by Jenny Colgan
She wrinkled up her nose.
‘Uhm, hello? I’ve got a message from Posy Fairweather, she says she’s terribly sorry, but she can’t make it.’
He had grinned, a lovely white-toothed grin.
‘Oh, that’s a terrible shame. Although frankly, between you and me, she was a shocking bore and looked like she probably smelled. Do you fancy going for a walk instead?’
And they took a walk, but it was so noisy and busy on the South Bank, and suddenly Matt had said, ‘This sounds crazy, but do you fancy getting out of here? I mean, out of town? Unless you’ve got lots on this afternoon.’
‘I do,’ said Posy. ‘I have to call off Special Branch.’
Matt nodded. ‘We could buy a picnic?’
‘Could we have crisps? Or are you the kind of personal trainer that says no crisps?’
Matt had looked at her with intent in his eyes. ‘I might suggest no cheese and onion.’
And Posy’s heart had done a little skip, even as she was telling herself sternly that she would love Almaric for ever and could never be happy again.
They had taken the train out of Waterloo Station and got out at Edenbridge.
‘Have you got walking shoes on?’ asked Matt.
Posy had dressed down for a day-time date, she didn’t want to look too available, and she associated her daft dresses and high heels with Adam, which made her feel stupid and tarty. She was wearing her favourite soft faded jeans, a floral shirt and Converse low tops.
‘Will these do?’ she asked.
‘We won’t go far.’
‘Are you going to make me climb a mountain, Matt Farmer?’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it, mysleazyinternetdate.com . . . uh, sorry, I mean Posy Fairweather.’
‘Matt?’ said Leah on the phone. ‘Are you still there?’
Where had it gone? thought Matt. Their easy laughs, how relaxed they had felt with each other from the get-go. From the start. When did all that crumble into suspicion, fear, worry? They hadn’t been worried then. That day, they hadn’t a care in the world.
‘Leah,’ said Matt. ‘I think I know where she is.’
‘Oh, great, I’m glad I wasted all this time committing fraud,’ said Leah.
‘Sorry,’ said Matt.
Leah paused. ‘She really loved you, you know,’ she said. ‘You fixed her. Mostly. It was just a wobble.’
‘Oh, fuck it,’ said Matt.
Posy Fairweather is a total idiot with bad hair who doesn’t contact her friends enough or know when she has a good thing and ruins everything and . . .
Chapter Twenty-nine
Posy Fairweather knew exactly why she was at the top of a mountain. She just wasn’t entirely sure when she was going to come down. An old university friend had invited her to stay for a few days in Margate, where she’d moved with her new husband, and she had thought, sod it, and agreed. She needed to get away and it didn’t really matter where. But then, on the train she’d seen the station sign, their station, in front of her eyes and suddenly, without thinking about it, just as the doors were about to close, she’d leapt up and jumped off the carriage. Without, she realised ten seconds later, her phone, which had been lying on the table in front of her.
After the first bubble of panic had passed, she relaxed. So what, it was only her phone. It was never going to ring and if it did it would just be someone annoying, pestering her. OK, she’d miss a few days of work - it hardly mattered, seeing as she’d introduced Gavin and Leah, apparently. Hopefully they’d be so wrapped up in one another they’d hardly notice. Her mum would be glad of the break and Fleur wouldn’t care. And Matt wasn’t there. He wasn’t there, and he wasn’t here, on top of their mountain.
‘It’s not a mountain,’ he’d announced, as Posy had started complaining, before they’d even got halfway up. ‘It’s a gentle hilly incline.’
‘And my arse is a banjo,’ panted Posy. ‘Can’t we catch a cab up?’
‘No!’ said Matt as she collapsed on a grassy indent, and he sat down beside her. ‘Look around. Isn’t it beautiful?’
Posy looked around. The gentle undulating hills of Kent could be seen for miles; the clouds providing light and shade over the stone-walled fields and dotted farms. Not a single person could be seen, on a warm afternoon in early spring.
