The Perfectly Imperfect Woman

by Milly Johnson

  Eventually the H-word reared its mane-like head.

  ‘Have you met Lilian’s groundsman yet – Herv?’ Ruby asked. A discernible sigh was tagged onto the end of his name, Marnie noticed.

  ‘The bloke with the hair and the beard?’ Marnie played dumb. ‘I just said hello at the May Day event. Lilian introduced us.’

  ‘He’s gorgeous isn’t he?’ Ruby let Marnie fill up her glass again and then Marnie pretended to top up her own.

  ‘I can’t say that I really noticed,’ sniffed Marnie. ‘I go more for the dark, slim, short-haired-type myself.’

  ‘I heard him asking about you up at the manor house,’ said Ruby with a smile stapled to those thin lips of hers.

  ‘Oh? Can’t think why. Maybe he’s just nosey.’

  ‘Expressing an interest, possibly?’ Ruby began to run her hand around the rim of her glass until it made a really annoying sound.

  ‘It’s not reciprocated, in case you’re asking,’ Marnie mirrored the fake smile. ‘I’m not interested in men.’

  ‘Oh, you’re gay?’ Ruby’s relief was obvious.

  ‘No, not gay, just not interested. Especially not in a handsome man who would probably be more in love with himself than he ever would with me.’

  Marnie didn’t mean to say that. She suspected Ruby Sweetman was the sort of person who would store such a slip of the tongue for later use. She tried to rectify the situation immediately.

  ‘I mean . . . not every man as good looking as him will be an arse . . .’ She was aware she could be making things worse. ‘I’m sure he’s great but . . . I wouldn’t be his type anyway, even if I wanted a man, which I don’t . . .’ She was digging herself a hole and she’d need a sixty-foot ladder to get out of it if she didn’t shut up. ‘Are you and him . . . an item? I thought you looked . . . er . . . nice together at the May Day event.’

  ‘Really?’ Ruby looked delighted by that.

  ‘Yes, when he was putting the crown on your head. He looked at you quite . . . quite . . . er . . . tenderly.’

  ‘We’re very good friends,’ said Ruby with emphasis, smile not stapled on now; rather it was adhering to her lips with the glue of joy. ‘He’s my best friend, in fact. We’re keeping it platonic, though. For now. He moved here after his marriage broke down. His bitch of a wife left him for his best friend so he needs time to heal before he starts another relationship. Early days.’

  ‘Yes, you could understand him wanting some cooling-down time after that sort of betrayal,’ nodded Marnie. ‘How long has he lived here then?’

  ‘Three years, six months.’

  Marnie snorted and tried to convert it into a sneeze. My, he was a slow healer. Or not. Her third-last boyfriend had used the same line, that he liked her but he didn’t feel ready to get back on the relationship horse. But sex was permitted. Strangely enough, not only did he get back on another horse but he ended up marrying the horse and getting it pregnant within two months. They’d had twin foals by that Christmas.

  ‘I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before he’s ready to love again,’ said Marnie diplomatically, thinking that Herv Gunnarsen was keeping Ruby at arm’s length for good reason because if he gave her the nod, she’d have shinned naked up his drainpipe before his neck had straightened up. She bet anything that Ruby had already chosen her wedding dress.

  ‘It’ll be nice to have someone in the village who is the same age as me,’ said Ruby. ‘Apart from Herv there’s no one else, they’re all old farts.’

  ‘What about Zoe Oldroyd?’ asked Marnie.

  ‘She’s only eighteen. I have nothing in common with a cleaner over ten years younger than me.’ Ruby’s words had a definite slur to them now. Her nicey-nicey mask was slipping. ‘. . . Although I do feel a bit sorry for her having to work up at the manor when she wants to go to university and do languages. She got really good A-level grades, but she can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Probably because she has to take over from her mum when she retires. They’ll lose their house if not. They’ve worked for the manor for generations. It’s tradition.’ Ruby gave the word a scathing tone. ‘Stupid people. Little people. Lilian Dearman pays them a pittance and they’d all line up to wipe her backside if they could. Lionel and Derek hang on her every word, that silly Emelie won’t hear a word against her, it’s like living in medieval times. I hate it here.’

