‘Is there a problem?’ The waiter was peering at her, a look of concern on his face.
‘Fine, er stomach ache.’ She clutched a hand to her stomach and carried on going in her old-lady stance. Javier. A girlfriend. A child. The pain wasn’t in her stomach, it was in her chest.
They’d stayed friends, he’d said. They were obviously more than friends again now. Which was good. Nice. Families needed to be together. Why hadn’t he told her? What was so difficult about admitting to having a family? About being honest.
Instead he’d kissed her and asked her if she’d come back in the spring. And see him. And she’d convinced herself she had to do it.
Daisy took a big, deep breath and waved the waiter away with a smile. It was a shock, that was all, but no way was she stopping for coffee here – or walking over and saying hello. What could she accuse him of? Being nice to her, a simple kiss. Looking at her in a way that made her all squishy inside.
Oh God, how could he have kissed her like that? That kiss had been so gentle, so sweet, like no other kiss she’d never had. Like a promise. Except it hadn’t been. Not for him.
She walked on, feeling stupid, her hand over her mouth to stop the wave of disappointment flooding out of her. He’d looked at her like he cared. He’d promised to show her more of the city. He’d said he wanted to show her springtime in Barcelona. She’d thought he wanted her to come back, and she’d been planning on doing just that. But it had all been words. Meaningless. And it shocked her how much it hurt. Physically hurt.
Choking back the tears that were catching in her throat, pricking at her eyelids, she rushed on, past all the happy faces, all the wonderful sights that all of a sudden were just unimportant blurs.
For one brief moment then, when she’d been talking to her mother on the phone, she’d got carried away, started to plan a future that was nothing more than pure fantasy.
By the time Daisy got back to the apartment, out of breath and sweaty hot, she’d made her decision. Tomorrow she’d book a tour of La Sagrada Familia, then she’d walk up the hill to the Parc de Montjuic and check out the waterfalls, and the Museum of Catalan Art. She would pack the last few days she’d got with as much sight-seeing as was humanly possible. At best she’d be blown over by the whole experience – at worst she’d be too worn out to even think about what Javier might be up to. And then she’d go back to Tippermere, and real life.
***
Daisy trudged up the last of the steps to the apartment and leant against the door for a breather. She really was worn out, even with several stops for coffee and cakes. She fished in her pocket for her keys, taking her mobile phone out to make it easier.
With a jolt she saw that she’d missed half a dozen calls. From Hugo (Hugo! What on earth had made Hugo call?), Flo (oh, God, she hoped Mabel and Barney were okay) and a message from Anna saying ‘don’t you answer your phone these days? Flo needs to tell you something.’
And another message from Javier. ‘Where have you been – missed you! Fancy a glass of wine later?’ She stared at the message, feeling a pang of guilt. She should at least be polite – all she had to do was say no. Except then he’d ask why not.
Although telling him was the right thing to do. If she didn’t feel like it would hurt her more than him.
She glanced back at Anna’s. Then switched again. Then decided she could cope better with Anna. ‘What’s up?’
There was an instant reply. ‘There’s been a fire.’
Which made it a hell of a lot easier to decide what to say to Javier – she was typing it before she’d even decided what she was going to do. ‘Sorry. Going home. Thanks for looking after me – you’re relieved of duty!’ She added a kiss automatically, then deleted it, then added it again, then deleted it. Oh to hell with it, she’d never see him again, so what did it matter? At least one of them should show some honesty. With a sigh, she added it again and hit send.
Chapter 20 – Flo. Past mistakes
Being woken up by a kiss was one thing, a slightly worrying thing, mind you, given the rules she’d laid out last night. But this was sloppy. And whiskery. It would take a vat full of testosterone to result in that type of overnight growth.
Flo opened one eye and a dark-brown one met her gaze from an uncomfortably short distance away. She shuffled her way to the middle of the bed. ‘You have got seriously bad breath, Mabel, no way would I sleep with you.’ Crumbs, she ached – every muscle was objecting. Even her feet hurt.
