by Unknown
Ellen kicked off her shoes and waded in to her ankles. ‘I thought you wanted to forget about the wishes?’
‘We can’t forget. That’s why we’re here. A promise is a promise.’
‘Okay.’ Ellen licked her lips, still tasting his mouth on hers. ‘I wish you’d tell me what it is you’ve agreed to do that’s making you so fucked up.’
‘That’s not a proper wish.’ He bobbed around in the water. ‘That’s therapy.’
‘And?’
‘And I told you, you’ve got to solve the riddle. Dissolve the riddle.’
Ellen pulled her sweaty hair from her face and huffed in frustration.
She waded back out, and stalked around the pond with her arms folded against her chest, boiling hot and longing to plunge in too. The sun, even redder now, made the pond look like molten lava. ‘Don’t be so bloody obtuse.’
‘Are you going to make a proper wish?’
‘No,’ she snapped, reaching boiling point. ‘I’ll take the six pounds sixty-six pence.’
‘Six six six. How apt. I’ll have to write you a cheque.’
‘Will you sign it “Beast”?’ She matched his coolness, wishing he’d put up more of a fight.
‘I’ll sign it “love from Beast”,’ he floated into some reeds, ‘with three crosses – one for every time we’ve kissed.’ He waited, watching her across the red water.
Ellen tried to stop her heartbeat jazz free-styling. She had to concentrate very, very hard not to blow her refund by wishing that he would kiss her again. ‘What’s zero point six six six?’ she asked, resorting to her favourite ardour-cooling pastime.
‘Do tell.’
‘The number of the millibeast.’ She crossed her arms and kicked water from her trainers. ‘One six hundred and sixty sixth?’
‘Enlighten me.’
‘The common denominator of the beast.’
‘What’s the binary of the beast?’ he mocked.
‘One . . . zero . . . one . . . zero . . . zero . . .’ she screwed up her face in concentration ‘. . . one . . . one –’
‘Christ, I wish I’d brought my chequebook with me.’ He started to backstroke out of the reeds, wincing as he found it hurt.
‘. . . zero . . . one . . . zero!’ she finished victoriously. ‘Now do I get my money back?’
‘Maybe. But I still want my massage. My shoulder’s killing me.’
‘Sure.’
‘Can I have it tomorrow? Before you go?’ he teased.
‘If you like.’ She stared out across the valley and noticed that the raincloud was dumping its contents on Oddlode now.
With a great splash, Spurs stood up, water pouring from his clothes as he waded out. ‘You do realise that if you touch my skin, I’ll get third-degree burns.’
‘I’ll wear oven gloves.’
He stood close to her, turning to watch the distant rain too. ‘I’ll come round tomorrow, then.’
‘I have people viewing the house all day,’ she said, avoiding his gaze.
‘I’ll wait till they’re gone.’
She stole a glance across at him. He was ridiculously wet and smiling. ‘What’s so amusing?’
‘You know we’ll end up in bed.’
‘No, we won’t.’
‘Try to stop yourself.’
The door to Rory’s tumbledown cottage was locked, the key still under the pot where he always left it when he was out. Spurs checked on the horses while Ellen went in search of Rory, looking in the tackroom and the horsebox, trying to stop her heart beating between her legs and relocate it to the usual place.
‘No sign.’ She met Spurs at the edge of the tatty stable-block. ‘He must have gone back to the pub.’
He shook his head. ‘He was so nervous about seeing Dilly, he was already caned when we arrived. You saw him, he could hardly walk. We must have missed him on the way over here. He’ll have keeled over somewhere.’
‘Who lives there?’ Ellen gestured to a rusting caravan behind a huge manure pile.
‘Sharrie the groom. She’s out.’
The windows were steamed up. Listening carefully, they could hear groaning.
When they made their way closer, it was obvious that Sharrie had stayed at home after all. Through a dusty, steamed-up window, a pale muscular bottom was bobbing up and down. To either side lolled Sharrie’s mottled thighs.
‘He might not be able to walk, but he’s certainly managing to fuck,’ Spurs said dispassionately.
At his shoulder, Ellen tried desperately not to stare, but it was impossible.
