by Rachel Dove
‘Oh God, sorry!’ they said together.
‘I didn’t mean to …’ they said again.
‘Jinx!’ they said in unison. Lily giggled, and Will looked at her, an odd look on his face.
‘What?’ she said, suddenly nervous that she had a piece of steak dangling between her teeth.
‘Nothing,’ he said softly, taking a slight step closer. She held her breath as he moved closer.
He reached around her, putting his plate into the sink with a clatter. They were so close, if she leant forward just a little she could push her lips against his. Just a slight lean forward was all it would take, but something held her back.
‘You should laugh more – it suits you,’ he said softly, and his breath tickled her cheek. She blushed, taking the chance to look him in the eye.
‘Same goes for you.’ They looked at each other, the quiet of the room fizzing around them. ‘You look so sad sometimes,’ she uttered to him. He jerked a little, moving closer and she saw his pupils dilate. Then it was gone. The sad face was hidden by the wall he put up.
***
She knew that he was sad. She always knew, without even having an inkling of anything in his life. How could the woman before him come into his life at such a point? He heard stories of how people met the love of their lives at the wrong time. When they were already married, supposedly settled. The stories always made him so angry. Wedding vows mattered. You picked the one person to love and you made your life around them. What they didn’t tell you was that happy ever after was rarely for ever after. Here he was, desperately wanting to kiss a woman who wasn’t his.
‘Shall we watch the film?’ he said, turning away.
***
‘Sure,’ she replied, her stunned heart still struggling to find a beating rhythm again. She felt as though he had taken the air with him. All day she had been convincing herself to stay away from her new friend, and now he was here, she knew she was in trouble. Although, it looked like it might be only her heart she was risking. Gripping the wine tight, she walked over to join him in front of the TV. Nothing like a bit of gory murder to cool an ardour, she thought, filling her glass. Will flicked the DVD play button.
‘Ready?’ he said. She nodded yes. Yes she was.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Irvin had been driving round the village for what had seemed like hours, and had not seen hide nor hair of Lizzie or her car. He was hungry and miserable, and had a crick in his neck that grinded like a pestle and mortar when he rotated his head. He couldn’t very well ask their friends in the village if they had seen her. In a town like this, people talked. A man looking for his wife tended to make the parish newsletter on a slow week, and he didn’t want people looking at him in pity.
They were supposed to be blissfully retired, but Irvin was lost, and Lizzie had turned into a manic-depressive combination of Martha Stewart and Delia Smith. It scared him, and he really didn’t like change too much. He had sulked for a week when he found Quorn in the freezer, and realized that Lizzie had been feeding it to him for months without him even realizing. He hated Quorn. Who ate that muck? It was enough to moult the hairs on your chest.
He cracked his knuckles against the steering wheel, intending to turn for home, when he saw a flash of neon Lycra in a window nearby. He flicked his indicator off, turning quickly at the crossroads in a rush to check what he had seen. What he didn’t see, however, was Mrs Burdock, who was out walking her cat, Sinatra, a creature she tortured with her adoring love on a daily basis.
‘Irvin, ya daft pillock!’ she screamed, shaking her fist at him as she pulled hard on Sinatra’s lead with her other hand, making his eyes bulge temporarily like a bush baby. He recovered, returning to his normal ‘kill me now’ look as he sniffed the pavement.
‘Sorry, Mrs Burdock,’ he shouted from his open window as he spun the wheel wildly to go round her.
‘I should bloody think so too – my poor Sinatra!’ she screamed after him with an accompanying look that could pucker a cat’s bottom at twenty paces.
He drove towards his goal, putting a hand up again in apology as he gunned the engine.
Poor bloody Sinatra indeed, he thought to himself. She will stuff him when his time comes, the poor bugger, then he will never be rid of her.
Pulling closer, he realized the window was attached to the community centre. He wondered what was going on. It can’t have been her, he thought, his heart sinking, but then he saw a DayGlo orange bottom flash in the same window. It looked like someone was having a spasm, or an electric shock. He pulled the car into the entrance, driving slowly round to the car park at the back.