Matt waited for the quip. It didn’t come. Posy stared and stared, drinking it all in. She filled herself up with it; quite an unusual feeling. She felt peaceful, and happy, and home. Not anxious, or desperate to be someone else, or nervous, or rejected, or strange.
‘Yes,’ she said finally, in a more serious tone. ‘Yes, it is.’
‘Good,’ said Matt, rifling in his rucksack. ‘You’ll be glad I brought this then.’
Posy looked around curiously. ‘Is it crisps?’
‘No,’ said Matt, drawing out the bottle of champagne and packet of plastic cups.
‘What! When?’
‘I popped into Threshers while you were in the loo.’
Matt popped the cork calmly and firmly. Posy looked at him, then they shared a long glance and laughed at the stupid, easy, obviousness of it all.
Posy wished she had something to drink now, other than the warm, slightly stale water she’d hauled up the hill, and the dusty flapjacks. She hated flapjacks, why had she even bought them? She looked out over the peaceful fields, a noiseless tractor far far below; little white specks of sheep and the sun filtering here and there through the clouds, throwing one field of yellow rape into shining relief. She closed her eyes. She could almost feel it, a peace, a calm flowing through her once again; her chattering mind - ‘Does he like me? Do I like him? What’s she doing? What’s my mum up to? Where’s Dad?’ - finally shutting up for once. What was it? What was this constant barrage, this constant commentary on her life from her brain, yapping on and on, telling her to compare herself to X, or finish Y, or to look at this guy, or that guy, or this flat, or that job, or that mad twenty-first century London life. She breathed in, and out again. Calmly.
Back in London, Matt was charging around Roddy’s very chic, very minimalist East End flat, trying to grab what he thought he might need. He changed into his hiking boots then remembered how much Posy hated those boots (‘When you put on those scary hooves I know I’m going to finish this day under canvas and it makes me very unhappy’), and put his trainers on, then he thought he was being silly and he didn’t even know where she really was and put his boots back on. Then off again. Maybe shoes? Now he was just being stupid. He grabbed his rucksack and was marching out the door in trainers when the home phone rang. He glanced at it. It didn’t even look like a phone, it looked like a weird piece of carved bone. It probably cost hundreds of pounds and he probably shouldn’t get his greasy fingerprints on it. It bleeped at him insistently, Melissa’s name flashing up on the fancy display. He sighed and tentatively picked it up.
‘Hello? Darling? Is that you?’
‘Melissa,’ he said, grudgingly. He glanced at his rucksack. Time was of the essence. If she was there. And she’d probably be elsewhere by now anyway, it was a pointless, stupid exercise. So a few seconds wasn’t going to make any difference. Nonetheless, as he sat on the four-thousand-euro couch imported from Italy, he could feel his foot jiggling with tension. She’d offered to help him, but it didn’t feel right.
‘Are you missing me?’ she asked gaily. ‘New York is super-tedious. I wish you were in my flat. We have so much to discuss.’
‘Mmmhmm,’ he said non-committedly.
‘What’s up, darling?’ Melissa was used to getting her own way. She’d been extremely surprised when this lowly personal trainer hadn’t taken her up on her offer to move in and back him, but that only made him more attractive in her eyes. It wouldn’t take long.
‘I tell you what, when I get back tomorrow night, why don’t I sashay over to wherever you’re staying and you can give me a long bath and soothe my jet lag away . . . maybe a touch of firm massage?’ She gave a low laugh into the phone.
Matt glanced in panic round the flat. Melissa would probably like it here. It was huge and immaculate and posh.
‘Uhm, Melissa, I was just leaving—’
‘Did you get my email? I know it was a bit . . . saucy.’
Matt mumbled an apology. In fact, unusually for him he’d been checking his email every half an hour. But every time Posy’s name hadn’t appeared in his inbox, he’d closed it down again without even glancing at anything else.
‘So?’ she said. She sounded like she was impatiently drumming her fingers on a counter top.
Matt knew he was throwing away a chance at his own business; a hot, sexy affair and even a possible whole new life.