However squalid and unloving, the sight of two people connected together shot a great jolt into her already electric pelvis. She could tell that Spurs was feeling exactly the same hot, angry excitement as he watched beside her.
When she turned to walk away, he grabbed her and twisted her back to face him. ‘Don’t be too hard on him. He doesn’t think he’s good enough for Dilly – which he probably isn’t. Imagine that as an introduction to sexual pleasure.’
Given that Richard had always demonstrated a very similar technique to Rory, Ellen said nothing, pulled away and headed back to the pub as fast as possible, hating herself for her grubby thrills and for the seething jealousy that told her Spurs planned to break Dilly in far more gently.
He lit a cigarette and followed at a distance, dripping water all the way as he scanned the sky again.
In the window-seat of the Plough, the bottle of champagne had been drained and replaced by a bottle of house white – all Dilly could afford with the ten pounds she’d brought with her. She and Pheely were absolutely plastered and laughing like drains.
‘There you are. Take a pew.’ Pheely waved her arm around. ‘We were just talking about you.’
‘Where’s Godspell?’
‘Disappeared in a puff of smoke,’ Pheely said airily. ‘People to see, places to go. Where are the boys? Have you eaten them?’
She and Dilly dissolved into giggles, and Ellen got the uncomfortable feeling that she had just been dissected. On closer inspection, Pheely had clearly been working her way through the wine by herself while Dilly drained pint after pint of tap water in a bid to sober up and keep the nausea at bay. The tactics had brought mother and daughter to identical levels of giggliness.
‘Rory had a horse to – er – see to at the yard.’ Ellen wished she knew more about horses so that she could lie better. ‘Spurs is helping him.’
‘Should I go and help too?’ Dilly offered, swaying as she stood up.
‘No need.’ Spurs sauntered in. ‘Just a touch of colic. He’s keeping an eye. Says he’s sorry to bail out, but he had to get the bales out to feed the beasts.’
‘Darling! Did you get caught in the rain again? You’re all wet.’ Pheely was wickedly magnanimous. ‘Come and sit next to me and tell me what you’ve been up to all these years. When you were a toddler,’ she told Dilly, ‘Spurs used to read you fairytales.’
‘He’s not that old,’ Dilly snorted in disbelief.
‘Oh, I am.’ Spurs looked at Ellen. ‘My favourite was The Little Mermaid.’
‘Talking of which, you’re absolutely soaked through!’ Pheely jumped away as he settled beside her. ‘I’d no idea it was raining that hard.’
‘It isn’t.’ He carried on looking at Ellen. ‘I just needed to cool off.’
‘I might walk home.’ She dragged her eyes away and smiled apologetically at Dilly and her mother. ‘It’s a beautiful evening now, and I’ve got an early start.’
‘We’ll all go!’ Pheely insisted, terrified at the thought of policing Dilly and Spurs on her own.
‘I’ll bring the car round,’ said Spurs, clearly thinking the same.
As soon as they reached Goose Cottage, Pheely remembered Hamlet. ‘Oh, the poor darling! Let’s give him a run in the garden and we can share that bottle of wine.’ She was clearly eager to spin out the evening. ‘Spurs?’
‘I’ll pass.’ He and Ellen lifted the moped from the back while Dilly droo
ped on the verge, yawning widely. ‘And, besides, I think this poor kid is bushed.’ He winked at Ellen, leaving her uncertain whether he was referring to her or Dilly.
‘You’re right,’ Pheely blustered, as easily offended as ever. ‘I’m obviously boring you all to death. I’ll just get the Dane and take Dilly home.’ As soon as Hamlet exploded from the kitchen like a huge harlequin missile, Pheely scuttled away guiltily, dragging her moped creakily with her, trailed by the yawning Dilly.
Spurs slammed the tailgate closed and turned to Ellen. ‘Tomorrow?’
She nodded, watching his face warily through the gloom, wondering what his secrets were.
Suddenly his teeth flashed white as he smiled. ‘You don’t want to know.’
Ellen tilted her head curiously and concentrated her mind on an image of the sea to test whether he really could read her thoughts.