As he passed the window, he slowed down, covering his face as best he could with his arm propped up against the window frame. He could hear the low thump of music, and he recognized the beat from what Lizzie had been blaring out in the kitchen. He flicked his eyes to the car park, and tucked in the corner was Lizzie’s car. So she WAS here. Taking part in some sort of sponsored epileptic fit, it seemed. Just what was going on?
He turned the car around, glancing back through the window as he headed back to the entrance. He couldn’t make anything out clearly – some lot of brightly coloured people jumping around to the music. He had never seen anything like it. He pulled away, checking that no one was watching him. He needed to find out more, and he knew just which husband would know all about it. Taylor. He aimed the car towards the Mayweather Estate.
When he arrived Taylor was under his car, tinkering outside the garage. Irvin looked around nervously for Agatha, expecting a tongue-lashing, but she was nowhere to be seen.
‘Taylor?’ he called out to the pair of legs under the car.
‘Irvin?’ Taylor replied. He pulled out from underneath the chassis. Irvin passed him a cloth that was hanging nearby. ‘What’s up?’
‘I think I just saw Lizzie, dancing at the community centre. In neon Lycra.’
‘Ah,’ Taylor replied. ‘She’s there all the time, mate – most of the women round here are. They are running dance classes there, Spanish-themed ones. She’s doing self-defence too. Agatha is even taking that one.’ Irvin stood agog. Taylor patted him on the shoulder, chuckling.
‘Keep it together, man,’ Taylor said. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’
Irvin looked at him wide-eyed. ‘A walk? How is that going to help my marriage?’
‘It will help you,’ he replied. ‘You have let yourself go, mate. You are so fed up and down, you don’t know which way is up. You need some fresh air, exercise. Blow the cobwebs off. Honestly, walk with me – you’ll see.’
Irvin looked down at his shiny brogues. ‘Hardly dressed for a ramble, am I?’
Taylor’s eyes twinkled. ‘Let’s hit the shops then first, get you kitted out.’
Irvin eyebrows knitted together. ‘Shopping, us two?’ he scoffed. ‘Why don’t we go get our nails done while we’re at it?’
Taylor looked at his nail beds. ‘Nah, Agatha does my cuticles for me. We can get a pub lunch though, and I promise not to hold your hand or carry your bags.’
Irvin sighed. ‘Come on then,’ he relented. ‘But absolutely no Lycra.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Stuart looked utterly bewildered. Running his hand through his floppy blonde hair, he stood in the middle of Love Blooms and stared at Lily. His eyes were bloodshot, his skin as white as a sheet. Hung over, Lily guessed. Obviously the ball wasn’t such a chore of a work event. She felt a flicker of anger. He always made such a big deal of how hard the night was, how stressful it was. She forced her face to be neutral. It was nearly lunchtime, and she had to get this over with and leave for Mrs Ness’s house, to meet Will.
‘Do you not have anything to say? I rang your parents this morning, and your mum informed me that you had moved out! What are you doing here on a Sunday, and where the hell are you living?’ He started to shout, but winced as the volume hit his obviously dehydrated brain. Lily took a deep breath.
&nb
sp; ‘Stuart, we never see each other. I was going to tell you, but I didn’t want to do it over the phone. You were busy yesterday, with the ball and all.’
Stuart shook his head. ‘Don’t give me that, Lily – if you had told me to come over, I would have come. How long has this been going on?’
Lily ignored the flashback of Will in her flat last night. ‘Nothing is “going on”! I moved out. I told you it was getting harder to live with my parents. I couldn’t take it any more.’
Stuart puffed loudly. ‘Okay, I get that, but where are you living? Did you rent somewhere?’
‘No.’ She shook her head quickly. ‘I bought. Upstairs. It came with the shop, so I moved in. It made sense.’
