The woman in the wheelchair stopped rolling for a moment to take in the three strangers. She noticed that the one with the brown eyes and the long brown hair was looking at something higher than her eye level. She tracked the stranger’s gaze to somewhere behind her, and when she turned and found the man she’d come in with was returning the attention she rolled backwards into his legs to break the contact. She had a scowl on her face which looked like the wind had changed and left it permanently etched there. She then started whispering something to him; it seemed very aggressive, if the strange staccato dance which her head was doing was anything to go by. May, Lara and Clare all exchanged raised eyebrows.
‘Well, that was interesting,’ said Clare. ‘Did you see the way that man was looking at you, May?’
‘No,’ lied May, who was willing her cheeks to stop going red. She could feel them burning up.
‘Frank, Daisy, what can I get you?’ said the woman in the apron, approaching the newly arrived couple.
Frank offered Daisy a menu, which she snatched from his hand. She gave the menu a look-over, while casting overtly hostile glances at May.
‘Jesus, if looks could kill,’ said Lara watching the one-sided eyeball attack. ‘Have you met her before or something? In a past life, when you were a witch-finder general?’
‘Nope,’ said May, pressing down on her chest where her heart was leaping about like a small child on Christmas morning. It had no right to dance about like that – especially not for someone she now assumed was in a relationship with this Daisy. She’d done that once before and the key words were ‘never again’.
‘I don’t think I ever saw anyone less likely to have the name Daisy,’ whispered Clare, fighting a giggle in her voice. ‘Wheelchair or no wheelchair, that is one grumpy cow.’
If first impressions were anything to go by, thought Lara, removing her glasses and taking a crafty stare, Daisy was as far from being a sweet little flower as she was from being Darcey Bussell. In fact the woman looked more triffid than daisy. Her brown hair, scraped back into a harsh ponytail, did nothing to soften features that really did need softening: eyes like chips of grey ice, a long thin nose and a mouth like a cat’s arse at the prospect of a rectal examination. Frank, however, had a kind face, with large brown eyes and a generous mouth that looked capable of delivering smiles, which Daisy’s did not. He had black wavy hair with flecks of grey just above the ears, and suntanned skin as if he worked outdoors a lot. Lara aged him at late thirties. The hands holding the menu were large and square, no ring on the third finger of the left hand. If this was his woman, there was still time to escape. He reminded Lara of someone, though she couldn’t quite place the memory.
Their order was taken, but Daisy must have changed her mind about something because Frank rose from his seat to go to the counter.
‘Francis,’ she called. ‘Just leave it. Tell Jenny that ham will be fine.’
Francis.
Immediately Lara knew who the man reminded her of: that idiot with the long hair and beard, albeit this was a less hostile, much gentler version. More Jesus than Charles Manson. Lara bent her head low to share her theory. ‘I think that may be Francis Hathersage – another one of them with an androgynous name. He looks easier to deal with – shall I ask him for a refund?’
‘What’s the point, Lars?’ said May. ‘We’re here now. Let’s just stay instead of hunting around. It’s high season – everywhere will be booked solid.’
Lara noticed that as Frank came back to his seat he glanced over at May again. And she noticed that May kept stealing the odd sneaky peek at him.
The coffees arrived. The café owner – Jenny – brought them over on a tray, giving a friendly smile, a smile that was directed more at Clare than at the other two, it had to be said.
‘Ah, this is nice,’ said Clare, stirring in a sugar. She felt her shoulders loosening – albeit by a minute degree. Her muscles were so full of knots these days, it was as if someone had been coming into her bedroom at night and doing macramé with them. Even Lud’s strong thumbs couldn’t circle them into submission. She’d miss his massages – he was always willing to try to help her de-stress. She sipped at the coffee and tried to dismiss thoughts of him.
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to have a word?’ Lara cocked her head towards the next table.
‘No, Lara,’ said Clare. ‘Leave it. Let’s just forget the weird start and enjoy it. I want to get into that sea.’
