A Place To Call Home (Willowbury)

by Fay Keenan

  ‘I will,’ Harry said solemnly.

  Holly smiled. She was still thinking about Rachel’s advice to seize the day as she walked back to her flat. Perhaps she had been a little cautious and land-locked lately. Maybe it was time to live a little dangerously.

  11

  Much to her surprise, when Holly checked her online bookings for massages the following week, she found that Charlie had booked himself in for one on Thursday evening. He’s probably going to claim it on expenses, she thought, then chided herself for her cynicism. Despite Charlie’s political party affiliations, she was sure not everything came down to money.

  She cashed up quickly that afternoon, and about ten minutes before Charlie was due to arrive she found herself upstairs applying a little more deodorant (a freebie from an organic fragrance company that was trying to court her business) and running a brush through her hair. Ruefully, she realised she wouldn’t be doing this if she had any other client coming. She didn’t want to question her motivations too closely, though.

  Just as she was about to head back down to the shop and light the candle in the massage room, she heard a muffled meow from behind her.

  ‘Hey, Arthur,’ she said fondly as she turned around. ‘Are you hungry? Oh, I see you’ve brought your own food tonight.’

  There, in the ginger cat’s jaws was a large field mouse. Holly was generally unfazed by Arthur’s tendency to hunt and bring her home some of his catches, reasoning that it was par for the course when you owned, or were indeed owned by, a cat, although she would have preferred it if he finished them off beforehand – she’d had to rescue rodents and even small rabbits from the dark corners of her flat on a few occasions and it was quite tedious and time-consuming.

  Unfortunately, this time Arthur’s catch was large, vocal and very much alive. And as she strolled towards Arthur to try to shoo him back down the stairs and out of his cat flap, he dropped the mouse and shot into her bedroom.

  ‘Great. Thanks so much, Arthur!’

  Holly glanced at the clock and realised Charlie was due any minute. Swearing under her breath, she debated the options. Her living room was very open, but there were enough crevices for a rodent to hide, and while she wasn’t squeamish, the thought of a mouse running over her feet at an unwary moment made her skin crawl. She could close the door to the flat temporarily, but there were gaps under her doors that a mouse might easily slip under. The last thing she needed was it loose in ComIncense. There were far too many tasty things for it to nibble on down there, not least the expensive artisan beeswax candles she stocked from a local supplier near Wells. Nor would a free-ranging mouse be the most inviting sight for her customers.

  The bell over the front door of the shop tinkled and Holly’s heart quickened.

  ‘Charlie, is that you?’ Holly called.

  ‘Yes, it’s me,’ a voice returned her enquiry. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Can you drop the latch on the front door, and flip the sign then come up here for a sec?’ Holly replied. Charlie was a few minutes early, after all, and four hands would be better than two for catching the recalcitrant rodent.

  ‘Sure, OK.’ Charlie sounded intrigued, but the clunk of the catch of the front door showed he’d done what she’d asked.

  Holly heard his footsteps coming up the back stairs to her flat and felt even more irritated by the loose mouse. In a few moments, Charlie was at her door.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Charlie’s voice was laced with amusement as it wafted from the open door of the flat.

  ‘Close the door, quickly!’ Holly hissed from over by the sofa, from which she’d removed the colourful throws so that she could see underneath it. She was holding the dustpan from the shop and was peering under the sofa, watching intently.

  Doing as he was told, Charlie pushed the door shut and padded over to the sofa.

  ‘Can I help?’ he asked. ‘Are you looking for something?’

  ‘Arthur brought in a mouse just now,’ Holly muttered. ‘And, being the considerate soul that he is, he decided to show it to me before he polished it off, but because he’s so old, and his teeth are a bit crap, he dropped it and it escaped before he could catch it again. And I’ve cornered it to this part of the room, but the last thing I want is to let it loose downstairs – there’s too much for it to feast on down there.’

  ‘I’m sure I’ve got a spare mousetrap at home,’ Charlie offered. ‘The town house was riddled with the buggers when I moved in, but a colleague suggested peanut butter in a trap; worked every time.’

