A Whiff of Scandal

by Carole Matthews

  As she turned the corner she saw him. He was warmly dressed in a thick red jacket and a yellow hard hat. Somehow, he still managed to look as if he had just walked out of Austin Reed’s. He was ticking off things on a clipboard, oblivious of the steady drizzle and of her. As he looked up, she tilted her umbrella away from her face, balancing it on her shoulder. There was a mixture of emotions on his face as he saw her – surprise, shock, pleasure and . . . What?

  ‘Hi,’ she said self-consciously.

  ‘I didn’t expect to see you here,’ he said.

  Rose detected an undisguised tremor in his tone. He looked thinner, more serious. She hoped that he had started to eat properly again.

  ‘I can tell by your face,’ she said lightly.

  Dan smiled, took off his hard hat, smoothed his blond hair and replaced his hat.

  ‘So,’ Rose continued. ‘You got what you wanted.’

  He leant on the once-yellow dumper truck behind him and put his clipboard down on its snub nose. ‘That depends on what we’re talking about.’

  Rose flushed. ‘The church sold you the land,’ she said, looking up at the half-finished flats.

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Dan nodded. ‘They sold me the land.’

  ‘That’s great.’

  ‘I thought so,’ he said.

  This was like pulling teeth without the benefit of anaesthetic. ‘So how are things?’ she persisted brightly.

  ‘Things?’ he said. He took off his hard hat again and fiddled with it. ‘Things are fine.’

  ‘I’ve seen Melissa,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘I take it you’ve heard her news.’

  ‘About the baby?’

  Rose nodded. ‘I’m so happy for her,’ she gushed.

  ‘So am I,’ he agreed.

  Rose took a deep breath. There was no easy way to broach this. She might as well come straight out with it. ‘And what about you, Dan? Are you happy?’

  He looked at her steadily, but his jaw hardened like quick-drying cement. ‘I’m not sure that you have the right to ask that question, Rose.’

  She looked at her feet. Her beige suede loafers were sinking into the mud as fast as her heart was sinking into her loafers.

  ‘No,’ he said with a heartfelt sigh. ‘I’m not happy, but I’m keeping very busy.’

  ‘Angelica told me.’

  ‘Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?’

  ‘Is that why you didn’t come to my farewell party? Because you were busy?’

  ‘Partly. I didn’t think it was very appropriate for me to be raising a cheery glass to you and wishing you well in your new life.’

  ‘I don’t know why I came,’ Rose stammered.

  His lips parted in a slow, unhappy smile. ‘Why did you come?’

  ‘I wanted to talk to you. To clear the air between us.’ She stared at him. ‘I can see it’s not going to work.’

  ‘What do you expect from me? You come back after all this time and say you want to talk?’ He banged his fist against the dumper truck. ‘Shit!’ he said with feeling.

  ‘I wanted to say I was sorry,’ Rose said past the constriction that had formed in her throat.

  His eyes looked troubled, his handsome face pained. ‘Don’t you think we’re past that stage?’

  ‘I did try to tell you how I felt before I left,’ she said. ‘Remember?’

  ‘No.’ A puzzled look crossed his face.

  ‘When I ran after your car. Did you think I was doing that for the good of my health?’

  ‘When?’ Dan’s look of puzzlement grew to positively perplexed.

  ‘Oh come on, Dan! You deliberately drove off just as I reached you.’

  ‘I did no such thing!’

  ‘It looked like it from where I was standing,’ she insisted. ‘You had Fluffy in the back and you were going to Woburn Woods.’

  Dan’s face cleared. ‘And you think I’d be able to see you running behind the car with that fluffy-arsed hound in the back?’

  ‘Don’t you use your mirrors?’

  ‘Only when I can persuade Fluff to sit down,’ Dan said unemotionally.

  ‘Oh,’ Rose said, momentarily defeated. Then she pointed at him. ‘What about your wing mirrors?’

  ‘I have them positioned so that I can park the car, not watch pretty girls running up the road behind me.’

  It seemed a reasonable thing to say. She particularly liked the pretty bit. Rose scratched her head. Her hair was going frizzy despite the protection of the umbrella. There were some days when Rain-Mates seemed a splendid idea.

