by Imogen Clark
‘Nice spot,’ said Ray appreciatively, although it was hard to see much in the dots of light thrown down by the lamps along the lanes of the site. ‘Have you lived here long?’
‘About a year,’ Melissa replied. ‘I had a room in a shared flat in town before, but I prefer it on my own.’
‘Me too,’ he said, nodding in agreement.
He was single, then, Melissa thought, her antennae tuned in to any clue.
‘Going to show me around?’ he added.
So he was expecting to come in. Melissa hoped her face didn’t give away how pleased she was at this. It wasn’t really that surprising, though – he was a man, after all.
‘If you like,’ she said, trying to sound as if she wasn’t bothered one way or the other. She dug her key out of her bag and walked up the little gravel path to her front door, the stones crunching beneath her feet as she went. Ray seemed to hold back, as if he were waiting for an invitation to cross her threshold. He really was a cut above her usual fellas. ‘Come on then,’ she added, and he got out of the car and locked the doors behind him.
‘You can hear the sea,’ he said, surprised as he turned his head towards the sound of the waves hitting the beach below. Even in the dark a plaintive seagull called out over the water.
‘It’s just down there,’ she said, pointing into the darkness beyond. ‘I love it. It changes all the time. That’s one of the reasons why I moved up here.’
Melissa turned the key and the door creaked open. That pizza box was in the middle of the floor. Damn.
‘It’s a bit of a mess,’ she said, cringing. ‘Sorry. I wasn’t expecting visitors.’
She picked the box up and put it down over the sink so that he couldn’t see her knickers floating in the grey water.
‘It’s cold, too,’ she added, ‘but it won’t take a minute to get the heater going. It warms up dead quick.’
She flicked a switch and the fan whirred into life. When she turned round Ray was hovering by the sofa bench.
‘Sit down, then,’ she said. ‘Do you want a coffee or something? Tea?’
‘Tea would be great. So this is where you hang out. I like it.’ He ran an approving eye around the various areas of the room and nodded as he spoke.
Paltry though it was, Melissa enjoyed his compliment. Praise had always been a bit thin on the ground in her world, though, so she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to react. Feeling the heat rising in her cheeks, she turned her back on him to fill the kettle, whilst trying to avoid revealing the soggy knickers.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘It’s only small but it does me, and the views are amazing.’ She lifted the thin curtain to prove her point, but outside the sky was entirely black with not even the rest of the site visible, let alone the view. ‘When it’s light, I mean,’ she added.
She felt foolish now. Was that something he was doing merely by being in her space? When they were in the pub or even the café, she felt on a level pegging with him, despite his clear social superiority. She knew the rules there, and she knew how to bend them to get what she wanted. But this was different. Here she felt like a little girl, not vulnerable exactly but somehow inferior.
‘So, where do you live, then?’ she asked. She clipped her words short in an attempt to show that there was nothing soft or gentle about her, but it made her sound more aggressive than she’d intended. That was no good. She didn’t want to give him the impression that she wasn’t interested.
There was a brief pause as his eyes took in an empty tampon box on the floor by the bathroom door. Shit. She stared at him, defying him to pass comment on her messiness, but he just shifted his gaze to her.
‘The other side of Newcastle,’ he said vaguely.
Melissa wanted to know everything about him but she really didn’t want to scare him off by appearing too nosey. No doubt she’d get more details in time.
The kettle came to a boil and she made two mugs of tea and set them down on the table in front of him. The tea steamed in the chilly air.
‘How come you work in Newcastle?’ he asked. ‘It’s a bit of a trek and I assume you could get a barmaid’s job here, or do they not have any pubs in Whitley Bay?’
He winked at her and grinned. She liked his smile. It was the real McCoy, she could tell. She’d seen enough fake smiles to last her a lifetime.
‘Money’s better in town,’ she said simply.
‘Fair enough,’ he replied without further comment. ‘Come, sit here.’