  ‘Why don’t you leave then if you dislike it so much?’

  Ruby didn’t answer but really she didn’t have to – because Herv Gunnarsen lived here, that’s why. And she was waiting for him to make his move.

  ‘I think I need your toilet,’ Ruby said, standing up and then falling straight down again. ‘Whoops.’

  ‘Upstairs to your left,’ said Marnie, hoping that Ruby would decide to go home now. She’d obviously done what she set out to and it was less to do with being part of the welcoming committee and more to do with warning Marnie off. She might as well have lifted her booty like a cat on Sunday and sprayed Herv Gunnarsen as he crowned her. Well, Ruby had no worries on any score. Let her crack on.

  To Marnie’s relief, when Ruby came downstairs her first words were, ‘I’d better go. I’ve got an early start in the morning. We’re taking the children to the Viking museum in York.’

  ‘That sounds like fun,’ lied Marnie. She wondered if Ruby would be imagining Herv in the costumes, running at her intent on ravaging her.

  Ruby picked up her bag. ‘Thank you for your company. We should do it again soon. Do you like the theatre and acting?’

  If Ruby was angling for her to join the am-drams, she had another think coming. But Marnie wasn’t an idiot. She was all too aware of the adage ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’ and knew which one Ruby thought she was more likely to be.

  ‘I occasionally go and watch a play, but I wouldn’t want to be in one myself.’

  Nor did she want to be sitting watching Coronation Street in Little Raspberries comparing cross-stitching projects. She had secret work to do in here for the Tea Lady which involved a few very early mornings per week and no one snooping around her space. Especially not someone who gave off such hostile vibes.

  ‘Alas, I work unsociable hours. I’m a . . . freelance . . . copywriter in high . . . er demand,’ Marnie added. That would get her safely out of any future invitations, she hoped. She opened the door and forced out a yawn. ‘Thank you so much for the flowers, Ruby. It was very kind of you to make me feel so welcome.’

  ‘A pleasure,’ said Ruby. ‘Lovely to meet you properly. Lilian was gushing about you so much, we were all quite intrigued.’

  I’ll bet you were, thought Marnie. ‘Enjoy the Vikings.’

  She shut the door and fought the urge to slide down it. This was what she hadn’t factored into the equation – typical village life with nosey people wanting to pry into her business, bringing a jar of jam (or rather flowers) and demanding part of her soul in exchange. She poured out the last of Lionel’s bilberry wine, closed the curtains and locked the door. Then she picked up her book and slid back into her story of an untypical village life where no one was curious why Manfred Masters’ manor rocked with ear-splitting sounds of intercoital ecstasy, especially when the moon was full.

  Chapter 17

  On Friday morning, Marnie started work at 3 a.m. in plenty of time to make the Tea Lady’s cheesecakes. She was surprisingly nervous, ridiculously so. Why are you worrying? You have my special ingredient to help you. It was as if Mrs McMaid’s voice had drifted into her head like smoke. Her eye glanced up at the square tin on the shelf, the one she had taken on the day she found the lovely old lady had died. She’d filled it back up many times over the years and what was inside never failed to work its magic, adding that little something that everyone tasted but no one was quite sure what it was.

  She got to work: stewing the apples, crushing the biscuits for the base, whipping the cream to a soft peak, melting the chocolate slowly so it was smooth and glossy and not gr
ainy and stiff. A sprinkle from the secret ingredient tin went into the mix before the cream and the cheese met. By seven o’clock, all the cheesecakes were in the new tall fridge in their boxes ready for the van to collect, which it did, exactly on time. It was a black van with blacked-out windows and no signwriting. The driver wore black sunglasses to add to the air of mystery. Marnie waved goodbye to her first consignment of cakes then collapsed at the kitchen table with a strong coffee that didn’t have a chance of keeping her from sleep. She was woken up two hours later by a loud knock on the door. She opened it to find Herv Gunnarsen there, looking taller and wider than the door frame.

  ‘Good morning.’ He was holding a letter. ‘I met the postman at the end of the road.’

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ smiled Marnie, taking it from him.

