While Sheila had organised the photo shoot, Jules had worked hard on damage limitation (i.e. threatening Issie and Morgan Tremaine that if the local press so much as got a sniff of this story she’d personally be making sure they arrived at the pearly gates sooner than anticipated). In the meantime, she’d left Danny in charge of the logistics, which Jules now realised had been a big mistake. Of course Dan hadn’t ordered a conservative amount of the calendars. He was never one to do anything by halves, was he? When Dan did something, he committed to it one hundred percent.
It was one of the things she loved about him.
Danny shrugged his left shoulder. “A thousand.”
“A thousand!”
Jules thought she was going to pass out. Fifty she would just about have managed to afford, but no way would she be able to buy a thousand. The post office began to whirl and swim alarmingly and she clutched the counter for support. “Just how much has this lot cost us?”
Danny leaned closer so that only she could hear his whispered reply. “We only paid for fifty. Cashley stumped up for the rest.”
Jules blinked at him. “Ashley Carstairs? But why would he do that?”
“No idea, and to be honest I wasn’t about to turn him down. He said it was his contribution to saving the church, which I find a bit odd since he’d be the first to snap it up. Anyway, it was all on the proviso that we keep his part in it a secret. He’s bought a hundred himself too, so we only need to sell nine hundred.”
The thought of nine hundred Polwenna Bay calendars on the loose was enough to make Jules feel quite faint. It was the naked-calendar equivalent of Pandora’s box. Sheila could rattle on all she liked about how it was art; Jules knew that she should have gone with her instincts and put her foot down. While she was still trying to come to terms with all this, Danny put his good arm around Jules’s shoulders and steered her past the counter and up the rickety wooden steps that led up to the stockroom. By the time her eyes had adjusted to the dim light she was sitting down on a packing box with her head in her hands as Danny wielded a penknife and sliced open the first crate. He looked more excited than a kid on Christmas morning.
“What else can I do for a living?” Jules wondered aloud. “Teach RE, maybe? Become a nun?”
“Don’t be so dramatic. Besides, you’re far too much fun to be a nun,” said Dan. The half-light hid his injuries in the shadows and as he sat back on his heels and smiled at her Jules’ stomach did a slow forward roll. He was so handsome. And he thought she was fun. Fun was a start. That had to mean something, surely?
He’s still a married man, she reminded herself sternly, even if he is estranged from Tara. Besides, she was his vicar and it was totally inappropriate to feel this way. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for this job after all, and this whole calendar business was the Lord’s way of telling her so. To be honest, though, she would rather have had a plague of locusts or witnessed the River Wenn turn to blood than seen half her congregation posing in the altogether.
Danny was wrestling with the cellophane around one of the calendars. “Bloody hard work only having one arm,” he said, pulling a face. “Aha! Got it!”
Jules closed her eyes, willing it to vanish. There was a rustle and then the weight of the calendar was in Jules’s lap.
“Look up and open your eyes,” Danny ordered.
“If I don’t look then it doesn’t exist,” said Jules, keeping them tightly shut. It was a theory that had worked so far with her overdraft and the calorie count on a Big Mac box. Hopefully it wouldn’t let her down now.
“Stop being such a cowardy custard. Look at it! You’ll be amazed.”
“Shocked, more like,” grumbled Jules, but she did as she was told. She supposed she had to face the music sooner or later when the General Synod hauled her over the coals. Jules opened her eyes to see Danny adjusting the blinds of one of the filthy windows; stripes of sunshine zebraed the floor and revealed the dust whirling through the air as Jules began flicking through the pages of the calendar.
“It’s all right, isn’t it?” Danny said.
Jules was busy scanning the images. OK, she told herself, it could be a lot worse. In fairness, the photographer had done quite a good job of making sure that his respective subjects’ modesty was well protected. There was still no escaping the fact that this was a church charity calendar and that her parishioners were starkers, but at least they hadn’t managed to channel their inner Page Three alter egos.
“That’s a great one of Silver.” Danny crouched down next to her. “She actually looks pretty good draped in all that fabric and with the crystals arranged over her chest.”