Stuart’s face went through a kaleidoscope of facial expressions: shock, slow understanding, realization, followed by disbelief, and back to hung over.
‘You moved upstairs.’ It came out as a statement, not a question. ‘By yourself?’
‘I had help. I like it Stuart. I am thirty soon; it was overdue.’
Stuart nodded. ‘And what about us? Don’t you think you should have discussed this with me?’
Lily swallowed down her annoyance. ‘Yes, and I’m sorry, I really think we need to talk about everything, actually. Just not now.’
‘Not now?’ Stuart exploded. ‘I think now is the perfect time. I don’t have a lesson till three. I have time now.’
‘Oh!’ Lily shouted, throwing her arms in the air. Stuart jumped in surprise. ‘YOU have time, do you! Well maybe, just maybe, Stuart, I don’t!’
She went to the coat rack and pulled on her long Puffa jacket. She thrust her arms aggressively into the sleeves. ‘This is what we need to talk about, Stuart. What the hell are we doing? Are we even a couple?’
‘I don’t know what’s going on with you! It used to be so easy!’
Stuart tried to talk again, but she cut him off. ‘No!’ she growled. ‘My turn to speak!’ Stuart closed his mouth, his eyes wide. He looked like a ghost.
‘You say it was easy, but easy for who? We live like school kids, going out for the lark of it! We have been engaged for six years, Stu – what exactly are we waiting for?’
She hoicked her pug-patterned scarf off the peg and wrapped it around her head, tugging on it as she struggled to get it to sit right on her neck. She was so angry, she could feel her face getting hot, her cheeks flushing with the effort of finally finding her voice.
‘What do you mean, waiting for? What has this got to do with you moving out?’
She fastened her scarf finally, fluffing out her hair as she looked across at him. He looked utterly confused.
‘It’s my life, Stuart. I am not happy, okay. I’m not happy, and I just can’t go on like this any more. I need to choose. You, or the world! I might want to marry my passport, you know!’ She could tell from the slack expression on his face that he thought she was mad. He would never pick up a book that she liked. He only ever read sports fixtures from the TV.
She sighed, lowering her voice a little. ‘We need to talk, I know, but I have to go out now. How about tomorrow night?’
‘Tomorrow! Why not now? Where are you going? You can’t just take off!’
‘Why not? You do it all the time!’ she shouted back at him.
Stuart acted as if she had slapped him, and he wore an expression she couldn’t fathom. He looked away from her, shuffling his feet. She glanced at the clock on the wall. It was nearly one; she was going to be late.
‘I have to go, okay. I’m sorry, I should have told you about me moving in upstairs, but honestly, when do we ever talk about anything worth a damn? We never talk about the future; we don’t even spend time together.’
Stuart straightened up, puffing out his chest as he inhaled deeply. ‘Lily, I don’t know what’s going on, but we need to sort this out. Can’t you stay?’
‘No,’ she said, reaching for her bag. ‘I have somewhere to be.’
‘Is there someone else?’ he asked bluntly. She looked at him, not trusting herself to reply straightaway. Was there someone else?
‘I could ask the same of you,’ she said instead. He had been just as distant as her.
‘What? Why would you ask that?’ he countered, shaking his head vehemently. ‘I … I …’
A tap at the window behind them stopped him from answering. The shutters were down, but the glass pane in the door showed a face. Will tapped again, looking up at the windows to her flat. He hadn’t seen them, but she knew that Stuart had clocked him, and the fact that he was looking up at her new home.
‘Lily, who is that?’ he asked, a look of pure disbelief clouding his features.
‘It’s Will – he’s my friend.’
She went to the door, opening it halfway. Will smiled at her, and she felt her heart beat faster. She smiled back, just a little.
‘Hi, I am just with Stuart. Could you give me a minute?’
Will’s eyes flashed with something hard, and his jaw clenched, but it was momentary and went before she could decipher it.
‘Sure.’ He nodded, then raising his voice a fraction he added, ‘I thought we could ride together.’
