by Freya North
‘Then I came along and turned your world topsy-turvy,’ Stella said with mock self-importance.
To Xander it didn’t seem appropriate to bat the truth away with some larky quip or ironic insult. So he said nothing, just spiralled her hair through his fingers as she lay against his chest.
‘Well – you literally knocked me sideways,’ said Stella, thinking back to the first time she’d seen him on her very first visit to Long Dansbury. Then talk turned to the coming weekend and plans they could make that would fit around and include offers already made to one, the other, to both of them by their own friends and families.
‘Proper relationship this, innit,’ Xander joshed. ‘Sweet!’
‘You’re such a dick,’ Stella laughed, ‘and I love you.’
‘You love me enough to boot me out of bed, with a hard-on, to kip on your sofa instead?’
‘Yes,’ said Stella. ‘Fuck off.’
But when Xander made to leave the bed, she reached for him, pulled him back, found his face and kissed him, encircled her hand around his cock.
‘I don’t have any more condoms,’ he whispered at her nipple, his breath hot and feeling so good against her skin.
‘I don’t mind.’ Her hands ran over the landscape of his back.
‘You sure?’ He brushed inquisitive fingers over her bush, probing for the delicious moistness concealed within.
‘I’m sure.’ She was moving herself against him.
‘But what if—’
‘What if what?’ She’d pushed him onto his back and was inching herself down onto him.
‘Christ, I want you.’
Want you too, thought Stella. Want you in my life. And Will’s. Want to be a family.
And then neither of them could speak.
Stella sat up in bed when she heard Will going downstairs for his early-morning drink of water. She tiptoed to the door and listened. His little footsteps, suddenly stopping. Starting again. The tap running. Off again. On again. Off again.
‘Hullo.’
Nothing.
‘Said – hullo, Xander.’
‘Hmmm?’
‘You are asleep on the sofa.’
‘Oh. Hmmm.’
‘Here. I like water at this time in the morning.’
‘Thanks, mate.’
‘See you at breakfast. Did my mum say you can stay for breakfast?’
You can stay for breakfast, Xander.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Stella thought, I have to get to Lydia before the solicitor phones her. And then she thought there was simply no time for further thinking. She ran from the office, phoning Xander as she went.
‘Do you have a number for Mrs Biggins?’
‘Mrs Biggins?’
‘Or is she like Lydia and doesn’t have a mobile?’
‘She doesn’t have a mobile. What’s up? Is everything OK?’
‘No, it bloody isn’t. It’s mid-August! They’ve waited till now!’
‘Stella, you’re not making sense.’
‘Sorry, it’s just the Longbridge sale has collapsed and we were days away from exchanging contracts. I need to get to Lydia. I have to be there when Lydia hears. I don’t want her answering the phone at Longbridge. I want to be the one who tells her. She needs to hear it from me.’
‘I’ll phone. I’ll ask for Mrs Biggins, I’ll tell her to intercept the phone if it rings.’
‘Would you?’
‘Not a problem. But Stella – drive carefully, hey?’
Stella’s journey to Longbridge was fuelled on all the expletives she could think of, strung into sentences that made no sense but were comforting to hiss out loud as she took the blind bends and undulating roads to the village. Up the drive, feeling like a doctor about to deliver a death sentence. She stilled the engine and sat for a suspended moment, knowing it did not fall upon her to tell Lydia – but knowing that, apart from Xander, she wouldn’t have Lydia hear it from anyone else.
The lions looked forlorn today, as though there was something terribly undignified about trying to guard a house that would soon have no one in it to protect. They couldn’t do their job. What was the point? Might as well allow the lichen to creep over them, to work in tandem with the centuries of frost that had already begun to erode their features.
Stella rang the doorbell. Please let it be Mrs Biggins.
It was Lydia.
‘Miss Hutton.’
Does she know?
‘To what do I owe this – unscheduled – pleasure?’ Her sarcasm – so Lydia, so inappropriate for today.
She doesn’t know. Shit. Fuck. The phone! Don’t answer the bastard phone!
‘May I come in?’
‘You may.’
Lydia was heading towards the phone on the table at the end of the entrance hall.
Oh God! Don’t!
