by Unknown
Ellen couldn’t hold the stare for more than a few seconds. ‘I must go – let me know how much I owe you for the meal,’ she said. ‘And treat Dilly gently.’ She was so wound up that she didn’t even notice Pheely’s teenage indulgence slip out. Ignoring his shouts, she sprinted along Giles’s drive.
Snorkel positively bungeed her lunge rope in the Goose Cottage garden a few minutes later when Spurs dragged the unwilling Otto into the garden and up to the pond, into which Ellen was staring with murderous intent.
‘I won’t grant your wish. I’m not taking Dilly anywhere, Ellen.’
She opened her mouth and closed it again. Something about his expression told her not to say a word.
‘You can be so blindly, stupidly selfless, you know that?’ he said angrily, loosening Otto to let him graze. ‘I bet you gave all your toys away as a kid, let the losers win to make them feel better, had friends you only kept up because you felt sorry for them, and let the ugly boys kiss you because you knew no one else would put up with it.’
She felt numb with shock that he could sum her up so cruelly and succinctly. ‘If you say so.’
‘Was that why you stayed with Richard all those years? Out of kindness?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ She took a step back, but he marked her, cornering her by the bulrushes.
‘Maybe not,’ his eyes narrowed, ‘but let me tell you something as your newest “friend” – one who you no doubt feel sorry for because I have no others in this fucking village. You’re a brave, sassy woman, Ellen, but you won’t get round the world on kindness. You’ll be mugged for it everywhere you go. You’ll keep meeting bastards like me who fall in love with you for your kindness as much as that beautiful arse, and will want to steal it away from you.’
‘I doubt that.’ She laughed hollowly. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever meet anyone like you again in my life.’
As she started to walk away, he called after her. ‘I won’t grant your wish, but I will treat Dilly to her posh nosh. I just won’t be there in person. Rory can do it.’
She turned around. ‘That’s not what I wished for.’
‘Dilly is mad about Rory, Ellen – he’s all she ever talks about and vice versa.’
‘But I thought . . .’
‘That she was mad about me? No, she just got caught up in your enthusiasm because you’re so bloody gorgeous she wants to be exactly like you.’ He leaned back against Otto. ‘And you are mad about me, just like I’m mad about you.’
Ellen felt every vertebra in her spine exchange a high five. ‘You’re mad about me?’
He nodded. ‘I’m a thief. I covet what I can’t have. And I can’t have you, so I decided to steal your kindness as a memento.’
She cocked her head and blinked, torn between anger and fascination. ‘Explain.’
‘I think Dilly is very pretty, but she’s just a kid. And Saturday night certainly wasn’t the hot double date Pheely thought it was. Rory’s banned from driving right now so he asked my help to get them together – she is obviously nuts about him too, the foolish child. I was simply the free taxi. And Godspell had to get out from under her overprotective father’s nose to catch up with her dealer, so she tagged along.’
Ellen’s eyes boggled. ‘What does that make you? Robin Reliant Hood?’
He gave a brittle laugh. ‘They call me the wild Land Rover.’
‘Oh, shit.’ She covered her mouth. ‘You mean I was giving Dilly lots of encouragement over you and it was Rory she preferred all along?’ Playing back the conversation she’d had with Dilly earlier, she suddenly suspected that she hadn’t been talking about Spurs at all. ‘Poor thing. I must have really confused her.’
‘Poor bloody Rory.’ Spurs patted Otto’s neck. ‘He was nervous enough before Dilly started spouting lyrical about your prediction that she was my bloody soulmate. No wonder he fled into Sharrie’s arms. I looked like such a fucking cad after that, and all I wanted to do was spread a bit of loving like my guardian garden angel. I had no idea you’d already been laying it on with a trowel about the reformed-rake business.’
Ellen hung her head. ‘I didn’t mean to interfere.’
‘Yes, you did,’ he said, but not unkindly. ‘This isn’t some fairy tale you can manipulate to give us all happy endings before you fly off on your star-encrusted white-witch broomstick. I was never destined to be Dilly’s gent. She and Rory will probably get it together with or without anyone’s help this summer – he’ll break her hymen then her heart before she heads off to university to meet a nice middle-class boy, sell the Lodge and move to London. Meanwhile, Rory stays behind to shag his grooms and drink himself to death by forty. It’s all predetermined. Life is more of a pantomime than a fairy tale when you think about it.’ The voice was getting more clipped and disdainful.
