It's Raining Men

by Milly Johnson

  And because Raine wanted to see Clare again, because she couldn’t quite believe that a woman who had arrived at full moon, and had eyes like the shifting colours of her lagoon and swam like a ribbon in the sea could just be an ordinary holidaymaker, she relented.

  ‘That would be wonderful,’ she said.

  Chapter 29

  Lara awoke to find an empty house. There was a note from Clare to say that she had nipped out for some shopping and a note from May to say that she had nipped out to find Clare. Lara got dressed with the intention of nipping out to look for them both and hopefully finding them in Jenny’s café. In the bathroom, she pulled on the string to turn on the light and a loud bang ensued. The bulb had blown and taken all the electricity in the house down with it, as Lara discovered when she tried to switch on various other lights. And where the hell was the fuse box?

  ‘This is all I need,’ she huffed to herself, knowing that if she didn’t find it she would once again have to go down to misery guts’s house and ask for some help. After looking in all the obvious places she still hadn’t found it and so instead of searching out her friends, she would have to pay the unjolly giant Gene Hathersage a visit.

  When she knocked on his door there was no answer, nor did the old dog bark, but his scrappy old truck was there, suggesting that he was in and ignoring her.

  ‘Hello,’ Lara called, walking around to the back of the house. There was a beautiful walled garden there and more furniture made from twisted pieces of wood: a table and two chairs and various arches covered in roses and possibly peaches. It was overgrown but probably only by one summer. Maybe Mr Hathersage had been too busy hiding from people to come out and do some gardening, Lara mused as she knocked on the back door. No answer. She knocked twice more with hard knuckles, but no success. Bloody man. She looked in his truck just to make sure that he wasn’t lying down behind the seats trying not to be spotted; he wasn’t there either.

  There were various outbuildings near the house and Lara picked her way through the long grasses running riot over the path and looked through the cobwebby window of the first one – a small shed-like structure full of logs. There was a larger, newer building behind it, with a large metal door slightly ajar. Bingo, thought Lara. She pulled it open, walked inside and whistled. Facing her was the most beautiful carved horse. To one side of it the crude shape of a dog lying down, its head resting on its front paws, was emerging from the wood. This must have been the piece currently being worked on as there were fresh cuts of wood around it. Behind the horse was an enormous high-backed seat made to the same twisted-wood design as the furniture in the walled garden. There were more carvings – large and small – dotted around the space, exquisitely detailed pieces sitting beside the expertly crafted rustic furniture. Surely these couldn’t be from the hands of Gene Hathersage? He didn’t look the type to have the patience to create such beautiful things.

  There was a sudden rumble to her side, followed by the revving rasp of a chainsaw. She spun around to see him, clad in an industrial apron, holding the saw.

  Jesus H. Christ, she said to herself. It’s Leatherface. I’ve had it.

  She was sure he must have been able to hear her heart thumping over the sound of the machine. He turned it off when he realized he had given her enough of a scare – and a little bit extra.

  ‘What are you doing in here?’ he barked.

  ‘Looking for you,’ Lara replied. ‘Did you make all these?’

  ‘This is private property and that’s my business.’

  ‘I’m not exactly asking you what size underpants you wear,’ growled Lara.

  ‘Yes, I did make them. Hopefully that answers your question sufficiently.’

  ‘Are you always so rude to lodgers?’

  ‘You’re the first I’ve had,’ he replied, his brown-black eyes challenging hers to maintain contact.

  Lucky you’re not asking me for repeat custom, thought Lara. She smiled her sweetest smile and said, ‘All our lights have blown and I can’t find the fuse box. I knocked on the door to your house but you weren’t there and I didn’t know if you were in because I didn’t hear your dog . . .’

  Gene dropped the chainsaw noisily on the table behind him.

  ‘I’ll get my toolbox,’ he said. ‘I’ll meet you at the cottage in five minutes.’

  He turned from her, stripping off his apron, and Lara was left to go back up to Well Cottage on her own, presumably because he didn’t want to walk with her. Well, that was fine, because she didn’t want to walk with him either.