He shuffled along the bench and patted the cushion next to him. Melissa sat down, too, but she left an arm’s-length gap between them. He shuffled up to her. Blimey, he didn’t waste any time now that he was here. She let him sit closer to her. Their thighs were touching now and she could feel the heat of his body through his trousers.
‘May I have a kiss?’ he asked, and she very nearly snorted. Who asked permission to kiss someone? It was like something out of the Victorian age. Still, now she came to think about it there was something quite lovely about him asking and not just assuming that she was up for it. She nodded, turned her face up to his and closed her eyes. For a second nothing happened. Was he teasing her again? Well, she wasn’t having that. If he thought that he could just take the p . . . And then his lips were on hers, soft and tender as if she were made of petals that might bruise if he were rough. Melissa had never been kissed as gently. It was lovely.
It wasn’t enough, though. She pushed back a little harder, forcing his mouth open with her tongue. She felt his breath quicken a little, but he didn’t respond. He surely hadn’t brought her all the way out here for a chaste little kiss? Melissa pushed herself up against him like she’d always done with the local boys and gyrated her hips, just a little. She heard him let out a little grunt. This was more like it. She knew what she was doing. She might live in a tiny, cold, slightly messy caravan but she was more than capable of flicking a man’s switches.
Then she felt him pull away from her. His hands cupped her face and she opened her eyes. He was staring right at her.
‘Slow down,’ he said, his voice gentle. ‘There’s no rush, Melissa. We’ve got all the time in the world.’
Now she was confused. They were here, together. Her bed was just the other side of the partition wall. Every man she had ever been with would be gagging for it by now, not holding back. Had she done something wrong? Was he gay?
‘But I thought . . .’ she said. ‘Do you not fan . . .’ She stopped mid-sentence. She didn’t know what was going on here, but she wasn’t going to walk headlong into an insult.
But he replied to her unfinished question. ‘Of course I fancy you,’ he said. ‘Who wouldn’t? You’re gorgeous. And believe me, it’s taking every ounce of willpower that I possess not to just drag you into the bedroom that I assume is behind that door. But . . .’ He took hold of a lock of her hair and started to twist it round his finger. ‘I have a feeling that we’re at the start of something special here, and if I’m right then I don’t want to spoil anything by crashing about like a bull in a china shop. I want to wine and dine you. I want to whisk you off your feet. I want to treat you like you deserve to be treated. And then, when we’re both sure that the moment is perfect, that’s when I’ll take you to bed.’
Melissa’s jaw virtually hit the floor. Had she heard him right? She’d known that he was different to the men she usually met, but this – a bloke who wasn’t only after one thing, who thought about her as a person rather than just a shag – this was something entirely new.
‘Okay,’ was all she could manage.
Ten minutes and another lingering kiss later, Ray had gone, leaving Melissa to dream about how different her life was going to be from now on.
14
CLIO – NOW
‘Marguerite said you had visitors yesterday,’ said her mother who, having spotted Clio watering the hanging baskets outside her front door, had wandered over for a chat. Strictly speaking, watering was one of the gardeners’ jobs, but Clio liked to do it
herself. It felt like the kind of task that ordinary people living in ordinary houses did, which felt good, and when she watered her flowers they repaid her by blooming their hearts out as if they were thanking her personally. The symbiosis of this pleased her.
Her mother was trying to ask casually, not looking directly at her as she spoke but instead dead-heading a striped petunia in a window box, her fingers pulling at the sticky petals and then dropping them into her waiting cupped hand. Clio could tell that she was bursting with curiosity, though. Clio having friends over was exceedingly rare.
‘I did,’ Clio replied with frustrating brevity. If her mother wanted to know who had been to the Hall whilst she’d been out at lunch then she was going to have to try harder than that.
‘Anyone I know?’ her mother asked, her voice light as if she couldn’t care two hoots and was just making conversation.
‘No,’ Clio replied.
