Rumours

by Freya North

  ‘Does he come with the house?’

  Lydia looked at Mrs Tompkins. ‘Part and parcel, my dear.’

  As they walked on, Stella lingered at the back and glanced at Lord Freddie, who appeared to be giving her a very strange look from this angle. Not hostile – but as if she’d presented him with a gift and he wasn’t sure quite how it worked.

  The tour had taken over two hours and Stella could see how Lydia was suddenly fatigued.

  ‘Thank you – so very much,’ Mr Tompkins said. ‘It’s a gem. It’s a jewel. And it’s been a pleasure to meet you.’

  Lydia tipped her head graciously.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mrs Tompkins. ‘I’m all lost for words. Not me at all, is it, Barry?’

  ‘Talk the arse off a donkey,’ her husband said fondly. Stella cringed until she noted Lydia’s wry smile.

  ‘Just a bit overwhelmed,’ Mrs Tompkins said. ‘It’s modern places, really, what I know. And that’s what we’ve been looking at, really. Nothing like this. It’s – well, a bit unbelievable.’

  ‘Do come again,’ Lydia said extravagantly as if they were her favourite guests in a long time. ‘Do.’ With that, she went back to the house, waved from the steps and went inside.

  ‘Gobsmacked,’ was all Mr Tompkins could say to Stella while Mrs Tompkins shook her head incredulously.

  ‘I’m sure, if you wanted a second viewing, it could easily be arranged – perhaps even for this weekend,’ Stella told them. ‘Lady Lydia appears to like you.’

  ‘She’s a colourful old bird, isn’t she,’ Mr Tompkins laughed. ‘Though I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her.’ He whistled.

  With anyone else, Stella would have shuddered, thanking the stars Lydia was out of earshot. Yet with Mr Tompkins, she found herself wishing Lydia had been right there. She’d have cuffed him around the head. She’d have laughed like a drain.

  Stella followed behind the Bentley in her little car, feeling as if she was being pulled along in their slipstream. They indicated left at the high street and drove off with a merry blast of the horn. She turned right, without indicating, and headed for home, keeping her eyes fixedly on the road ahead, resolutely refusing to look left to the Spar or to Mercy Benton’s cottage or, a little way along, to look right, up Tramfield Lane. Up the hill and out of the village she drove, woods to either side, on to the New Houses at the top, clustered together as if resigned not to be part of the main hub of Long Dansbury. Stella drove past. And then she slowed down, right down, until her car juddered at the point of stalling. She swung into someone’s driveway and, with her head pounding and adrenalin running havoc with her heartbeat, she turned the car and headed slowly back towards the village.

  What am I doing what am I doing what am I doing?

  Don’t be in.

  Say he is in?

  Don’t be in. Don’t be in. Be in. Be in.

  She turned left into Xander’s street. The postbox. The scraggly patch of rough ground. The grit bin on the left. The cottages just ahead. One two three. Everyone’s recycling boxes neatly outside their gates.

  Car outside the middle cottage.

  Stella drove past all three, continued on to the end of the dead end.

  Now what?

  Now what!

  She turned the car badly, backing up too quickly, brushing against the thick hedgerow. It sounded like fingernails on chalkboard.

  Slowly, she drove back.

  Miss Gilbey is in.

  The Georges are home.

  There are no lights on at Xander’s.

  Should she wait?

  Five thirty.

  What time does a person with their own business usually arrive home?

  She sat in the car and switched the engine off.

  But say he comes around the corner right now? What would I say?

  She switched the engine half on, so that the radio and the air conditioning were active.

  She phoned Jo. Straight through to answering machine. That’s no use. No point sending a text. She opened the glove compartment, saw the sweets that Caroline’s little boy had put in her basket and which she’d forgotten to give Will, and wolfed them down as she rooted around for paper. All she could find was the printout of her car’s last service. It had cost her £214. It was blank on the other side. She used the roadmap as a surface on which to write, sucked her pen thoughtfully and then began. She phoned Jo. Straight through to answering machine. Stella would just have to read it through to herself instead.

  It sounded OK.

  I’d be chuffed to receive a note like that, she thought.