“Hmm,” said Jules. Although Silver did indeed look respectable, if a bit wild eyed, she wasn’t going to let him off that easily.
“Issie looks good too,” he said as they landed on June’s page, where a beaming Issie reclined in the net bins, her curves shielded by the trawl nets. Their violent green hue was a wonderful contrast with her long braids. She was posed as a naughty mermaid.
“She looks wonderful,” said Jules, a little wistfully. Rock-chick skinny and with the Tremaine killer bone structure and startling blue eyes, Issie was fantastic. If Jules had tried a similar pose, she’d have looked like something Greenpeace usually tried to save. What must it be like to be one of the beautiful people? As much as Jules knew that God had made her in His own image, she often thought He must have been having a fat day when he’d done so.
“She stank afterwards though.” Dan wrinkled his nose. “Granny Alice made her wash in Swarfega in the boot room and Issie certainly didn’t pull that weekend. Even Teddy St Milton, who’s got the most stonking crush on her, stayed away.”
Jules laughed. “Aha! Now I understand why he’s lowered himself to mix with the likes of us. Maybe he’d like to buy all the copies?”
“And paper his shrine to Issie with them?” Dan grinned. “He’s certainly got it bad, poor boy. You know he’s taking her to the charity dinner?”
Jules hadn’t known, but now that she did she was impressed. The tickets for this event were selling for several hundred pounds each and were like gold dust. The Plump Seagull had only recently been awarded a Michelin star but the food press was already hailing Symon Tremaine as Polwenna Bay’s answer to Rick Stein. The small restaurant only seated thirty people, so Teddy must have moved at lightning speed to get two tickets.
“He must be keen,” said Jules. “I know money’s no object for him but, even so, getting one of those tickets can’t have been easy. I’ve not been able to get one, so I guess I’ll be going as a waitress.”
“Actually, Cinders, you’ll be going with me – if you want to, that is?”
Jules’s eyes widened. “You’ve got tickets? How on earth did you manage that?”
“Ninja skills?” Dan chuckled. “No, nothing so exciting. It’s all about who you know here. I told Sy that if he didn’t let me buy a couple I’d sit on his head and fart.”
“Is that a tactic they taught you in the army?”
He laughed again. “No, it’s a brother thing. I never thought to try it on armed insurgents but actually you might be onto something there. Baked beans were often on our menu in the mess. Maybe I’ll mention it to my old CO? It’s always proved a most effective tactic in the past!”
“Perhaps being an only child wasn’t such a bad thing after all?” Jules reflected.
“Feel free to borrow some of my lot anytime,” Dan offered. “You’ll come though, won’t you?”
“A meal at The Plump Seagull? Of course I will! Besides, you know me – I never turn down grub, although maybe I should.” She patted her tummy ruefully. The problem with living in Cornwall was that there was just too much good food; all those pasties, ices creams and scones were far too tempting!
“You don’t need to: you’re doing so much exercise these days and you’re looking great,” he said.
Jules felt her cheeks heat up. Unused to praise about her appearance, and too shy to look at him
, she returned her attention to the calendar. She started again at the beginning, flipping swiftly past Sheila and friends posing behind the groceries in the village shop, and concentrating all her attention on Patsy Penhalligan’s shot until her pulse slowed and her face felt less hot. She couldn’t help being amused because it was evident that the beaming baker had been indulging a little too often in her own pasties – and the cherries on those Belgian buns were positioned very strategically!
She flicked through a couple more, smiling and cringing in turn, until she reached September’s page. Her jaw fell open with shock because the girl in this picture was almost unrecognisable.
It was Mo, draped across a pile of bales. Her dark red mane of curls was spread out like flames and her porcelain skin was white against the hay. With her cornflower-blue eyes, heart-shaped face and slender limbs she looked incredible. Only a few wisps of well-placed hay shielded the swell of her breasts. More used to seeing Mo clomping about in jodhpurs and boots with a scowl on her face and her hair bullied into a ponytail, Jules was taken aback to see just how pretty she really was. The Tremaine family was certainly gifted with amazing genes; that was for sure.
“My goodness,” she breathed.