  Chapter 30

  He must have taken one stride for every two of hers because she arrived at the cottage only seconds before him.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she asked politely.

  ‘Going to be a bit hard boiling a kettle with no electricity,’ grumped Gene. ‘What are you going to do to the water, breathe on it?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. He lifted a chair, took it into Clare’s room, surveyed the displaced wardrobe and all the paper torn from the wall, and then climbed up to reach a box high on the wall. Lara winced. If Clare’s efforts to expose the doorway didn’t give Gene Hathersage a legal right to keep their extortionate bond then nothing would.

  As if reading her thoughts he said, ‘I’ll be charging for the damage to that wall. Unless you put it right.’

  ‘Whatever you have to do,’ drawled Lara, and then under her breath she added, ‘another three million quid won’t matter.’

  ‘Why would you want to go moving the wardrobe?’ Gene threw over his shoulder.

  ‘My friend lost an earring.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ He didn’t turn around but she watched him nod whilst he did something with pliers. ‘I always start moving wardrobes and ripping off wallpaper when I’ve lost jewellery.’

  Lara didn’t dignify his sarcasm with an answer but she felt duty bound to be polite.

  ‘Can I get you a cold drink in the absence of house electricity?’ she offered, forcing politeness. ‘Milk, water?’

  ‘Nope, I’m fine thanks. I’ll only be a couple of minutes and I need to get back. Not all of us are on holiday.’

  ‘I would have thought that as your first customers you might have been a little more courteous to us,’ said Lara, her temper breaking free of its leash. She had to have a lot of patience in her job and she was only glad that she didn’t have to deal with Gene Hathersages every day. They’d be worse than gropey Giles Billingleys.

  ‘I should never have opened up Well Cottage,’ he muttered.

  ‘Why? Because – God forbid – tenants might complain that you’ve charged them a hundred and fifty pounds for a lump of cheese and the ingredients for three bacon butties? Or because they just might want to find the fuse box to put a light on because your electrics haven’t been serviced properly?’

  Gene Hathersage twisted to face her. He looked extra enormous standing on the chair, half electrician, half giant. His legs looked eight foot long in those faded, distressed jeans.

  ‘No one wants strangers here. It’s caused all sorts of bad feeling.’

  ‘Trust me, Mr Hathersage, I would never have willingly booked this cottage. Not in a million years.’ Lara’s voice began its crescendo as her temper not only slipped its lead but ran straight past the huskies, fell down a mountain and started gathering snow to itself, like a massive destructive snowball. ‘We thought we were heading for a fortnight of R & R in a luxury spa with massages and pools and first-class cuisine, not a cottage in the back of beyond, luxury hampers that are about as luxury as a toilet seat made out of broken glass, a sky full of clouds, no mobile reception, no Internet, no civilization and a village full of people that look at us as if we’re from the planet Arse.’

  Planet Arse? This from a woman named Best Industry Speech Maker the year before last. Clearly her standards were slipping.

  Gene Hathersage speedily turned back to the fuse box. She thought she saw his shoulders shaking. He actually had the cheek to be sniggering at her. She flou
nced out of the room, picked up her Kindle and threw herself on the sofa. Twice she reached the bottom of the screen and realized she hadn’t absorbed a word so she gave up. She had just turned it off when Gene came through the door carrying the chair.

  ‘All sorted,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Lara replied, with the world’s worst impression of a genuine smile of gratitude. Oh, she couldn’t wait to fill in the feedback report.

  ‘Please do call again, Miss Rickman, if you encounter any other difficulties.’ Gene’s faux sweetness matched her own insincerity exactly. She noticed how straight and white his teeth were as he gave his parody of a smile.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Hathersage. I do hope I won’t be troubling you again.’

  ‘Not half as much as I wish it,’ she heard him mumble as he left the cottage, closing the door ever so softly behind him.

  When Clare walked in and saw Lara’s expression, she hardly needed to ask what was up.

  ‘Gene bloody Hathersage, that’s what’s up. Had to go and fetch him to mend the fuse . . . God, the cheeky git. How dare he?’ What are you going to do to the water, breathe on it? Lara had just worked out what he meant.

