Starting Over Page 8

  ‘And we make them, our mistakes, whether it’s bonking in a barn or lending money we won’t get back.’

  She looked at him and marvelled that he could originate a thought so deep. ‘Or getting jilted,’ she added, as it was top of her list of errors.

  Blue eyes slitted open. ‘How can that be your mistake?’

  ‘How can it be anything but?’

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Have you spoken to Tess about what happened after the ball?’

  Pete was the one who understood. Jos lacked Pete’s quickness, shared wavelength, intuitive understanding. Pete’s marriage affected none of that, though it kind of precluded Pete from taking part in the adventurous stuff. Pete, Pete would talk and listen and accept.

  Traffic had held up their return journey from Northumberland on the trail of an MG Midget gearbox. So they might as well pull off at a handy pub and eat, then lie on the grassy bank beside the beer garden and wait for the road to clear. Ratty grunted. ‘She’s never given any indication she remembers.’

  The shepherd’s pie was finished. They drank slowly, shandy because they had still to drive.

  ‘So she was too drunk to do the business?’

  ‘Absolutely. Looked a certainty, then looked unconscious.’ He grinned. ‘When she took off her dress, y’know how women do, zzzzippp! Wiggled her shoulders, stepped out of it, I thought I was home and dry. And she was so ready for it ... Then, suddenly, I was on my own.’

  Pete laughed. ‘What happens next?’

  Ratty shrugged.

  From the bank they could see, across the car park, the road still bunged up with a column of traffic. Better here in the sun on the grassy cushion.

  Pete pushed back his hair. ‘You know you’d do better to leave her alone.’

  ‘I do know that, yes.’

  ‘I mean, what happens after you’ve done the deed? She’d still be there, at Honeybun, still hanging out with Angel, who happens to be very fond of her.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘She’s only just made friends here, you’d jeopardise that. Unless you’re thinking of marrying her or something! Your onto-the-next-lay philosophy isn’t appropriate. She’s a friend, now.’ Pete flicked a wasp, drunk and blindly aggressive, carefully away from his glass. ‘And what about you gatecrashing Tess’s babysitting?’

  What about that? Gina, his stood-up date that evening, had left an obscene message on his voicemail.

  A midnight-blue TVR Griffith grumbled along in the middle of the traffic. It looked and sounded amazing, he’d love to have one. Maybe he’d come across a wrecked one sometime and be able to rebuild it. They both watched the sexy sports car respectfully past before Pete continued the conversation. ‘No opportunity ...?’

  He shook his head. ‘Just talk. Sometimes she’ll talk to me. About pranks with her cousin Guy, her parents, stuff. Carefully avoiding questions about that computer oik she was with.’

  ‘Why, d’you think?’

  Another shrug. ‘Who knows? Still hurt? Prefers to forget him? Still in love?’ He shifted position. ‘I can’t weigh her up. One minute I think she’s still hurting, the next that she’s ready to roll.’

  ‘Difficult,’ Pete mused. ‘Give me uncomplicated Angel any day. If this Olly guy wasn’t still in her head, would Tess be up for it?’

  ‘Couldn’t say.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have been so bloody to her in the first place.’

  ‘Was I, particularly?’ The traffic, still thick, was moving more quickly now. Probably not worth buying another drink.

  ‘You looked on whilst Simeon tried a number on her.’

  ‘I honestly didn’t realise what Sim was trying.’ Those turquoise eyes had blazed at him. Now he wanted to see them again unfocused and closing with desire, while her fingers turned to claws on his arms ...

  Pete flicked grass at him. ‘Wake up.’

  ‘Thinking.’

  ‘Be careful, people might think there’s more to you than tattoos, cut-off T-shirts and jeans, stop taking you at face value! Miles Arnott-Rattenbury: interests, cars. Emotions, cars. Future, cars.’

  He wasn’t like that. Nowhere near so simple. Who was? He had other interests: his properties, music. And he had a huge appetite for women. Though he might not treat them so carefully as his cars.

  Pete stretched, glanced over to the road. ‘Angel was telling me about this bleeding-to-death-every-month stuff.’