  ‘So what did you want to tell me?’ Dan interrupted her thoughts.

  ‘When?’ she asked.

  ‘When you went to all the trouble of chasing my car.’

  Rose twirled her umbrella. ‘I wanted to say . . .’ She cleared her throat. ‘I wanted to say I was sorry.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘What for?’ Rose echoed. ‘For everything!’ She felt perilously close to tears. It had been a stupid idea to come. It had been a stupid idea to dress up like Gardenia. It had been stupid to expect Dan to forgive her. And it had been particularly stupid to walk on to a muddy building site wearing beige suede loafers.

  ‘You’re sorry for everything.’ Dan looked intrigued.

  ‘I am.’ Rose hung her head. ‘Because I’m still stupid enough to care,’ she said quietly. As tears threatened, she turned to go. The route she had taken on to the site had become a mud bath and Rose hesitated, trying to work out where the least hazardous and most dignified exit for the beige loafers was.

  ‘I’m moving out of Builder’s Bottom,’ he said to her back. There was an urgency to his voice.

  Rose wheeled round. ‘But you love it there!’ she cried. ‘It’s your pride and joy.’

  His hands were jammed in his pockets. ‘Not my joy, Rose.’ His eyes met hers. ‘That was something else,’ he said gruffly.

  She shuffled uncomfortably in the mud. ‘But why move?’

  ‘Who knows? Too many memories, not enough of them good.’ He paused. ‘It just felt like the right time.’

  ‘Where are you going to?’

  ‘I’d like to tell you somewhere exotic. But it wouldn’t be true.’

  Rose forced a smile. A silence fell between them and she studied her feet – or what was left of them. The mud was seeping steadily over her loafers. ‘Rose Cottage has been sold too. Apparently the new people are nice. I’ve just come up to collect a few things and sign the papers.’

  ‘I see,’ Dan said quietly.

  ‘Well.’ Rose sounded half-hearted. ‘I’d better be off.’

  ‘How are you finding life back in the big smoke?’ he asked quickly.

  She shrugged uncomfortably. ‘Dirty. Busy. Expensive.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Much the same as it was before.’

  ‘Are you working?’

  ‘I’ve rented rooms in a clinic again. They’re pretty horrible.’ She pulled a face.

  ‘Still rubbing the shoulders of the rich and famous?’

  ‘One or two rich,’ she replied with a grin. ‘But, despite the numerous rumours, not too many famous. But then you can’t have everything.’

  ‘So I’ve learnt,’ Dan said. There was a sadness in his voice which turned Rose’s insides to water.

  She gave another shrug, this time so infinitesimal she wasn’t sure if her shoulders had moved at all. ‘You didn’t say where you were moving to.’

  ‘No, I didn’t, did I?’ His face softened perceptibly and a reluctant smile played at his lips. Some of the tension between them dissolved.

  He leaned on the dumper truck and his body was more relaxed. But then his feet weren’t getting as wet as hers were.

  ‘I’m only going to the other side of Great Brayford,’ he said. ‘Old habits die hard. I’ve bought Basil’s house. When he and Angelica get hitched, they’re going to move into flat three.’ He nodded at one of the balconied windows.

  Rose followed his eyes. ‘After all that fuss, the balconies loo
k very nice.’

  ‘I thought Angelica might be able to push Anise off one if she ever got really desperate.’

  Rose laughed weakly, not knowing whether it was appropriate or not.

  ‘What’s Anise going to do?’

  ‘Stay in the house on her own, I presume,’ he said. ‘No doubt getting steadily more cantankerous.’ He looked up at the newly-constructed building. ‘I’m going to call this Weston House.’

  ‘I’m not sure whether that’s a flattering gesture or a constant poke in the eye for Anise.’ Rose gave him a searching look, relieved that conversation between them, though not entirely relaxed, was somewhat less stilted.

  He raised his eyebrows enigmatically and made no reply.

  ‘Basil’s house is huge,’ she said, changing the subject.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘It is. It also needs quite a bit of renovating. I think Basil’s been working on the Quentin Crisp theory that if you don’t clean a place, then after three years it doesn’t get any dirtier. I think his mother before him followed the same rules.’ He smiled wryly. ‘I can’t say it’s a philosophy I agree with myself, but once we get the last sixty-odd years of gunge off the walls and open some windows, then we can start to get the place round a bit. It’ll be fabulous when it’s finished. And I’ll be broke.’