‘You don’t really believe that?’ she asked.
‘I believe in fate. You can’t change the script, but that’s no reason not to stage it differently. All your wish needs is a cast shuffle. Rory will never be Prince Charming, but at least he can press all the right buttons to start Dilly off. They just require a little help from the wings. I’ll keep him sober if you keep her calm.’
‘We can’t go too,’ she yelped.
‘I’m not suggesting we do.’ He checked Otto’s girth. ‘But they’re going to need a lift to this “sophisticated” restaurant.’
‘I’ll pay for a cab.’
‘No, you won’t. You’ll drive them, Fairy Godmother.’
‘It’s my wish.’
‘Not any more. You’re hopeless at wishes.’
Ellen started to laugh despite herself. ‘And what will you do while I’m driving the coach and foreplay, Squire Hard-on?’
He looked at her sharply. ‘Why did you call me that?’
She watched his face, her laugh instantly put out. A muscle was twitching tiredly under his eye and his cheeks were hollow. His snappishness worried her, like a rattling lid on a pan of boiling oil that was about to ignite and burn the house down. Neither of them was finding it easy to run in the new friendship shoes, but Spurs was sprinting away and dragging her along in an awkward, unnatural three-legged race.
‘Just something I heard.’
He looked at her for a long time. ‘I’ll come too.’
‘Is that wise? Won’t your mother disapprove?’
His eyes flashed a warning, but then he smiled. ‘I’ll shimmy down the drainpipe after my lights-out curfew.’ Something about his tone told her that he wasn’t entirely joking as he stepped into the stirrup and mounted. ‘I think we might manage a friendly drink if we try really hard.’ He looked down at her. ‘In fact, you owe me supper.’
Remembering the abandoned Chinese, Ellen looked away. ‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea.’
‘Afraid I’ll squander all of your camel-trekking money on calamari and chips?’
‘What if “us” happens?’
‘There is no us.’ He rode Otto towards the gates. ‘Get Dilly geared up for Wednesday – I’ll find out where Rory wants to take her. Make out that it’s coming from him, for Christ’s sake.’ He stifled a yawn, and Ellen following behind realised that he couldn’t have slept much if he’d driven to and from London to spend the night talking to the family uncle who’d given him treasures and pearls of wisdom.
‘We can have a last supper.’ He smiled down at her. ‘A first-date last supper. Your treat.’
She leaned back against the gatepost as Otto exploded past her, knowing that she would have put up a far greater fight had Spurs not been prancing around on a horse.
And yet she still couldn’t leave it there. ‘Spurs!’
Otto pirouetted on the spot, but the silver eyes didn’t leave hers.
‘Why did you go to London?’
‘To fetch my jewelled manacle before it ends up intestate. It’s very pretty. It could have been yours.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I asked you to marry me, remember?’
/> ‘You were joking.’
‘Was I?’ He and Otto set off along the lane at a thundering trot, sending up sparks in their wake.
Pheely was admiring the UNDER OFFER sticker that had already been plastered on to the Day-Fox sign outside Goose Cottage, a huge bunch of irises in her arms. ‘Pixie brought them round – aren’t they divine? I thought you’d like some to help set the place off, but it seems I’m too late.’ She thrust them at Ellen. ‘Sorry I was a bit of a cow yesterday. Mind you, I think I swung the sale, huh? People love villages with lots of sex scandals going on.’
Ellen smiled wanly. ‘You were magnificent. But they’re not buying it – someone else is.’
‘Really?’ Pheely, who would have been agog at any other time, seemed barely to care. ‘Now, tell me about Spurs. Was it origami galore?’
‘Not worth the paper.’
‘Really? But I’ve heard he’s huge, my dear.’
‘It didn’t happen.’
‘God, how awful – had he drunk too much?’
‘Helloooo there!’
Ellen looked up as Hunter Gardner bustled up, twirling his walking-stick at the prospect of new blood. ‘I see it’s gawn off the market at last. Anyone I know?’