  She was going to phone Jo one final time but she thought, no, I know what I want to do. And then she thought, it’s what Jo would tell me to do anyway. And without further ado, Stella left the car, walked calmly down Xander’s path and, with a slightly shaky hand, posted the folded note through his letter box. Walking back to her car she felt ridiculously jubilant. Her phone was ringing. It was Jo.

  I’ll phone you when I’m home, Jo. I have to pick up Will. I’m running late.

  Xander went to his parents straight from work, taking them a bag of Marks and Spencer’s prepared meals which he knew they’d tut at, but enjoy. Then he dumped the car outside his cottage and strolled down to the pub for a couple of pints. Andrew was there and they discussed where they’d run and how long they’d take and what time they’d set off on Saturday morning. Xander left at last orders and strolled home. It was a beautiful night, no breeze and just slivers of high cloud inching past the moon. He’d already decided to watch The Sopranos all the way from the beginning – again – and was looking forward to a couple of episodes before he went to bed. He went into his house, took the boxed set of the series through to the kitchen, flicked on the kettle and read all the episode breakdowns, as if his appetite for the show wasn’t whetted enough.

  It was close to one in the morning when he forced himself to switch off the DVD and go to bed. It was gone two in the morning when he woke, ragingly thirsty, and went downstairs for water. Taking a glass back to bed, he suddenly noticed the folded paper on his doormat. He hadn’t seen it when he came in – but there again, his mind had been focused on a good strong cuppa and all things Mafia. It was probably just some flyer about all-weather coatings for houses, for Jim and Bob’s local plumbing services; but something made him venture over to it anyway.

  It was a handwritten note. No ‘Dear Xander’, just ‘Xander’.

  Stella. It’s from Stella.

  He took it to his chair and put the glass of water on the coffee table. It was chilly. He was in a pair of boxers only. He put the letter down, unread, went upstairs and pulled on a pair of socks and a sweatshirt and returned to the living room.

  Thursday 5.30

  Xander

  I was at Longbridge and was just passing so thought I’d just call by. Actually, that’s not strictly true – I wanted to see if you were in but I bottled and drove on out of the village only finally doing a ‘U’-ey at the last point possible. Anyway, you’re not in and I don’t have your number and I wouldn’t know what to say if I did. And so I thought I’d just write you a little note (I know I shouldn’t start a sentence with ‘and’). But – and here’s the big But … I don’t actually know what to say!! Well, I sort of do – but I just feel stupidly shy … Ridiculous!

  Anyway, Lydia is well and the viewing was with a colourful couple whom she really took to. The gardens at Longbridge are looking gorgeous. Mrs Biggins made tea. And so what I actually wanted to say was I was wondering if at some point you might perhaps like to have a drink or something if you’re not too busy if you wanted to and I apologize for the lack of punctuation.

  Or if not a drink, perhaps a walk – somewhere, at some point, or something. I don’t do jogging. I mean, running.

  Anyway, that’s what I wanted to say.

  And this is my only sheet of paper – if I returned home for some fancy little notelet, the chances are I’d never deliver it. Ramble ramble – apo
logies …

  Hope all’s well.

  Ta-ta

  Stella

  Xander read and reread the letter. He folded it carefully and placed it on the coffee table, next to his glass of water. He sat there awhile and thought, if I looked in the mirror, I’d see I’m smiling.

  Christ, he didn’t want to know what time it was now. He took the letter and the water upstairs with him. His bedside light was on. He read the letter once more, switched off the light and settled himself for sleep.

  Then he laughed out loud and said into the silence, ‘But you didn’t leave your number, you daft mare.’

  But you know where she lives, came the reply.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ‘She’ll kill us,’ Juliet said to Alistair while he patted shaving foam onto his face. ‘I don’t think it’s right – I think we should warn her. I mean, I know if she’s forewarned the risk is she won’t come – but I still think it’s unfair.’

  Alistair looked at his wife then looked in the mirror and slicked his razor down his cheek; the swipe of smooth pink skin as satisfying as a path cleared from pristine snow. He swilled his razor under the hot tap and continued to shave, giving his wife a thoughtful ‘hmm’ at regular intervals while she fretted. Splashing his face with cool water, he then pressed a towel across it and, in the soothing cotton, he thought about it.