The food arrived: thick toasties with golden chips and a cress-sprinkled salad on the side, and a more than generous portion of home-made quiche for Clare with red cheese bubbling away on top. May’s stomach howled such a welcome to the food that the others couldn’t fail to comment upon it.
‘Someone let a wolf in?’ said Lara, which made them all giggle and heads twisted in their direction again.
It was quite obvious from the body language that as Jenny visited each table she was imparting some knowledge about the three women in the corner. And whatever that information was, it was raising the temperature throughout the café rather than pulling it down, apart from at the table next to theirs, where hostile vibes continued to be missiled from Daisy’s direction. Lara wondered if Daisy would be able to unpucker her mouth enough to get in the ham sandwich which had just arrived for her.
‘So, come on, then . . . let’s begin. What’s happened since we last sat down and talked properly? Clare – you first,’ said Lara, picking up a chip, trying it between her teeth and putting it back down again before it burned a hole through her lip.
‘Well, I just made partner, as I told you. I’ll hit the ground running when I get back. As I speak, all my stuff is being moved into the grand corner office I’ve had my eye on since day one. Yeah – life’s good. Oh, and I treated myself to a new kitchen. I stole some space from the spare bedroom that I never use.’
‘And Lud?’ pressed May. ‘How is he?’
‘He’s good too,’ Clare said, nodding.
‘Smashing,’ replied May and Lara in unison, both silently wishing they had a Lud in their lives, instead of a dud.
‘Bet your mum and dad are happy about your partnership,’ put in May, trying not to sound snidey.
‘My parents are delighted,’ said Clare with a genuinely puffed-up smile.
They would be, thought May and Lara simultaneously. Neither of them had met Clare’s family but from what she had said about them they had gathered that they were rather a snooty lot. Clare’s elder brother, Toby, apparently walked about as if he had a permanent eggy fart smell under his nose and as for her sister, Alice, well, she came across as someone who would make old Daisy on the next table look like Bonnie Langford. It was obvious that Clare never quite cut the mustard for her parents.
May had felt sad when Clare dropped that into a conversation one day because her own mum and dad had always been so loving and supportive. May missed her lovely warm parents so much. They were gentle, kind people who’d had her – their only child – in their mid-forties. Her mum had worked in a care home; her dad had been a car mechanic. He’d got May tinkering on engines as soon as she was old enough to hold a spanner.
She had lost her father to a cardiac arrest six years ago, her mother to a brain haemorrhage eight months later and the pain of them leaving her had hardly dulled.
‘Come on, then, Lara – how’s life with the kids? Are you being a nice or a wicked stepmother to them?’
‘Oh, it all takes a bit of getting used to,’ trilled Lara, ripping at her toastie. Really she wanted to say that if Cinderella had been anything like Keely Galsworthy then maybe the old stepmother had a point.
‘We want more detail than that,’ pressed May.
For a split second, Lara wanted to open her mouth and let it all out: how disappointing moving in with James had been, how his kids hated her, how he seemed to want another au pair rather than a lover . . . and the carnage she’d witnessed the night before. These women were her friends – they’d be there for her. Sh
e opened her mouth, but what came out was:
‘Oh, we’re just all finding our feet. The children are friendly, the house is gorgeous. James is . . .’
a lying, using, two-faced bastard.
‘. . . top dog at work. Sexy as ever.’
‘Isn’t he just,’ cooed Clare, imagining how very different to Lud James Galsworthy would be in bed: masterful and dominant.
‘Your job okay?’ This from May, biting down on her toastie and finding it very tasty.
‘Yeah, it’s good,’ said Lara, thinking that if she were Pinocchio at this moment, she would have been able to hang a whole line of washing on her nose. But dumping the details of her crap life on them was hardly fair when they’d all come on holiday to have a laugh.
‘Okay, May – you now,’ said Clare, and Lara breathed a sigh of grateful relief that the spotlight was off her.
May shrugged. ‘Ah, not much to tell.’ There is, May – spill every bean to your friends and lance the boil that is Michael Hammerton, said a voice inside. But May knew she wouldn’t. She was too ashamed of falling for a married man – who wasn’t married in the end. The other two were happy and all was going so well for them and she had no intention of dragging their spirits down on their holiday. ‘Everything good in my world. Job great.’
