‘I’m glad to see you too, Ivy,’ I said.
‘We went to Cornwall for a holiday.’
A small brown terrier launched itself down the stairs and busied itself circling my feet with excited snuffles and yips.
Will scooped it up. ‘Sorry about Frank, he gets a bit excited. Come into the kitchen.’
I followed him into a big, warm room with what I was coming to recognise as a regulation Aga cooker. Will dropped the little dog into its basket, which of course it immediately left in order to drag a tea towel off the Aga rail and run around the kitchen with it.
‘Ignore him, he’s showing off,’ Isobel said, taking a swipe at Frank as he careered past her. ‘I hope you don’t mind, we usually eat in the kitchen because it’s warmer. I did think of opening up the dining room but it’s so cold in there you’d have to keep your coat on.’
‘This is lovely,’ I said and I meant it.
It was a room that had obviously evolved over the years with a selection of beautiful old chairs around a long table and there were wooden shelves along one wall laden with blue and white china, a stack of magazines and catalogues, and a tin box marked ‘seed packets’. Along the other wall was a carved church pew with a long tapestry cushion that was occupied by a cat and her four kittens.
I couldn’t resist, I had to go over and look at them and they obligingly woke up and yawned before they started wrestling with each other and biting their mother’s tail. Ivy knelt down in front of them, entranced.
‘Daddy says I can have two of them when they are old enough to leave their mother,’ she said. ‘Daddy says it’s more fun to have two kittens and more fun for them too.’
‘I’m sure he’s right.’
‘I wouldn’t want them to be lonely while I’m at school,’ Ivy added. ‘I think I’d like those two.’
She pointed to a boisterous tabby that now had one of its siblings in a violent headlock.
‘They are very cute,’ I said.
Well they were. You would have to have a heart of stone not to think so.
As we stood side by side, I felt Ivy slip her hand into mine. It was sweet and totally unexpected.
‘And how was Cornwall?’ I said.
Ivy grinned up at me. ‘We went to a house right by the sea where you could see the tide coming in over the rocks. And we had sandwiches made with fresh crab from the man who caught them. I didn’t think I would like it but I did.’
‘I’ve never been to Cornwall,’ I said.
‘It was lovely,’ Ivy said, swinging my hand with hers, ‘to see the sea and everything. Daddy took loads of photographs. You should come with us when we go next time.’
I didn’t know what to say to this but luckily Isobel called across to us.
‘Come on, Ivy, let’s sit down and see how the casserole has turned out. Ivy helped make it. She was very excited when I told her you were coming to dinner. Will, could you grab a bottle opener for the wine, please?’
It was a lovely evening. I sat between Ivy and Will and was told all about the farm and how many lambs they had and Ivy told me about one that had to be gently revived in the warming oven of the Aga. Then she told me about the pony she wanted to have when she was feeling strong enough to look after it. She told me about school and how she liked singing and sports day.
‘Ivy won two races in her school sports day last summer,’ Isobel said proudly. ‘She can run faster than anyone in her class.’
‘I’m not sure I can run so fast now,’ Ivy said thoughtfully. ‘My legs don’t seem so quick.’
‘That’s because you’ve been ill. You’ll get better,’ Joe said.
Ivy turned to me. ‘Do you remember when I was ill? Daddy said you saved my life.’
‘Well I think the doctors saved you. And the ambulance men, they were here very quickly so they could take you to hospital.’
‘But you knew what the matter was, didn’t you?’
‘That was lucky,’ I said.
‘How did you know? You’re not a doctor, are you?’
‘No, but I write books and one of the books I wrote was about a nurse who looked after someone with meningitis.’
‘I had a bad headache. And I was sick. I was sick all over the bed wasn’t I Daddy? It went absolutely everywhere! Even on the floor! Everywhere!’
Isobel tapped on her plate with her fork and sent Ivy a warning look. ‘Shall we talk about that another time?’
Ivy giggled.
Isobel raised her wine glass to me. ‘Well I’d like to raise a toast to Louisa and say thank you for everything.’