  ‘Is the “we” you and Gardenia?’ Rose tightened the loop of her umbrella round her hand and avoided looking at him.

  ‘No,’ he answered without emotion. ‘The “we” is me and Fluffy.’

  ‘You didn’t get back together then?’

  ‘No.’ He folded his arms and stared at her blankly. ‘I found out she’d been having an affair for some time. When she left, it was to run off with an estate agent from Milton Keynes.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Rose said gently.

  Dan shrugged. ‘There’s another property boom on the way. Apparently.’

  There were things that she was desperate to say, but Rose couldn’t make her brain direct them to her mouth. They stood looking at each other forlornly in the miserable, relentless drizzle.

  Dan spoke to fill the discomfiting space, nodding at the man – a younger, stockier version of himself – who fussed in an unconvincing manner with some paving slabs just out of earshot. ‘I’m hoping to persuade my little brother Alan that he’d really like to give up his evenings and all of his weekends to help me, but at the moment I’m failing miserably,’ he said with a hearty attempt at jocularity. ‘I did something heinous to his pet tortoise years ago and this is the time he has chosen to exact his revenge.’

  ‘It must have been something pretty awful.’

  ‘It was,’ he said earnestly. ‘I painted “Dan’s tortoise” on its shell with a tin of white enamel paint that I found in an old Airfix kit. He never recovered.’

  ‘The tortoise?’

  ‘No, Alan. The tortoise was fine.’ Dan’s mouth curved into a smile and, for a moment, she didn’t notice the rain. ‘For another five years it roamed our back garden with “Dan’s tortoise” on its back before it escaped. As far as I know there’s still a tortoise out there somewhere marked indelibly with my name.’

  ‘You are silly,’ Rose chided with a soft laugh.

  The silence hung between them again, as dampening as the rain. ‘Still . . .’ She swallowed. ‘Aren’t you going to be lonely in that big house all on your own?’

  ‘I’ll have Fluffy.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Are you frightened that I’ll turn out slightly eccentric like Basil?’

  ‘Slightly?’

  Dan crossed one muddy boot over the other and stared at his feet. ‘I’m hoping that one day someone will make an honest man out of me.’

  Rose lowered her head. ‘You’re already an honest man, Daniel Spikenard.’

  He stared at her and she met his gaze. ‘Then perhaps I’ll find someone that isn’t too proud, too confused, too stubborn or too hung up on another man to realise it,’ he remarked.

  Silence again.

  ‘How is Hugh, by the way?’ There was a mocking tone to his voice when he spoke Hugh’s name.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  Dan frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  Rose pursed her lips. ‘I mean I don’t know,’ she said again. ‘It’s finished. Over. Ended. Kaput. I only stayed with him for a few weeks after I moved back. And that was a few weeks too long.’

  Dan ran his fingers through his wet hair. ‘I don’t believe this!’ His voice was laced with concern. ‘What happened?’

  ‘When he said he’d left his wife, he was lying. Ruth turned up at the flat one day. She thought it would be a nice surprise.’ Rose met Dan’s gaze and felt a flood of colour rush to her face. ‘She’s very sweet. It was deeply, deeply upsetting.’

  ‘Seeing people get hurt always is,’ he said with feeling.

  ‘I was such a fool,’ she admitted.

  ‘I could have told you that.’

  ‘You did,’ she said with a rueful smile.

  ‘So now what happens?’ There was a crack in Dan’s voice.

  ‘Time to start again.’ It was a lot easier said than done.

  ‘So why did you sell Rose Cottage? Can’t you move back here?’

  For a moment she thought his voice sounded hopeful. It was time for truth and she had really been hoping Dan wouldn’t ask this. She wished the mud would swallow her up a bit quicker, but it was still only lapping the tops of her shoes. ‘Starting again includes selling Rose Cottage. You see,’ she sighed. ‘Hugh owns the whole thing. Lock, stock and barrel. He paid me off with it when I threatened to tell his wife about our affair. I’m going to sell it and return the money. It’s the only way I can ever be totally rid of him.’

