A Whiff of Scandal

by Carole Matthews

  ‘And are you?’

  He gave her a knowing look. ‘I would normally have said no but it’s a bit of a contentious point at the moment.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I’m looking to knock the church hall down and build a block of flats.’

  Rose twisted her mouth in sympathy. ‘I can see how that would make you popular. I have to say though that it doesn’t sound like a very nice option. The church hall is such a busy little place, there’s always something going on. And flats in Great Brayford? Heaven forbid!’

  He sat back on his heels, resting the hammer on his knees. ‘It’s not as bad as it sounds. The block of flats isn’t exactly going to be a skyscraper; there’s only eight flats planned. Retirement flats. Very exclusive. And I’d rebuild the village hall. It might well be a busy little place, but it’s also a complete dump. If we get any high winds during the winter, it’ll probably be a goner anyway. Believe it or not, I’m trying to be community-minded.’

  ‘You’re concerned about the state of the bottoms and thighs of the village ladies, are you?’

  A smile spread across Dan’s face, making the white spidery lines disappear. ‘I like to think it’s for slightly more altruistic reasons than that.’

  ‘Is it likely to go ahead?’

  ‘Yes. But the negotiations are at a bit of a stalemate at the moment and there’s some rising local opposition. Fortunately, they only managed to mobilise themselves after the planning permission came through so it shouldn’t present too much of a problem.’

  ‘It’s causing bad feeling though.’

  He shrugged. ‘People don’t like change. Whether it’s good or bad, the general consensus is that change is best avoided.’

  She picked aimlessly at some hard skin on her finger and stared out of the window. ‘I can empathise with that.’

  ‘Finding it difficult to settle in?’

  ‘No . . . well . . . Yes. I suppose so.’

  ‘Have you always been this decisive?’

  She laughed. ‘I love it here really. I think. It’s just that it’s not as friendly as I thought it would be. I thought London was a pretty cold and impersonal place, but this is just as bad somehow. I hadn’t really expected that.’ She pulled her foot up to her knee and absently examined the yellow stitching round the hem of her jeans. ‘I feel people are holding me at arm’s length and I don’t know why.’

  ‘Give them time. We’re not used to strangers round these parts.’

  ‘You should be though. You said yourself that nearly everyone is an immigrant.’ Rose scanned the room trying to find something to anchor on to. She still felt so adrift here. Was it the people or was it within her? Her eyes rested on a pretty poster depicting reflexology points that had been hastily put up in a plastic clip frame. It showed the bottom of two dainty feet adorned with flitting butterflies and delicate line drawings of herbs and flowers. The reflex points were marked with pale pastel blobs indicating the general location of vague points of interest such as the gall bladder, the solar plexus and the elusive ileocaecal valve. The feet were marked ‘left foot’ and ‘right foot’ in fancy italic writing, just in case you were in any doubt. The poster was a soft and gentle interpretation of something that was, essentially, quite clinical and gave no indication that if you worked some of the reflex points, it would hurt like hell. Like life really.

  There was no need for her to feel so restless here. It was a wonderful house. A wonderful garden. And this was a perfect room to do her treatments in, especially once the fireplace was open again. It was decorated all in stark white at the moment, which was clean and fresh, but a bit harsh. She would soften it down eventually, perhaps to lavender or peach to match her towels. She wanted her clients to feel warm, safe, cosseted, loved. And, heaven knows perhaps this was the crux of the problem – she wanted that for herself too.

  Dan put his tools down and sat on the hearth, stretching his long legs out in front of him. ‘Well . . . do you mind if I’m honest with you?’

  ‘No,’ Rose said tentatively.

  ‘I think it may have something to do with what you do.’

  ‘What I do?’

  ‘Don’t quote me on this. Promise?’ She nodded reluctantly. Dan cleared his throat and Rose suspected that it had nothing to do with the fine layer of dust that was settling comfortably over everything. ‘I think they suspect you get up to all manner of salacious things in here.’

  ‘Salacious!’ Rose’s eyes widened in disbelief. ‘I can’t even spell salacious!’