‘Can I call you back in ten minutes?’ he said.
‘Sure, lover,’ said Melissa languidly. ‘Ten minutes.’
Ten minutes later, Matt had already jogged half the distance to Waterloo Station.
Posy woke up. It had been the calmest, deepest and most dreamless sleep she’d had in . . . she could hardly remember. She felt wonderfully rested, and although she normally told the time off her watch, she could see by the position of the sun that she’d been out for a couple of hours.
It was funny - although she hadn’t done anything except jump off a train and climb a hill, she felt completely different in a way she couldn’t put her finger on. Maybe it was just getting away from people for a bit, but she felt changed. Cleansed. Calm. She was going to make her way on to Margate, have fun for a few days and catch up with some people from university - about ninety per cent of them had moved to London, had children, then moved down there - relax, take things easy for a little, and if she ever, ever in her life again was lucky enough to meet someone who was funny and sweet and kind, she wouldn’t care one whit about his job or his clothes or her mother or her past or her friends. If she ever met another Matt . . . She wouldn’t. She knew that much.
She must phone Leah when she got there, let her know what was up. Mind you, she didn’t have her number. She didn’t have anyone’s number, they were all on her phone. The only number she had in her head was her mother’s and, somehow, she didn’t feel like calling that right now. She might be healing, but not that fast.
No, she would wander down the hill, catch a cab from Tourist Information to the station and head for Margate. Hang out with Carla for a few days, get her head back together, then she was going to ask Leah if she could move into her flat for a bit. With luck, if Gavin was installed in Elephant and Castle, Leah would spend all her time there and she could enjoy Leah’s art books and exotic teas and cute little roof terrace all on her own. Yes, that was definitely a very good idea. And then she could look to the rest of her life - there were plenty of bold, happy women in their thirties without men. Yeah.
Matt jumped off the train at Crockham Hill, glad he’d plumped for the trainers in the end; they gave him added speed over the terrain. The champagne he’d bought chinked in his rucksack. She had to be here, he thought fiercely. She had to be, as if he could make it so by force of will. But where else could she be? If she wasn’t at her mum’s, and she wasn’t with her friends . . . OK, there were maybe a thousand or so places she could be. But if there was to be any hope for them, if what Leah had said were true; if, as he could just about get his head round, she really had tracked down her exes simply to clarify her true faith in him . . . if any of that were the case, there was only one place to be. He hoped she was wearing sensible shoes.
Posy headed down to the little payphone situated at the bottom of the hill, clutching the card for the local cab firm in her pocket. She could head straight back to the train station. And while she was waiting she could take one last look around, drink in the scenery. This place wouldn’t hold sad memories, she decided. Just happy ones, hopefully.
‘Forty minutes for a cab? Really?’ said Posy. She was disappointed, which she realised on some level must be her non-Zen self coming back; she was impatient to move on and keep going. She turned and glanced for the last time at Crockham Hill. She didn’t think she’d be coming here again.
‘Forty minutes? Fuck,’ said Matt, listening to the tannoy announcement about the expected delay to the train, as it sat, hardly any distance from Crockham Hill station. If he could have jumped out of the window he would have, but it was a new train and everything was sealed shut. He sat there, drumming his fingers with frustration. Would she still be there? What would he do if she wasn’t? No, she would be. She would be. He had to believe that.
Posy sat with her head against the window of the cab, dreamily looking out at nothing. The weather had come in again, the clouds turning grey in moments and now fat droplets of spring rain were hitting the windows. It gave her a sweet sense of melancholy that didn’t make her feel unhappy. A crazy jogger was going the other way - what on earth was he thinking of in this weather? Who went for a run when it started to rain? She closed her eyes. maybe she could sleep on the train.
Matt tore along past the few cars that dotted the road - there was even a cab, he wouldn’t have thought there would be cabs out here - as the rain came down heavier and heavier. Oh, this was terrible, there would never be anyone on the hill, especially not someone as weather-phobic as Posy. He was going to get cold and wet and . . . hang on, why was there a cab out here?