  ‘It’ll be me she wants to kill,’ he said, while Juliet sluiced his bristles down the plughole. ‘Rupert is my contact. You’re in the clear.’

  ‘But you’re Stella’s big brother – she trusts you.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Alistair. ‘And it’s not like we’re staging some intervention, it’s not like we’re going to force her into an arranged marriage there and then. It’s only a dinner party. It’s only a regular Saturday night. There’ll be others there – she knows the Hendersons and the Griffins. Tell you what, sit her by me and sit Rupert opposite her.’

  ‘But then it won’t go girl-boy-girl-boy!’ Juliet protested as if to abuse the seating plan was unthinkable. Alistair raised his eyebrows at her. ‘All right,’ she grumbled. ‘I’ll rethink it all. He’s not vegetarian or anything, is he?’

  ‘He’s normal,’ said Alistair. ‘He’s a nice guy – that’s why I want my little sister to meet him.’

  For the last few weeks, Saturday mornings had been given over to cricket and, with a play date organized for Will for afterwards, Stella had no time constraints for accompanying the Tompkins to Longbridge for their second visit. She’d thought about Xander over the last couple of days – often. But she wasn’t waiting for him to call or spending time on fanciful imaginings of what might happen. As she’d said to Jo, she simply felt oddly euphoric that she’d had the courage to write that note and deliver it.

  If I was Xander, said Jo, I’d be rereading it over and again, wondering how to respond. Take your time, Stella had said. Thanks babes, said Jo. And then they’d both become a little confused by their role play, as to who was who, and when had the other turned back into the real them. What Stella did know was that the laughter and fizz that all this had created was a lovely state to be in.

  ‘Come on, Will!’ She didn’t want him to be late for cricket and she absolutely couldn’t be late for Lydia.

  ‘I’m just getting changed.’

  ‘You said that an hour ago.’

  ‘It’s cricket – you have to be smart.’

  You’re seven years old – that’s a contradiction in terms, thought Stella but she cooed when Will appeared in his whites with a big grin on his face and told her not to forget he was more than seven and a half.

  ‘We need some of that flower glump,’ he said, trying to pat down an errant frond of hair which refused to lie smooth. ‘Like Lady Lydia Fortescue uses for royal children.’

  ‘I don’t have any flowers,’ said Stella, glancing at a potted orchid that had bloomed only the once but which she couldn’t bring herself to throw away. ‘You can use some of Mummy’s hairspray.’

  ‘No way!’

  ‘Just hurry up – you need your clothes for Luca’s afterwards.’

  ‘I don’t know where they are,’ said Will.

  ‘Your clothes? You don’t know where your clothes are?’

  Will could never work out why his mother frequently sounded so incredulous about the things he said he didn’t know about.

  ‘I’ll get them,’ she huffed, taking the stairs two at a time. They really needed to be going if they were to make it to cricket and Longbridge on time and unflustered. She must go to the toilet.

  The doorbell rang just as she entered Will’s room.

  ‘See this door?’ she said to him. ‘It’s a cupboard door and watch! We open it and – hey presto! Clothes! And guess what! They fit you! Well I never!’

  There was now knocking at the door.

  ‘Maybe it’s the postman with my Lego Hero Factory!’ Will said.

  ‘Go and answer it, pumpkin. I’ll get your stuff. I must go to the loo before we go. You too, Will.’

  Will slithered down the stairs on his bottom, praying that the Danish gods were looking kindly upon him.

  But it wasn’t the postman.

  ‘Mummy?’

  No answer.

  ‘Mummy!’

  ‘I’m on the loo,’ Stella’s voice came hollering down. She’d forgotten all about postmen.

  ‘She’s on the loo,’ Will told Xander.

  ‘Yes,’ said Xander, ‘I think the whole street heard.’

  ‘My mum says that going to the loo when you really really need it is one of life’s pleasures.’

  Xander looked at Will. ‘Does she now?’ He laughed.

  ‘Yes,’ said Will. ‘Hopefully it will put her in a good mood because she’s always grumpy when she’s in a rush.’