‘What are you doing up here anyway, dog?’ She turned her face away and Mabel padded round to the other side of the bed, giving her a big doleful look, and then plonking a massive paw on the pillow. The little alarm clock on the bedside cabinet caught her eye. ‘Oh God, is it really that time? Sorry Mabel.’ Lying flat on her back, she pulled the covers up to her chin and wondered if she could ring Hugo and ask him to feed the dog.
No. No, no, no, no. She could not ask Hugo anything. She’d slept with him. Well done everything but sleep with him. An image of his naked chest, and that arrow of hairs heading straight down to… No.
She’d kissed his scar – she’d practically ripped his clothes off. No, there was no ‘practically’ about it; she had actually done it. She had ripped his shirt and screwed his jacket into a ball, and thrown his socks on the fire (and what were the odds they were silk socks?) and let him pin her to the bed…
She grabbed a cushion and put it over her head. It didn’t help. Just made Mabel bark.
Flo peeped out from under the fabric. ‘Shush, please, Mabel, my head hurts.’
The dog barked again, so she thumped the cushion down over her hips.
Mabel cocked her head, staring out of the window. There was the bang of a car door. Good, he was going out, she was safe from embarrassment. It was lucky she’d slept in until lunchtime.
The rap on the front door made her jump.
So he was coming back not going out.
‘Oh hell, Mabel, what am I going to do? Hide?’
But Mabel wasn’t listening, she was hurtling down the narrow staircase, her whiplash tail banging out a drumbeat on each wall alternately. And barking again.
It would be cowardly to hide. He’d know she was in, and then it would be worse when she did decide to talk to him. She had to be grown-up about this. Stick her head out of the front bedroom window.
‘Hi, Hu—’
It wasn’t Hugo’s head she could see.
‘Thank God I’ve got the right place.’ He stamped his feet on the doorstep, shaking the snow off. ‘I didn’t realise you were out in the middle of nowhere, it must be so bloody boring. I presume that’s why you haven’t bothered to get up yet?’ Mabel barked louder, and scrabbled at the door. ‘Well are you going to let me in? I’m freezing my balls off out here.’
Oli.
‘What on earth are you doing here?’
‘I emailed.’ He frowned. ‘That girl you’ve got staying in your place told me you were in the UK.’
‘Daisy gave you this address?’ Daisy wouldn’t do that, surely?
‘Not exactly.’
‘What does “not exactly” mean?’
‘I rang your mother and asked her the name of the village.’
‘You rang my…?’ The cheek of it. ‘You never, ever spoke to my mother when we were together, and you speak to her now. Now!’
‘Calm down, Flo. Why do you have to make such a drama of everything? Come down. I’ve come all this way to talk to you, so the least you can do is—’
‘The least I can do?’ All this way? He was making it sound like a trip to the moon, not a bloody two-hour flight.
‘Flo, I did email, twice. Didn’t you read them?’
‘Nope.’ She hadn’t. She hadn’t had time, and she really didn’t care.
‘You always read your emails.’
‘I used to, when I didn’t have anything better to do.’
He frowned, then bent down to reach into the bag at his feet. ‘I’ve bought bubbly, and your fa
vourite catanyes. An early Christmas present?’ As Oli disapproved of chocolate, all chocolate – including the chocolate-covered almonds that were a Spanish favourite – then he was doing some serious crawling.
She was being mean. She should at least open the door and let him meet Mabel. But her head hurt and her feet ached like buggery. She’d rather go back to bed. She curled her toes over, which hurt more. And wondered why she felt like she’d run a marathon, hmm, maybe better not dwell on that one.
‘Are you listening to me, Florence?’
Oh dear, we’d progressed to Florence now.
She decided to lock Mabel in the kitchen and use her as a secret weapon if she needed one. Oli, after all, didn’t like dogs – he’d told her enough times that they shed hairs, left muddy footprints, passed wind at the worst times (was there ever a good time?) and licked their balls – whether his objection to the last point was down to jealousy or something else she wasn’t sure.
