Starting Over (23 page)

‘Absolutely not!’

‘I’ve always thought he might. He’ll bonk anything.’

‘Thanks. Why don’t you come in and sit down?’ Tess had glared at Lynette, who’d already flounced herself down at the kitchen table. And suddenly
she
was the one arguing with Lynette, whilst Guy skulked on the landing. Maybe Tess should keep her great beak out of Guy and Lynette’s marriage? Or should Lynette try to avoid being such a carping, miserable tyrant, for a change?

Losing patience, Tess dragged Guy down to quarrel with his wife, leaving them to it while she shut herself in her workroom to check and parcel the Bavarian tales commission. Thank God there was another
Dragons
anthology on the horizon, she was sick of lederhosen and cocky hats. And thank God she wasn’t saddled with a man like Guy.

Staring out of the window, she thought instead of Ratty, the greatest possible contrast. What was happening there? The fabled ‘just good friends’?

So why did he kiss her?

She looked at the mossy roof tiles of Pennybun, wondering if he was there.

Why
did
he kiss her? It hadn’t been a kiss of mere friendship. Was she fooling herself that she was unaffected by sea-bright eyes and a wicked smile, gypsy curls? He stirred her. She’d tucked her feelings away, after Olly. Was that changing? Were they going to have a thing? And when it ended, what then? That was the bit she couldn’t get her head around. No going back then to the old friendship, drinking at The Three Fishes, long hikes, babysitting.

Why
did he kiss her, reminding her how it felt to be pulled hungrily against the hardness of a man’s chest? Not that Olly had been hungry. Olly had been measured, thoughtful, controlling.

Whereas Ratty was very real.

Voices rose, downstairs. Guy progressing from a conciliatory murmur to a raw bellow, Lynette beginning on a raucous shriek and going on from there. She turned on music to drown them out.

When the package was ready for the courier, Tess began to sort through her materials, filling in time rather than enter the kitchen warfare. She sharpened several pencils, rotating them slowly as she shaved them to a point with a scalpel. Fag ends of superseded acrylic paint tubes, a pile of them, old. She dug out a couple of brushes that had seen better days and, splitting the crumpled tubes, began idly to paint a creeper over the blue walls. Twining, inching, leaves like hearts and spades, through an airbrick in the corner, around the pipework which dropped through the room, to writhe across the top of the window and into the window reveal. She added pink-cream trumpets of morning glory. And it stopped mattering that she felt obliged to hide herself away in her own home, time just wandered by until the slamming of the back door shook her window.

Good. One of them had gone.

It was Guy who remained, drooped against the dresser, shoulders slumped, head down. ‘She’s gone.’

‘Didn’t you grovel enough?’

‘Not really.’ He stroked the length of his nose, a familiar gesture. She felt a sudden twang of yearning for the happy young days with Guy, before he turned into a bit of a liability and failed to answer life’s call to grow responsible. Days of mates, crowds, pubs, clubs, when Guy had stroked his nose and chuckled, not gazed at the floor and jutted out an unhappy bottom lip. ‘I suppose I’m not very nice to her.’

Hungry, she propelled him to a kitchen chair to get him out of her way. ‘Humping other women definitely comes under that heading. Doesn’t she want you back?’ She made him a cheese and pickle sandwich, which she knew very well he didn’t care for.

‘I told her she was crap in bed.’

‘Ouch.’ Watching him chew his sandwich, eating her own, thoughtfully, leaning against the china sink waiting for the kettle to boil, she gave in to prurience. ‘And is she?’

‘She is now. Lights out, Granny nightie. Doesn’t actually say “Tidy up when you’ve finished”, but might as well.’

That didn’t sound much fun. Should she feel sorry for Lynette? Or Guy? She made tea, ate some fruit, considered. Decided it wasn’t her problem. ‘Well, whatever,’ she remarked, ‘your days here are numbered, Guy, there’s no room and you’re a pain in the arse.’

Ratty laughed at this account of her cousinly candour. ‘So, has he gone?’

‘Has he gone?’ echoed Toby from his new perch on Ratty’s shoulders. They’d slowed their approach to Bankside to hear the end of the story.

‘He has, now.’ When he’d behaved badly enough for her to insist loudly he ring Lynette and try harder.