At least the last part wasn’t a lie. She loved what she did, helping enthusiastic people make their business dreams come true – she just didn’t like where she did it. She hated commuting, and hated the Tube and the overcrowded train that she had to stand up in every morning. ‘Boss is a bit of a prat,’ she added, putting it mildly, ‘but apart from that it’s okay.’
‘How’s your lovely house?’ asked Clare. May’s house was very ‘May’: warm and cosy and the right side of chintzy.
‘Great,’ May replied. She needed a cat – a big black lazy cat to make the house feel less empty when she came in from work in the evenings, but the road outside was too busy. She dreaded to think what it would be like going back to that house with all its tainted memories of being with Michael in it.
‘How’s your chap?’ asked Lara, through a mouthful of sandwich.
‘Oh, he’s good. Working hard, lots of driving hours.’
‘Happy?’ asked Clare.
‘Absolutely.’ May nodded, her eyes on her toastie. Happy? She wasn’t sure she would ever be happy again. Then again, she didn’t deserve to be.
‘Well, all this time we’ve been waiting for a major catch-up and we’ve done it in five minutes,’ Lara said with a laugh. ‘We could have saved ourselves a bomb and done this over coffee in the canteen.’
‘Except we never see each other,’ put in Clare. ‘Ridiculous that three people who work on the same street have to travel a couple of hundred miles in order to have a natter.’
‘Yes, isn’t it,’ said May. ‘It’s so good to be with you both for longer than a snatched coffee. Even if we aren’t staying in the super snobby spa.’
Lara and Clare knew what she meant. As strange as Ren Dullem was, it was preferable to going back with their three empty hearts to three empty houses.
Chapter 22
‘That was a nice lunch,’ Clare remarked. After their savouries had been devoured they had been extra indulgent and had a sweet – a delicious home-made ginger and lemon torte for herself and Lara, while May had chosen a summer-fruit trifle.
Frank and grumpy Daisy had left the café halfway through their desserts. Daisy was clearly unhappy about something because she left her apple pie – and she didn’t look like a woman who abandoned puddings easily. Lara wondered if it had anything to do with the frequency with which Frank’s eyes wandered over to May, as if his were full of iron filings and May’s were made of magnetized metal. He clearly found her attractive, something May would have found hard to believe – but not Lara. May was as warm and sunny as the month after which she was named. She had the biggest, kindest heart of anyone Lara knew, and she hadn’t a clue about how lovely she was, with her long swishy hair and big brown eyes. Lara would have loved to be as tall and willowy as May. May didn’t have a lot of confidence in how she looked, though. She wore cardigans and coats that were too big for her as if she wanted to hide herself away in them and often stooped as if she was trying to make herself shorter.
They all had more coffees, enjoying the novelty of not having to stuff a sandwich down whilst on the run between meetings. Time felt as delicious as the desserts. Plus, it was quite fun to see the gossip machine at work as new people came into the café, spotted the three female strangers and immediately bowed their heads to each other and began whispering.
May bought some good vibes by giving Jenny a large tip. They left the café to a flurry of hushed tittle-tattle, from which the odd coherent word could be picked out: rain, Well Cottage, that Hathersage, contact lenses.
‘Your eyeballs have caused quite a stir, it seems,’ May said, nudging Clare when they were out of hearing distance of the café.
‘So I gather. They’re going to come for me at midnight and burn me as a witch.’ Clare laughed, then stopped abruptly. ‘Actually, that’s not really funny. What if they do?’
‘Just don’t adopt any black cats whilst you’re here,’ said Lara, elbowing her from the other side.
‘Such a shame there’s all that cloud,’ said May as they walked back up the hill to Well Cottage. It felt as if someone had hiked up the gradient a few degrees – she was knackered by the time they reached the school. ‘Am I going through an early menopause or is it really hot?’