She reversed the huge dog down the narrow passageway, something she’d got quite expert at. ‘Sorry poppet, I promise it won’t be for long’ and took a deep breath. Wondering if being in her pyjamas with ‘I’ve just been shagged’ hair was a good or bad idea. But getting dressed would suggest she cared. And he’d expect it, because Oli always liked her to be tidy.
‘Bloody hell, it’s dark in here.’ Oli was in, huffing and puffing and taking his jacket off the second she opened the door. ‘I bet you can’t wait to get back home.’
‘I like it here, actually. Why are you here, Oli, I don’t get it?’
‘Well, seeing as you’re not reading your emails. Look, Flo, I’ve made a mistake, so I thought we could have a couple of days in London, do a bit of sight-seeing, then home.’
‘You’ve made a mistake?’
‘You have no idea how untidy Sarah is, and she just argues about every bloody thing.’ He gave her his lapdog look. ‘You’ve no idea how tiring it is.’
You’ve no idea how much I wish you’d go away.
‘I can’t come back, Oli.’
‘Why not? We can have a bit of a break, no need to rush back to work. Although we could do with sorting out the next edition.’
‘No.’
‘Sorry?’ His look was total confusion. ‘I’ll make it up to you, have a proper anniversary trip. I made a fool of myself, Flo, I realise that, but we all make mistakes.’ He smiled. ‘Even me.’
‘I haven’t got time. In fact, I was going to email you to hand my notice in.’
‘But you aren’t doing anything! You’re in the back of beyond, Florence, this isn’t like you at all.’
‘That’s the point. It is like me, Oli. This is what I want to do right now, I’m not saying forever, but it is for now. And I’m writing a book.’
‘A travel guide?’
‘A novel.’
‘Oh come on, Flo, you know what publishing is like,’ he shook his head as though he was remonstrating with a four-year-old, then gave what he thought was a knowing smile but looked more like an idiot, ‘you won’t be buying designer shoes from selling six digital copies you know, and even somebody like you might never get a deal.’
‘What do you mean, somebody like me?’
‘Well, you’ve got your journalistic background, and all the years you’ve worked for me on the mag—’
She spluttered. She couldn’t help it. ‘Worked for you? I thought we were doing it together.’
‘Whatever. Look, Florence, even though you do write good, very good,’ he smiled as he threw a reward her way, ‘copy for the magazine, it really isn’t the same as being able to craft a novel you know. We all need to know our boundaries, know how we can best make a living.’
Flo stared at him. She didn’t honestly know whether to laugh or cry. Hugo believed in her, Hugo encouraged her. He didn’t think all she was capable of was churning out column inches for a magazine. He didn’t think it was all about making a living, that she was daft to waste her time, that it was all about some swish publishing contract. He understood.
‘I don’t care where my boundaries are, Oli.’ She could be destitute, writing in a garret. Maybe not – that would be a bit over the top. ‘I want to kick ass.’ He was giving her a slightly horrified look. ‘I just want to write it, and I don’t need designer shoes while I’m here.’
‘But you have rent to pay on your apartment.’
‘That’s my problem. I’ll sort it, don’t worry. I will do some freelance writing or something.’
‘You’re being silly and impractical. Dreams have a place, Florence, and that is in your head when you’re asleep. We’ve got a good life together, Flo, I need you to be there with me, at my side. You’re so good at organising everything.’
‘We did have a good life. You screwed it up, Oli.’ ‘Screw’ being the important word in the sentence.
‘I know you have an issue with forgiving people, Flo, but let it go. A man’s allowed one mistake, isn’t he?’
He was doing his Labrador, disarming look, but it wasn’t working now and it had just reminded her. ‘Not the type you made. And I’ve realised I just don’t want to live your life, Oli. I want to be here, I want to write, I want a dog,’ she looked down, ‘and to stay in my pyjamas all day if I want.’
‘You’re just having a bad reaction, when you get home and everything is back to normal…’
‘I don’t want to see you. Honestly. I don’t want the old normal, I want a new one.’
‘I will sack Sarah.’
For a moment she couldn’t speak. ‘You mean you haven’t already?’