Malicious bastard, Guy. Despite everything that happened, despite Tess howling down the stairs, uncaring who heard, ‘
Don’t let him in
! Don’t open the door!’ Guy
had
. ‘Hullo, Olly!’

She stamped. She’d seen Olly draw up. It would’ve been simple to ignore him until he went away, if Guy hadn’t opened the door and sounded pleased to see him!

Down the stairs, she jumped into the kitchen, hands on hips, hair flying into her face and faced Olly. ‘What?’

Smiling his best, burning smile, Olly offered a single red rose in a ribbon-wound polythene sleeve. ‘How are you?’

She folded her arms uncooperatively. ‘What do you want? Run out of children to steal?’

His hair was shorter, slid like strands of silk when he shook it back. His eyes still that compelling Arctic blue, lips still thin and sensuous, he still towered above her. The base of his throat still emerged smoothly from his collar.

‘I’d like to talk.’ His smile continued to be beautiful.

Today didn’t seem a good temper day. The Pill, every bit as brilliant as Dr Warrington had said it would be at reducing her erratic monthly deluge to a manageable flow, hadn’t altered her occasional premenstrual fury. Her cottage, generally a peaceful sanctuary, now seemed
teeming
with
people
who were really,
really
, REALLY irritating
! She didn’t usually suffer from gritted teeth, stiffened shoulders and clenched fists. On the whole her words were mild enough. But today she seemed to have lost all equanimity.

‘
Pity,
’ she spat at Olly, who jumped slightly. ‘Pity you didn’t have the urge to talk before you jilted me – by e-mail!’

Guy hooted, half admiring. ‘I didn’t know that! Did you really?’ Tess glared to wipe the smirk from his face, wounded that he could find it funny.

‘Or when I lay in gory sheets and lost a baby! Our baby, Olly! Pity it wasn’t when I was living with my parents, feeling alone and lonely and unloved. Pity, Olly. Because then,
I might have listened
!’

Lips straightening, Olly stuttered. ‘But surely ...’

She pushed past him, snatched open the kitchen door. ‘You – get out. And,
you
,’ she snarled at her cousin. ‘Phone and sort your wife out. Don’t witter on about her sexlessness, you damned well take her to bed and make it happen!’

Olly’s turn to laugh. ‘Don’t you make it happen in bed for your wife, Guy? OK,
OK
, I’m going! I’ll call again when you’re feeling less stressed. I really do want to talk to you.’

Spiteful, sulky, Guy called after him. ‘Should’ve made it a dozen roses, Olly, she might not have realised how broke you are!’

Guy left very soon after a long telephone conversation of ‘been inconsiderate’ and ‘work everything out’. Before he went, he ratted on Olly with thorough rancour. ‘He’s in really deep poo, basically. Ran up God knows what bills when he was doing well, then surfed from one credit card to another, applying for them all, moving the balance and taking advantage of the free credit period. Then new card applications began to be refused. Do you
know
what they charge on unpaid balances?’

She had some idea. And it reinforced her suspicions about what was bringing Olly back into her orbit. He needed somewhere to live and someone to subsidise him for a bit. She felt a moment’s sympathy. It couldn’t be easy for him, he seemed to be paying pretty dearly for his mistakes. Then she hardened her heart.

No sympathy from Tess Riddell, today!

Hoisting Toby into a more comfortable position, Ratty matched his pace to hers, rubbing shoulders. ‘You know something, Princess, I love you when you’re angry.’

‘You should have heard me when my father rang ... Good God!’

Carola’s house. Decorated barge-boards, repro-medieval front door, bullions in the bay window, pierced ridge tiles, statues, a koi carp pond and bridge guarding the front door, an arch and a pergola.

‘Wait till you see the inside,’ hissed Angel, as Carola opened the door.

‘You’re the last,’ Carola reprimanded gently, towing them across the hall to the sitting room like a tiny blonde tug. ‘Come and join us!’ Tess, gazing around from the back of the group, felt her lip curl. As a compulsive viewer of how-to television programmes, subscriber to every glossy home monthly, Carola obviously fancied herself as a designer and decorator.