He couldn’t. When he stepped forward, she realised that he was planning to kiss her, and hastily moved her face to one side so that he had to peck her cheek. Then, in a curiously unexpected gesture, he reached out and rubbed her shoulder comfortingly before he turned and got back into the Land Rover.
She started to move to the house, then spun around. ‘Why did you change your mind about our promises?’ she asked. ‘About keeping away from me.’
He looked at her for a long time. ‘You know the saying “Out of sight, out of mind”?’ he said eventually.
She nodded, and jumped as the engine started with a diesel roar.
‘Well, it should be “Out of sight, out of your mind”,’ he shouted, finding first gear. ‘Try to think of a wish. I hate giving refunds.’
As he drove the short distance to the manor, headlights flashing behind her neighbours’ houses and between trees, Ellen threw the ball for Snorkel and did her now customary patrol of bushes and borders for Fins, then put out some food for him. She heard Spurs cut the engine in the distance, imagined him shouldering open the big black door and bounding up to bed.
Then, in the secluded gloom of the lower slopes of the garden, she stripped to her underwear and waded into the pond to float on her back, letting the cool water lap over her hot skin as she watched a sliver of new moon drift in and out of the clouds. ‘I wish,’ she breathed, ‘that soulmates really existed.’
By the time she went back to the house, it was anthracite dark. The horseshoe sat on the front step. The first wish nail was missing; the second had been prised from its hole and was lying on the step, ready to be exchanged.
Ellen’s decision to go out for a run while Poppy showed the first of the day’s potential buyers around Goose Cottage on Sunday morning was not a wise one, as it turned out. She pounded out of the gates with Snorkel at her heels and set off past the bright red Golf straight into the oncoming path of Giles Hornton. ‘You decided to join me today!’ He beamed, and sucked the sweat that was already forming on his moustache as he jogged on the spot.
‘No – yes. That is, I’m headed in the opposite direction.’ She indicated the bridleway, knowing that Giles always jogged along the village lanes towards the church.
‘Make a nice change going off-road.’ He did an about-turn. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take it easy so that you can keep up.’
‘Sure.’ Ellen blasted off and he tripped hurriedly after her.
Behind, and struggling to keep pace, Giles was soon far too puffed out to strike up a conversation, but was more than compensated by the glorious view of Ellen’s bottom.
The morning mist had yet to burn out of the valley bowl, but the sun was already glowing warmly through it as Ellen ran along the grassy stripe between the two tractor-wheel furrows, still sticky in places from that week’s rain. Crows flapped out of ripening barley as she passed an open gateway, and Snorkel dived in and out of the ditches to either side of the track, covering her piebald coat in grass seeds and hogwort pollen.
She was high above the valley by the time she eased off, more for Snorkel’s sake than her own. Yesterday’s sprint up Springlode Hill had pumped up her energy levels and loosened her legs. She turned to look back at the hazy village as she stretched away the small cramps and saw Giles a hundred yards below, weaving all over the place as he broke through the pain barrier. Further in the distance, a horse was crossing the grassed bridge over the Odd, leaping in excitement at the prospect of a gallop. As soon as it drew level with the River Folly, its rider loosened the reins and they exploded forward.
She watched, entranced, as the horse streaked up the wide track, catching up with Giles so quickly that he seemed to be going backwards. Had he not stumbled into a hedge, the horse would have cannoned straight into him as it charged past at high speed, spooking at Giles’s shiny red running shorts, which poked out of the willowherb, and letting out a series of squealing bucks, pink rump skipping into the air and black hooves sending up clouds of dust.
Ellen knew only one horse with such acute fashion sense that it had a coat in this season’s must-have shade.
Spurs reined Otto to a halt a few yards from her. ‘Are you okay?’ he called breathlessly. ‘I saw that old bastard following you.’
‘We’re running together,’ Ellen explained, trying not to laugh.
‘Oh.’ He looked over his shoulder as Giles picked himself out of the hedge. ‘In that case, watch him – he has a bloody awful reputation.’