  ‘I think they worry about the number of male visitors you get.’ Dan raised an eyebrow.

  ‘No!’ She clapped her hands to her mouth.

  ‘Well, you know what they’re like. Everyone’s heard of aromatherapy, but do people really know what it involves? Particularly round here. Perhaps you should have an open evening to tell them about the tricks of your trade and then they wouldn’t be so suspicious.’

  Rose jumped down from the couch and took to pacing the floor. She flicked her thumb towards the general direction of Lavender Hill. ‘I take it that it’s mainly those two old biddies over the road that have got me marked down as Cynthia Payne’s sister?’

  ‘Mainly,’ he agreed. ‘Although it’s probably Anise more than Angelica. She’s the harridan – poor Angelica is just dragged along in her wake.’

  Rose flopped on to the stool waiting expectantly at the end of her couch. ‘This is pathetic!’ She buried her face in her hands. ‘As if I haven’t got enough to worry about.’ There was a catch in her voice that she didn’t like the sound of.

  ‘Look . . .’ Dan pushed his hammer away from him. ‘These bricks won’t mind waiting a bit longer. Let me just have a quick wash and I’ll make us a nice cup of tea.’

  She smiled at him through watery eyes. ‘You go and wash, I’ll make the tea. If it takes you as long to brew up as it does to knock a few bricks out, we could both die of thirst!’

  She put the teapot on the table in the kitchen as he came through the door. ‘Sugar?’ she asked brightly, to show that she was perfectly happy and in control again.

  He shook his head and sank into the chair opposite her. She’d had to buy all new furniture since she’d been here. If you could call the ancient, scratched chairs with rickety legs that they sat on new. New to her. Hugh’s generosity hadn’t run to Conran or even John Lewis furniture. It had been MFI or junk shops. The junk shops had won. She had grand plans for those long lonely winter evenings. There was great fun to be had with nothing more than a sponge and emulsion paint these days. So she’d heard.

  Dan picked up the spoon from the sugar bowl, shook the few clinging crystals from it and used it, pointlessly, to stir his tea. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you,’ he said, not looking up. ‘I just thought you should know what they’re saying. I was trying to help.’

  ‘I know.’ She nursed her cup of tea to her. The warmth in her hands was soothing. ‘I just overreacted a bit. I should be used to derogatory comments about my chosen profession by now. You get the nudge-nudge, wink-wink merchants in every walk of life. They have one thing in common though, they’re usually pig ignorant and haven’t even tried aromatherapy.’

  ‘I think that’s maligning pigs.’

  ‘It upsets me when I work so hard at it.’ Her eyes filled with tears again and she brushed them away. ‘I’m sorry, I’m being a complete wimp. I haven’t slept too well these last few nights, which doesn’t help.’ She looked up at him. ‘I’ve had a couple of crank calls in the early hours. It’s since the ad went in the local paper.’ Rose smiled ruefully.

  Dan looked worried. ‘What sort of calls were they? You should tell Frank.’

  Rose waved a hand dismissively. ‘Oh, they were nothing really. It’s just me being stupid. Whoever it was didn’t say anything when I picked up the phone, there was no “What colour knickers are you wearing?” or anything like that. They were just there. Listening. They didn’t even bother to heavy breathe,’ she said with a lightness she di
dn’t feel. ‘I’ll have a word with Frank if it carries on, or I’ll try to remember to switch the answerphone on at night. Listening to my message droning on should put anyone off ringing. Even clients.’

  Dan continued to look concerned.

  ‘I’m not used to this country lark yet,’ she said reassuringly. ‘I’ve come from a busy, noisy block of flats on the corner of a main road to a lone, creaking house down a tiny lane. It’s going to take a bit of getting used to.’

  ‘It’s really none of my business,’ Dan said, looking at his tea as if there was something about to surface in it, ‘but what brought you out here? Great Brayford isn’t exactly the centre of the universe. This is not a happening place to be for a bright young thing like you.’

  She looked up at him sharply, but his face was intent on peering into his mug and all she got was the top of his head – which was now well and truly dirty blond. Brick dust blond.

