AN - It's been nearly a year since I updated this story but I've had some lovely reviews from people encouraging me to continue with it (Thank you!) and I thought it was time I at least tried because I already had about half of this chapter written. It's not the greatest of chapters - I somewhat struggled with the end of it, but hopefully I'll get better!
Chapter 5 – Fireworks
"Everything all set with the security firm?" I looked up as John returned to the office, pushing my glasses up onto my head and stretching back in the computer chair.
"All sorted," he smiled, taking a look over my shoulder at the balance sheet on the computer screen. "All we need to do now is check we've got all the vendor passes for the snack vans and co-ordinate all the information packs for the event staff meeting tomorrow."
I unsuccessfully stifled a yawn and he laughed, "Why don't we do this in the Carsons' sitting room. I don't know about you but I've had enough of staring at these four walls for today."
It had indeed been a busy time. November included one of the biggest dates in the calendar; the Downton Abbey Bonfire Night Fireworks Display. Apparently it was one of the biggest earners the estate held during the course of the year. Tickets were sold in the surrounding local towns, and people came from far and wide to watch the display on the grounds of the estate. Over time it had apparently become the biggest fireworks display in the area, with several thousand spectators, snack vans, entertainment and a huge bonfire all to be organised. That wasn't even the half of it though, as I had found out pretty quickly: we'd organised stewards for car parking in the surrounding fields; co-ordinated with the company setting up the fireworks; liaised with the fire-service; sold tickets through our website; even dealt with press from the local radio station who were setting up an outside broadcast on the night of the event. To me it was the most nerve-wracking, massive event I'd ever been involved in; to John, it was all in a day's work.
Shutting down the computer, I grabbed the last of the paper work we needed and followed John down the hallway towards Mr and Mrs Carson's sitting room. We'd found ourselves retreating to it increasingly often as of late, with the preparations for the display going on late into the night. Once inside I flopped down onto the rug in front of the somewhat archaic electric fire and reached up to switch it on.
"You're always cold," teased John, as I reached my freezing fingers out to de-numb in front of the glowing orange bars. "I dread to think what state you'll be in tomorrow night if you're cold now!"
"I'll be fine," I protested, "I've got my hat and gloves looked out already. Besides, if I'm really cold I'm just going to nick your big coat."
"Oh you are, are you?" he laughed, and the sound reverberated deeply around the room sending a little shiver from the tips of my fingers to my toes; nothing to do with the cold though.
An hour later we were almost finished for the night. It was well past midnight and John had long since abandoned Mrs Carson's chintzy old couch to lounge on the floor with me in front of the fire. Empty coffee mugs and discarded Kit Kat wrappers lay haphazardly next to us and I gave a sigh as I stretched out in front of the fire's warmth.
"I'm done in," I declared, "I had no idea a firework's display could be so much work."
"I'll forward your complaints to Mr Fawkes," John laughed, "but I won't disagree with you. Still, tomorrow evening should be great. Everything seems to be ready and we're well organised for all the extra staff tomorrow. You've done a great job Anna."
He smiled genuinely at me, his twinkly eyes which I'd found myself increasingly drawn to lately, radiating warmth and rendering me quite incapable of forming a coherent reply.
"Thanks," I mumbled, sitting up and breaking his gaze, suddenly conscious of the fact I'd been staring at him. He got to his feet and stretched, the fabric of his shirt riding up almost enough to distract me, then unexpectedly held out a hand towards me.
"I'm afraid if you don't get up now I'm going to come down here tomorrow to find you asleep on that floor." I accepted and was immediately pulled to my feet, underestimating his strength and barrelling into his chest.
"Sorry," I blushed, though secretly quite enjoying the new and not at all unpleasant sensation of being pressed up against him.
"My fault entirely," he replied, his voice low and gravelly, yet he made no attempt to move away from me.
In the end it was me who snapped out of it first, "I better head to bed, I'll see you for the meeting at nine tomorrow…" and with that I raced out of the door, more than a little flustered. I knew that we had been growing steadily closer to becoming friends, but was I right in thinking that perhaps tonight we'd crossed the line from purely platonic friends and co-workers to the beginnings of flirtation?
November the fifth dawned grey and cold. Fog rolled over the hills surrounding the Abbey and I spent most of the day fretting that it wouldn't lift in time for the fireworks. With all the preparation and planning there was surprisingly little for John and me to do on the actual day itself. After a short morning meeting with the staff we were able to pass over most of the responsibilities and just set about enjoying the event ourselves.
Despite Holly's initial complaints about moving school, she had started mentioning the names of certain girls in her class during mealtimes and was obviously making friends. I wanted to encourage it as much as I could, feeling that if she was happy at school and feeling more a part of life in the area then she'd not be as hostile towards me. John seemed to sense it too and had rather brilliantly suggested that she invite a group of friends to the display. I was pleased with the way Holly was responding to John; he obviously commanded her respect, but not in an authoritative way, and I'd often arrive in the kitchen to find him giving her pointers on her English homework or find them sparring over the virtues of their own generation's music.
Because we were still setting up and busy with the organisation, one of Holly's friend's mothers had offered to have the girls for dinner before driving them over for the display. I'd told her she could have the girls in after if she wanted and show them around a bit but she'd seemed a bit hesitant.
Darkness soon fell and John and I watched from the side door of the Abbey as the cars continued to file into the field behind the house. It all seemed to be going smoothly and we'd scarcely needed the walkie-talkies strapped to our belts in case of any emergencies.
"T minus thirty minutes!" John laughed, as we made our way across the gravel path towards the front of the house where the event had been set up. A large bonfire was already roaring on one side and the barricades had been set up a couple of hundred feet away from the house itself, that way people would be able to watch the fireworks with the Abbey as the backdrop.