  ‘You’ve been cooking,’ he said.

  ‘What gave it away?’ said Marnie, sounding more sarcastic than she meant to.

  ‘You have sugar on your face. And the apron of course.’ He grinned and Marnie wiped where he pointed to. There was loads of it. She must have been resting on a sugar pillow on the table.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Marnie, for want of something better to say. ‘And thanks for the post.’

  He wasn’t making any attempt to move from the doorstep, she noted. Well, she wasn’t going to invite him in for a cuppa and a cosy chat after what Lilian had told her. That would have been blatantly encouraging him, leading him on. Better to err on the side of rudeness than politeness, then he knew where he stood with her. ‘Was there something . . . you wanted?’

  ‘Lilian would like to know if you’d lunch with her. She sent me to ask you.’

  ‘Oh, right, er . . . yes, yes. That would be lovely. What time?’

  ‘Twelve. Can I tell her that would be okay?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll be there,’ said Marnie, catching sight of a figure walking past the end of the lane – the woman who had been adjusting Ruby’s hair at the May Day fair. Her mother, Kay, presumably. Bloody marvellous.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Thank you . . . Herv.’ God, his eyes were ridiculously blue and they were trained very intently on her.

  ‘Oh and Velkommen til landsbyen, as we say in Norway. Welcome to the village.’

  He really did have a nice smile. She felt something inside her chest respond to the curve of his lips and wanted to slap it.

  ‘Oh, cheers.’

  ‘A pleasure.’

  ‘Bye then.’

  She shut the door on him, literally and figuratively. No, she was not going to give any man an inch for him to take a mile for a very long time – possibly ever. Not even a paragon of virtue such as Herv Gunnarsen. Lilian was right though, because if the way he had been looking at her was any indication, he had definitely taken a shine to her. His pupils had been so dilated that she could have climbed in them and cadged a lift up to the manor. Whilst she stayed away from men, her life was uncomplicated and stable. Let them in and chaos ensued. Message received and understood. Finally.

  She went upstairs to wash the ‘sugar pillow’ properly off her face, wondering why Lilian had sent Herv down to ask her in person and hadn’t just phoned herself. The minx.

  Marnie called in at the shop on her way to the manor for a bottle of wine, because she didn’t want to turn up empty-handed. A large woman with ankles so fat they looked as if the skin was melting over her shoes was talking in a low voice with another woman standing behind the counter – her second viewing of Kay Sweetman that day. Their conversation snapped off as soon as Marnie entered so it wasn’t difficult to guess what the subject matter had been, especially as the last words she heard were ‘. . . feet under the table’.

  Marnie browsed around the small wine section whilst the air crackled with a silence so pregnant, it was calling out for gas and air. Ankle woman had finished shopping but she wasn’t going anywhere, probably because she couldn’t wait for Marnie to leave so they could carry on with their theories of why she was staying in Wychwell, and what Herv Gunnarsen was doing on her doorstep this morning.

  Marnie lingered for far longer than she needed to out of mischief, forcing the two women to strike up a staged conversation to fill the silence.

  ‘Are you feeling all right now, Una? Derek said you had another one of your migraines at the weekend,’ asked Kay.

  ‘Yes. All that drum banging didn’t help. And he can’t do anything without making a noise. He’s like a carthorse. When he dusts it registers on the Richter scale.’

  Ah. Una Price. The woman who put the mass of frown lines on lumbering Derek’s face. So that’s who ankle woman was.

  Marnie eventually approached the till, feeling Una’s eyes sliding up and down her.

  ‘That’ll be eight pounds ninety-nine,’ said Kay with a shop smile that looked more like a grimace. It wasn’t hard to see who Ruby had inherited her string-thin, sneery lips from. Marnie slowly took the purse out of her bag, giving the questions time to rev up. She could feel them pushing at the starting gates in the women’s throats. When none were forthcoming, she turned to Una, looked her straight in the eye, smiled and said,

  ‘Phase Eight and Zara.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Una appeared puzzled.

  ‘You were staring. I presumed you were curious where my clothes came from: Phase Eight top and my jeans are from Zara.’

