The Cheesemaker's House by Jane Cable Page A

counter.
    â€œOn your own again?” I ask him, wondering how on earth Owen could have possibly seen me come in and hidden himself away.
    â€œOwen had to go to Leeds. He won’t be back for hours.”
    â€œSo d’you need a hand?”
    He looks down at the counter. “I do really. But Owen said I mustn’t ask you again.”
    â€œWhy ever not? Did I do something horribly wrong last time?”
    â€œNot a bit of it. But he says if we can’t afford to pay you...” a smile twitches on his lips, “and he said there must be a limit to the number of cakes a skinny little tyke like you can eat.”
    But I am already behind the counter and stowing my handbag on the shelf under the till. “Well, if Owen whinges, tell him I owed him a favour. If you need me again, you can always pay me in pasties – when the builders come back I’ll need hundreds of those.”
    Later that evening I text Owen: ‘Hope you didn’t mind me helping out but I felt I owed you one after the weekend’. There is no reply; clearly his old fashioned politeness doesn’t extend as far as the digital age.
    But on Sunday, when I arrive in church, Owen smiles and slides along his pew to make room for me. I was planning to sit with Margaret but it would be rude to refuse his invitation.
    â€œSorry I didn’t reply to your text,” he whispers “I’ve been so busy…but it was nice to hear from you.”
    I am about to ask how you can be too busy to send just one text but then I notice the dark circles under his eyes.
    â€œOwen, are you OK?”
    He pushes his hair back from his face and looks at me but he doesn’t say anything, even so I have the weirdest sensation that the dark centres of his devastating blue eyes are speaking to me, and they are saying ‘no Alice, I’m not – but there’s just no way I can tell you’. In the privacy of the pew I give his hand a little squeeze, and to my surprise and delight he gives mine a little squeeze back.
    By the time we are drinking our coffee in the vicarage I am wondering if I imagined the look. We help Jane to pass around the biscuits and cups, with me still a little shy and Owen being generally delightful to everyone. He is a charming man and I can see that his fellow parishioners adore him. It strikes me that perhaps he is still trying to be the little boy his grandmother was so proud of and I can’t decide if that makes his niceness all the more genuine or just a little bit plastic.
    I am cross with myself too, because I am increasingly drawn to Owen and I don’t want to be. I quite deliberately spend a long time talking to Jane about her children and then make a quick exit through the back door. Not quick enough – I am only half way down the path when I hear Owen call me.
    â€œAlice?”
    I turn around.
    â€œI was going to ask you – d’you fancy taking the dogs for a walk later?”
    I feel myself starting to smile and Owen is grinning back.
    â€œYes, I’d like that.”
    â€œMe too. Meet you outside the church at about six?”
    â€œPerfect.”
    And I look forward to our walk all afternoon.
    Given that we arranged to meet by the church, when I look out of the window I am a little surprised to see Owen sitting under the tree on the village green. I glance at my watch – it’s ten to six; maybe he’s decided on a different route and is waiting for me there instead. I hurriedly swap my dirty T-shirt for a soft v-neck sweater, slap on some lip gloss and race downstairs to attach William to his lead.
    I swear it only takes me a few minutes, but by the time I walk down the drive Owen has gone. I pause at the gate, puzzled, but then I see him walking towards Kirkby Fleetham, with no dog. I am about to call his name but something stops me. Instead I make an attempt to pull William to heel and we start to follow.
    Only then Owen calls
my
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