Lots of Love

by Unknown

  Spurs had rolled on to his belly and was completely asleep now, his arms splayed in front of his head, one cheek pressed into the roughly cut grass, his eyelids fluttering in a dream. Ellen knelt down beside him and picked up one of the long, featherheaded grass shafts that she had missed with her rake. She dangled it over his ear.

  ‘If you keep doing that, I’ll be forced to kill you.’ He didn’t open his eyes or move.

  Ellen lifted the stem of grass and stared at it minutely. Then she dangled it an inch above his ear. ‘How would you kill me?’

  ‘Not sure. I certainly couldn’t scare you to death because you’re afraid of nothing.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’ She looked at him curiously, but his eyes remained closed.

  ‘I can just tell. You jump out of planes for fun.’ He rolled on to his back, pushing Alan Titchmarsh out of the way. ‘I might be able to bore you to death by reading gardening books aloud.’

  ‘Now, that scares me.’ She discarded the grass and lifted the book. As she did so, she spotted the horseshoe beneath it. She picked it up, running her fingers over the three twisted nails, suddenly on edge at the thought that he had been nosing around the house while she was away. ‘You found this?’

  He opened one eye. ‘I needed some empty pots, and there it was. I’ve never grown a horse from one myself, but adding a bit of compost might be an idea.’

  She turned the shoe around in her hand. ‘Was it you who left it outside the door on the night of the auction?’

  He straightened up and took it from her. ‘It’s your three wishes.’ Gripping one of the three nails with his fingers, he worked it out of its hole. ‘Here’s your first.’ He handed it to her. ‘You can give it back to me when I’ve granted it.’

  For a moment, as she took the nail, their eyes tangled and Ellen saw straight through the silver irises to a far more base metal, as twisted and unyielding as the one her fingers encircled.

  She tucked the nail into her back pocket and fanned her T-shirt. ‘I heard that horseshoes were your calling card.’

  He looked away, holding up the shoe to admire it. ‘This belonged to O’Malley, a big old Irish thoroughbred that could gallop all day. Long dead now. Who told you about the horseshoes?’

  ‘Pheely.’

  ‘Ah, the flower fairy herself.’ He sighed. ‘And I’ll bet she warned you to keep away from me too, didn’t she?’

  Ellen nodded.

  ‘So why didn’t you?’

  ‘I didn’t have much choice.’ She stood up, not wanting to talk about Pheely behind her back. ‘Lunch is ready.’

  Three children were hacking past on shiny, tail-twitching ponies as they settled at the table. ‘Afternoon!’ they cried, bobbing the handles of their crops.

  ‘Does the tourist board pay the kids around here?’ Ellen waved at them. ‘There’s more horse traffic than cars in this village.’

  ‘It’s the local passion – even I’ve been known to indulge sometimes.’ Spurs fetched two more beers from his cool-box. ‘If you grow up here, you wrap your bandy legs around ponies until you’re old enough to wrap them around each other.’

  Ellen peeled back the foil from the butter. It had melted to dark yellow liquid inside. ‘And do you still indulge?’

  ‘In horses or sex?’

  She looked up to meet his gaze as coolly as possible. ‘Riding.’

  ‘Not often. You?’

  ‘I’ve never been on a horse.’ She set the butter to one side and poured out two glasses of water, annoyed to see her hands shaking.

  ‘That’s one dangerous sport that never tempted you, huh?’ He reached for the olives.

  They were criss-crossing gazes now, silver and blue swordsmanship as their eyes met again and again in sweeping arcs.

  ‘I grew up by the sea. I prefer surf to turf.’

  ‘I could give you a lesson while you’re here – see if you like it. Mum’s hunters are all out at grass in Lincolnshire, but I’m sure we could borrow something.’

  ‘No, thanks.’ She looked away to stop her eyes flirting with his. ‘I’ll stick to riding waves.’ Guiltily she remembered her promises to herself that she would trek on horseback and join a camel caravan as a part of her world adventure. It seemed such a long way off. She’d barely started planning.

  ‘Round here, horses are just a part of growing up,’ he explained, helping himself to a forest of salad. ‘My cousin Rory and I spent our childhood racing all over the valley on the Welsh cobs his father bred.’