  The memory made him wince. ‘She was pregnant, she miscarried, and haemorrhaged. My God, does she bleed! I thought I’d be calling the ambulance. But she said she’d be OK in a couple of days, and she was. Was she embarrassed, though.’ He’d hardly enjoyed being involved, but hadn’t made her mortification worse by complaining.

  ‘And you sorted her out, did you?’

  Ratty nodded.

  Pete laughed. ‘Nice for you. You usually only get that close to the icky stuff once you’re living with someone.’ Pete emptied his glass. ‘So what d’you think? She up for it?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘But you still want ...’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  It was Pete’s turn to drive. Out of the car park. Windows down, hair blowing.

  Hedges dusty with the harvest, a combine rolling along the ridge on the horizon, even from this distance he could taste the dry chaff in the air. ‘I keep thinking,’ Ratty reflected, ‘if I’m just there, like when she was babysitting for you, it’ll, I don’t know, just happen. Before she has time to remember what a bastard this Olly is.’

  ‘Of course, you’re a big bastard yourself.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He scratched his head. ‘But a better model.’

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Olly Gray has been. To see us.’

  What? Olly’s name, a jab in the chest. And her father even sounded pleased.

  ‘Tess?’

  ‘I’m here.’ She felt the phone slide in her hand. ‘What the hell did he want?’

  ‘Just a friendly call, I’m sure that’s all there was to it. He was just remembering he was nearly our son-in-law.’

  Incredible. ‘I haven’t forgotten. Nor that he dropped me two days before our wedding. Nor that I lost a chunk from my life miscarrying his baby, which made me ill.’

  James cleared his throat. ‘Nobody can cope for you.’

  ‘Thanks for all your support.’

  Her father seemed oblivious the sarcasm. ‘Anyway, darling, we had the impression that he might be coming round. Asked where you were living, in fact.’

  Why not just put the phone down? Instead, she snapped, ‘Coming round as in regaining consciousness? Or coming round as in calling at your home?’

  ‘As in ... considering that something might be salvaged from your relationship.’

  She spat, ‘Giving me a second chance?’

  ‘I didn’t say that! Don’t overreact. Darling, we don’t have to talk about it if you really hate the idea, but you might even get peace of mind if you spoke to Oliver and put things in perspective.’

  Upstairs in her workroom were sheaves of Slinkers and Sliders and Winders half sorted. Farny and the nymphs waited to be checked off against brief and layout and packed carefully. This afternoon the courier was calling for the results of her labour. She cut across her father’s careful speech. ‘I don’t want a damned thing to do with Olly Gray. Not now. Not next week. Not never, ever, ever. OK?’

  Her father’s quick intake of breath was sharp in her ear. ‘Don’t carry on, Tess!’

  ‘Carry on. As in continue? Or carry on with the milkman? Oh no, what I have had to do is carry on regardless!’

  Her father’s sigh, loud; his voice gentle, reasonable. ‘You must take into account that Oliver knew nothing about the baby. And, I must say, I think he has a right to know. He would’ve been the father. It’s not something to be lightly ignored.’ There he’d be, she thought, behind the leather-topped desk in his study, swivelling his chair gently, looking out over the garden. Grey hair brushed back immaculate
ly, eyes impatient, testy because Tess wasn’t being malleable, thin-lipped at having to justify his opinion. ‘I think he has a right to know,’ James repeated.

  ‘And I think you’re wrong. It was a failed pregnancy and I don’t want him to know. I’m failure enough in his eyes. Can I speak to Mum?’

  But her mother had been hardly any more comfort. ‘Don’t think Dad’s trying to push you into anything, darling. Olly didn’t let you down gently, we realise that. But he didn’t know about the baby. And he didn’t make you ill.’

  Tess gazed out of the window. ‘Mum, try not to let Dad give Olly my address. You know what he’s like. His acting for the best is what most people would call meddling.’

  A little pleasure went out of the final ritual of The Dragons of Diggleditch after that. She stewed instead of packaging her illustrations, departing into angry reverie instead of enjoying the end-of-term feeling that a commission’s completion would normally provide.

  Sod James, sod him. Why did she get upset? She should’ve stipulated briefly, lightly, coldly that she didn’t want Olly and it would be pointless to tell him they almost made a child, where she was, what she was doing.

