by Jill Mansell
She looked at him. ‘You asked them?’
‘I overheard someone else asking at reception.’
Oh God, it would be so nice …
But no. She wasn’t going to. She shook her head. ‘You’ve spent all this time not drinking so you can drive home.’
‘I don’t mind. You can’t use that as an excuse.’
‘And I’m on the early shift tomorrow. Seven o’clock start. We really have to get back.’
‘That’s a shame.’ And now he was smiling down at her, giving her that look again.
‘I know.’ This was so tempting. Maybe she could call the Mariscombe Hotel and see if someone wouldn’t mind switching shifts …
A tap on her shoulder signalled that Kat had joined them on the dance floor. Raising her voice to be heard above the music, she beckoned and yelled, ‘Hey, come on over to the bar, I’ve got something to show you!’
The moment they joined the gaggle of Imi’s girlfriends, Tula felt the little hairs on her arms begin to prickle with unease. The atmosphere had altered and there was a collective glint in their eyes that smacked of barely concealed triumph.
‘OK, this could be a bit awkward, but I’m going to go ahead and say it, because I think you deserve to know.’
Awkward didn’t come into it; Kat was clearly revelling in the moment, delighted to be saying whatever it was she was about to say. Tula felt Riley’s fingers tighten around hers. The about-to-sit-an-exam-you-haven’t-revised-for sensation was rising inside her chest.
‘I took some photos earlier and posted them on Twitter,’ Kat began. ‘You know, just to show my friends and—’
‘Can I just say,’ Riley interrupted, ‘we’re all here having a nice time at your friend’s wedding. Wouldn’t it be kinder to just leave whatever it is for another time?’
‘Oh, I’m sure you’d prefer that.’ Kat’s face was aglow with Schadenfreude. ‘But I don’t think it’d be terribly fair on Tula. Some things just need to be got out in the open.’ She held up her phone. ‘I have to say, we did wonder if you were too good to be true.’
‘Meaning?’ Tula squeezed Riley’s hand and saw Lucy glance down at their entwined fingers.
‘I’ve just had a text from one of my friends who saw the photos.’ With a tantalising flash of her phone’s screen, Kat said smugly, ‘I suppose when you have as many Twitter followers as I do, this is the kind of thing that can happen. She recognised your wonderful boyfriend, I’m afraid.’ Heavily mascaraed eyes fixed on Tula. ‘Sorry about this, but she met him when she was down in St Carys two weeks ago. They slept together.’
Everyone turned to stare at Tula. She swallowed, and carried on staring at Kat.
‘Her name’s Jess. Tall, blonde, very pretty. She’s a French teacher.’ Kat raised an enquiring eyebrow at Riley. ‘Ring any bells? And you can’t try and dump the blame on her either. You told her you were single.’
‘Because that’s what men like you do,’ Lucy swung in. ‘Poor Tula, she thought she’d finally landed herself a decent boyfriend. But all she got was another lying, cheating bastard who thinks he can do whatever he wants just because he has a pretty face.’
‘Oh yes, and all this stuff you’ve been spouting to us about your amazing job.’ Kat could barely contain her glee. ‘Jess says that according to your surfing friends, you don’t even have a proper job; you’re nothing but a beach bum who does bugger all and just sponges off his rich aunt.’
Imi, the beautiful bride, chose this moment, of course, to come up and greet them, slinging her arms around Kat on her left and Tula on her right side. ‘Yay-yay, it’s my wedding day! Is everyone having the best time ever?’
‘We just caught Tula’s boyfriend out.’ Realising that she now had quite an audience gathered around, Kat raised her voice and pointed dramatically at Riley. ‘He has sex with other women behind her back.’
‘Oh no!’ The happy smile melted from Imi’s face; she looked as if she was about to burst into tears. ‘Oh darling, how could he do that to you?’
Tula blinked. Honestly, was it possible for one day to swing quite so dramatically from disastrous to brilliant and then go crashing back to abject disaster again? And now everyone was staring at her in stunned silence. Even the band had stopped playing and appeared to be listening with interest.
‘It’s fine.’ Somehow she managed to find the words. ‘We talked about that. He only did it because he found out I’d slept with my boss. It was just one of those silly tit-for-tat things, with him trying to get his own back.’