‘Lovely couple. They run Balinese-trance workshops,’ she snapped. ‘I hope to catch one before I leave – apparently you get to bite the head off a live chicken. Excuse me.’ She stormed inside.
‘Not enough sex,’ Pheely told Hunter cheerfully, before heading home to break the news of the sale to Dilly.
‘He really wants to take me out for a meal? Just the two of us?’
Ellen nodded. She and Dilly were sitting on Bevis’s bench eating a Zoom and an M and M Cornetto respectively.
‘Wow.’ A very pink tongue delved around the wafer rim. ‘That’s really cool. Isn’t it?’
‘Yeah. Really cool.’
‘Wow.’
She didn’t sound quite as enthusiastic as Ellen had hoped. ‘Are you still in a bad mood with me?’
‘No! No.’ Dilly nudged her to show they were mates again.
‘You do want to go for a night out with Rory, don’t you?’
‘Yes! Totally. Absolutely. It’s just . . .’
‘Just what?’
Dilly stared at the pond, watching the ducks craning round to clean their feathers. ‘Will it be a very smart restaurant?’
‘I’m not sure where he wants to take you. I should think so.’
‘I’m a vegetarian – well, I eat fish, but not anything with eyes that look at you.’
‘I’m sure they’ll have vegetarian options – and fish dishes without stary eyes.’
‘Oh.’ Dilly was still looking worried. ‘Will there be lots of people there?’
‘I don’t know. Depends how popular it is.’
‘Only Rory gets intimidated by crowds, and very posh places. His mother used to take him along to very smart society dos when he was younger and it freaked him out. He can’t stand anything pompous. I’d hate him to take me somewhere really smart just because he thinks it’ll impress me. I’d rather he was relaxed.’
‘I’m sure he’ll find somewhere cosy,’ she promised, looking out over the roofs of the old chapel triangle towards the Hillcote shank of the valley, where the rape-fields had returned to green having lost their flowers, and the butterscotch gold of the ripening wheat now formed new layers in the terrine.
‘The thing is,’ Dilly went on, ‘Rory called me just after I saw you. His phone’s been reconnected. He was so sweet – he said I wasn’t rude to him at all. And he suggested tomorrow night in the Plough without – er – so many people. He didn’t mention anything about a restaurant on Wednesday.’
‘Oh? I must have got the wrong end of the stick.’ Ellen blushed furiously. The one thing she and Spurs hadn’t accounted for was Rory using his own initiative.
‘I’d still appreciate a lift if that’s okay.’
‘Sure.’
‘And will you lend me something to wear again?’
‘Of course. Come round early and I’ll sort stuff out for you to try.’
‘Thanks.’ Dilly pressed the last hollow inches of her Cornetto to her nose. ‘Sorry I was so horrid to you.’
‘Don’t worry about it. I’m glad you were. I needed to talk to Spurs.’
‘Rory says he’s acting really funny.’
‘In what way?’
‘Dunno – he didn’t say.’ She crossed her eyes looking at the wafer cone. ‘He doesn’t say a lot. I like that about him. Spurs is far too talkative, and I can never tell when he’s being serious. I thought he was totally amazing at first, but I don’t fancy him half as much as Rory now. And I’ve had a bit of an idea.’ She pressed the little cone to her lips and looked at Ellen coyly. ‘Can I tell you it?’
‘Fire away.’
‘Mum . . . and Spurs!’ she announced, with a flourish. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think – well, I don’t know what to think, really.’ Ellen reeled.
‘It’s perfect, isn’t it? Now that she’s forgiven him – oh, I know she’s still a bit edgy about it, but you’ve done the most amazing thing getting them talking, Ellen – they should maybe go out to dinner or something romantic and see what happens. Perhaps you could suggest it and give them a lift tomorrow night too?’
‘That might be a bit soon,’ Ellen stalled, trying frantically to think of a good reason to put a stop to Dilly’s thinking.
‘Maybe.’ She crumbled her cone and threw it for the ducks. ‘But it’s still a fantastic idea, don’t you think? You could say something. It would just sound silly coming from me.’
‘It would sound equally silly coming from me, I can assure you.’