The intensity of the effect was difficult to absorb. Rugs hand-hooked, embroideries and tapestries on walls that were dragged, ragged, marbled, stencilled and sponged, doors scumbled or crackle-glazed, curtains swagged-and-tailed, scalloped, fringed or valanced. Tess’s artistic soul was offended.

Carola suggested Angel leave ‘the kiddies’ with her ‘brood’ in the playroom. Formerly the dining room, until Carola and her husband – who commuted and very sensibly spent as much time at work as possible – extended the sitting room to football pitch proportions, it was manned by a ‘village girl’. Carola called her children ‘honeee’ and never told, always asked. ‘Now, can you play nicely? Can you do that for me, honeee? Mmmm? Oh, I expect you’ll do as you like, as usual!’ The grinning face of the eldest girl as she rolled backwards into a toy box suggested that Carola was right.

The meeting gathered round an oval dining table big enough to host a conference. Carola took the head, dispensing with the formality of being elected chairperson. ‘I’ve put the extra leaf in so there should be room. Does everybody know everybody? Does everybody know Tess? I’ll just go round – Elaine Tubb, from The Three Fishes, Kelly, Hazel and Sarah from Mums ’n’ Tots, Ida, Hubert, Rose and Grace from Church. OK? Now ...’

Tess exchanged smiles with Gwen Crowther then sighed deeper into her chair, almost slipping from the taut Regency-striped fabric, and only half listened whilst Carola ran through details of the upcoming Feast. ‘Sponsorship – Ratty?’

Ratty saluted. ‘One stall, ma’am.’

‘Elaine, can we count on The Three Fishes for another? We’ve got corn dollies, hand-knits, tombola, white elephant, candles and aromatherapy oils, and then the table-toppers.

‘Raffle – a hamper (ta, Gwen), half-a-doz bottles of wine from The Three Fishes (thanks, Elaine), oil change and service from MAR Motors, cut-and-blow from Angel, hand-knitted Dennis the Menace and Bart Simpson, half a day’s gardening from the landscape man. And hand stencilling from me.’

Ratty whispered, ‘Hope I don’t win that!’

Oblivious, Carola ran on about erecting the stalls, decorating the stalls, filling the stalls, manning the stalls. Dismantling the stalls and turning them into tables for the finger buffet at the evening dance.

‘Now, Tess, I’m relying on you.’

Having been concentrating on avoiding Ratty as he tried to pull loose the laces of her Doc Martens with his feet, Tess stumbled. ‘Me? Pardon?’

Carola’s hair was even blonder than Olly’s. With the waxy transparency of skin and lips that were nearly colourless. If she ever got a commission to paint a ghost, Carola would be a great sitter – if she’d sit still for more than five minutes!

‘As our resident artist, would you be prepared to paint a picture for us? An original “Nigel” perhaps?’

‘Copyright,’ Tess intercepted hastily, although copyright rested with herself.

‘Oh dear. I was hoping yours could be top raffle prize? I was seeing you signing the work for the winner? For the photo to go in the evening paper.’ She made a rectangle with her hands and looked through.

It wasn’t a bad idea. She could send the clipping to her agent. Tess agreed cautiously. ‘But I’ll create something new, specially.’

Carola clapped. ‘Wonderful! It could be the start of something, a character just for the Feast every year! Perhaps something to reflect the agriculture all around us. A sheep?’

‘I come up with my own ideas.’

‘Oh, oops! Whatever!’

Interminable, the meeting, with disgusting refreshments in the shape of sesame-seed toffee fingers, herbal tea and home-made wine. A long evening full of Carola’s enthusiasm and everyone else’s long-suffering cooperation.

‘Good job it’s for the village – and no one else wants to do it,’ Ratty observed as they marched back down
Main Road
, laden with sleepy children, hurrying to keep warm. ‘Or I’d have to pull her head off to shut her up!’

Gwen brought Milky Bars out from her shop for the children and everyone shivered on the garage forecourt whilst the adults chose between Wagon Wheels and Mars Bars.

And then it happened.

One minute Tess was enjoying being part of the group, teasing Angel about whether or not she’d babysit on Friday evening, Ratty’s arm warm against hers as she opened the chocolate wrapper for a suddenly wakeful Toby, Ratty grinning down at her and calling her Princess.