  On the wall were still her three lists, the ones she’d made after taking tea with Lucasta that afternoon. She snatched them down.

  Work, correspondence, walk, shopping; yes, she could tick all those fundamentals. Stop looking back; if only people would let her! Eat sensibly; sure, that phase was over.

  SURVIVE WITHOUT OLLY! She made big, savage ticks on each of the three sheets. Easy! Survive without Olly, no trouble. She was happy in Honeybun Cottage, she was working well, she had friends. Olly Gray? Just somebody she used to know.

  Early afternoon and the courier had taken The Dragons of Diggleditch on paper and on disc, parcelled stiffly and marked about eight times, ‘Please Do Not Bend’. She shouldn’t have to worry about that book any more.

  There would be a nice fat cheque from Kitty. A few Nigels for the card company and some book jackets would tide her over gently until her next commission. For the first time since coming to Middledip she felt content to slither to a halt, award herself a lazy time. She yanked out the tie from her ponytail and flung back her hair. Out, then, into the sunshine!

  Her feet took her next door, to Pennybun, through the gate and into a romp of roses, dahlias and late, sexy-scented honeysuckle.

  Lucasta, classy today in lavender with jet beads, ushered her in as she always did, hobbling past the asparagus fern into the little parlour. ‘You’re looking wonderful, Middledip must agree with you!’ Despite limping more than ever, Lucasta produced lapsang souchong in stubby, handleless cups like little sugar bowls and settled back to admire the view through her window. ‘Isn’t the garden wonderful? Miles has found a youngster to cut the grass and he moved the old bench into the sunshine last week. I’m wondering if he’d search out a new garden parasol for me. That would be lovely, wouldn’t it?’

  Relaxing on the cool cotton covers, Tess resigned herself good-naturedly to a conversation littered with references to Miles Arnott-Rattenbury. Despite that ritual, she always left Pennybun soothed and calm from the serene, pretty colours with which Lucasta surrounded herself and the old furniture collected from around the world as an army officer’s wife. And Tess wasn’t alone, half the village seemed to stroll past her gate to visit Lucasta. If they were all greeted, ‘How lovely!’ as she was, if they all warranted delicate china and delicious snacks and found the same comfort and tranquillity at Pennybun, it was understandable.

  ‘I’m going to Bettsbrough in the morning, I’ll collect your parasol, if you like,’ she volunteered.

  ‘Thank you, dear! Miles is travelling to Devon at the weekend so I expect he has enough to do. I’ll find my purse. More tea? Something from the fruit bowl? Or,’ she smiled conspiratorially, displaying faultless white dentures, ‘Miles brought me some chocolate fudge ice cream ...’

  The ice cream was delicious, a peculiar contrast to the smokiness of lapsang. ‘I used to know Miles’s grandfather,’ Lucasta said, suddenly, putting aside her empty bowl.

  Tess nodded, and then realised she might not be supposed to know. ‘Really?’

  ‘We were … each married to other people. But we formed an attachment. It’s what divided my husband and me.’

  Tess nodded some more.

  Lucasta’s knotted hands, with the skin so soft-looking she must have been diligent with the hand cream all her life, toyed with the jet necklace where it brushed the front of her dress. She looked directly at Tess. ‘I don’t know that he was worth it, he didn’t act particularly well, in the end. But his wife was a strong woman and perhaps that’s why Lester and Miles are better men, though Miles works hard to disguise it. Don’t you find him very disagreeable, sometimes?’

  Tess smiled slightly. ‘I don’t know that I’d say disagreeable …’

  Lucasta tutted. ‘You’re a saint if you don’t! Some days he’s as contrary as a tom cat. Even when he does you a favour he makes you feel as if it’s nearly killing him.’

  Wandering on when she felt Lucasta was tiring – she was really looking so faded and silvery these days it was worrying – Tess waved at Pete and Jos working in the shady garage. Would Angel fancy a bit of company, she wondered? She might be glad to escape chores, cry, ‘Bliss, you’ve come to rescue me!’ Yes, she’d pop in, see if the family fancied a stroll. Perhaps to the swings behind the village hall, Jenna loved the cage of the infant swing. The higher, the faster, the better she liked it, the more she crowed and shrieked for more. Lovely, lazy day. Her mobile phone was at home so that James couldn’t ring to discuss Olly and whether he could be coaxed back.