‘She was nothing compared to you.’ Riley shook his head. ‘I love you so much.’
‘I know. I love you too.’ Turning to Imi, Tula said, ‘Thanks so much, it’s been a brilliant wedding. But we have to go now.’
And hand in hand they left, to the sound of Imi’s grandmother remarking loudly, ‘Honestly, what is it with young people these days? Obsessed with sex.’
‘Sorry,’ said Riley as they left the village behind them.
‘That’s OK. Not your fault.’
‘You were brilliant, by the way.’
‘I did all right. They’ll be gossiping about us for the rest of the night now.’
‘What are the odds, eh? Of all the girls in all the bars in St Carys, I had to sleep with that one. God, I wish I hadn’t.’
‘Me too.’ She paused. ‘Slut.’
‘Me or her?’
‘You!’ She smiled. ‘Anyway, doesn’t matter. I’m planning never to have to see Imi’s awful smug friends again. And it won’t be any hardship.’
Riley looked at her. ‘Did you really sleep with Josh?’
‘No.’ Tula shook her head. ‘Of course I didn’t.’
‘D’you wish you could?’
She didn’t need to reply. They both knew the answer to that one.
Riley carried on driving; retracing their earlier journey was easier than making it in the first place. After a while he said, ‘I liked being your boyfriend this afternoon.’
‘Good fun, wasn’t it?’
‘I really liked everyone thinking you were my girlfriend.’
‘They were jealous,’ said Tula. She’d liked it too. And the kissing bit.
As if reading her mind, Riley pointed to a whitewashed cottage up ahead with a B&B sign hanging outside. ‘We could still stay if you want to.’
And the fact that she did kind of want to made it seem all the more vital that she shouldn’t. Before, his beach-bum idleness had acted like a fire blanket, efficiently extinguishing any flicker of attraction. Now that she found herself liking him more as a person, there was a danger of that overcoming common sense.
And then where would she be?
Oh yes, back to square one, having her heart broken all over again.
They’d almost reached the whitewashed stone cottage now and Riley was glancing at her, waiting for her reply.
‘No.’ Tula shook her head. ‘I still have to work tomorrow morning.’ She willed the newly awakened sensations in her body to go back to sleep. ‘We need to get home to St Carys.’
Chapter 34
While Riley and Tula were still on their way from Wales back to Cornwall, Josh was making a mug of builder’s tea for his grandmother.
‘Ah, bliss. Thanks so much, darling. Just what I need.’ For the first time in weeks, Dot was neither on duty downstairs nor off out for the evening with Antoine Beauvais. She’d swapped her elegant outfits for a caramel cashmere dressing gown and cream slippers. Relaxing on the sofa in front of the TV, she was make-up-free and greedily devouring a plate of cheese on toast.
‘Supermarket white bread,’ Josh observed. ‘Not very gourmet. Antoine would be shocked if he could see you now.’
‘But he can’t. Anyway, I don’t care. I love ready-sliced bread.’ Dot’s eyes were bright with mischief. ‘I snuck out this afternoon to buy it and smuggled it back up here in a John Lewis carrier bag.’
Josh smiled. Ready-sliced had no place in the hotel; their head chef would be as
mortally offended as Antoine. ‘I won’t tell anyone.’
‘I’ve had it up to here with gourmet.’ Dot picked up another slice and dipped it in the puddle of tomato ketchup on the side of her plate. ‘Every time Antoine takes me out, we have fancy-pants food, served with jus and foam and micro herbs and aromatic reductions … I know it’s wonderful and tastes delicious, but after a while it all becomes too much. You just want one thing that tastes normal.’ She beamed, unrepentant. ‘I bought Jaffa Cakes too.’
Josh definitely approved of Jaffa Cakes. ‘And where is Antoine tonight?’
‘Having dinner in Padstow with a couple of music bods down from London.’
‘And fancy-pants food.’
‘Absolutely. More fool them. I’d rather be here having this.’ Having swallowed a mouthful of toast, Dot took a slurp of hot strong tea.
‘How are things going with you two?’