  ‘I wasn’t . . .’

  ‘Was it my hair? Leeds then – Russell Eaton. Or my shoes – Office. Or was it my make-up? Clinique foundation. It’s very good. This one is Vanilla.’

  Una was flustered then, her cheeks started loading with pink.

  Kay fumbled in the till for the change and dropped a pound coin on the floor.

  Marnie stared silently at Una who clearly wasn’t used to face to face confrontation, preferring to operate behind people’s backs. Say what you like about Café Caramba, but they didn’t half send you on some really useful psychological tactic courses. It was amazing what havoc an intense gaze could cause. Equivalent of a laser gun when used properly.

  Kay rose up from behind the counter and put the money into Marnie’s waiting hand.

  ‘Thank you,’ Marnie said, smile fixed on with superglue. She walked out of the shop with a swagger in her step and knew that she’d given the two women enough to chatter about for the rest of the day probably. You didn’t get that in a town corner shop, Marnie giggled to herself.

  A man was watering the cheerful hanging baskets that hung at either side of the pub door. As soon as he spotted Marnie, he climbed down from the ladder and walked towards her, holding out a meaty paw.

  ‘Hello, we haven’t met,’ he said. ‘I’m David Parselow and you must be Marnie.’

  He looked more like a butcher than a publican, thought Marnie, with his stout physique and fuzzy red sideburns.

  ‘I am. Nice to meet you, David.’

  ‘I heard that the vicar has been trying to bribe you with his bilberries,’ he grinned.

  ‘Oh the wine, you mean,’ said Marnie, after a moment’s confusion.

  ‘Don’t let yourself get acclimatised to his rot. I’ll leave you a bottle of my rhubarb and ginger on your doorstep later so you can try some proper stuff,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Marnie. ‘That’s very kind.’

  He looked with disdain at the bottle in her hand, ‘I tell you, you’ll never drink that shop-bought stuff again.’

  ‘I shall look forward to being converted,’ Marnie replied.

  As she walked past the green, she mused how strange it was that she liked some people on sight and usually got that sort of judgement right. It was when she fancied people that she got it so wrong.

  Johnny Oldroyd was cutting the grass on the green with a drive-on petrol mower. He was wearing headphones and his mouth was moving as if singing to a track. He looked at total peace working in the sunshine as if he was content that Wychwell was the extent of his world and he wasn’t bothered about anything beyond those collapsed village walls.

 
She passed Emelie coming out of her sweet little cottage with a parcel as she walked up the hill towards the manor. Emelie was delighted she’d come to stay, she said, because Lilian was over the moon. Made a change to have a positive effect on someone, thought Marnie. More intoxicating than Lionel’s bilberry wine. When she reached the manor, Herv was on his knees at the side of the porch, weeding. He even looked tall in that position.

  ‘Hello again,’ she said, wondering if Kay Sweetman had a pair of binoculars trained on her ready to report back to her daughter.

  ‘Hello.’ He took an exaggerated look at his watch. ‘You’re late.’

  ‘I’ve been socialising with my fellow villagers,’ Marnie replied, not stopping to chat. ‘Enjoy the sunshine.’

  ‘Marnie.’ He called her name and when she turned, she found him standing. His body language suggested that he wanted to tell her something in confidence.

  ‘I am not sure that Lilian is so well. She was fine first thing this morning but since . . . She’s having one of her spells.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Marnie, wondering what ‘one of her spells’ consisted of. ‘Is she sick? Should I call in and say hello or . . . go back home?’

  ‘No, she wants to see you, she was most specific.’ Marnie noticed that his accent was thick when his voice was quiet. ‘Bodily she’s okay, but she’s confused again. She has called me Griff three times this morning and she has never done that before. Please let me know what you think of her.’

  ‘Okay,’ Marnie nodded, doubt in her voice because she hardly knew Lilian really. Would she notice things out of the ordinary more than he or Cilla or anyone else who saw her more often might? ‘I’ll report back.’

  She rang the bell and Cilla answered the door, her features etched with worry. Nevertheless, she smiled at Marnie and told her to go straight through to the conservatory where Lilian was waiting for her.