  ‘Do you have a lot of family around here?’

  ‘My aunts still live nearby but their kids have all moved on, apart from Rory.’ He reached for a hunk of bread. ‘He’s five years younger than me – runs a yard in Upper Springlode, and is as wild as his horses. He’s always been like a little brother, I guess.’

  ‘Do you have brothers and sisters of your own?’

  ‘No. I don’t think my parents took to sex. What about you?’

  Again, the double-entendre was deliberate and teasing. Again, Ellen prudishly ignored it and shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘I’ve always been grateful to have Rory knocking around.’ He spoke with his mouth full of bread. ‘Were you lonely growing up an only child?’

  ‘Not really. I always had a best friend – we’d stay at each other’s houses and stuff.’

  ‘You still keep in touch with them?’

  She thought about the friends past: Jackie Hemmings, who had married a computer programmer and still lived in Taunton; Emma Butt, who was doing VSO in Kenya; Katy Phillips, who had three daughters and a vast mortgage in Kent. And then there was Richard.

  ‘Not really. We grew apart.’ She shook up the vinaigrette. ‘What about you?

  ‘I changed school too often to make close friends.’ He tore angrily into his bread. ‘I had a good friend in the village when I was a kid but he – he’s long gone.’

  ‘Did he move away?’

  He looked out at the lane, watched the sun dancing on the leaves of the lime tree. ‘He had a lucky escape. The Lodes Valley’s a great place to be a young kid or an adult, but the bit in between is torture. The teenagers here go mad with boredom.’

  ‘So I gather.’

  He looked up sharply. ‘What did Pheely tell you?’

  ‘That you were uncontrollable,’ she said honestly. ‘That you put a lot of backs up and did a hell of a lot of bad things and were eventually drummed out of the village.’

  ‘I can’t imagine old Touchy putting it that succinctly. I bet she told you all about my wicked ways.’

  Ellen said nothing, her loyalty torn. Talking to Spurs was horribly easy, especially after too much beer and sunshine – she could see herself becoming woefully indiscreet in no time, matching his honesty. And she’d expected far more reticence from Pheely’s descriptions of a brooding, manipulative, angry monster. He surprised her.

  ‘Does she still hate me?’ he asked now.

  Ellen was finding this go-between role uncomfortable. ‘It’s not for me to say.’

  ‘Do you hate me?’ He made the question sound as casual as ‘Do you take milk?’

  ‘I hardly know you.’

  ‘You don’t have to know somebody well to hate them or like them – or even love them, for that matter.’ He helped himself to a slice of pâté, watching her face.

  She wondered how serious he was being. The silver eyes were playing with hers again. Hot goosebumps were popping up all over her skin, like the nettle rash coming back.

  ‘Then I love you,’ she said evenly. ‘I fell in love with you at first sight.’

  It was his turn to stare: he was completely thrown.

  Ellen ate a slice of tomato and smiled.

  ‘I love you too,’ he said eventually. ‘Would you pass the salt?’

  ‘Certainly.’ She handed it over.

  He grinned as he took it. ‘I’m so pleased somebody in this village loves me, apart from my mother. It’s such a comfort.’

  ‘Well, you
’re very lovable.’

  ‘I am, aren’t I?’

  This little patter brought their noses just a few inches apart across the table. Ellen bailed out first, tilted back in her chair and threw a piece of ham to Snorkel.

  ‘People here don’t believe I’ve changed,’ said Spurs. ‘The old guard in this village live in a time-warp.’

  ‘And have you changed?’

  ‘Yes – enormously. Totally.’ He sounded indignant. ‘It’s been more than a decade. I’m not the same person any more. I just wish they could see it.’

  ‘Maybe they hoped you’d come back wearing a Savile Row suit, with a Sloaney wife and a brace of toddlers?’ she suggested.

  He nodded and laughed. ‘Too right. I could set light to every building in the village now, spray-paint obscenities on the war memorial, smoke dope in the River Folly all day and shag the vicar’s teenage daughters just so long as I drove a Volvo and had a respectable job in the City. But I’ll never be Giles Hornton.’