I caught Joe’s eye and had to look away blushing.
We finished the meal with a selection of cheeses from a neighbouring farm and shortly afterwards Ivy decided she wanted to sleep in the room she had at her grandparents’ house and went upstairs to bed. We had coffee, Isobel opened the chocolates I’d brought and we sat chatting for a while longer. Then just after ten, Joe stood up.
‘I’ll take you home, Louisa,’ he said, ‘if that’s okay?’
‘Fine,’ I said.
Fine? Fine?
I was so giddy with the thought of being alone with Joe again that I perversely started to dawdle. I carried on chatting with Will about the summer weather in the area and then Isobel asked me what my life was like in London. I entertained her for a few minutes with stories of parties and premieres and did a bit of casual name-dropping. It all seemed rather trivial and she hadn’t heard of half the people I mentioned. I started to talk about the book club the previous day and she told me about Janice and the problem she had been having with her alcoholic husband.
Joe was patient, sitting with his coat on, watching me whilst making a fuss of Frank the terrier who had been sitting with his nose as close to the Aga as he could get for the previous hour.
‘Oh well, I suppose we’d better let you get off,’ Isobel said at last, ‘but you must promise to come back.’
‘Of course, and thank you for a lovely evening,’ I said.
Will and Isobel watched from the front door as we got into Joe’s car and they waved us off. Then there was the twenty-minute drive home.
We didn’t speak at all. I could feel the tension in the car building as the seconds ticked past. I watched Joe’s hands on the steering wheel, strong and confident. At last we reached Barracane House. There was a new crescent moon, sharp and beautiful in the sky, seemingly balanced on the chimney. The car stopped. Joe got out and came to open my door.
I hopped out and looked up at him. His face was shadowy, half hidden by the blackness of the night.
‘Do you want coffee?’ I said.
How much of a cliché was that?
I held my breath while he stood watching me.
He shut the car door and took a step forward, unbuttoned my coat, put his hands inside, feeling my waist, my back, his thumbs brushing against my breasts.
‘I don’t want coffee,’ he said at last.
‘You don’t?’ My voice was faint with my desire for him.
‘I don’t.’
‘Tea?’
‘No.’
His hands slipped under my T-shirt and I shivered as the cold night air hit my warm skin.
He bent his head towards me, his mouth brushing my cheek, his breath warm against my ear. ‘I’ve missed you, Louisa. I couldn’t forget that night. I tried but I couldn’t forget you. Your face, the scent of your hair.’
My knees began to give way. He pushed me back against the car and kissed me. Gently at first, tasting my mouth with his.
‘Oh Louisa,’ he said.
I heard myself whimper and I closed my eyes, blotting out his face, his shadow falling on mine in the starlight.
We went into the house and he eased my coat off my shoulders dropping it by my feet. I knew what he was thinking. I certainly knew what I wanted. I kicked off my boots; he took off his shoes.
We went upstairs to my room in the darkness, feeling for buttons, zips, pulling at each other’s clothes without speaking,
dropping them on the stairs, on the landing, on the bedroom carpet. I knew the feel of the rug by the side of the bed under my bare feet. I shuffled backwards, feeling the edge of the bed against my calves. I fell backwards. He fell with me, his weight against me hard and hot.
He turned me and stroked my skin with little murmurs of pleasure. He tasted my neck, my throat. He took my fingers into his mouth and softly bit the pad of my thumb. He moved my hand to touch him. He touched me, searched for me and found me, pushing, pushing until suddenly, overwhelmed with pleasure, I cried out against his shoulder, my teeth grazing his warm skin. Still he was not done with me and he was still for a moment while I caught my breath and waited for the sensations rippling through me to stop.
Then he reached over and turned on the bedside lamp. I blinked and turned my head away at the sudden brightness. He pulled back and held my face in his hands.
‘Look at me,’ he said. ‘I want to see you.’
I closed my eyes, turning away.
He turned my face back towards his.
