He had started applying the varnish with a roller. Thea had been worried about him getting his clothes dirty and had offered him one of the communal boiler suits. He had rejected them all as too small and, while she protested, she realised that she mustn’t sound motherly and irritating.

She thought of the paternal nature of his anger to her when he thought she’d been foolhardy. He had been very cross, far more cross than the situation warranted. The thought gave her a little breath of hope.

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

Thea managed to work well enough with her bad leg, although instead of standing and using a roller, she found it easier to stay on hands and knees and apply the varnish with a brush. By keeping on the opposite side of the room from Ben, she stopped herself worrying about her rear end and his attitude to it. The music kept them at it and they finished the first coat quite quickly.

‘You can still see where the paint was, though,’ said Thea sadly. ‘Should I get the electric sander back in, do you think?’

‘No–a few more coats and that patch will disappear into the rest of it.’

‘It was a silly thing to do. Now,’ she went on brightly, because she didn’t want Ben to start telling her off again, and hiding her fatigue and the sense of anticlimax, ‘shall we get a takeaway or do you want to go? You’ve worked very hard. You deserve something to eat.’ Too late she realised she was talking to Ben in the same way she talked to her student lodgers: ever so slightly patronisingly.

His glanced flickered over her, not noticing her manner. ‘I’ll get the takeaway, seeing as you’re not dressed. What would you like?’

‘Whatever you can find, but you really don’t have to stay. I can carry on on my own.’

‘How will you get home? You’re surely not really going to stay here all night?’

‘I must. I’ve got to get that floor done and when I have, there are still two more rooms to prepare and that’s not counting downstairs, where Lara is. I’m going to need every inch of space. I’ve got Rory’s paintings but I’m still waiting for his drawings and sketches to come over from Ireland. The opening’s less than six weeks away.’

She hadn’t actually voiced her anxieties out loud before. She smiled, trying to pretend she had been joking. ‘Actually, while you’re here, you couldn’t just take Lara out for me, could you? There’s a bit of waste ground by the station.’