The Difference a Day Makes

by Carole Matthews

  Home? Where exactly is that now?

  ‘You’re stuck in limbo here,’ my sister points out.

  ‘Well, I’m hoping that the couple coming in the morning will be keen to buy. The estate agent says they are.’

  ‘Estate agents are not to be trusted.’

  ‘No.’ Nor, it seems, are vets. ‘But let’s hope he’s right this time. I want this place to look as spick and span as it can.’ Let’s also hope that they don’t notice that the cupboard doors are hanging off and that there are damp patches on the ceiling. ‘Guy is keeping Hamish for the day tomorrow so that he doesn’t trash the place or try to commit a sex act on my potential purchasers.’

  ‘Why don’t you just get rid of that dog?’ Serena says. ‘He’s a smelly, slobbering pain in the neck.’ A fair assessment of Hamish’s charms, I think. ‘He’ll have to go when you head back to London.’

  ‘I know. Believe me, I’ve tried. That mutt is more indestructible than The Incredibles. Besides, for some reason, the kids adore him.’ I have to say that Hamish’s varied adventures seem to be doing a good job of distracting them from their grief. Perhaps I have something to thank the dog for.

  ‘Tom and Jessica look like they’ve settled in really well here.’

  ‘Don’t remind me. I’ll feel terrible about uprooting them again.’

  ‘You’ll come back to Helmshill though.’

  ‘William’s here,’ I say. ‘We’ll come back to visit regularly. As often as we can. We’re not going to forget this place in a hurry.’ Or, indeed, the people we’ve met here.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  ‘I’ll put the dog in the kitchen, then I’ll clear up in here,’ Guy said.

  Laura pressed against him. Her body was soft and yielding. ‘Can’t we do that in the morning?’

  Hamish was frantic, bucking against being restrained. Guy didn’t think that he could hang onto him for very much longer.

  ‘Let’s go straight to bed.’ Her fingers toyed with a button on his shirt, slowly opening it. Her hands drifted lower. Guy felt himself gulp.

  ‘Give me five minutes to sort Hamish out,’ he said, ‘and then I’ll be right with you.’

  The dog dragged him through to the kitchen. ‘I wish I’d had you as a puppy,’ Guy complained. ‘You’d be a damn sight better behaved than this.’

  Hamish woofed happily.

  ‘We’ve got company,’ Guy continued. Then he lowered his voice. ‘I’m about to get lucky for the first time in years. Can’t you give me a break?’

  The dog was completely hyperactive. He needed a good long walk to run off some energy – maybe it wouldn’t do him any harm either. But Guy didn’t somehow think that Laura would be happy with that suggestion. The thought depressed him. Back in his life for five minutes and already she was silently dictating how his life should be run.

  Hamish had, indeed, chewed his way out of the utility room as Amy had predicted. The wood around the place where the cat flap had previously been bore the telltale signs of Hamish-sized teethmarks.

  ‘You are one handful of dog,’ Guy said. ‘I hate to do this to you, fella, but tonight I need some peace and some privacy.’

  He went to his vet’s visits bag and opened it up on the table, rummaging through the contents. ‘Hah!’ Guy found what he was looking for. Doggy tranquillisers. ‘This should put you to sleep for the rest of the night.’

  Hamish looked at him reproachfully.

  ‘If I could trust you,’ Guy said, ‘I wouldn’t need to do this. But, frankly, you leave me no choice.’

  The dog slunk to the floor.

  ‘Don’t be like that, Hamish. It’s for one night.’

  Hamish whined, pitifully.

  ‘Look, what if I hide it in some cake for you?’

  His tail gave a grudging thump.

  Guy went to the cupboard. It wasn’t a particularly well-stocked kitchen. He tried to eat his main meal at lunchtime at Poppy’s Tea Room if he possibly could. There was nothing sadder than cooking for one. Inside his one cake tin, there was – fortuitously – a fruitcake. An untouched gift from the wife of an appreciative farmer. Guy couldn’t quite remember what he’d done to deserve it. ‘What about a bit of fruitcake?’

  Hamish drooled in response. Guy peeled the greaseproof wrapping from the cake. Surely it wouldn’t be out of date. Not that a bit of stale fruitcake was likely to trouble this dog’s constitution.