  There was a look of shock on Dan’s face. He was glassy-eyed and staring. His body was frozen to the dumper truck.

  ‘I blackmailed him.’ Rose spelled it out just in case he wasn’t exactly clear on the facts. ‘So you see, Dan, I was the other woman, and then some.’ She laughed, which was just as well, because if she hadn’t she would have cried. ‘You can say something derogatory if you want to. I’m sure I deserve it.’

  Dan still hadn’t moved. ‘I think it’s pretty safe to say that words fail me at this particular moment,’ he said flatly.

  ‘Then I think it’s time to say goodbye.’ Her eyes softened as she looked at him. It wasn’t the perfect picture to remember him by, paralysed with shock propped up against a yellow dumper truck, a dazed and disbelieving expression immobilising his handsome features. ‘Goodbye, Dan,’ she said sadly and turned away.

  A soft pat of mud hit her wetly on the side of the cheek. It adhered there as resolutely as if it had been stuck by Super Glue. She spun round to face Dan and lost her footing. Overbalancing in the mud, she stepped into a murky puddle and the water closed over her shoes. Flailing with her arms to right herself, she dropped her umbrella and it skittered away across the mud and the puddles in the wind until it lodged firmly in a pile of damp sand on the other side of the site.

  Rose scraped the mud from her face. ‘There was no need for that!’

  Dan looked up, roused from his catatonic state. He stared at her as if he was seeing her for the first time. ‘What?’

  ‘You may not think a lot of me, Dan. But there was no need to throw mud at me.’

  ‘What?’ he repeated, his brow knitting together.

  Another splattering of mud showered her face and she was glad that she had shut her mouth in the nick of time.

  Rose bent down, her left leg sinking further into the mud until it reached halfway up her calf. She scooped a handful of squelching, icy mud. ‘Take that!’ she said and hurled the mud at Dan.

  It missed him, sailing over his shoulder to land with a harmless thump on the seat of the dumper truck. His eyes flickered into life. ‘What was that for?’

  Rose scooped another handful of mud, this time taking aim more carefully. She had seen them playing darts in the Black Horse. In tr
ue Eric Bristow style she took two practice throws and then let the mud sail free from her hand, winging its way towards its target.

  ‘Rose!’ Dan shouted, lifting his arm to his face.

  The mud pat hit him full in the mouth. ‘One hundred and eighty!’ Rose cried triumphantly.

  Dan spluttered, spitting mud from his mouth. A white handkerchief, being waved hesitantly, appeared from behind the yellow dumper. Rose watched, breathing heavily, as Alan’s face appeared from behind the makeshift flag of surrender. ‘I come in peace,’ he said tentatively.

  ‘It was you! You threw the mud at Rose!’ A lump of it fell from Dan’s lip as he spoke. He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his red jacket. ‘Of all the stupid things to do!’ he yelled.

  ‘You were about to let her walk away!’ Alan shouted back. ‘So don’t call me stupid!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Rose.’ Dan cast an anxious glance at her. ‘Truly sorry.’

  Alan had stopped waving the white flag but he continued to shout. ‘You’ve been as miserable as bloody sin since Rose left and you’re too proud to tell her! What else could I do? I had to do something! Besides,’ he added petulantly, ‘you were leaning on my dumper truck and I wanted to drive it.’

  Dan spoke through gritted teeth. ‘This is going to cost you dearly, Al. I want you at that house every night and every weekend for the rest of your life!’

  ‘It’ll be worth it if it puts a smile back on your miserable face,’ he chirped. ‘If you know what’s good for you, take her home, Daniel!’

  ‘Get out of here!’ Dan said with a reluctant smile. He retrieved his clipboard from the front of the truck and tossed it in the footwell behind him.

  Alan flashed him a grin. ‘Sorry, Rose!’ he shouted as he jumped into the seat of the dumper truck. His smile froze as he landed squarely on the mud pat that had missed Dan.

  ‘Don’t mention it, Alan,’ she said with a slow smile.

  ‘Touché!’ He blew her a kiss and with the same hand wiped the mud from his bottom. Whirling the truck round he headed towards the pile of sand and the fugitive umbrella.

  Dan walked towards her. ‘I can’t apologise enough,’ he said, a suitable note of mortification in his voice.