This time she did laugh, and he had the grace to spot the joke, the silver eyes creasing as he looked away. Still blowing hard from his exertions, Otto threw up his head in alarm as Giles started to stumble along the track again, calling, ‘It’s okay – no harm done. Wait there!’
Ellen stepped forward to pat Otto’s hot neck and scratch his shoulder, her hand tantalisingly close to Spurs’ thigh. Her goosebumps were developing a dance routine now, moving around on her skin like bubbles in a river.
‘Hop on,’ Spurs offered suddenly, holding out a hand.
‘Don’t be daft.’ She glanced up at him, as hot-headed temptation tried to squeeze her heart out between her ribs.
‘We could be in Broken Back Wood in ten minutes.’
‘Or I could have a broken back in two.’ She watched Giles panting the last fifty yards.
‘Let’s make the beast with two backs,’ he whispered, making the bubbling goosebumps rush excitedly up and down her spine and between her legs.
‘Back off,’ she muttered. ‘You owe me a back-dated cheque signed “Beast”, remember?’
He laughed. Beneath him, Otto stamped a front leg and bobbed his head. ‘My shoulder’s killing me.’ He rolled his neck. ‘Can you make it better?’
She nodded.
‘Good – I’ll come round at about six. Don’t dress up. In fact, don’t dress at all.’ He gathered up his reins, and kicked Otto away in a canter just before Giles reached them.
‘Bloody idiot tried to kill me,’ he gasped. ‘D’you see that? He ran me off the path.’
‘Yes, it was close,’ Ellen said vaguely, watching Otto thunder away.
‘He wasn’t bothering you, was he, my dear?’ Giles removed fronds of hawthorn blossom from his moustache before clutching his knees to catch his breath.
‘No – I’m fine.’ Ellen fanned her T-shirt and watched the pink horse disappear into the mist.
‘Good job I was here. Hate to think what might have happened had Belling encountered you alone up here. He has a bloody awful reputation.’ He glanced up at her, his leathery forehead creased. ‘What’s so funny?’
‘Nothing.’ She kicked her trainer into a clump of dandelion clocks and sent up a little puff of lost time. Had Giles not been around, she suspected she and Spurs would be flattening that clump right now.
‘Bad enough having the bastard rolling up my drive every day to ride the Gentlys’ horse without him mowing me down. Poor Ophelia is in a terrible stage. Apparently he’s making a dead-set for Dilly.’
‘Is he?’ Ellen kicked another feathery clock.
‘Awful business – of course, you wouldn’t know, being an ou
tsider.’ As he got his breath back he managed a more intimate tone. ‘Such a shame we’re not going to have you here for long. You do brighten the place up.’ He made her sound like decorative bunting.
‘What do you mean “awful business”?’ Ellen asked.
‘Best not talked about.’ Giles flashed his teeth; clearly deeming whatever it was far too macabre for Ellen’s pretty little head and likely to ruin his chances of some sunny flirtation. ‘Jolly attractive spot, this.’ He sniffed. ‘We must bring a picnic up here some time. What are your plans this week?’
Ellen definitely didn’t want to go there. ‘Pretty busy, I’m afraid. Have you recovered enough to run on?’
He pulled up his T-shirt to rub his hot face, revealing a very tanned, hairy midriff with a staunchly controlled middle-aged porn-star six-pack that was clearly intended to make her go weak at the knees. When he looked up again, the blue eyes were on the seductive attack and he edged closer. ‘It’s not wise to start out so fast. You’ll blow up before you’ve got into a rhythm. Much better to take it slow, allow recovery time and enjoy the view.’
They loped a little further at barely more than a walk, frustrating Snorkel who was accustomed to Ellen at full pelt.
‘Wonderful for working up an appetite, running.’ Giles huffed alongside her. ‘How about a spot of lunch in a pub later?’
‘Sorry, I have people looking around the house all day.’
‘Supper?’
‘I have plans.’
‘Another time.’ He smiled his big-seducer smile. ‘You really are a ravishing creature.’
‘Thanks.’ She put in a burst of acceleration to escape the cheesy lines, but Giles had found his rhythm and was getting into his stride.
‘I have a Jacuzzi at home. Great way to cool off after a jog.’
‘I’m sure.’