"I don't think I've ever been so nervous in my whole life," I admitted, as we continued to amble further back through the crowds of people, aiming to get a little further away for a better view.
"Not even when you had Holly?" he seemed intrigued.
"Well… yeah, okay but that was a bit different!"
"You must have been young when you had her? Twenty? Twenty-one?"
"Is this a subtle way of trying to work out what age I am John?"
He chuckled, his face growing a little red, which I couldn't help but find endearing.
"They say never to ask a lady her age!"
"Well I'm not a lady and I don't pretend to be. I'm thirty, I was only nineteen when I had Holly, so I suppose it was the scariest moment of my life. Still, it all seems a long time ago now."
He smiled gently as we continued walking for a few minutes in contemplative silence. It wasn't uncomfortable; if there was one thing I'd learned about John Bates over the past few weeks, it was that he was a man of few words. Whereas I'd happily chatter on for hours about every insignificant happening at the Abbey, he was happy to sit and listen to me, busying himself with whatever admin task came his way. As a result I felt he knew far more about me than I did about him.
We stopped after a few minutes and John turned back to face the Abbey, seemingly content with our viewing position.
"How about here?" he offered, unravelling the blanket he'd been carrying under his arm and shaking it out onto the grass.
"Looks good to me," I agreed, flopping down onto the blanket and trying to shift my attention subtly to the view in the distance to allow him time to lower himself onto the ground without me staring at him. It was an unspoken rule between us; his leg was never mentioned.
"So, I want to make things even," I turned to him with a grin, "I told you my age…"
He laughed again, deep and robust, and I tugged my legs towards me lest he notice the somersaults I suddenly found my stomach doing at the timbre of his laughter. "What do you think?" he challenged me.
"That's mean, I didn't make you guess mine!" I gave his arm a gentle shove.
"Forty-seven," he smiled and a slightly uncomfortable silence fell between us as I wondered if he was doing the same mental calculation as I was.
"Should be starting soon," he changed the subject none too subtly, reaching up to scratch the back of his head. It was quite endearing and the playful side of me couldn't help but enjoy watching him squirm a bit.
"So, now we've got the age thing out of the way I'm intrigued," I continued, "What led you to Downton? We've been working together for ages now and I feel like I don't know much about you."
"There's not much to tell," he smiled wanly, "Whatever you're imagining, it's probably a lot more exciting than the truth."
"So you're not secretly a multi-millionaire heir who's posing as the manager of the estate to conceal your secret past as a top MI6 spy?"
"Ahh, rumbled!" he laughed, snapping his fingers in mock frustration. "No, nothing like that."
He wasn't exactly forthcoming, "I was aiming for subtlety but it's no use, are you going to tell me or do I have to keep guessing?"
"Honestly Anna," he leaned back on his elbows and I couldn't help but notice the length of his legs as he stretched out on the blanket, "There's not really a lot to tell. I was a soldier for many years, I worked alongside Lord Grantham – he was my commanding officer in Iraq. After I left the army I moved back home to Ireland to be closer to my mother, married while I was there and then when my mother passed away and my marriage didn't work out I moved back here. Lord Grantham was kind enough to offer me the job here when I was at a bit of a loose end."
"You were married…" he gave me a bit of a side-eye at my failure to hide the surprise in my tone.
"Not that hard to believe is it?" he smiled, "In honesty it was a mistake. We were unsuited, I fell apart when my mother died and we drifted apart and then…" he stopped suddenly, like he had been about to spill his guts and had thought better of it.
"And then…" I nudged him gently, feeling that if he didn't tell me now, while his guard was down, I'd probably never hear it.
"And then I found out that she was pregnant… well, that she'd been pregnant. Only she'd dealt with it already, without telling me," he paused, fiddling with the buttons on his shirt and I began to wonder if I should have pushed him, before he continued,
"She never wanted children, I did. Stupid really, it's the kind of thing you should really be on the same page about before you ask someone to marry you. Anyway, if things weren't bad enough before, then they were intolerable after that. I couldn't get past it, and I wouldn't let her forget either. Vera's a difficult woman, but I wasn't the easiest of men to live with either and we just made each other miserable. "
He shrugged and looked over at the bonfire, as though somehow it was infinitely more fascinating than it had been five minutes earlier. "So there you have it. Now when are these blasted fireworks going to start?"
"I ran away from Holly's father… from my husband," I blurted out, breaking the silence and dragging his attention away from the bonfire. He looked like he was trying to hide his surprise, he did quite a good job, perhaps he'd have made a good spy after all.
"You don't have to…" he sat up and reached a hand across to rest on my shoulder.
"I feel like I forced you to tell me all that," I smiled, daring to look up at him, "I don't want you thinking I'm nosy."
"I do think you're nosy," he laughed, "But in the nicest possible way. Do you know how long it's been since someone dared to ask me about my past?"
"Well considering how old you are, I suspect quite a long time…" I couldn't help it; I'd always got myself in trouble using humour to diffuse difficult situations. Luckily he seemed to see the funny side and he clapped my shoulder as he laughed, leaving his arm around me and giving me the distinct impression that my heart was about to stop any second.
"Well Miss Smith… or Mrs Whoever-You-May-Be, I won't pry, but if it's something you want to share – and not just because I told you about my past – then I'm a very willing listener."
And with a gentle squeeze of my shoulder I would have happily told him my entire life story, right then and there, but the sudden, ear-splitting sound of the first rocket screeching into the sky, then the oooh of the assembled crowd broke the spell between us, and I found myself putting my secret back in its box.
At least for the time being…