  Then May made a breathless entrance. ‘Saw you coming up the hill, Clare, but I couldn’t catch you . . . What’s up?’

  ‘Lara’s had to go down to see Gene Hathersage again. About the fuse box, this time,’ Clare filled her in.

  ‘He called me a dragon,’ said Lara, and she relayed the insult to the others.

  Lara expected a modicum of sympathy; what she got were her two friends laughing so much they had to lean on each other for support.

  ‘I’ll make us something to eat,’ said Lara, taking Clare’s shopping basket from her. ‘Seeing as you two are too busy wetting yourselves at my expense.’

  They had cheese and bacon toasties with home-made minted pea soup. There was a plastic container full of the soup in the ‘luxury hamper’ and though Lara would never have admitted this to Gene Hathersage, even under extreme torture, it tasted like manna from heaven.

  ‘So where did you get to this morning?’ asked Lara, spooning out the last of the soup and wishing there were more.

  ‘Just wandering around,’ said May. She didn’t mention meeting Frank Hathersage. She was trying her best to forget him and the electric effect he had had on her – literally.

  ‘Clare?’

  ‘I had the most gorgeous swim downstairs. You’ll have to come with me and try it out,’ raved Clare. ‘As I was swimming the old lady who lived in the cottage on the headland waved at me and invited me up.’

  ‘You didn’t go, did you?’ asked May.

  ‘Yeah, I did,’ replied Clare. ‘Sweet old thing. I think she thought I was someone else, though. The villagers have obviously been talking about us. And you’ll never guess what: she has the same eyes as me.’

  ‘Poor beggar.’ Lara nudged her.

  ‘Oi. Oh, and you know what else I discovered? The third Hathersage – Val – isn’t a Valerie, it’s a Valentino.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Lara. ‘Not another brother.’

  ‘And there’s us thinking that they were three sweet little old ladies crocheting in rocking chairs.’ May smiled, also wishing there were more of that soup.

  ‘Whereas, in reality, one is an unsociable git, one is saddled with the world’s rudest girlfriend . . . and do tell what Valentino is like. Did you meet him? And are you leaving that?’ Lara swiped Clare’s abandoned burned crust from her plate.

  ‘Definitely got the family looks, but lighter-coloured hair, green eyes. Leaner and shorter. He’s friendly enough. I’d say he’s slightly younger than us, by a year or so. Very handsome and knows it.’ Clare kept it to herself that she had arranged to meet him. He was her secret for now.

  ‘Who do you reckon is the eldest?’ said Lara. ‘Nice Frank or horrible Gene?’

  ‘Frank, I reckon,’ May said and Clare nodded her agreement. ‘I’d put him at about thirty-six, thirty-seven, Gene a couple of years younger.’

  ‘I’d put Gene at about twelve,’ Lara said sniffily. ‘No wonder he lives with a dog, a load of wooden tree trunks and no Mrs Hathersage.’

  Clare gathered up the plates. ‘What shall we do this afternoon, then?’

  ‘Shall we have a drive around the area?’ suggested Lara.

  ‘If you don’t mind,’ said May.

  ‘Don’t mind at all,’ said Lara. Physical distance between herself and the landlord from hell would be very welcome.

  Chapter 31

  They decided to torture themselves by going to look at the spa in Wellem – and wished they hadn’t. The manor house was absolutely stunning; it was like a smaller version of Downton Abbey. The female staff in their pristine, white, Chinese-style tunics were more than slightly snooty. ‘No, you can’t go that way,’ shouted one from behind the reception desk when they tried to have a nosey at the Greek Pool area.

  ‘Can’t we just pop our heads round and see what it looks like?’ asked May.

  ‘It’s not an open day,’ twittered the woman, before immediately metamorphosing into a sycophantic pool of drool as a large woman wrapped in a cloud-like robe emerged from the door marked ‘Salon’. ‘Oh, good afternoon, Mrs Palmerly. And how are we today? How was the chocolate wrap?’