  She grinned, understanding where he was coming from. And, talking to him like this, she was certain that Pheely would understand, too, if she were here. He was brusque and forthright, but his honesty and charm were easy to like.

  ‘Perhaps I can ask Pheely here for a drink one evening?’ she suggested. ‘I’m sure she’ll see how much you’ve changed.’

  His eyes flashed in warning. ‘I don’t think that’s such a great idea.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘She’s not known as Touchy Pheely because of her bear-hugs and love of kissing and making up,’ he muttered. ‘She’s always been over-sensitive. Of them all, she’s the least likely ever to forgive me.’

  Remembering the way Pheely had giggled about Spurs’ teenage antics, Ellen wanted to argue, but this was overshadowed by a very bleak truth. To her surprise, Spurs ’fessed up without prompting, dark brows curling together as he studied her across the table. ‘You know I vandalised her father’s sculptures?’

  She nodded. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’d drunk a hell of a lot of vodka. I guess I was angry that he’d died and left me behind. And I was angry that the bitch hadn’t invited me to the funeral – the village and the art world flocked into Oddlode church and I wasn’t allowed to say goodbye. I fucking worshipped him – he was one of the few who understood me. But they kept dying. First my grandmother, then Norman, then . . .’ He scratched his chin, stopping himself before he got too wound up, looking up at Ellen with an apologetic smile. ‘I’ve never stopped regretting what I did. You do believe me?’

  ‘I believe you.’

  ‘And you trust me?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And you still love me?’

  ‘Don’t push it.’

  He grinned, but his eyes stayed sad and wary. ‘There’s no point asking Pheely’s forgiveness.’

  ‘Have you ever tried?’

  ‘Who was it said you should try everything but incest and Morris dancing?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I like his style.’

  ‘He should have added “and building bridges in Oddlode”.’ He looked at her for a long time as he chewed at a hunk of bread, silver eyes assessing her, apparently, for sincerity. Then he laid down the bread and sat back in his chair, dusting crumbs from his freckled chest. ‘When I was inside, I saw the guys in group therapy trying to appease their guilt by building bridges, but it never helped their victims as far as I can tell. The damage is already done. It’s best to leave them alone to rebuild their lives. Your friend Pheely, in common with a great many people I pissed off in my teens, doesn’t want to forgive me for the way I was – and they have every right not to. And I’ve never asked their forgiveness because I didn’t ever think I’d come back here.’

  ‘So why did you?’

  ‘It’s complicated.’ He looked away, screwing up one eye, then laughed. ‘You like to get to the heart of things, don’t you?’

  ‘You’re the one talking from it.’ She watched him, and knew as soon as she’d said it that it had been a mistake.

  The laugh gathered force, with a delighted whoop. ‘Didn’t Pheely tell you? I have no heart. I can assure you, I’m talking from an entirely different part of my anatomy – and so are you. Watching your lips move has been the highlight of my morning.’

  Ellen felt her face colour, but she knew too many bad boys to react prudishly. If he’d grown bored with her interrogation and wanted to spar, she could do that. Outwitting and outshocking her was the point of the game, and she wasn’t about to let him win. ‘In that case, forgive me for not sitting on your face to whisper this in your ear. Sod . . . right . . . off.’

  She could see that he was thoroughly enjoying the confrontation. ‘But I thought you loved me?’

  ‘I thought you loved me until you told me I talked out of my arse.’

  ‘I could listen to you all day. Do you talk in your sleep too?’

  ‘Like a trumpet.’

  It was childish, scatological stuff, yet they might have been swapping epigrams in their clipped, light tone. It was only the undertone that got more fiercely competitive and dirty by the moment.

  ‘I gather trumpeters have a novel way of muting their instruments.’ The silver eyes were shot through with pure wickedness now.

  ‘Oh, yes?’ Ellen could guess where this was going. She knew she should stop, but that would be conceding defeat.

  ‘They like to find something long and hard and insert it carefully.’

  ‘I never mute.’

  ‘Not even on a first date?’

  ‘Especially not then.’