‘Oh, very well! He’s lovely, so charming. Listen to me, moaning about the incredible restaurants I’ve been taken to … how ungrateful does that sound? Next thing you know, I’ll be complaining that my diamond shoes are too tight.’ Dot smiled and waggled her furry slippers. ‘No, Antoine’s excellent company. I’m having a fabulous time. He’s perfect in every way.’
‘Good. You deserve someone to spoil you.’ Josh stirred his own mug of tea. Was there an element of revenge in the way Antoine Beauvais had returned to St Carys and made a beeline for Dot? Possibly. It had certainly put Lawrence’s nose out of joint. Then again, could anyone entirely blame him for that? And it wasn’t as if Antoine didn’t have feelings for Dot; he was clearly besotted with her. Annoying Lawrence was simply an added bonus.
On the TV screen, an actress in an ivory lace wedding dress was dancing with her new husband. ‘That reminds me,’ said Dot. ‘I wonder how Tula and Riley are getting on in Wales. Let’s hope he’s behaved himself and hasn’t tried to get off with one of the bridesmaids.’
‘He wouldn’t. He’s mad about Tula.’
Dot sighed. ‘If only he could sort himself out. I do love Riley, but you can understand why Tula wouldn’t want to get involved.’ Her clear blue gaze fixed on him. ‘She’d rather have you.’
That again. Josh said, ‘Not going to happen.’
‘Why not? Who would you rather have?’
He didn’t reply.
‘Oh come on, don’t try that with me,’ said Dot, amused. ‘As if I couldn’t guess.’
After all these years, she still hadn’t lost her witchy ability to know things other people wouldn’t have the first clue about.
Relentlessly she pressed on. ‘It’s so obvious.’ Maybe she was a witch.
‘Not to most people.’
‘But it is to me. Sophie, right?’
She knew him so well. Josh nodded and heard his phone ping, signalling the arrival of an email. He left it where it was, face down on the coffee table.
‘Well, you usually get what you want,’ said Dot. ‘Why isn’t it working this time?’
‘Because she wouldn’t rather have me.’ What the hell, if he was going to discuss it with anyone, it may as well be his all-knowing, all-seeing grandmother. ‘She’d rather have … no one at all.’
‘And we don’t know why. Something happened to that girl.’ Dot shook her head sympathetically. ‘I can’t imagine what it could have been.’
After a moment’s hesitation, Josh said, ‘Tula did accidentally let a couple of things slip one night. Don’t ever tell anyone, but she said something about Sophie’s husband … his name was Theo. She mentioned suicide. Must have been pretty traumatic, losing him like that. I imagine it’s enough to put you off wanting to get involved with anyone else.’
‘And that’s all you know? No more details? Oh, the poor darling …’ The diamonds in her bracelet flashed rainbow dots of light as Dot put down her second slice of cheese on toast. Then she frowned and said, ‘Hang on, Sophie’s husband was called Theo? Definitely Theo?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘Well I’m pretty certain he’s not dead.’
Josh sat forward. ‘What makes you think that?’
‘Because the other day Tula saw a name on the computer screen and did a huge double-take. I’d written T. Pargeter and it knocked her for six … she was desperate to know the full name. Well, I couldn’t think of it for a few seconds and she said in a panic, “Is it Theo?” Then I remembered that it was Terence, and she was so relieved.’
Josh had spent the last two weeks thinking that Theo had died and Sophie was a widow. This new information was going to take some getting used to. He said, ‘Maybe she just thought it was a horrible coincidence. Like, spooky.’
‘No, no, it was absolutely on the cards that it could have been him. I asked if he was one of her exes and she said no, he was someone else’s. Hang on, let me think …’ Dot closed her eyes in order to concentrate. ‘OK … she said she was glad it wasn’t him because it could have been awkward. And that was it; we went back to talking about the wedding in Wales.’ She looked over at Josh. ‘But from what was said, this Theo chap definitely isn’t dead.’
Josh’s head was buzzing with possibilities. So Sophie’s ex-husband was still alive. And now they knew his surname, too.
Theo Pargeter.
‘What are you going to do?’ Dot looked doubtful. ‘Because whatever it is, you need to be subtle. Sophie’s really not going to appreciate it if you start interrogating her.’
Did she seriously think he didn’t already know that? Josh shook his head; whatever he did with this new-found information, he was aware that he’d need to tread with the utmost care. Sophie had closed down that part of her life for a reason.