  He continued, unaware of her scrutiny, ‘Even the raves we have round here finish at eleven o’clock.’

  ‘Would it surprise you to know that I’m not into raves?’

  He looked up then, a slow, easy smile on his lips, and for the first time she noticed his eyes. They were like clear reflective pools. As green and pure as the rolling fields that spread out beyond the boundaries of her garden. Hugh’s eyes were deep, shrouded, enigmatic, and showed you your soul – the dark side.

  ‘It’s better if you’re not into night life at all,’ he said. ‘Unless you call a quick pint with Reg before last orders night life. There are some clubs in Milton Keynes, but it helps if you’re under fourteen.’

  She smiled. ‘I’ve done all that – hitting the heights. I want a quiet life.’

  ‘At your tender years?’ He looked unconvinced. ‘There are graveyards that are rowdier than this place. And why give up a thriving practice in London to set up out here? It’s not exactly a brilliant catchment area for you.’ The clear, green eyes fixed her again. ‘About the only thing this place is good for is running away from everything.’

  ‘One hit, one nail, one head,’ she said emphatically. It was no use denying it. It must shine out from her like a lighthouse beacon – RUNNING AWAY!

  ‘Bad relationship?’ Dan ventured.

  ‘The worst.’

  ‘Husband?’

  ‘Yes.’ She managed a wry smile. ‘Someone else’s.’

  ‘Ah.’

  She cupped her chin with her hand. ‘Do you make it your business to be right about everything?’

  ‘Why do you think I wear this continual smug smile?’ The smile disappeared. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’

  ‘Yes you did. And in some ways I’m glad. I haven’t really got anyone to talk to. I tried explaining to Melissa, but she thinks I’m some sort of Scarlett O’Hara. It’s only true love if it’s painful and all that crap.’

  ‘And is it?’

  ‘What? True love or crap?’

  ‘I was thinking of the former.’

  ‘True love?’ She shook her head. ‘It was. Now I don’t know.’ She shrugged. It was amazing what liars her shoulders were, saying ‘Ho-ho, we don’t care!’ when she did care – desperately. ‘Melissa was right about one thing though. I may not be Scarlett O’Hara, but Hugh did a pretty favourable impersonation of Rhett Butler.’

  ‘Hugh?’

  She nodded. ‘Arrogant, charming, reckless, devil-may-care. Git.’

  ‘You sound like you’ve been bottling this up.’

  ‘I try sometimes to talk to my clients, but they’re not really interested.’ Hell, why was this so hard to admit. ‘They’re paying me to listen to their troubles not the other way round. I know all about their cute cats, ailing dogs, terrible children, errant husbands, difficult relatives, impossible jobs, faulty cars. Most of the time they can’t even remember my name.’ She stood up and took her cup to the sink. ‘Anyway, now I’m being maudlin. You’ll get your violin out in a minute and sing “Poor Old You”. And that would depress me even more.’

  ‘It would if you heard me sing,’ he quipped.

  She smiled thankfully, then turned back to Dan. ‘What made you run away to Great Brayford?’

  ‘My dad.’ He picked up his cup and joined her at the sink. ‘We moved out here to Bucks twenty-odd years ago to catch the building boom that Milton Keynes promised. My dad wanted to leave us a good inheritance and, for the most part, it worked. I moved into the village about ten years ago, when I bought Builder’s Bottom.’

  ‘How long have you been with Gardenia?’ It had cost her ten first-class stamps to get the information about Dan’s other half out of Mr Patel at the post office. The fount of all gossip. The juiciness of the tit-bit seemed to rise proportionately with the amount of groceries stacked in the tatty wire baskets. She had a lot to learn about village life.

  ‘Gardi? For ever, I think,’ he said flippantly. ‘We’ve had what you might call an on-off relationship since we were teenagers. She moved in with me when I bought the house. Occasionally, she makes a great show about leaving. A week later, I’ll walk in and she’ll be cooking my dinner and life goes on as normal.’

  ‘Oh please, not another “My wife doesn’t understand me” scenario!’