  ‘No way,’ Holly snapped. ‘It’s one thing Arthur bringing them in for his dinner, but I don’t want to kill it unnecessarily if I can help it. Arthur’s curled up on my bed, asleep, of course.’

  ‘Shall I go and get him?’ Charlie asked, feeling at a bit of a loss.

  ‘No point,’ Holly sighed. ‘He’d just look at you like you’re mad. Bloody cats!’

  Charlie dropped down to his knees and peered under the sofa. ‘Are you sure it’s under here? I can’t see any— Oh, Christ!’ Grabbing his ankle, he let out a yelp.

  ‘What is it?’ Holly dropped the dustpan and looked up to see Charlie, whose hands had suddenly moved up to the back of his right knee and were gripping on for dear life. ‘Have you got cramp?’

  ‘I think I’ve found your bloody mouse,’ Charlie spoke through gritted teeth.

  Holly glanced down to Charlie’s knee, then she burst out laughing. ‘Are you serious?’ There, below the fabric of Charlie’s suit trousers, was a small, frantically wriggling ball, that was only being prevented from shooting further up Charlie’s trouser leg by his furiously gripping hands.

  ‘Can you stop laughing and help me?’ Charlie’s face was torn between abject terror and ticklish laughter.

  Holly thought, for a moment, how funny but lovely that looked, before common sense returned.

  ‘You’ll have to drop your trousers,’ she said, choking back another gale of laughter. ‘And try not to let the thing get away when you do.’

  ‘Sod it getting away,’ Charlie howled, ‘I need it out of my trouser leg!’ With both hands still clutching either side of the mouse bulge down his leg, Charlie looked helplessly at Holly.

  ‘What?’ she said, still finding it extremely difficult to keep a straight face.

  ‘I can’t move my hands,’ Charlie said, his panic rising. ‘If I do, the bloody thing’s going to shoot straight upwards.’

  ‘And they’ve got seriously sharp teeth,’ Holly said. ‘I remember getting bitten by one when I was a kid. Drew blood and everything.’

  ‘That’s not helpful,’ Charlie winced.

  ‘Sorry,’ Holly smirked, realising exactly now why Charlie didn’t want the mouse travelling any further up his leg. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Well, isn’t it obvious?’

  Suddenly, Holly twigged. If Charlie couldn’t move his hands, then there was only one thing to do; she’d have to undo his flies. And she had to do it while ignoring the urge to make any jokes about honourable members. ‘Are you serious?’ Laughter won again.

  ‘Just bloody well get on with it, will you,’ Charlie snapped, hands still firmly glued to his knee.

  ‘This is going to be a bit tricky from the position you’re in,’ Holly said, trying her hardest to keep a straight face.

  ‘Hurry up.’

  Kneeling down in front of him, smothering the thought that in another context this would be extremely erotic, Holly found herself nose to groin with Charlie. ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘Yes,’ Charlie hissed. ‘Never more so.’

  Hands trembling slightly, suddenly nervous, Holly reached out and gently unbuckled Charlie’s tan leather belt, before fumbling a little with the button of his trousers. Finally managing to release it, she unzipped his flies, trying not to notice Charlie’s figure-hugging grey boxer shorts, or, to be truthful, to stare at what they contained. From this angle, had she dared to look for longer than a second, the view was very interesting.
<
br />   ‘Do you want me to, er, take your trousers down?’ Holly asked, glancing upwards at Charlie. Because he was bent over, his face was quite close to hers, and she felt a stab of sympathy as she realised just how embarrassed he was by this whole situation.

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ Charlie said stiffly, his face rather flushed.

  ‘OK. Here goes. Try not to let go of the mouse while I do it.’

  ‘Bugger the mouse,’ Charlie muttered, but his hands stayed put either side of it.

  Carefully, mindful of the strange angle and not wanting Charlie to be mortified any more than he was already, Holly eased down Charlie’s trousers until they were around his knees. ‘I think you can let go now,’ she said as they both paused.

  ‘I’m not sure I can,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Of course you can,’ Holly said, stifling the urge to laugh again. Charlie’s constituents would have a field day with this if they ever found out. The MP and the mouse would be a story to dine out on. If she ever went to dinner parties, that was.