‘Look at me, Louisa,’ he whispered.
I looked up at him above me. He locked his gaze with mine. It was the most intimate moment of my life, the connection between us absolute and private.
I felt as though I was falling, and I think I cried out, my arms around his neck.
‘Louisa, ah yes.’
He gave a long, low cry and was still.
I cried then, big tears of pure emotion, spilling down my face and onto the pillow. He kissed me and held me while I caught my breath and my pulse returned to something like normal. Then he pulled me round to lie against him, my hand flat on his shoulder. I could feel his heart thudding against mine.
‘I was watching you all evening, thinking about you. Remembering. Wondering if you felt the same way. I needed you so much,’ he said at last.
‘So did I,’ I said.
He gave a shaky laugh. ‘Thank God for that!’
‘It’s nothing like riding a bike, is it?’
‘Nothing like it,’ he agreed with a chuckle.
He dropped a kiss on my neck and smoothed his hand over my breasts, making me tremble.
What now? I thought. Now that we were in my bed, our bodies tangled together, his sweat on my lips. The minutes passed. I have no idea how long we lay there. Touching, exchanging little kisses.
‘Good job Ken is seeing to the sheep tomorrow morning. But it’s late, I should go,’ he said, his mouth against my hair.
My heart sank.
‘But I really don’t want to.’
I kissed him. ‘You could always stay,’ I said, rather casually. As though I didn’t really care one way or the other.
We were adults after all; we’d had sex. People did it all the time; we could be cool with this.
Every one of my brain cells, every neurone, every last strand of mitochondria in every atom in my body was willing him to stay. But I wasn’t going to beg or seem desperate. Although it did cross my mind for a second.
Instead, I mentally went through the contents of my fridge and freezer, wondering what I could offer him for breakfast in the morning. There were a few croissants and a new pot of apricot jam. There were eggs from a local farm, the yolks wonderfully yellow. There was some bacon in the freezer; I could run the packet under the hot tap to defrost it I suppose. Oh and I had some mushrooms too, little button ones that I could fry in butter. I might not be able to make a cake without plastering myself in goo, but I could do breakfast. I was sure of that. But would he want cereal? I didn’t have any but I did have sachets of instant porridge. Not very romantic. Not that I wanted to be romantic, but it seemed sexier to cook a man a full English than to dole out a bowl of synthetically flavoured pap. I had a fresh bottle of orange juice. Tea, coffee and plenty of milk.
Result.
Right, so …
I drew breath to ask what he wanted to do. And then I realised he was asleep. I watched him for a few seconds, his breathing steady and relaxed, his head deep in the pillow, his long eyelashes brushing against his cheek. I bit back a smile, reached across slowly and turned out the lamp. Then I lay awake in the darkness, and thought about things.
Him obviously and me, and what the blue blazes I was doing.
I was supposed to be here to rewrite, edit, tweak my book, thrash it into shape. Whatever you want to call it I was not supposed to be having rampant sex with the next-door neighbour. A man with a daughter who wanted a pony. He had a farm and a lifestyle so far removed from mine that it was laughable. This man had sheepdogs in the back of a muddy Land Rover. He had a barn next to his house full of bales of hay. He didn’t just have a farmhouse kitchen he had farmhouse everything. He was probably on first-name terms with the local vet. He’d been in the Young Farmers Club. I was certain that no other man I had ever had a relationship with had stuck his arm up a sheep’s nether regions during lambing.
And Benedict. Had I properly got rid of Benedict? Theoretically I was still getting over the break-up of our relationship. It didn’t seem to be too difficult.
Then just before I fell asleep another thought crossed my mind to wake me up. What the hell was Joe doing with me? A woman who up until now had thought of the country as just the space between towns. Whose only occasional windows onto rural life were The Archers Sunday morning omnibus – when half the time I didn’t know what was going on – and Countryfile. Who was surprised to find that farms really smell. Who on Desert Island Discs had asked for solar powered hair straighteners as a luxury.