Her life with Theo Pargeter.
Aloud he said to Dot, ‘Don’t worry, I won’t.’
Chapter 35
Sophie was working on a shoot with a family so annoying you couldn’t have made them up. Mind-blowingly wealthy, with homes scattered around the world, they were currently occupying the stunning penthouse apartment of a new hotel up on the clifftop overlooking St Ives. Here in Cornwall for a week – squished in between visits to their villa in Cannes and friends who owned a palazzo on the banks of Lake Como – they’d decided to mark the occasion with a family photo shoot. As you do, apparently, when you occupy that kind of world.
‘If the pictures are good enough, we might use one of them for this year’s Christmas card,’ Julia generously explained. A rake-thin Californian in her fifties, she’d been surgically altered to resemble a waxwork model of a thirty-year-old. Her husband, a plump British entrepreneur, wasn’t remotely interested in being photographed but had been coerced into going along with it in order to keep the peace.
The two teenage daughters had expensive drawly transatlantic voices with upturned intonations. They also had shiny curtains of waist-length blond hair and teeny-tiny bodies that they kept loudly insisting were fat. A hair and make-up artist had been hired for the occasion, as well as their stylist, who’d arrived with armfuls of clothes and accessories from their London home. So far the preparations had taken three hours, and Sophie was still waiting to take her first shots of the day.
‘Mom, my lashes still aren’t right,’ whined the younger daughter, Jemini.
‘OK, honey, calm down.’ Julia gave the make-up girl a blank look that would most likely have involved eyebrow-raising if Botox hadn’t rendered such a feat impossible. ‘Can you please do them again?’
‘Yes. Sorry.’ The girl flushed and nodded, visibly mortified.
‘Remember the time that one in Monte Carlo did my eyebrows all wrong?’ The eldest daughter, Jezebel, spoke without glancing up from her crystal-encrusted mobile phone. ‘It was, like, so annoying.’
Sophie exchanged a glance with the make-up girl, who was now battling through a fog of cigarette smoke in order to redo Jemini’s lashes. What a life this family led, yet they seemed so utterly bored with it. Having finished texting, Jezebel was now chatting on her phone to a friend. ‘No, I’m the size of
a whale … I weigh, like, ninety-seven pounds.’
‘Sshh, baby,’ her mother protested. ‘Don’t tell everyone. We’ll get you some lipo, it’ll be fine.’
‘Not the turquoise ones.’ Jemini waved away the skyscraper-heeled shoes the stylist was showing her. ‘I wore those for last week’s shoot. Isn’t it your job to keep track of these things?’
The stylist looked as if she’d love nothing more than to stab her with a turquoise stiletto heel. Oh yes, this family was evidently a joy to work for. Sophie’s phone vibrated in the back pocket of her jeans and she stepped through the French windows on to the wooden wraparound balcony.
‘Sophie? I need you to come over here and settle an argument!’
After enduring the whiny, nasal tones of Julia and her spoilt daughters, it made a nice change to hear Marguerite’s forthright voice.
‘What kind of an argument?’
‘You know the ash tree in my garden? The one with the wicker cocoon seat attached to it?’
‘OK, yes.’ Sophie nodded, remembering the shoot they’d done last year for Marguerite’s Romanian publisher. Had they not been happy with the shots? ‘You need some more photos of you on the seat?’
‘Not of me. There’s a bird nesting in the upper branches and I need to know what it is. Lawrence is insisting it’s a blackbird, but I’m sure it’s a Cornish chough, even though I know they usually nest on cliffs. Pyrrhocorax, that’s the Latin name. They practically disappeared from Cornwall in the fifties, but there’s been a bit of recolonisation in the last fifteen years.’
‘Right. Wow,’ said Sophie. ‘I’m impressed. I had no idea you were such an expert.’
‘One of my awful exes was a birdwatcher. He made me go on a bird-spotting holiday with him once. And only once.’ The shudder in Marguerite’s voice was audible. ‘It was horrendous. Everyone had beards and wore chunky knits. Anyway, I’ve tried taking photos with my phone, but it’s useless. That tree’s thirty metres high.’
‘You need a long lens,’ said Sophie.