  Crushing the tablet, Guy broke a piece off the cake and tucked it inside. ‘There now,’ he said, putting the doctored cake on the table. ‘You won’t feel a thing.’

  Whereupon Hamish made a bolt for the back door. ‘Oh no!’ Guy shouted. ‘Don’t do that. You come back here.’

  ‘Finished yet?’ Laura’s voice came from behind him.

  ‘Not quite,’ Guy said over his shoulder. She’d wandered into the kitchen and was standing there looking all sexy and sultry.

  ‘Yum.’ Laura’s eyes alighted on the drugged fruitcake on the corner of the table. ‘I adore home-made fruitcake.’ She picked up the crumb of cake.

  ‘No!’ Guy shouted again, hand outstretched.

  Too late. Laura had swallowed the cake.

  She looked alarmed. ‘No?’

  ‘It’s not home-made,’ he said in a sickly voice. ‘Shop-bought. Wouldn’t like you to think otherwise.’ There was no point telling her now that it contained enough dope to knock out a small horse. This was exactly the sort of thing that would cause a major argument with his ex. Laura would definitely not see the funny side of this.

  ‘I’m so tired.’ His unexpected house-guest stretched. That’s a coincidence, Guy thought. The tranquilliser couldn’t be working already. Laura gave an enormous yawn.

  ‘Must be the fresh country air,’ he tried.

  ‘Mmm,’ she said sleepily. And with that, his ex-fiancée slithered slowly to the kitchen floor.

  He dropped to his knees next to her. Thankfully, she was still breathing. ‘Laura,’ he said, shaking her gently. ‘Laura, wake up.’

  But Laura was already in the Land of Nod, snoring contentedly.

  Guy sat back on the floor with a sigh. Hamish came and leaned against him and licked his ear. That was the only action he was likely to see tonight.

  ‘Thank a lot, mate.’

  All he could do now was wait. It was his reckoning that his ex-girlfriend should sleep soundly until about noon tomorrow.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  I turf our very own serial killer out into the garden, then I give the house a thorough sweep for rodent entrails, headless corpses and cat sick. With Hamish out of the way, I can at least relax a little on the unseemly rogering score.

  This morning, I’ve been up and cleaning since dawn and I have to say that even to my beleaguered eyes, this place isn’t looking half bad. I check my watch. Mr and Mrs Gerner-Bernard are due any minute now and my anxiety levels are rising.

  On cue, I hear the tyres of their car crunching over my gravel drive. I take off my apron and smooth down my hair.

  ‘You still look a state,’ my sister says.

  ‘Thank you.’ I didn’t sleep a wink last night – I’m not sure why. My mind was busy, worrying about everything and nothing, and it kept me tossing and turning until dawn – when I decided to get up and clean the house instead of lying there fretting.

  ‘Let me show them round.’

  ‘No, no. I’ll do it.’ By this time the Gerner-Bernards are knocking at the back door. ‘I just hope that they’ve got pots of money and bad eyesight.’

  I let my viewers in, all beaming smiles and insincere hospitality. They’re a professional couple, up from London, looking for a weekend place to entertain – much like everyone who has so far come to black their noses in my house. They look like the sort of people that I used to mix with in Notting Hill and I don’t know why I’m not warming to them more.

  ‘This is lovely,’ Mrs Gerner-Bernard gushes. ‘It does need rather a lot of work though.’

  ‘Don’t we all.�
� I laugh gaily.

  If they think I’m acting strangely or desperately, they don’t say so.

  Without further ado, I sweep them through the house, taking in the living room, the dining room and the perfectly proportioned study. Today the sun is shining. Light is streaming through the newly cleaned windows. The fading carpet is shown to its best. The gloomy wallpaper sparkles perkily.

  ‘We could do a lot with this,’ Mr Gerner-Bernard says, nodding thoughtfully as he considers the pros and cons of my property.

  ‘I’ll show you upstairs.’ And I do.

  All goes well. They coo appreciatively over the bedrooms which are all spic and span if not tastefully decorated. They even make the right noises about the antiquated bathrooms. Tom and Jessica’s bedrooms are tidier than I’ve ever seen them, toys neatly lined up on shelves that have probably never been used since we arrived.