“What’s up? You look shocked. You’re not looking at Sheila are you? I really think that one should come with a warning,” Danny shuddered. “It’s enough to give a grown man nightmares. Step away from the calendar, Rev! Step away.”
Jules didn’t say a word; she just held the page out to him.
“Aha,” Danny said as he caught sight of the image. He looked at Jules and raised his eyebrows. “Yes, she scrubs up all right, does our Mo.” He grinned at Jules. “I think I suddenly understand why Cashley’s bought a hundred calendars!”
Chapter 15
Mo hadn’t consciously been avoiding the village but since that afternoon, almost a week ago now, when Ashley had walked away from the yard she hadn’t felt much like company. Working with horses meant it was easy for Mo to throw herself into her chores until she nearly passed out with exhaustion. Anything was better than thinking. She focused all her energy on her riding and took her misery out on forking up straw or ripping out clumps of ragwort. If Mr Dandy’s mane was cried into on a regular basis and Splash was practically on suicide watch after a few days of listening to Mo sobbing out her woes then nobody else was any the wiser. Horses, Mo knew from years of experience, were great listeners and even better at keeping secrets.
There was no point trying to figure out what on earth had happened with Ashley. After several days spent staring at the blank screen of her phone and willing him to call, she’d come to the sad conclusion that he really had meant what he’d said: he wouldn’t be seeing her again. He’d returned to London and maybe he wouldn’t come back. If he did, he’d made it more than clear that she wouldn’t feature in his plans. It was horrific just how upset she was by this, and not just because she had two of his horses in her care either. No. It was worse than that. Used to being alone and fiercely independent, Mo was terrified by how easily Ashley Carstairs had managed to sneak into her heart.
The notion of never kissing him again was as painful as though somebody had wrapped electric fencing tape around her heart and then flicked the energiser switch to full power. Mo wanted to howl. She hated Ashley. He was everything she most despised, wasn’t he? She’d spent most of the time he’d lived at Polwenna Bay fighting with him and trying her hardest to thwart all the changes he wanted to make to Mariners’ View. She loathed his fuel-guzzling boat, his designer bling and his addiction to cars that looked like phallic symbols. He stood for everything she detested.
So why was he her first thought in the morning and her last thought before her exhausted head hit the pillow?
Summer had phoned Mo several times and invited her to Seaspray, where Summer was living now that she was together with Jake Tremaine. But Mo had pleaded work, successfully avoiding her family, who would all have known as soon as they laid eyes on her that something was very wrong. Luckily it was the height of the holiday season, which meant that all her nearest and dearest were flat out. Even Granny Alice was too busy writing something on the family laptop to be worried about Mo. Yesterday Issie had delivered a copy of the St Wenn’s charity calendar, but in true Issie style this had been a flying visit on her way to a party in Newquay. She’d practically lobbed the calendar out of the car window, and if she’d noticed Mo’s scarlet-rimmed eyes at all, she would probably have put their redness down to all the hayseeds and pollen in the yard. Unable to face looking at the calendar, Mo had left it in the tack room. The last thing she needed was a reminder of another of her latest errors of judgement.
After all that rain it had been a hot week, and England was now sweltering in the grip of an unusual heatwave. The paddocks had become dry and dusty, and the water troughs remained low as Mo’s thirsty charges continually emptied them. Her arms ached from wheeling barrow loads of water out to the field. Farmers were busy making hay; even when night fell in blue and purple shadows their tractors rumbled on, their headlights striping the field like something from science fiction. The bridleways and cliff tops were baked concrete-hard and the narrow lanes around the village were choked with holiday traffic and combine harvesters, so Mo had restricted all her riding to the manège. After a few days of this she was itching for a change. An early start to beat the crowds – and to avoid her nearest and dearest – seemed a smart idea. She’d take The Bandmaster out on a hack, Mo decided as she switched her alarm off and dragged herself out of bed. It would do him good to have a change of scene, and if she rode through the village when it was quiet they could take the lane that led from the far side of the Bay and have a long canter home. That particular lane had a spring running alongside it and such a thick green canopy of leaves above it that it was always dank and moist, even in the hottest weather. Early was good too because they’d be unlikely to meet any hikers or trail-bike riders. As she fetched The Bandmaster in from the field and watched the sun begin to rise, Mo was already feeling more cheerful.