  And there was McLaren, obviously an escapee again, wagging an enthusiastic hullo and crossing towards her, his brown patches aglow in the sun, eyes bright in welcome. Tess fussed his silky ears. ‘We don’t need horrid old Olly, do we McLaren? Fancy a walk, sweetie?’

  Angel was pleased to see her and because The Dragons of Diggleditch had been successfully completed she even opened a bottle of wine. Because of the hot weather they drank it quickly. Because their subsequent sunshine-drenched dawdle took them past MAR Motors they felt inclined to linger and chat, pretty loose and giggly. And because Tess felt pleased with herself she proposed, rashly, ‘How about an early finish tomorrow, as it’s Friday, so you can all come to Honeybun to celebrate the completion of my first full book commission in the village?’

  Buying a garden parasol for Lucasta – ‘blue, or perhaps mauve. With a fringe’ – Tess was tempted into a little splurge on her own garden. A plain green parasol, a wooden bench, dark green patio chairs of wrought-iron ivy leaves, a table and a gas barbecue.

  ‘British Racing Green,’ Ratty approved, appropriating a chair and sending McLaren to pant and snap at flies in the shade. ‘Congratulations on finishing your commission.’ Astounding her, he produced a pink patio rose in a pot, a little bottle of Tendre Poison and a kiss on the cheek.

  The rose was just the pink of her blush. ‘Oh! I didn’t expect presents! I just felt like sharing my great mood. But here you all are making it a party!’

  Toby offered a silver-framed photograph of him and Jenna taken at his playgroup. ‘It’s very good,’ he pointed out. ‘That’s my best shirt and Jenna’s party dress. Mrs Lewis combed everyone’s hair with the same comb and Mummy said she hoped no one had nits.’

  Jos brought a corn dolly from the woman in the village who made them and bottles of potato wine he’d made himself. Potato wine? Could wine be made from potatoes? Not wanting to hurt his feelings by asking, Tess repeated, ‘I didn’t expect presents!’

  Blinking hot eyes at the niceness of everybody, she disguised the moment by touching a little of Ratty’s perfume to her throat. ‘Do I smell good?’

  Ratty dipped his face to her neck. ‘As gorgeous as you look.’

  Gorgeous. She let the remark nestle in her mind as she poured wine into new glasses from the new coolbox and brought out the new
patio-ware for when the barbecue-sauce-smothered food was ready.

  She’d been alone, she’d been low, she’d been uneasy in her own skin. But now she had friends to share her high and she was ‘gorgeous’.

  She manned the barbecue from a chair and enjoyed Pete and Angel sharing an eye-watering, wine-induced snorting giggle, the children screaming with delight as Jos gave them horse rides on faded denim knees. Ratty, grinning like the pirate king, sea-blue eyes flicking over her, smile softening.

  Ratty. Funny Ratty. Snappy today, kind tomorrow. Hard, sarcastic, mocking Ratty. But also warm, teasing, laughing Ratty who shared the profits from a good deal with his friend-employees, who the children loved. Tess’s eyes drifted upward from the smile and paused to collect that glittering gaze. What did it say? Offer? Would she ever ...?

  ‘Teth-Teth!’ An insistent little hand patted Tess’s leg and the thought remained unformed. ‘Hul-lo, my Jenna.’ She obeyed the outstretched arms and jumped the toddler, pink-cheeked and silken-haired, onto her lap.

  ‘Bic-bic.’ Jenna showed her the biscuit, softened by being saved for some time in her hand, and settled down to gnaw it.

  It was pleasant in the sunshine, swapping lazy insults, emptying the bottles of wine, breathing the summer smells of roses, grass cuttings, hamburgers and chops. Soon Jenna snuggled a hot, chubby head into the hollow of Tess’s shoulder and dozed. Easy to forget that life hadn’t always been so.

  A sudden hush alerted Tess to a change.

  Angel’s ‘Wow!’ directed her eyes.

  And there, marching up the drive over the drying thyme, chin out, was Olly Gray.

  Blond hair blinding. His eyes were angry.

  The power of speech deserted her.