Lily frowned at him, and he raised his hands as though in surrender. ‘I’ll be just outside.’
Lily nodded weakly, pushing the door to as she leant her weight against it. She wished she could just follow him out, avoid what came next. She could practically feel Stuart’s eyes boring into her back. She turned to face him. His body was clenched rigid, and she cringed inwardly.
‘Lily.’ He strode towards her, taking her arms. ‘What the hell is going on?’
She shrugged him off, putting her bag on her shoulder. ‘Nothing is going on, Stuart. He is just a friend. He is a gardener, looking for work in the village. I offered to help. We are off to see a client.’
‘A client? Lils, you are a florist. Why are you going? Does he need his hand holding?’
‘No, of course not!’ She ran her hands through her hair, pushing it back from her face in frustration. ‘Stuart, I have never cheated on you, but I just can’t talk about this now. I need to go.’
Stuart looked at her as if she was sprouting a second head. ‘I don’t know what’s going on with you.’
Lily put one hand on the door, and looked back at her fiancé.
‘Stuart, for once in my life I am taking charge. I don’t want to fall out. We both know that this is not working, and something has to change. Let yourself out.’
***
Stuart went to say goodbye, but the shop door had already closed behind her. He looked at the empty space where she had stood, and realized that she was moving away from him. The horrible, gnawing pit in his stomach told him that he cared more than he’d thought he did, and he needed to do something about it. Lily never ever questioned him before, never gave him cause for concern herself, but he had seen another side of her today. Something told him that this Will guy knew she had moved out, and that wasn’t a good sign.
Looking around the shop, he sat down on one of the stools to catch his breath. He hadn’t heard a car pull off yet, and he didn’t trust himself to go out and not make a scene. He needed to do what he did best: be one step ahead, control the situation. He needed to find out more about his opponent, and just what his handicap was. He peeked outside and saw a jeep driving off, Lily’s van still out front.
He had the day to master his enemy, and get back on top. One thing about the Woodwards: he might not be a typical chip off the old block, but he knew when to swing and when to bide his time. This time, he was going to go out swinging, if it was the last thing he did. Losing was something that did not sit well with Stuart Woodward.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket, dialled a number and left Love Blooms, dropping the latch on his way out.
‘Dad, it’s me.’ The deep voice on the line brought Stuart right back to being twelve again, and by the time his father had berated his son for not calling sooner, he wa
s sat in his Jaguar feeling like he was in short pants again, the driver they employed letting him pretend to drive the car while he cleaned it. He sat back in his seat, feeling smaller and smaller as his father kept going. He sensed a pause, and went for it.
‘Dad, I appreciate I haven’t been the model son, but I actually called to tell you something. If you let me get a word in edgeways for once.’
His father sounded surprised by his son’s response. ‘Okay, son, and what is that?’
Stuart smiled then. His father calling him son meant that all was forgiven, for the moment at least. His interest was piqued; now it was time for the big pitch.
‘Well, Dad, it’s about Lily and I. We are finally setting a date.’
***
Will pulled away from Foxley Street, his knuckles white with the effort of concentrating on driving. He had guessed that the posh Jag outside her home was that of her fiancé, and he couldn’t help feeling crushed, not that he had any right to. They were together. She was his, after all. Why shouldn’t he visit her? He had wondered whether she had told him about moving upstairs.
He had tapped on the door, looking up at her windows for signs of life. They had been together last night, but he had left at ten. Did Stuart sense his presence in the flat?
When Lily had come to the door, she looked upset, flustered, and he knew he was not the only cause. Something was going on. He didn’t catch a glimpse of her beau, not that he wanted to. The guy sounded like a douche bag. The thought of seeing them together was not something he wanted burned on his memory either.
Lily hadn’t said a word since she got in, and he kept driving slowly through the village, sensing that she might need the time to collect herself before they got to the Ness house. It was a little before one; they had the time.