreams, not a bright new beginning.
‘That doesn’t sound so bad.’
‘No.’ He pursed his lips. ‘Mariska smartened me up, stopped me from wearing grubby T-shirts and oil-stained jeans. Made me camera-friendly.’ He shrugged. ‘The paparazzi can be sharks, you know. When she died, they wouldn’t leave us alone.’
‘That must have been hard.’
‘It was. I tried to protect Jack the best I could, but on the anniversary of her death they were waiting outside the house for us. We slipped out and I brought him up here, to my parents’, for a week.’ His face formed an expression of disgust. ‘They wrote that we had gone away to grieve.’
‘Instead of being driven away from your own home. Where you both needed to be at a time like that.’
‘Yeah. It was then that I decided that we needed a new start. Somewhere where Jack could grow up, away from all the lies and pretence.’ He stopped suddenly, shaking his head, as if he had said too much. ‘I want him to be able to follow his own dreams and to know that it is possible to hang onto them.’
‘What about yours?’ This was so unlike the Matt she’d got to know. The man who talked about passion with such fervour.
‘Mine? Mine are for him now. With some left over for this place.’ He shrugged and the dismissive gesture of his hand told Beth that his sudden candour was at an end. ‘And at the moment I’m dreaming of food. I’m starving.’
He strode out of the office before she had a chance to reply, leaving Beth to start unpacking the bag of food. He was back in a couple of minutes, putting a bottle of wine onto the desk as he passed and then falling into his chair. There were tiny lines of fatigue at the corners of his eyes, which Beth hadn’t noticed there before.
She picked up the bottle and read the sticker that had been plastered onto it, obscuring the label. ‘Type AB positive?’
Matt’s face creased in a weary grin. ‘Yeah. Someone’s idea of a joke. Fancy a glass?’
‘Thanks.’ Beth wiped the glasses with the tea towel and set them in front of him, while he fished a complicated-looking penknife out of his briefcase and extracted the cork from the bottle.
‘We should drink to something.’
They should. To the evening stars, rising in the sky outside. Or to the velvet of his navy-blue eyes. To him locking the door and taking her in his arms, then sweeping everything that lay on the desk onto the floor and…‘Yes. Let’s drink to the project.’
He nodded, and Beth thought she saw an echo of her own thoughts in his eyes. ‘Good idea.’ He tipped his glass towards hers, without touching it. ‘To your research. And its successful implementation.’
They ate before turning their attention to work, Matt producing a couple of pairs of chopsticks from the bag. ‘These okay? I’ve got a couple of forks somewhere.’
‘That’s fine. I’ll manage.’ Beth adeptly scooped a helping from one of the foil trays onto her plate.
He looked almost disappointed. ‘And there was I with my rubber band at the ready.’
‘You learned that way, too, did you?’ The old trick of fastening the ends of the chopsticks together with a rubber band. The thought of Matt’s fingers closing around hers, showing her how to hold them, was almost enough to make her lose interest in the food in front of her.
‘Spurred on by a healthy appetite. Shame to see good food go to waste.’ He delved around in one of the foil containers and produced a choice morsel, holding it out to her. ‘Here.’
‘Thank you.’ Beth resisted the temptation to allow him to feed it to her, and took it with her chopsticks, depositing it firmly onto her plate. This was a working dinner.
After they had eaten, Beth went down to the canteen to pick up some coffee and when she returned Matt’s desk looked once more like a place to work, the empty foil trays in the bin and those that they had not managed to finish stacked neatly on the filing cabinet. The strange light in his eyes