‘It’s hot,’ replied Clare, lifting up her black fringe and wiping her moist forehead. ‘Talking of hot, that bloke at the next table was really staring at you, wasn’t he, Miss May?’
‘Was he?’ May shrugged.
‘You were looking over at him quite a lot as well.’ Lara winked at Clare.
‘I was looking at him to see what he was looking at,’ said May.
‘He was quite handsome in a farmer sort of way,’ said Clare. She liked men with kind faces. Lud had a lovely kind face and the man in the café carried with him the same air as her ex, as if he took life’s stresses in his stride. Although if first appearances were anything to go by, Frank Hathersage had drawn the short straw with Daisy. Clare imagined Daisy would give him quite a few grey hairs over the years.
As if Lara was reading Clare’s thoughts she then said, ‘His girlfriend was a bit of a grump, wasn’t she?’
‘Can’t be any fun being a young woman in a wheelchair,’ replied May. ‘Maybe her accident is very recent.’
‘Yeah, maybe,’ said Clare, shamed into temporary silence. She didn’t like to think of what life would be like without being able to move her legs. She didn’t think it would be worth much if she couldn’t kick them underneath the water when she was swimming.
Lara cast a scowl at Gene Hathersage’s cottage as it came into view. Robbing bastard. How could he justify renting out a cottage at the same price as a luxury spa? She was going to go into that holiday agency in person when she got home and give them what-for. They might have been brave on the phone, but when she turned up, all guns blazing, that snotty manageress was in for a verbal kicking of the highest order. Then she reached into her pocket for her phone because she had forgotten to tell Kristina to pick up the dry-cleaning. Her hand stilled in mid-air, like a gunfighter poised to take a shot. She couldn’t ring, seeing as her phone was in three million bits on the ground somewhere. But at the same time she did feel duty-bound to hunt out a phone and ring Kristina anyway.
Are you joking, Lara? cried an exasperated voice in her head. Have you actually turned into the doormat that Keely accused you of being?
But I’ve got the dry-cleaning ticket in my purse. They can’t get it back without the serial number, replied the wimpy side of her brain.
Sod his flaming shirts and suit. If you ring Kristina with that number I’ll kick you with Gene Hathersage’s leg, roared a much stronger voice.
She felt the wimpy side’s lip wobblin
g at not being part of the Galsworthy household any more. There was a prick of tears behind her eyes and she was relieved when they turned the corner and Well Cottage stood in front of them.
‘I might have a nap,’ said May, stretching out her long arms and yawning. She blamed the sea air. ‘Anyone mind?’
‘I’m going to scrub. I’ll mind you sleeping if you mind me cleaning,’ said Clare, reaching for the key.
Lara followed the other two into the cottage. ‘I fancy sitting outside with my book. I never have the time to read more than a page these days.’ Lara loved reading. She couldn’t actually remember the last time she’d had time to indulge her love of a good gritty crime novel. She’d downloaded the latest John North thriller to her Kindle months ago and only managed to read the first chapter. She put the kettle on and made herself and Clare a coffee as May disappeared into her bedroom. Then, as Clare pulled on her rubber gloves and dipped into her cleaning box, Lara took her Kindle outside to sit on the terrace with the view of the sea and the little cottage on the far side of the headland. She had dropped off after a chapter, lulled by the sound of the seagulls breaking the gentle silence.
Clare hummed softly as she worked so as not to wake May. She thought she heard May sniffling in her room but when she gently called her name there was no reply.
She rubbed down the skirting boards and brushed hard at the fluff at the carpet edges. She loved to clean and cook and make cushions and would dispute that she was borderline OCD because it was a pleasure for her to do such things, not a chore. Any psychiatrist would only have told her what she already knew: that her actions came from an overwhelming desire to have the cosy home her hungry heart craved. She had grown up in a large, dark, cold house with an equally cold family. ‘Nesting’ was her way of creating a world where she felt secure and safe, warm and protected. In her space, she wasn’t constantly compared to her gifted siblings or feeling like the world’s biggest disappointment because she had straight A grades and not A pluses; she was in control and doing what she enjoyed, not what she felt she had to.
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