  Lara felt like saying that it was a shame the woman had dismissed her so easily because she was the Sultan of Brunei’s niece and thinking of booking herself and her entourage of two hundred people in for a month, but in the end she couldn’t be bothered. She’d do battle with them for their lack of customer-service skills when she got home. It would give her something to keep her mind off everything else that would be waiting for her back in Surrey.

  They couldn’t get to see the log cabin they should have been staying in because it was behind gates closed to the general public. Lara felt slightly sick and very, very guilty again.

  ‘I’m not just saying this,’ said Clare, linking her arm on the way back to the car, ‘but I couldn’t be happier than having that lagoon at my disposal.’ She didn’t add that part of her enthusiasm for staying was her rendezvous with Val Hathersage in the woods tomorrow. No – she wouldn’t have swapped the swirl of excitement he was causing in her gut for a fleecy dressing gown and a low-calorie salad. She couldn’t get their little interchange out of her head. She thought of his soft lips and knew he would be the most amazing kisser.

  ‘I’m happy enough too,’ added May with a gentle smile. ‘I feel as if I’m relaxing for the first time in ages.’ And she didn’t want to be at the spa, where Michael might contact her. The greater the distance between them, the bigger the deception seemed. Unbidden, snatches of conversation kept coming to her, lies she had no reason to doubt were truths at the time: highly detailed updates on Susan’s condition and his apology for smelling of perfume when he arrived at her house. She’d imagined him dabbing it on Susan’s neck and wrists in a tender attempt to make her feel like an able sentient woman or in a vain hope that the scent might drift to a part of her brain and awaken it. Thinking about it now in the cold light of realization, he had probably come straight from Kim’s house and it was her that he smelt of.

  ‘Okay,’ said Lara. She didn’t really believe them, but she knew that if the shoe were on another foot, she would have said the same.

  They walked around Wellem, which was a much more commercialized seaside town than Ren Dullem. It was spread out and hilly, and it even had roads that two cars could fit on, side by side. There were tacky souvenirs in the many shops and at least three fish-and-chip shops claiming to be the best in North Yorkshire. May wasn’t sure about that as she watched a delivery of fish fillets coming out of a van emblazoned with a sign that read: Dock & Tanner Fisheries, Leeds. They had their fish shipped in from Leeds?

  But at least Wellem didn’t have those weird clouds floating above it. The day was bright and warm and the beach was crowded with deckchairs and sunloungers. Children were making sandcastles and racing into the sea, only
to retreat quickly, screaming that the water was freezing, then laughing and charging back yet again to fling themselves into the waves.

  Clare bought two wind-up torches – buy one get one free – in a hardware shop so she could have some reliable light in the cavern. Then the three of them sat on a bench eating mediocre ice creams, staring out to sea. There were big chips of ice in Lara’s chocolate one – she was less than impressed and abandoned it after a few licks. That ice cream seemed to sum up the whole town: full of promise but not delivering at all. There were the usual amusements supervised by bored-looking individuals and a funfair that looked about as much of a thrill as having cystitis. There was no energy about the place at all despite being full of holidaymakers. Wellem was as tired as a blown flower, whereas Dullem was an unopened bud. It was a far prettier place with much more potential. Lara wished a letter would drop out of the sky inviting her to sort the place out.

  They found a restaurant before heading back but it was far more welcoming outside than it was within, where it was borderline grubby. At least the locals carried on drinking when they walked in and didn’t down tools to stare at the newcomers. The menu looked okay so they ordered food but May found a hair in her chilli and that put her and the others totally off their food. Lara complained and got a refund, but that didn’t stop May throwing up in the grimy toilet.

  May wanted to get home and into bed. Her head was pounding. Clare helped her into the car and Lara drove to Well Cottage as quickly as she could on the ridiculously winding roads.

  ‘Poor May,’ said Clare, stroking her sleeping friend’s forehead. ‘She’s so hot. I hope she’s not coming down with anything.’

  The way this holiday was going, Lara wouldn’t have been surprised.

  Back in Well Cottage they helped May to bed with a bucket at her side and a cold cloth on her head. She hadn’t thrown up since the restaurant, thank goodness. Lara could be sick herself if she thought about those hairs in the meal.