  ‘What’s the view like from here?’ Mrs Gerner-Bernard wants to know.

  ‘Beautiful,’ I say automatically. We all head to the windows and stare out over the Yorkshire moors. The sun breaks through the clouds, dappling the hills with patches of brilliance. I don’t think they’ve ever looked more green and lovely. For some reason, it almost takes my breath away.

  ‘Oh, it is beautiful,’ Mrs Gerner-Bernard cries. ‘Our friends would love this. Fancy escaping smelly old London every weekend to these wonderful mountains.’

  I want to tell her that they’re not mountains, but I don’t know what constitutes a mountain or what makes a hill. They could be mountains, for all I know. I just know them as moors and suddenly feel very possessive about them. Why is that?

  Up on the moors, I can just make out the tiny figures of Tom and Jessica. To get them out of the way, I sent them out with their kite. I can see them now running happily across the hills, red kite flailing behind them. I can’t hear their laughter, but I can imagine it. The sound rings in my head. Will they be able to have this freedom back in London? A cold chill clutches at my stomach. In Notting Hill they used to spend half of their lives in front of the television or their computers, or being hot-housed in various classes; now they’re out here hail, rain or shine and it hadn’t really occurred to me before.

  ‘This is marvellous,’ the Gerner-Bernards agree. ‘What an idyllic spot. It has such potential. Can we see outside?’

  Trailing down the stairs in front of them, all kinds of ridiculous emotions are swirling through my mind. This is my house, I think. I don’t want to sell it to you. To try to regain a grip on my reality, I blank out their excited chatter.

  I show them the Ritz-style henhouse and proudly point out that the chickens were rescued and that I, virtually single-handedly, nursed them back to health. At this point, their eyes glaze over. And I just manage to stop myself from telling them how thrilled I was when Christopher and his compatriots had laid three more eggs this morning – one for each of us – and how my hens are more clever than any others that have ever existed.

  Daphne, Doris and Delila chew lazily at the grass. The old ladies are looking very spruce today. ‘They’re too old to breed,’ I tell the Gerner-Bernards. ‘They’re just pets really.’

  ‘We wouldn’t want any of the animals,’ Mrs Gerner-Bernard tells me crisply. ‘We just want a country house. I don’t like animals.’

  ‘I used to feel like that,’ I say – and then realise what I’m saying. I used to feel like that, but I don’t any more. I press on with my sales pitch. ‘But when you’ve had them, it’s amazing how attached you become to them. My husband saved these from slaughter.’

  I can tell from Mrs Gerner-Bernard’s eyes that there would be no reprieve this time for the old dears. They’ll be for the chop. Literally. The gulp that travels down my throat is involuntary. ‘The goats are very cute.’

  ‘We don’t need to see anything else.’ The Gerner-Bernards look to each other for confirmation. ‘We’d like to put an offer in.’

  ‘You want to buy it?’

  ‘If the price is right. We’re cash buyers, so there’s no trouble with organising a mortgage.’

  ‘Good,’ I say flatly. ‘That’s marvellous.’

  ‘We’d like to move quickly,’ Mr Gerner-Bernard says. He’s some sort of hot-shot in advertising and wears the kind of glasses that all those media types do and I’ve started to dislike him. Intensely. ‘We’ll want to get the builders in over the winter to knock the place around so that it’s ready for next summer.’

  ‘Right.’ Knock the place around? I don’t like the sound of that.

  ‘How soon could you move out?’

  ‘Well,’ I say, taken aback at the speed that things are progressing, ‘straight away. Though I hoped that we might have Christmas here.’ Where did that come from? Why did I say that?

  ‘That shouldn’t be a problem,’ he says, stroking his little media-type goatee. ‘The paperwork’s going to take several weeks, even if we push it along. Then Christmas will slow things down, no doubt. I’d like you to be out of here early in the New Year. Say, the end of January.’

  ‘Yes.’ My throat is suddenly dry. ‘I don’t see why not.’

  Mr Gerner-Bernard shakes my hand, too firmly. She does the same. ‘I’m sure that the estate agent will be in touch with you this afternoon.’

  They jump into their big flashy car and roar away. I stand and stare after them.

  They’re cash buyers and they want to put an offer in. I run my hand through my hair. It looks like I’ve managed to offload this place, at long last. So, the question is, why isn’t my heart singing? Why aren’t my feet doing a happy dance?