Mrs Biggins reached it first.
‘Longbridge Hall, hullo?’
Please let it be a wrong number; a call centre in Bombay offering some fantastic telecom deal, let it be John Lewis to say the electric blanket has arrived for collection, or Mrs Biggins’ daughter in Bishop’s Stortford telling her mum she’d forgotten her glasses.
‘One moment, please.’ Mrs Biggins clasped the handset to her ample bosom. ‘It’s Mr Michaels, the solicitor.’
All thoughts left Stella. All she could do was wait, the pounding of her heart reverberating around the entrance hall.
Lydia sighed and took a step nearer to Mrs Biggins. Then she stopped. ‘Tell him I’ll phone him in a little while.’ Stella had to stop herself falling into Lydia’s arms and hugging her with all her might.
‘She’ll phone you in a little while.’ Mrs Biggins listened, then buried the phone in her cleavage again. ‘Says it’s urgent.’
‘Preposterous!’ Lydia took the phone from Mrs Biggins.
‘No!’
But the women merely glanced at Stella, as if by now well aware of her peculiarities.
Lydia cleared her throat. ‘I said – Mr Michaels – that I will call you in a little while. Good day!’ And she slammed the handset down into the cradle. She turned to Stella. ‘Come along, Miss Hutton. Mrs Biggins, we’ll have elevenses in the conservatory, I think.’
Lydia observed Stella closely. The girl looked awful. Pale and fidgety. She really ought to do something with her hair. Her forehead was misted with perspiration.
‘Are you all right?’
Stella shook her head.
‘What on earth’s the matter?’
Stella was visibly shaking. ‘I have bad news.’
And the first thought that came to mind for Lydia was Xander. Specifically, that something wasn’t right between them and that Stella wanted to tell her so, before the rumour mill cranked into action, sending out husks of misinformation as it ground the true facts into a fiction of dust. In that moment, it seemed logical. Lydia braced herself.
‘Longbridge,’ Stella whispered, her head dropping, her shoulders slumping and an effortful sigh seeping out of her and filling the room.
‘Longbridge what?’
Stella looked up. ‘There’s no easy way to tell you this, Lydia.’ She shrugged – a gesture she knew Lydia thought to be most uncouth but which, today, she just could not counter. ‘The consortium – it’s fallen apart. It’s over. The sale has fallen through.’
Lydia bristled and her face, majestically aquiline at the best of times, resembled now an eagle poised to swoop for the kill. ‘I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life!’
‘It happens,’ said Stella.
‘But we’re about to exchange! Any day! Just before the August bank holiday!’
Stella nodded. ‘I know.’
‘Is that why Mr Michaels was phoning me?’
Stella nodded. Then she looked up at Lydia. ‘I didn’t want you to hear it from him. I wanted to be the one to tell you – and I wanted to be here with you, when you heard.’
Lydia was speechless, staring at Stella unblinkin
gly as if trying rapidly to translate a language alien to her. ‘Is it beyond repair? Can a consortium be patched up again? Can’t they find new threads of money elsewhere, to hold it all together?’
Stella shook her head. ‘No, Lydia.’
There was a hideous, heavy silence.
‘What bastards!’ Lydia hissed. ‘And that’s being polite.’
They fell silent again, regarding the elevenses tray that Mrs Biggins had brought in. Just then, the divine shortbread looked about as edible as concrete slabs dusted with asbestos powder, the tea as undrinkable as bilge water. They sat and privately panicked.
‘Can you sell it?’ Lydia asked at length, her voice low, her eyes ice blue, slicing into Stella like a blade.
‘The market is dead at the moment, Lydia,’ Stella said. ‘It might pick up once people are back from their summer breaks. But the predictions are not good. Prices are low and sales figures are dropping and nothing’s coming on to the market. I will try my absolute hardest – you know I will.’
‘I wanted to be out of here by Christmas.’ Her voice was broken.
‘I know,’ Stella tried to soothe. It disturbed her greatly to see Lydia so ruffled, so deflated – like seeing a once-imperial eagle previously so in control of its territory, now moth-eaten and crushed in a cage in a run-down zoo.