  ‘Shit. You’d better undo my shoes, too, before I take off my trousers or it’ll get stuck if it goes down.’

  Holly lost the battle against the giggles this time, but, not daring to look Charlie in the eye, she quickly untied his shoes and helped him to step out of them.

  ‘OK, we’re good,’ she said. ‘If you take your top hand away, I’ll pull your trousers right down and hopefully I’ll be able to catch the little bugger on the way out. Three… two… one…’

  In a split second, Holly found herself crushed under Charlie’s weight as he caught his right foot in the hem of his trousers and fell forward. From the corner of her eye, she saw the small, brown field mouse, the cause of so much aggravation, scuttle out from the top of Charlie’s left trouser leg and dash underneath her sideboard, but what was more pressing was the warm, slightly trembling body that had ended up on top of hers, and the stirring of something even more alive than the mouse inside a certain pair of grey boxer shorts.

  ‘Did you see where it went?’ Holly asked, once she’d tried to draw air back into her slightly winded lungs.

  ‘Not really,’ Charlie murmured from his position on top of her. ‘I was more interested in trying not to crush you to death.’

  ‘I’m not sure if you managed it,’ Holly said, realising that Charlie seemed disinclined to move. Their lips were very close as he hovered above her, and she felt another distinct stirring from where their hips were touching, which turned her insides into fluttering, flapping madness. It was certainly proving even more difficult to breathe.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Charlie said, a husky note in his voice.

  ‘I think so,’ Holly replied. ‘But I think the mouse got away again.’

  ‘Sorry about that.’ He really didn’t sound sorry.

  The pause stretched for a delicious, aching moment as their lips hovered just a breath away. Holly craved that final step and desperately wanted to wrap a thigh around Charlie where he was lying between her legs. Heart hammering, she shifted slightly so that their lips were millimetres apart. She could feel his breath hitching in his throat as he looked down at her, and she was willing it to be down to more than just the adrenaline rush from the mouse up his trouser leg. Closer… closer…

  ‘Are we interrupting something?’ A deeply amused voice came from the same door that Charlie had entered a few minutes ago, followed by the pattering of toddler’s footsteps.

  ‘Rachel, Harry!’ Holly gasped as two pairs of feet, one small, one larger, came into her sight line.

  ‘Next time you fancy getting jiggy with the local MP, perhaps it would be wise to lock your back door before you start,’ Rachel said wryly, her face, once it came into view as Holly shifted, asking a thousand questions that Holly didn’t think she’d ever be able to answer. Holly, for once struck dumb, wondered how she was going to explain this one to her sister.

  Harry, round-eyed with wonder at seeing his aunt pinned beneath a strange man with his trousers around his ankles, suddenly pointed in excitement. ‘Look, Mummy, look, Aunty Holly!’ Turning her head to see where he was pointing, Holly saw the brown field mouse, the reason for this ridiculous situation, scuttling nonchalantly past her nose and under her Welsh dresser.

  12

  After the mouse debacle, Holly wasn’t quite sure how she or Charlie got through his booked massage, especially since Rachel took her time to leave with Harry, having just popped in to collect a couple of toys Harry had suddenly decided he couldn’t live without, which he had left in the flat during his last visit. Once she’d dispatched her sister and nephew, Rachel’s amused gaze lingering long after they’d left, Holly decided to just ignore what had gone on. She was mortified, and from the way Charlie readily agreed to head back down to the shop to keep the appointment, she sensed he was, too. There was certainly something a little different in the air than the first time, and she felt a mixed sense of disappointment and relief when it was over.

  As he emerged from the treatment room, looking more relaxed than when he’d entered it (although, to be fair, he couldn’t have been much more tense in the wake of the mouse incident), Holly looked up from her yoga mat. She hadn’t been able to let go of the tumult of emotions that the whole thing had unleashed, and coupled with that was the nagging, unnerving, unresolved issue of the photo in the suitcase. Although now was hardly the time to bring that up in conversation.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ she asked him softly as he closed the treatment room door behind him.