Her mother sighed and started to walk away. Clio knew it was mean to keep her in the dark like this, but she had to be careful about what she let slip. Obviously explaining who Leah really was wasn’t an option but perhaps she could give her mother something.
Clio was just deciding that it might be safe to mention Leah’s name, at least, when she heard the front door opening and saw her mother stalk back into the Hall. The heavy door closed firmly behind her. Now Clio had upset her, which hadn’t been her intention at all. It was obvious that her mother would have heard about her guests; the Hall was a gossip factory with everyone knowing, or at least wanting to know, everyone else’s business. The trouble was that Clio just hadn’t prepared any answers.
Maybe she should have run after her, she thought. Then again, on reflection Clio decided it would be better just to let the subject drop. It had probably been a mistake to invite Leah to the Hall in the first place, but Clio had been so thrilled at her suggestion that they meet up that she had got carried away. However, she couldn’t think of a way of explaining how she knew Leah without giving away that she had been to Whitley Bay, and that would lead to yet more questions. What was it Walter Scott said? ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!’ Well, that was certainly true here, thought Clio. Her mother might be upset by the irritating lack of detail, but that had to be better than her finding out the truth.
Clio and Leah had had a fine time, though. Once they had got beyond Leah’s obvious shock at Hartsford Hall which, to give her her due, she’d taken in her stride pretty quickly, the pair of them had got on like a house on fire. After a couple of glasses of wine over lunch and with the children excused to go and explore, they had slipped easily on to the subject of their love lives, which had really pleased Clio. It was as if they were already close and this swapping of intimate details came as second nature, like in the relationships that she read about it books or saw in films. Sadly, Clio had little to share. Her love life was as dead as a dodo, but Leah had more to tell.
‘So, remind me,’ Clio asked her. ‘What’s Poppy’s dad called?’
Clio worded her question carefully so as not to suggest that there had been anything loose about Leah’s behaviour, even though it was clear that the relationship had been nothing if not casual.
‘Craig,’ Leah replied with a shudder.
‘And do you still see him?’
‘No. He’s still banged up. Went back inside for GBH,’ Leah said and she grinned at Clio and raised her eyebrows skywards. ‘He was what you’d call a mistake. Apart from Poppy, of course. I wouldn’t be without her for all the tea in China.’
Clio was desperate for more of a peek into Leah’s life and so instead of filling the conversational gap with chatter she just waited to see what Leah would say next.
‘I’m not proud of that part of my life,’ Leah continued without making eye contact. ‘What is it they say? I was in a dark place? Well, I really was. Mum was dead and Dad was gone and I didn’t know which way was up. I already knew who Craig was before we started going out. Everyone did. He was one of those lads that people look up to, you know what I mean?’
Clio thought at first that Leah meant like the head girl at school, but it quickly became obvious that this was not what she was saying.
‘Everyone wanted to be part of his crew and they used to all try and outdo each other to get his attention. It was like he was some big-time gangland boss rather than a jumped-up little wannabe in a tiny town. He loved playing the big “I am”, though. He had little ’uns running errands for him. You know, weed and that. A few pills. Nothing major but it felt big at the time. My dad would have told him to sling his hook if he’d shown up at our house, but Dad wasn’t there, was he? Sometimes I think I went out with Craig just to piss Dad off, not that he ever knew. But it felt like I was punishing him for leaving us by hooking up with the most unsuitable bloke I could find. And I was in bits then, because of Mum dying. I just needed someone to look after me, to take care of me, you know, and I thought Craig could do that. And he did, in his own way, for a bit. Most of what he did was on the wrong side of dodgy, but I think he was actually quite fond of me.’
In the distance they could hear Noah whooping and then Marlon’s deeper voice encouraging him to run faster. Marlon should probably have been working outside somewhere, Clio thought, but who was he hurting by skiving for a couple of hours? She wasn’t going to tell him to get back to his garden and she certainly wasn’t going to interrupt Leah.