  He leaned across the table, dropping his voice to a whisper. ‘Did you talk in your sleep last night?’

  Ellen stared at him, wondering if he was referring to Lloyd. ‘If I did, then I was talking to myself.’

  ‘I’d love to mute you some time.’

  ‘You’d find yourself mutilated in return.’

  ‘I respond much better to a finger pressed lightly to my lips.’ He popped an olive into his mouth.

  God, he was pushing it, she thought. But she wasn’t about to give up. ‘And I prefer to be licked on the nose.’

  ‘Did your handsome friend lick you on the nose last night?’

  ‘No, he pecked me on the cheek.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t all four.’

  ‘Did you want him to lick you on the nose?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can you lick your own nose?’

  ‘I’ve never tried.’

  ‘Try it now.’ His voice was loaded with meaning as the olive pip slid from cheek to cheek, silver eyes cornering hers, imagining he was at checkmate.

  With an easy smile, she poked out her tongue, stretched it upwards and dabbed her nose.

  ‘That,’ Spurs said very slowly, ‘was not what I meant when I said, “Try it.”’

  ‘That,’ she told him, ‘is because the sun was shining so brightly out of your – mouth when you said it, I was blinded.’

  ‘And you should wash yours out with soap and water.’ He didn’t blink. ‘I’ll happily do it for you.’

  ‘As a public schoolboy and an ex con, I’m sure you’ll understand why I wouldn’t trust you with my bar of soap.’ This time she was determined not to bow down from the staring match.

  The silver eyes widened in admiration. ‘I could use a cold shower right now.’

  She refused to let the hot-metal eyes burn hers into submission. They watched her for a long time, gradually losing their mischief and playfulness until they misted over to a dull pewter.

  ‘Stop it.’

  He said it so quietly that she thought she’d misheard. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Stop it.’

  ‘Stop what?’

  ‘Making me want to take you to bed.’ He looked away, conceding defeat.

  Ellen opened her mouth and closed it again, heart thudding. She’d asked for that. It was, she realised, exactly what she’d wanted to hear when she was playing the gam
e, too competitive to care about the consequences. Victory made her feel charged from head to toe with static and fear. Her trophy for knowing how to flirt with X-factor was tarnished. He’d thrust it at her angrily, and she dropped it at their feet.

  He tapped his finger against the table, watching it move, no longer talking from the heart or anywhere else.

  They ate in silence, this time uncomfortable and prickly, the heat making the food droop and the wasps swarm. Ellen guessed she’d blown her chance of an easy friendship by flirting.

  ‘Where do you go after this place is sold?’ he asked eventually, lighting a cigarette, his mood ten shades darker than it had been minutes earlier.

  ‘Overseas – travelling for a few months, maybe longer.’ She didn’t look him in the eye, but was grateful that the silence had been broken at last. ‘I want to get to Mongolia and Tibet, and maybe China before too many package tours head there.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Yup.’ She gave him a ‘so what?’ look and he half smiled, but the tension remained.

  ‘I travelled for a couple of years.’

  ‘After . . . ?’

  ‘Yes, I thought I’d take a gap year after prison,’ he snapped witheringly. ‘There are some places you can still go with a criminal record. Half the guys in Cirque de Phénomène were junkies, murderers and wife-beaters. I was small fry.’

  Ellen blinked at him in surprise. ‘You were with Cirque de Phénomène?’

  He nodded warily. ‘You’ve heard of it?’

  ‘I loved it – Richard and I saw a show in Barcelona. It was wild. What did you do?’

  ‘Rode nags – cleaned up their shit, drove an artic, shagged a lot.’

  Ellen’s awe rose above the awkwardness and she pressed her hands to her hot cheeks excitedly. Cirque de Phénomène was a huge cult on the continent, a wild, anarchic underground circus made up of freak acts, dangerous stunts and a lot of rock-and-roll. It travelled in a huge, ever-changing hippie band, and was legendary for its wild characters, its in-fighting and clashes with the authorities of every country it visited. As far as she knew, no venue in Great Britain had ever hosted the rabble-rousing crew of bikers, horsemen, knife-eaters and fire-dancers.