‘Thank you for coming, dear.’ Lydia tried to straighten, tried to broaden her shoulders, but she looked hunched, winded. Visibly, she summoned her strength to bring a vestige of elegance and control to her demeanour. ‘I do appreciate it. Please – see yourself out. And do ask Mrs Biggins to come to me.’
Everyone was knocked sideways by the news and it reverberated around the village like the ball in a bagatelle. No one took any satisfaction from Lydia’s misfortune. They felt for her. And, all over again, they worried what it might mean for the rest of them. Mr Tringle had already packed up his apartment to move that coming weekend to the south coast and live with his brother, hoping for cat-friendly sheltered accommodation down there at some point. The workshops were now empty, apart from the stock of logs belonging to the tree surgeon. Just a few retired ponies remained at the livery yard, living out in the paddocks blissfully unaware while their owners were trying to find pastures new. Only Art carried on regardless, busy as ever – especially this time of year with the raspberries and sweet peas. When he was given his final marching orders, then he’d go. No use worrying about things till then – can’t let standards around the place slip. Prettiest time of year, in many ways, certainly the most fragrant. Roses need his once-over, daily. Orchard is heavy.
Xander’s neighbours, the Georges, had vacated number 2 Lime Grove Cottages; renting elsewhere in the village, hoping a family property might come on the market and they’d be in the best position to secure it. It was strange for Miss Gilbey and Xander. Where once the little terrace of three had interchanged the warmth from dwelling to dwelling, it felt now that there was a cold space between them. Stella took Miss Gilbey a casserole last week. And Xander had been checking in every evening when he was home from work.
Xander was particularly irked by the news, worrying about Lydia, about Stella too who was mistakenly blaming herself more than the consortium. Privately and resignedly, he’d started looking online at properties nearby – a depressing, time-consuming undertaking and one that now seemed to have been a criminal waste of energy and effort.
Douglas Hutton was livid, hitting the phones to blacklist Murdley amongst all the other agents he knew. Geoff was most concerned for Stella, who looked absolutely terrible. Even Belinda derived no pleasure from the misfortune of her nemesis. Although it had been both depressing and humiliating for Stella to tell Alistair, her lovely brother simply told her not to worry, never to worry and he rubbished her desperation to pay more rent and on time. Predominantly though, Stella’s thoughts were for Lydia alone, about how the news would affect her in the short term and beyond. Deep down, Stella was pessimistic about Longbridge – it was categorically not the time to be selling a property like that.
However, there were children and friends and love and careers to be considered and life just had to roll on regardless, like the wheat fields at Longbridge. On the August bank holiday, Stella, Xander and Will gathered for a long-planned picnic in the grounds of Hatfield House with Caroline, Andrew, Robbie, Sara and the various children. Will felt most grown-up, bossing the little ones around, and was charmed to discover that not all toddlers are necessarily sticky. Andrew and Xander were explaining strange numbers to Robbie, connected with pedometer readings and resting heart rates. Sara, Caroline and Stella lounged on the picnic blankets and picked at the olives and cornichons.
‘Glorious day,’ said Stella.
‘Isn’t it,’ said Caroline.
‘This place is so beautiful,’ said Sara.
‘Positively verdant,’ said Stella.
‘A cacophony of colour,’ said Sara.
‘Kids are having fun!’ said Caroline.
They watched the children exploring a cavernous ancient oak as if it was a mysterious land better than Narnia.
‘I love the colour of bark,’ Caroline mused. ‘It inspired a paint I once mixed, for a set I was dressing – took me ages to perfect the precise tone, the weight of the colour. But it was perfect. I called it “Bleached Bark Buff”. Can’t remember for the life of me what combination I used.’
Stella laughed. ‘That’s what Farrow and Ball are for, these days!’
Caroline passed the mini pimentos stuffed with feta over to Stella. ‘Shame, as it would really suit my kitchen. That’s my next project.’
‘Your kitchen is immaculate,’ Stella protested. She turned to Sara. ‘You should see it – it’s gorgeous as it is. Uber Homes and Gardens.’
‘See,’ said Caroline, self-deprecating as ever, ‘I’ve too much time on my hands, me.’
Slightly sunburnt, Xander, Stella and Will returned home.