  ‘Well, for one, she’s not my wife. And for another, she understands me perfectly. That’s why she doesn’t like me.’ They smiled at each other. Rose rinsed the cups under the tap. Dan picked up the tea towel and wiped them languorously. ‘We want different things in life. I don’t really know why we’re still together. I think it’s just that we always have been. It’s getting to the point where things will have to change though.’ He sniffed self-consciously. ‘I want kids and she doesn’t. Neither of us is getting any younger. I want someone to leave the business to. I know it sounds stupid, but when you’ve worked this hard, you just don’t want to sell out to someone that won’t care.’

  ‘What about your brother, Alan? Doesn’t he run it with you?’

  ‘Sort of. I supply the brains – and most of the brawn, come to think of it. Alan just likes driving dumper trucks, he’s not committed to it like me.’

  ‘Supposing you could persuade Gardi to have a baby, what if it was a girl?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be a sexist father. I don’t care, boy, girl, as long as it’s healthy. If it was a girl she’d just not have to mind breaking her fingernails on bricks.’ His smile faded. ‘Anyway, Gardi’s adamant. She’s too bothered about losing her figure. She says she doesn’t want breasts like spaniel’s ears and a stomach with tramlines. I don’t know why she’s so worried, we live next door to a flaming plastic surgeon.’

  ‘This sounds like the start of a row you’ve had more than once.’

  He stared into the garden, still rubbing at the cup with the tea towel although it had been dry for the last five minutes. ‘We don’t row about it any more, we both just ignore it and hope it will go away.’ He looked back at her. ‘Listen to me! I don’t know why I’m talking to you like this – you’re an aromatherapist, not a psychiatrist.’

  ‘With some of the things people tell me, I often wonder if there’s a difference. Except psychiatrists get paid more.’ Rose took the cup from him before he rubbed the pattern off it. ‘It’s been nice talking to you,’ she said. ‘I’m glad we’ve had the chance. I feel a lot better now. Thanks.’

  There was a momentary pause. One of those pauses that goes on just that bit too long and starts to border on the uncomfortable.

  Without warning he put his hands on her hips and turned her to him. His fingers nearly spanned her entire width and they were so hot! Even through her jeans and her sensible knickers underneath them, she could feel heat emanating from them. Unable to meet his eyes, she looked at his neck. A pulse beat erratically in his throat. A similar one in hers decided to join in, making swallowing, and breathing in general, quite difficult.

  ‘I want you to call me if ever you have a problem.’ His voice was earnest and it rooted her to the spot. ‘Don’t be alone here, Rose. You know where I am. Nigh
t or day. Just come and knock.’

  ‘At Builder’s Bottom?’ she said breathlessly.

  ‘At Builder’s Bottom.’ His eyes searched hers. ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise,’ she whispered. ‘Won’t Gardenia mind?’

  ‘Probably.’ He let go of her as suddenly as he had first touched her. The break in contact was so abrupt that she thought she might pass out. Her skin still burned. She was sure that when she took off her jeans there would be two bright red hand prints seared into her skin, which would last for days. She would have to slap some chamomile and lavender on it.

  Dan looked at his watch. His face was flushed and he was breathing more heavily than he did when he was knocking out the bricks. ‘I’ll have to get on with your fireplace. Gardenia wants to go shopping in Milton Keynes. I said I’d try to finish quickly so that I could take her.’ He smiled thinly. ‘It’s my penance for being happy in a former life. If I’m late she gets very unpleasant. She goes green and her head spins round like that charming little child in The Exorcist.’

  ‘I don’t mind if you go.’ At least her voice still worked. ‘You can come back another day.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  Rose checked the clock. ‘Eleven thirty.’

  ‘I’m late,’ he said with a grimace. ‘She’ll be long gone by now.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t want to get you into trouble.’

  ‘It’s okay. It’s not your fault, I’m always in trouble with Gardenia.’ He looked at the fireplace. ‘It won’t take me long.’ He started to peel off his sweatshirt and Rose’s heart stopped momentarily. ‘I’ve got to take this off,’ he explained as he was pulling it over his head, ‘before I blow a gasket. It’s absolutely boiling in here.’