‘Well no, with you disappearing I can’t do everything on my own, but when you come back…’
‘Oli, you aren’t listening. When I come back to Barcelona it isn’t to work with you, go out with you, shag you, wait about for you. I’ve moved on, so thank you for that, you made me realise that I wasn’t being true to myself.’
‘Well this isn’t being true to yourself, the Flo I know…’
‘Exactly. You don’t know me. That me isn’t the real me. Now I’m very sorry, but I’ve got things to do and you are going to have to go.’ She made ushering gestures towards the door.
‘But I’ve hired the car for two days, I thought we’d stay here tonight.’
‘No.’
‘I paid in advance.’
‘You shouldn’t have come.’
His eyes narrowed, and he froze like a Pointer. ‘What’s that strange noise?’
‘That is Mabel, a big dog and she’s fed up. Would you like to meet her before you go?’
‘It sounds like somebody is in there. Have you got somebody else already?’ He was frowning again, looking most uncomfortable, a fish (or reptile) out of water.
‘No, Oli, it’s just Mabel. She’s very big.’ Well, if he wanted to meet her, why not?
He went to open the door. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I—’ Oli always knew best.
Mabel was so deliriously happy to have been released that she bounded straight through Oli, knocking him spinning, his arms flailing like a windmill.
‘But you are seeing somebody?’ He panted out, once he’d stabilised and worked out which direction to point in.
‘Why would you assume that?’ She crossed her fingers behind her back, she hadn’t exactly told a lie, but just to be on the safe side.
‘Well, you’d come home otherwise, to me.’ He advanced cautiously into the kitchen, as though the dog had been a booby trap and there might be more.
Flo sighed. ‘There’s nobody hiding in my kitchen, Oli.’
‘I really don’t understand.’ He turned to her, the expression on his face pure petulant child. He’d lost his toy, raided the toy box, and hadn’t found anything better – only to discover the one he had liked had gone by the time he decided to play with it again.
‘No, I don’t suppose you do. It was good, Oli, then it was bad, and now it’s over.’ She shrugged her shoulders.
‘I’ll check into a hotel in town and you can ring me
when you change your mind.’
‘I won’t.’
Flo watched him march out of the cottage and get into his hire car.
She really wanted to throw a snowball at him. But that would be childish.
Instead she went back into the kitchen and realised that she was shaking, even her legs were trembling. She wrapped her arms round Mabel’s neck. ‘I thought you were supposed to protect me, you know, see him off the premises.’ Mabel licked her nose (and chin and mouth as her tongue was unacceptably large), Flo wiped the slobber off with her forearm. ‘Oh Mabe, what am I going to do?’ There was only one thing for it, a hangover-busting fry-up.
The supermarket delivery van had finally made its way through the slippery, snowy lanes, which had been partially cleared by a very helpful farmer and his tractor. It was actually a shame he had. She would rather have faced starvation (or a strange diet of pheasant, berries, and Barney’s carrots) than have Oli on her doorstep.
She now had a pantry with enough food to last her for the rest of her stay, and she opened the fridge and stared at the contents. Fried egg, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes, and toast seemed an excellent idea.
Turning the grill on, and splashing oil into a frying pan, the total feeling of panic started to subside. Her hollow stomach was still churning as though she was at sea, but hopefully food would put a stop to that – clog it up. ‘We’ll have sausage as well.’ Mabel wagged her tail and looked up expectantly. Why not go the whole hog? Oli would be appalled. ‘Now don’t you dare steal anything, I’ll be back in a sec.’
Inspiration had struck, which was strange, but she just had to write this bit down while it was still in her head.
When she had started writing her novel she’d had brilliant ideas while she was drifting off to sleep in bed and known they were exactly the twists she needed. She thought she should write them down, then she didn’t want to get out from under the warm covers – the cottage would be freezing now the fire had died down. If she repeated it enough times she’d remember. Or she could put a note on her mobile phone, except it was dead, and she was tired, and… Then she’d wake up in the morning knowing she’d had a brilliant idea, and it would be gone. Completely. The only bit she could recall was that it was good. Genius. The quote to outdo all quotes.
The Holiday Swap Page 23