By the time she’d tacked up and was riding out of the yard, the sun was climbing high into a cloudless blue sky and the birds were singing loudly in the hedgerows. There was just enough of a breeze to keep the horseflies at bay; nevertheless, because it was early, the world felt empty and still. Was there any better way to see life than between a pair of pricked ears? Mo wondered as they clopped along the lane. If there was then she couldn’t possibly imagine what it might be. She held the reins loosely in her right hand and patted the glossy neck with her left, loving the way Bandy blew happily and jangled his bit. Who needed men anyway, when there were horses? Horses were by far superior. They never let you down, were always pleased to see you and every ride was brilliant! Even as a teenager she had known this, Mo recalled – and although she’d been the oddity when all her friends had been dating and stressing over their prom dates, as it turned out the teenaged Mo had actually been a lot wiser than the twenty-eight-year-old version. From now on, Mo was going to focus entirely on her career and give the male of the species a wide berth.
Ashley who?
The lane began the steep descent into the village. Curtains remained drawn in cottage windows and even the seagulls were still dozing on the chimney pots. Mo hoped that Bandy’s metalled hooves didn’t disturb too many holidaymakers’ lie-ins! Down past the British Legion and the Merry Mackerel Café they rode, then over the bridge and past The Plump Seagull and the ice-cream shop, before swinging a sharp left and hairpinning back through the village via the green and Magic Moon. At this point the road began to steepen again and Mo pushed Bandy into a trot, keen to work on his fitness in preparation for the upcoming season.
This quirky narrow lane predated cars but was perfect for horses. Church Lane was what some imaginative soul had once named it because, surprisingly enough, it led up to St Wenn’s and Jules’s pretty vicarage before dropping back down again into the village. Bemused holidaymakers sometimes wandered up it, in
explicably expecting to find the harbour, but in general it was pretty much traffic free given that St Wenn’s was its only real destination. The views alone were worth the climb up, though, and when Mo reached the lychgate she let The Bandmaster pause and snatch some greedy mouthfuls of grass while she admired the way Polwenna was laid out before her like a model village. Slowly the place was coming to life as Pete the Post called a cheery hello to an early-morning dog walker and below in the harbour the fishermen hurled boxes down onto the trawler decks. The sea resembled a blue silk hanky, and the slice of pale yellow beach that edged it shimmered in the sunshine. Usually it was a view that soothed Mo, but not today; today she could hardly even take it in because her attention was focused on something else entirely.
Ashley was walking up the path towards the church.
The sun might have just topped the valley and be dazzling her eyes so that all she could distinguish was his outline, but Mo knew it was him. Everything about that silhouette told her so, from the rigid set of his strong shoulders to the lithe hunter’s stride to that ridiculous beanie hat he insisted on wearing lately. Even if she hadn’t noticed these things, Mo would have detected that he was close just from the way her pulse had started to race. Her heart was crashing against her ribs now, like the waves crashing onto the shore. She would have known him anywhere.
Ashley, however, didn’t appear to feel the same way. He seemed lost, deep in contemplation and oblivious to Mo’s gaze. He walked swiftly along the narrow path leading to the church door, paused for a moment in the porch as though sensing something or having second thoughts, then gave the door a shove and vanished from sight.
So he was back from London then. She couldn’t try convincing herself any longer that he was still away and might have lost her number, or that he was so busy with his urgent situation that he hadn’t had time to call. Mo wanted to punch herself, and hard. Anyway, how difficult was it to scroll through a contacts list and press the call key on a mobile phone? People didn’t lose numbers these days. There was only one reason why somebody wouldn’t call and that was because they didn’t want to. It was time she faced the truth: whatever twisted game it was that Ashley had been playing with her, he was bored with it now. Just look at him, scoping out St Wenn’s when there was nobody else about to see what he was up to. He’d probably only been nice to her in order to get the Polwenna Action Group off his case – and it had worked too. She hadn’t exactly given him much opposition lately, had she?
A Time for Living: Polwenna Bay 2 Page 14