‘No, it wouldn’t. They knew each other as children – Grandpa adored Spurs. I think Mum secretly fancies him, and you saw how desperate he was for her to forgive him on Saturday. He even used to read fairy tales to me as a little girl. Can you imagine a double wedding?’
Ellen closed her eyes and smiled. ‘In a fairy tale, maybe.’
‘So, will you say something?’
‘I’ll think about it.’
‘Are you walking back to Goose Cottage?’ Dilly asked.
‘Not just yet.’ Ellen opened her eyes. ‘I’ll hang on here for a bit. Got some of that thinking to do.’
She watched Dilly wander away across the green, so beautiful and fresh-faced and full of vigour.
‘So much for playing fairy godmother.’ She sighed, patting Bevis’s bench. ‘I bet you’d rather have gone to a pub with a girl at your age, wouldn’t you?’ Chatting to his bench always reminded her of being seventeen or eighteen, as though her years with Richard hadn’t run away with her until she’d found herself almost thirty and no more romantically experienced than a teenager.
She picked one of his shady daisies and plucked idly at the petals, wondering if Spurs would still want the friendly meal. Her remaining days in Oddlode stretched out ahead of her like the empty boxes she had to pack for her parents, hollow and only to be filled with nostalgia and regret. What she wouldn’t give to have the sea and the waves nearby, to be able to grab her board and spend her days racing the surf.
Not wanting to go back to the empty cottage, she unhooked Snorkel’s lead and headed along the lane towards Hillcote, intending to buy some more strawberries from the market garden as a present for Hunter Gardner to apologise for being so rude. Her mother would never forgive such belligerence towards the neighbour who had been her stalwart chum for over a decade.
Just as the pavement gave way to wide verges laced with cow parsley on the outskirts of the village, Ellen spotted Reg Wyck’s pick-up roaring along the lane towards her, with Fluffy snarling manically in the back. At the wheel was Saul, nodding his head to the loud drum ’n’ bass track belting out of the stereo.
Ellen pulled down her baseball cap in a hopeless attempt not to be recognised and stepped into the cow parsley, making Snorkel sit beside her.
But
the pick-up stopped twenty yards short of her in the middle of the narrow lane and Saul watched her through his windscreen, revving his engine.
Ellen waited.
Saul revved louder, the battered rusty metal grille of the old pick-up like bared yellow teeth. Fluffy was going demented in the back, contained by a chain tied to the roof of the cab, which rattled and strained as she tried to throw herself out to get at Ellen and Snorkel.
Ellen felt a muzzle glue itself nervously between her calves. She glanced around; but she was a hundred yards from the nearest house and there was no sign of life nearby or another car coming.
Fine. He could play games, she decided, but there was no way she was going to join in. Tugging at Snorkel’s lead, she set off along the lane again, in the direction of the pick-up.
Without warning it launched towards her as fast as it could accelerate.
‘Shit!’ Ellen leaped into the cow parsley, dragging Snorkel towards a dry-stone wall as the pick-up mounted the verge and headed straight at her. She could have jumped the wall in time, but she couldn’t leave Snorkel in its path so she did the only thing she could think of. She threw out her arms and dared him.
The hot radiator scalded her knees as the pick-up screeched to a halt just an inch short of them.
‘Just what is your problem?’ she raged, slamming her fists on the bonnet.
‘Didn’t you get the message?’ Saul yelled over Fluffy’s barking and the drum ’n’ bass. ‘Piss off back to London you interfering cow!’
Ellen marched to his window, not caring that Fluffy’s drooling hackles were just inches from her ear. ‘I am not from London.’
‘Yeah – no matter. We still hope you rot in hell.’
‘It was you!’ She rounded on him. ‘You left that bloody badger.’
‘Can’t prove it.’ He thrust out his jaw. ‘You should just get out of here. You were totally out of order speaking to old Gran like that. Nearly give her an ’eart-attack.’
‘You hadn’t done a stroke of work there for months.’
‘The mower was busted.’
Ellen couldn’t be bothered to start scrapping over garden equipment. ‘Well, Goose Cottage has just been sold, so if you wouldn’t mind cutting out the dead-wildlife routine and the dangerous-driving act, I’d be grateful. I’ll be out of your hair before you know it.’