‘And in some ways,’ Leah continued, ‘I quite liked being his “moll”. Of course, all the other girls hated me. There was one, Stacey. She couldn’t stand that I was with Craig. She was a nasty piece of work. Still is. She was always trying to turn Craig against me, but to give him his due he never believed anything she said. I did some stuff I’m not proud of . . .’ Clio watched as Leah’s throat and cheeks reddened and she reached out to take a drink. ‘But in my heart I knew I was running with the wrong crowd. I didn’t belong with them. And so when the law finally caught up with Craig and he got banged up I used it as an excuse to bow out. No one noticed that I’d gone. They were all too busy positioning themselves to take over the little empire he’d left behind. To be honest, I had a narrow escape,’ she finished with a sideways grin and then, as if anxious to change the subject, she added, ‘What on earth are those kids doing?’
They could hear footsteps running and the three voices squealing. They sounded to be having a right royal time.
‘Let’s go and see,’ Clio said, standing up, folding her napkin into neat squares and then rethreading it through the silver napkin ring. ‘Oh, leave that,’ she added as Leah went to stack the dirty plates. ‘Someone will see to them.’
They found the children and Marlon in the ballroom playing a type of hopscotch on the parquet floor, skidding across it in their stockinged feet or on their knees. Noah, whose feet were small enough to fit inside each rectangle, kept accusing the other two of cheating, and Marlon was objecting and suggesting that perhaps they should chop his own feet down to make it fairer, which made Poppy squirm. As he saw them coming into the room Marlon suddenly stood to attention and tried, unsuccessfully, to smooth his curls down with his hands.
‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ he said. ‘I hope we haven’t disturbed you.’
‘Marlon! Since when have you called me “ma’am”?’ Clio asked, horrified at this formality in case it made Leah think worse of her.
Marlon, his eyes twinkling, pretended to doff his cap and folded from the waist into an extravagant bow that made Noah laugh all over again.
‘Sorry, ma’am,’ he repeated.
Leah was laughing and shaking her head, clearly not falling for the fake lady of the manor routine, and then as Marlon stood back up Clio saw him wink at her and watched as Leah’s cheeks flared a pretty shade of pink. Delighted, Clio had stored that up for later.
Yes, it had been a super afternoon and a part of her would dearly love to have shared it with her mother, but that would bring with it far too many questions of the kind that Clio
didn’t want to answer. It would be better to upset her mother about this one little thing than about the whole sorry mess.
15
GRACE – THEN
The summer that Grace was pregnant with her second child simply raced by. Charles was busy with work as the orchestra’s summer season got into full swing, but he also managed to get away for Grand Prix races in Belgium, Germany and Holland. Grace, in the meantime, was busy making preparations for the baby’s arrival. She had redecorated Hector’s new room and the nursery, but that had made other parts of the Hall look shabby, and so what had started as a bit of a touch-up had turned into a full-scale project for Grace to manage.
Armed with paint samples and swatches of curtain fabric, she chased Charles around the place trying to get his view on the various styles that she was contemplating.
‘Is that not just another shade of magnolia?’ he asked as she thrust yet another tester strip under his nose.
Grace sighed in frustration and shook her head playfully. ‘No, silly! This is Apple White. Look properly. It’s a totally different colour. It’s virtually green, Charles. How can you not see that?’
But Charles just shook his head. ‘Whatever you choose will be perfect, Gracie darling. I love you and so I will love your new colour schemes, even if they are all just variations on cream.’
‘And we need to talk about the baby,’ Grace added, anxious now that she seemed to have his attention to hang on to it for matters more important than paint.
Charles was packing his music up ready for the rehearsal later.
‘What about the baby?’ he asked without looking up.
He could be so infuriating, Grace thought. There were so many things that needed discussing. Why couldn’t he see that? ‘Well, names for one thing,’ she replied impatiently.