But it had been wonderful; I couldn’t deny that. I’d been attracted to Joe from the first time I’d met him. This realisation made me feel a lot better. It meant that I had an on-going relationship with him that had already lasted several weeks. On and off. It meant that I hadn’t leaped into bed with a good-looking stranger.
That first evening when I’d run out into the mud in a pair of cashmere socks and not really noticed, I’d fancied him then. Those socks had never really been the same since, and nor had I. Since then I’d been persuading myself that Sally’s holiday house was exactly what I needed, for work reasons of course. It was quiet, far from London and all the myriad distractions there. Like the Gang for example, shops with glittering things in the window, restaurants of every persuasion. None of these things had been stopping me from writing before, if I was honest. I’d managed to live in Islington and Notting Hill and churn out nineteen books while still socialising, going to exhibitions, eating Thai food and buying shoes. But now, what was going on in my tiny brain? Perhaps I had executive burnout after all.
Perhaps – terrifying thought – I had nineteen books in me and that was all?
One thing I did know. I’d been writing eloquently about the age-old dance of love and sex and lust and the earth moving and I hadn’t known a thing about any of them until now. I had – as my mother always said about my writing with a dismissive snort – just been making it all up. It was like Donald Trump writing a Haynes Guide to Being President. No wonder I was floundering.
I looked over at Joe again. Now that my eyes had become adjusted to the darkness I could see his profile, and it was a gorgeous profile too. He shifted in his sleep and muttered something. I wondered what he was dreaming about and made a solemn promise not to ask him in the morning. That would be even worse than asking what he was thinking about.
And suddenly I was frightened.
Chapter Sixteen
The next morning he was still there, still asleep. I could see half of his face, turned towards me. I did a quick check to make sure I didn’t have flakes of mascara on my cheeks or drool at the corners of my mouth. (It has been known.)
A few seconds later I realised in the most surprising and interesting way possible that he was also awake.
With Benedict (I know I shouldn’t make this sort of comparison) sex was like a task he set himself, almost like another form of exercise. It had to be at the right time (ideally between 10.00 p.m. and midnight), in the right mood (showered,
well fed and with a couple of drinks inside him, preferably champagne) and in the right place (my side of the bed).
That morning Joe proved he was more flexible than that. I don’t mean that in the gymnastic sense but in the very happy to see you way.
He reached across the bed and pulled me in towards him. And kissed my neck. Which relieved me because I hadn’t had time to clean my teeth last night what with one thing and another and there had probably been garlic in last night’s lamb casserole.
He didn’t say anything and nor did I, which I liked because there’s a lot to be said for just getting down and dirty sometimes, without any of the polite, slightly embarrassing things one says on these occasions. And anyway I discovered morning sex with Joe was a different thing altogether. Somehow ruder because we were stone-cold sober. There was none of the build-up of an evening spent together flirting to get us going. It felt very sexy and slightly naughty too but just as successful as the night before. It was a good job I didn’t have to get up and go to work because I don’t think I could have concentrated on anything. I just wanted to lie in bed all day with a rather pleased smile on my face and think erotic thoughts and that’s not like me at all. I’m usually drinking tea five seconds after I wake up.
Joe seemed just as disinclined to get out of bed and we lay entwined and panting for a bit longer and then I began to giggle at the thought of what we had just done and Joe began to laugh too and suddenly it wasn’t embarrassing at all. And I forgot about the possible food combinations for breakfast and went and made a pot of tea and some toast instead. And we sat up in bed together watching the sun rise over the valley and had breakfast and occasionally he leaned over and kissed me and once he licked some butter off my fingers and made me feel rather wobbly and odd inside until I realised I was feeling lustful thoughts again. And I wondered if that was – you know – normal because I’d always thought I had quite a low sex drive. Benedict had thought so too and Charlie once even wondered out loud if I needed therapy. Bloody cheek.
A Damascene thought struck me. Perhaps it wasn’t me after all, perhaps it was the company I had been keeping?
The Mini-Break Page 15