The Woman Who Knew What She Wanted Read Online Free PDF Page B

army officer, but since a severe accident that I’d had at school, it was as if he’d given up trying to train me like some well-tended vine, for ever pruning and shaping and nurturing with fertiliser. He had come to accept that there was much joy to be had from watching me grow, even if the end product might not be what he’d first envisaged.
    â€˜So what happened to you?’ I asked.
    â€˜I don’t know. There was a time when the army was the most important thing in the world to me. And then things happen… You get a better sense of what’s important.’
    â€˜There was a time when you wanted me to join up.’
    â€˜What an imbecile!’ he said. I was not sure if he was referring to himself or the biker on the Ducati. ‘You’ll like the Knoll House,’ he said. ‘I’ll come and visit you when you’ve settled in. There’s a pub just the near hotel, the Bankes Arms. Full of dark crannies. Used to go there with your mother.’

    We tore into Waterloo station and parked in the taxi rank. ‘Do you need any money?’ he asked, stretching to the back seat for his wallet. He peeled off some crisp red £50 notes. ‘Here’s a couple of hundred. Send us a postcard some time.’
    I stretched over to give him an awkward hug and made to kiss him on the side of the cheek. There was a time, a few years earlier, when he would have shrunk from such overtures, but he had learned to accept these indignities from his eldest son.
    On the pavement, I waved. He gave me a formal salute. It was rather nice, actually. Of all the extraordinary things that can happen between father and son, I enjoyed his company.
    I caught the train down to Poole, which carved through genteel, staid Wiltshire. I was aware that a new chapter in my life was beginning; aware I had no inkling as to what might be on the next page. Perhaps not adventure, but certainly something different.
    I wondered if there might yet be love on the horizon. It had been a long time since I had kissed a woman. Some men are capable of bouncing back after a bad break-up. They don’t even bother to lick their wounds before immersing themselves straight back into the hostile element. But I was still tired, punch-drunk and the wounds still raw and tender; if you have ever been in love, then you will know how it is. Not that I’d been foreswearing on women for all time, not by any means. I had been having a time out.
    So I did wonder about love. I did wonder if in the Knoll House there might be the one. But would it be the slow burn that only comes with time, months and months before you realise that the jewel that you’ve been searching for is right in front of your very nose? Or would it be the coup de foudre , the lightning bolt that left me prone and smitten in under a minute?

    In my naïve way, I hoped that it would be the latter. When lightning strikes, it’s so quick that it seems to blot out all else. You’re rendered so helpless that you lose your appetite and, when in her presence, are hardly capable of speech.
    I caught the bus through Sandy Banks. Even in 1988, Sandy Banks was one of Britain’s most costly pieces of real estate. But I preferred the dirty, functional ferry, in splendid contrast to the manicured lawns and the spit-polished yachts. For pedestrians, the fare was fifty pence. The wind hissed off the waves bringing with it a spit of rain. I sat outside on one of the summer benches. The clear cold felt like balm, icing at my cheeks and frosting my hair. A young boy stood at the back of the ferry tossing bread to the gulls. The birds swooped and whirled and never once missed and every time they snatched up the bread, the boy would laugh. Standing on sentry-duty by his side was the boy’s father, looking ever more miserable as the cold rain sliced through his jumper. He was only a little older than myself; what a trooper to have committed so young – to