Who did that jogger remind her of? It was funny, really.
What way had it gone? There was only one road, wasn’t there?
‘STOP THE CAB!’ screamed Posy.
‘You what?’ said the cabbie, who was crawling through the driving rain. ‘We’re in the middle of bloody nowhere.’
‘That’s exactly where I want to be,’ said Posy.
The mud churned over Matt’s boots. He was being an idiot. This was even stupider than the last stupid thing he’d done, which was get on the train, probably. She wasn’t in that cab. He stood, undecided, on the road. To go back or not to go back? The lights were vanishing over a lift in the road. When, suddenly, he saw the brake lights go on, and the cab slow to a halt.
He stayed where he was, let her walk to him. She was wearing the same Converse shoes, damned useless for climbing a hill, and even worse for climbing a hill in the wet. The rain was tearing down now, they were both absolutely plastered in water. The cab sat for a second, then took off, obviously dismissing them both as lunatics.
Posy pushed back her sodden hair from her face and peered through the downpour. There he was. Holding out his hand. His big, strong hand. Everything, really, when it came down to it. Everything she needed. A hand when she was stuck; a smile when she came home sad. Compatibility, suitability, some stupid checklist that she’d been carrying around in her head, as if by ticking off a load of boxes she would find the man who wouldn’t make her feel the way her father did - had done, for that was in the past now, too. Someone who wasn’t about fixing her past; someone who was there to go forward into the future. Someone who was right there in front of her. Who wasn’t X or Y, who didn’t contain certain qualities that she’d made up out of her head and decided were necessary. Someone who wasn’t perfect - of course he wasn’t. Thank God, she certainly wasn’t. She glanced down. Why wasn’t she moving? Then she realised that her shoes were piled high with mud and she was stuck firmly to the ground. Matt was staring at her incredulously.
‘Are you stuck?’ he asked, a smile twitching his lips. In fact, he was so hopelessly, totally relieved it was all he could do not to cry.
Posy, lip wobbling, did her best to grin at him.
‘I think,’ she said, her voice trembling, ‘I think that I am stuck. That without you . . . I can’t get anywhere.’
Then she dissolved into tears.
‘Hang on, girl, hang on,’ said Matt, jogging lightly over to her.
Ankle-deep in mud, Matt was even taller over her; somehow even stronger and more masculine-feeling than before. Posy felt a huge wave crashing over her, a relief and joy so incredibly strong it was entirely overwhelming. She collapsed, weeping on his chest.
�
�No!’ said Matt. ‘Please! Be happy, not sad! Please . . .’ He took a breath. ‘All I want, Posy, all I’ve ever wanted - it’s not a model, or a fitness freak, or anybody else . . . I just wanted you to be happy.’
Posy sniffled loudly and messily. She’d never quite got the hang of pretty crying.
‘Because, for some reason, whenever you are happy, I’m happy too. I don’t know why. So don’t bring me down.’
‘I’m . . . not . . . sad,’ choked out Posy.
‘You could have fooled me,’ said Matt, wishing he’d thought to put a tissue in his bag. Although it was so wet.
‘Do you want to wipe your nose on my fleece?’
‘Uhm, not really.’
‘Well, the thing is, if you don’t wipe your nose somewhere, I don’t know how I’m going to kiss you.’
‘If you really loved me you’d manage it, snot and all.’
‘You think?’ said Matt, dropping his head.
‘No! NO! Leave me alone - hang on, I’ll sort it out.’ Posy turned round and frantically rubbed her face in the rain.
‘Are you still having a blub?’
‘Don’t you ever cry?’
‘Never.’
She tilted her face up to his.
‘De-snotted?’ he asked.
‘I think so. There might just be a little bit . . .’
But he was already kissing her, hard, and full-on, through the mud and the cascading rain.
They stopped when the rain did. Matt glanced down. Posy’s shoes had set solid. Matt shook his head.
‘What are you like?’ he said.
‘Ecstatic.’
‘Come on, take them off.’