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  ‘I don’t love you any more,’ Guy said. ‘At this moment, I don’t even like you.’

  He lay on his back with his arms behind his head. Next to him in the bed, Laura still snored soundly.

  Hamish put his head on Guy’s chest. ‘You’d better get off here soon before she wakes up, because then we’ll both be in the doghouse. You realise that you completely spoiled my evening?’

  The dog slunk off the bed and skulked out towards the kitchen to see what further havoc he could wreak in there. Hamish was certainly a character, but it was no wonder that Amy was exhausted by him. He was the most full-on dog Guy had ever come across. Still, it made him smile to watch Hamish the penitent slink down the stairs, tail between his legs.

  Guy propped himself up on his elbow and looked at his unexpected overnight companion. He hoped that the Helmshill bush telegraph didn’t get hold of this. For some reason he didn’t want Amy to know that Laura had spent the night here – even though nothing had happened. If he hadn’t inadvertently drugged his visitor, Guy wondered what the situation would be like now. Would things be strained between them, or would the hurt and the years between them have fallen away?

  Perhaps it would be better if he was up and about by the time Laura woke. It would be even more embarrassing if they were still in bed together. Particularly as Laura was still fully clothed. Guy had never liked that morning-after-the-night-before moment.

  Last night he’d carried her up the stairs and had lowered her into the bed, tugging the boots from her feet, then covering her gently with the duvet. He toyed with returning to the sofa, but figured that she wouldn’t actually know whether he was in the bed beside her or not.

  She seemed like a stranger to him now, this woman who had shared so much of his life. How many nights had they lain naked in each other’s arms – and now he couldn’t even begin to think about slipping off her dress so that she’d be more comfortable. But then Laura had been so sparko that she probably could have slept on a washing line and still have had a good night’s sleep.

  Guy slipped quietly out of the bed. He showered and pulled on his jeans and a sweatshirt. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to clean up all of Hamish’s feather mess before Laura surfaced either.

  Downstairs in the living room Hamish was lying contentedly among the feathers, trying to swat them with his huge paws.

  ‘Today,’
Guy said, ‘you and I are going for one long walk to try to get rid of some of your energy.’

  Hamish woofed happily, clearly liking the sound of the day’s activities. Guy fixed the dog some breakfast and then took the Hoover through to the lounge to tackle the Hamish Effect. Guy had just sucked up the last of the feathers when Laura appeared at the foot of the stairs wrapped in his dressing-gown.

  ‘Hi,’ she said sheepishly. ‘You’ve made a great job of clearing up.’

  ‘Thanks. Hope the Hoover didn’t wake you.’

  Laura shook her head, then looked as if she regretted such a vigorous movement.

  ‘Sleep well?’ Guy asked as innocently as he could manage.

  ‘I don’t know what happened,’ his ex-girlfriend said. ‘Suddenly, I was just sooo tired.’ She yawned again, to emphasise the point. Laura still didn’t look like she was firing on all cylinders. ‘I remember seeing all those feathers and then . . . nothing else. I feel like I’ve got a major hangover and yet I didn’t even have a drink. Did I?’

  ‘No,’ Guy confirmed. They hadn’t got anywhere near that far on the socialising scale. ‘The country air can sometimes have a knockout effect.’ He should tell her the truth – he knew that – but somehow he just couldn’t quite face it.

  ‘Did we . . . ?’ Laura let the sentence trail away.

  ‘No,’ he said with a laugh. ‘We didn’t do that either.’

  ‘God,’ she said. ‘I feel such a fool.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Guy assured her. ‘It’s not a problem. You must have needed the rest.’

  ‘I have been working really hard.’

  ‘Have a shower while I fix you something to eat.’ Then he remembered he had no food in other than the stale fruitcake – which he didn’t dare offer in case it triggered Laura’s memory – and some equally dried-up bread. ‘Actually, Plan B might be better. I need to take the pooch for a long walk. Fancy having some breakfast at a greasy spoon and taking Hamish out?’

  ‘That sounds great.’

  ‘I’m assuming that you’re not planning to rush straight off.’ There was no way he wanted his ex driving her car for a good few hours yet.