  ‘Well, I’d better not hang around then – I don’t want to make you late.’

  ‘Bye! I’m going to cricket and then to Luca’s. Bye!’

  ‘Bye, Will.’

  ‘Bye! PS – I still have that napkin!’

  ‘Good – keep hold of it.’

  ‘I will!’ said Will. ‘I am!’ said Will. He thought about it. ‘I! Am! Will!’

  Xander laughed. ‘Just tell your mum I called on the off chance – OK?’

  Will saluted. Xander saluted back. And then he went.

  ‘Right,’ said Stella, pulling up at the cricket club. ‘Have you forgotten anything?’

  ‘Don’t think so,’ said Will.

  ‘Good,’ said Stella. She parked and gave Will a squeeze as they walked from the car. ‘Sorry to rush you, poppet. I don’t like having to work on Saturdays.’

  ‘That’s OK. Oh!’

  ‘Oh God – what have your forgotten?’

  ‘I forgot to tell you – it wasn’t my Lego at the door.’

  ‘The door?’ She’d quite forgotten. Then she remembered. ‘It’ll come on Monday – I’m sure of it.’ Stella was now bundling him up towards the cricket pitches which were strewn with white-clad boys in little squiggles, like scatters of spring lambs in a vast meadow. She’d never make it to Long Dansbury in quarter of an hour. She’d have to phone Lydia. And the Tompkins. She’d phone the Tompkins first. No, Lydia first.

  ‘It was Xander.’

  His mum was suddenly silent, now standing stock-still, staring at him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘At the door – I forgot to tell you. It was Xander at the door, not the postman. We had a chat. But then you were rushing and I’m sorry – I only just remembered.’

  ‘Xander was at our door?’

  ‘When you were on the loo – remember?’ His mum was still staring at him. ‘I told him you were on the loo and he said the whole street heard. Anyway, I think he just said to tell you he came over. Sorry.’ Why was she standing so still? Wasn’t she in a rush any more? He dragged her towards the grass. ‘Bye, Mum. There’s Luca’s mum.’

  ‘Bye, darling.’

  My mum sounds like she’s turned into a robot.
<
br />   Will scampered off, turning to wave. Then he remembered. ‘Mum!’ he yelled. ‘I remembered! Xander didn’t say to tell you he came over. He said it was an off chance. Something like that. Bye!’

  And the grown-ups turned to look at Stella. They all noted her eyes glinting and wide, the blush blooming her cheeks, and they all thought, who’s Xander, Stella! And when she gave Luca’s mum the bag with Will’s clothes in it, Luca’s mum raised her eyebrow and said, Xander eh!

  * * *

  Though Stella drove sensibly to Longbridge, it felt as if she was breaking the speed limit because suddenly everything seemed super-fast. Her heartbeat, her rattle of thoughts, the replay of Xander’s message. The zip of excitement, of anticipation, of wondering – what did he want, what did he want! The bare brilliant fact that he really had come to her house, on the off chance. What was the off chance? She squeaked it all out to Jo, who finally phoned her back just as she was turning up the driveway at Longbridge.

  ‘I have to go – the Bentley’s here already,’ Stella laughed, overlooking the fact that she hadn’t mentioned the Tompkins or their car to Jo.

  There was no one outside. She skipped up the stone steps, patting one of the lions as she went, and rang the doorbell. Her prayers were answered when it was Mrs Biggins who answered it.

  ‘I’m late!’

  ‘I know – and I wouldn’t look so happy about it,’ said Mrs Biggins who thought for a terrible moment the girl was going to hug her in greeting.

  ‘I’m not! I’m appalled!’ said Stella with a Cheshire cat grin.

  ‘They’re over in the Garden House,’ said Mrs Biggins.

  ‘Shall I go there?’

  ‘Lady Lydia told me to tell you to wait here,’ she said. Then she looked askance at Stella. ‘Cuppa?’

  ‘You are a star,’ said Stella and Mrs Biggins liked it. She’d give her a rock cake too, she decided. She wasn’t expecting Stella to follow her into the kitchen, but she didn’t mind that she had. Stella watched as she made the tea.

  ‘Mrs Biggins – how long have you worked here?’