  ‘Pretty good,’ he replied. ‘All things considered!’

  Holly smiled. ‘I’m glad.’

  There was an almost imperceptible pause between them.

  ‘So, er, how much do I owe you?’ Charlie asked. He fumbled in the inside pocket of his jacket for his wallet.

  ‘I sort of feel like I should be paying you compensation for what you went through earlier!’ Holly said.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Charlie grinned, ‘worse things happen in Parliament. But, seriously, I can’t keep snagging freebies off you. You have a business to run, after all.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Holly smiled back. She got to her feet and ambled over to her counter where the till was. ‘It’s twenty-five pounds please.’

  ‘Reasonable at twice the price,’ Charlie said, handing over his debit card.

  As their hands touched, Holly felt a jolt of electricity. She glanced up at Charlie and noticed his eyes widening. There was definitely something between them; something more than the artificial intimacy that the massage had provided. But perhaps he still felt weird about landing on top of her in the way he had.

  Holly rang through the sale and then presented him with a receipt, ‘Just in case you can claim it on your expenses!’

  Charlie laughed. ‘I’m sure stranger things have been claimed. Not that it was strange at all,’ he added hastily. ‘In fact, it was lovely.’

  Holly cast around for something, anything, to keep this moment going a little longer. ‘Look, er, about what happened earlier… I feel really bad about you being in that situation.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Charlie said. ‘It wasn’t your fault. Although Arthur might not be getting any catnip from me for a while!’

  ‘I don’t blame you!’ Holly laughed. ‘So, I’m cooking dinner for Mum and Dad at their place on Sunday. Their kitchen’s a million times bigger than mine, and I do it about once a month. Rachel and Harry usually come over too. Would you, er, like to come over and have lunch with us? By way of an apology for Arthur’s poor behaviour?’

  The minute she’d said it, she felt herself blushing at the absolute dorkiness of the invitation. Asking him for a drink at the local pub on the High Street would have been a far more sophisticated and grown-up option. Why the hell had she invited him to lunch with her parents? He looked surprised by the proposition, to say the least.

  ‘You know what, don’t worry, it’s a stupid idea. You’ve probably got loads to do anyway, and we should maybe just
forget this whole thing happened—’ She hated it when she babbled.

  ‘Holly,’ Charlie cut over her monologue calmly, ‘I’d love to. It’s been ages since I’ve had a proper Sunday lunch. In fact, I don’t think I have had one since I got this new job. It would be a pleasure.’

  ‘Oh, OK. Well if you’re sure,’ Holly said. ‘And I do cook a mean roast lamb!’

  ‘Really?’ Charlie asked. ‘I was expecting some kind of vegan nut roast.’

  Holly grinned, realising immediately that he was teasing. ‘And why would you think that?’ she asked, pretending to rise to the bait.

  ‘Well, I mean this place… I just kind of assumed that being vegan was all part of the package.’ Charlie shook his head. ‘Shows what I know.’

  ‘Sometimes you can’t put everyone into neat little boxes,’ Holly chided. ‘Much as I’m sure you’d like to as a politician. Things aren’t always that clear-cut.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Charlie replied. ‘The more I find out about this place, the more it confounds me.’ He was warming to the subject, she could tell. ‘I mean, you couldn’t get two more different towns than Willowbury and Stavenham on the face of it, and yet they expect their MP to navigate between them effortlessly.’ He shook his head. ‘There’s more to this place than meets the eye.’

  ‘And there you were, thinking it was going to be all crystals, hippies and ley lines!’ Holly teased. ‘It’s a bit harder than you thought, is it?’

  ‘Like you wouldn’t believe.’ Charlie admitted. ‘In fact, I find myself having sympathy for Hugo Fitzgerald at times.’

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ Holly said darkly. ‘Rumour has it, he was more interested in feathering his own nest than helping other people build their own.’

  ‘I’d heard that, too,’ Charlie said. ‘But from my point of view it’s better not to know too much. I don’t want to get dragged backwards into whatever his affairs were, or weren’t. I just want to do the best by Willowbury and its residents as I can.’