‘That was a great day – can we do it again? I like being a hero,’ said Will. ‘Xander – are you staying for a sleepover?’
Xander glanced at Stella who’d turned away, smiling.
‘Er – yes,’ said Xander. ‘If that’s OK with you and your mum?’
‘It’s fine by me,’ said Will. Then the boy looked hard at Xander and looked hard at his mum who had just brought him a carton of smoothie.
‘You OK, pumpkin?’ Stella asked him.
‘I was just trying to work out stuff,’ said Will. ‘About sleepovers.’
‘Oh?’
‘Grown-ups are weird,’ he said. ‘Really weird.’
‘Charming!’ said Xander.
‘What I mean is – you send me up to bed and you say, don’t get out of bed! You go on and on about Sleep Is Important. You say, tuck down! You say, night-night! You say, Snug as a Bug in a Rug.’ Will looked at the grown-ups who were gawping at him because they so obviously just didn’t get it. Gosh, they could be annoying – their habit of saying stuff that didn’t make sense, of telling kids one thing because it was ‘setting an example’, then doing the complete opposite themselves. ‘You always tell me all of that,’ said Will. ‘Don’t you?’
‘Er – yes?’ said Stella, glancing at Xander who looked equally confused.
‘Well then,’ said Will. ‘When Xander comes over for a sleepover, a million times a week, why does he spend half the night in your bed, Mummy, and half downstairs on the sofa?’ Will thought about it. ‘If staying in bed is so important and if a good night’s sleep is so special?’
Why had the grown-ups gone bright red? Why couldn’t they speak? They didn’t honestly think he didn’t know, did they?
Together, Stella and Xander went into Will’s room at bedtime. Xander read to him with Stella between them, Will somewhat squashed to accommodate two adults sitting beside him on the bed.
‘Well!’ said Xander, clapping the book shut. ‘What an exciting chapter to leave it at tonight.’
And Stella thought, what an exciting chapter to s
tart.
‘Will,’ she said. She smiled at Xander who nodded, just perceptibly. ‘Xander and I wanted to ask you something. We wanted to ask you if you thought it would be a better idea if he sleeps all the night in my bed.’
‘Of course it is!’ said Will. ‘Der!’
‘And I wanted to ask you something, Will,’ said Xander. ‘I wanted to ask you how you felt if I told you I love your mummy very much.’
‘Der!’ said Will again. ‘I know that! You’re best friends!’
‘And that I love Xander too,’ Stella said. ‘Love him as a best friend – and in a grown-up way as well. Beyond best friends.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Will.
‘Like a couple,’ said Stella.
‘Like married people?’ asked Will.
Stella looked at her lap, looked at her baby boy, and nodded.
‘Maybe,’ said Xander. ‘One day. Hopefully.’
Will sighed and tugged at his mother’s sleeve. ‘But you did that,’ he whispered.
‘I know,’ said Stella softly.
‘Xander won’t make you sad, will he? If you get married as well as be best friends?’
A tear edged out of Stella’s eye and she tried to brush it away before Will saw it.
‘I want only to make you and your mum happy,’ said Xander. ‘Because it seems really right to me – after the happiness you both bring me.’
‘Right,’ said Will, wondering where this was going. Did that make Xander his dad? And would he be a proper dad, in that case – like Luca’s and Jakey’s at school? That would be very cool. And could he keep calling him Xander? And his mum was sitting there pretending she wasn’t crying, so perhaps tonight wasn’t the best time to ask about stuff like that.
‘I’ve been looking a long time,’ said Xander, ‘hoping to find people as wonderful as you two.’
And, having been kissed and kissed again by both of them, Will went to sleep after a fantastic day, feeling really great.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Although only a fortnight later, with Will now back at school and a sudden dip in the temperature, it felt indisputably like autumn and as if Longbridge had been back on the market for ages. Heading for the end of the month, there still hadn’t been a single viewing. Stella was demoralized, it was affecting her ability to sell the properties she did have on her books and she told her uncle and Lydia that they ought to be pragmatic and consider relinquishing their sole-agency status at Longbridge. Dougie tended to agree with his niece. Lydia wouldn’t hear of it.