‘My dog died. I think I do.’
Lara fell guiltily silent for a moment. ‘Yes, maybe you do. I’m sorry. Was he old?’
‘Eighteen, not that his age makes it any easier,’ said Gene. ‘When you came around on Wednesday morning the vet had just left. He told me that there was no hope. I wanted a few more days with him. Last night he was in too much pain to carry on and I had to let him go.’
Lara nodded. ‘So that’s why you’ve been in such a foul mood.’
Gene looked surprised. ‘I was no different to how I usually am.’
‘Oh.’
‘Stop moving. I’ve got to unwrap this again; it’s too slack.’
Lara shifted in the chair. ‘I’m not moving deliberately. It’s a reflex because you’re hurting me.’
‘No pain, no gain.’
‘I should gain plenty, then. Ouch.’
‘Do you want something to bite down on?’ Gene growled.
‘Yes, your head.’
He looked up; she looked down. They viewed each other’s scowling countenance and burst into involuntary laughter.
‘I don’t know why I’m laughing,’ said Lara, wiping water from her eyes. She couldn’t tell if they were tears of laughter, pain or sadness. ‘This time last week I was happy and both ankles were working perfectly. This week I’m homeless, single, crippled and in bits.’
Tears started plopping down her cheeks and there was no mistaking that these were big fat sad ones. Embarrassed, Lara started to wipe them away on her sleeve before she realized it was full of mud. She felt a wad of material being pushed up against her nose – another tea towel.
‘Here,’ said Gene. ‘Have this before you flood the place.’
Lara blurted out a bubble of laughter. ‘Thank you,’ she said meekly.
Gene pinned the bandage and stood up.
‘You should have a cup of tea or something. For the shock,’ he said.
‘I wouldn’t mind one if you’re asking.’
He turned away from her and put the kettle on. His head almost reached the ceiling beams over by the window, but Lara noticed that the beams were lower there than in the rest of the room. The cottage walls were all out of square. La Mer was probably hundreds of years old.
She studied the back of him and compared him to James but found there was not much similiarity. Gene Hathersage’s shoulders were twice the width, his waist was thicker and his bum a fine chunk. Once again she thought of the last time she had seen James’s bum, white, skinny and stuck up in the air. Lara’s cheeks were rivers of water. The tea towel was drenched.
‘Don’t know how you take it, so here, help yourself.’ Gene thumped a milk carton and a bag of sugar down on the table before placing a steaming-hot mug of tea in front of her. ‘So, why were you looking for me?’
‘Someone was on our roof in the middle of the night, bolting a big metal aerial thing to it. It scared us to death. We can’t watch the TV any more. And the phone isn’t working either.’
‘Uncle Milton.’ Gene shook his head. ‘I’ll sort it. Sorry about that. It’s my great-uncle. On my mother’s side. The Birds are all flaming loop the loop. He’s over ninety and shouldn’t be climbing ladders, especially in his stupid slippery pumps. He’s a Bird by surname, I mean, not by species.’
‘I gathered that’s what you meant. What is it? Why did he do it? And why did he do it at two o’clock in the morning?’ Lara poured a little milk into her cup.
‘He . . . er m . . . probably thought he was improving the television reception. He invents things,’ Gene explained.
‘I think you mean he’s trying to make our stay worse so we’ll leave early.’
Gene conceded a nod. ‘Yeah, most likely.’ He shrugged his shoulders and quickly changed the subject. ‘Not a good week for you, then, you were saying.’
‘Crap, actually,’ said Lara, lifting the cup to her lips. ‘Pants, shit, bollocks doesn’t even cover it.’
‘Homeless? You said you were homeless.’ He pushed a packet of chocolate fingers towards her.
Lara held up her hand to refuse and then said, ‘Oh sod it,’ and took one.
‘I rented out my flat when I moved in with my boyfriend. The night we drove here I found him in bed with his ex.’ Lara couldn’t believe the words were coming out of her mouth when she hadn’t even told her best friends all this. She was sitting with her face covered in mud, her foot covered in goo, having tea with the rudest man in the world and yet it was to him she was baring her soul.
‘Will you go back to him?’
‘I’ll have to meet him to get all my stuff. But, no, how can I? I can’t get what I saw out of my head. It would always be in the way. The trust has gone. There is nothing he can say or do to put it right. But it hurts. So. Much.’ She gulped, not wanting to embarrass herself any more. Although she doubted that was possible. Her dignity was in the gutter keeping her ego company.
‘Sounds like you needed a holiday.’
‘Damned right I did.’
‘In a nice spa.’
Lara looked at him and saw a twinkle in his wild dark eyes.
‘It would have been good. But Wellem Spa is fully booked now. Plus, Clare found the lagoon underneath the house and, well, there’s no chance of dragging her away from that.’
‘Yes, I know she found it. I saw the evidence of the torn wallpaper,’ Gene grumbled.
‘We will make sure it’s fixed before we leave. She’s not in the habit of ripping off wallpaper looking for secret doors, you know. She discovered it by accident.’
‘I know. You told me before. Are your friends Yorkshire women too?’ asked Gene, eating his third biscuit.
‘Yep. Clare’s from York, May’s from Leeds.’
‘Yet you live down south?’
‘Plenty of women from the north live down south, you know,’ huffed Lara, flicking a blonde curl out of her eye. Did he think it was tantamount to emigration?
‘And what do you do? Not journalists, are you?’ He topped up her tea from a giant red teapot. Anyone would think he was enjoying her company and wanted her to stay.
‘Journos?’ Lara let loose a bark of laughter. Is that what the latest rumour about them was? ‘No. We all work together, at a company called Cole and Craw Finance. Clare, the one with the eyes, she’s an accountant. May helps to set up new businesses and gives people advice. They’re both brilliant at what they do. I help ailing, more established businesses turn themselves around, or wind them down if they can’t be rescued. Our jobs are quite similar really – we’re all involved in trying to help people help themselves.’
‘Are you any good?’
The cheek of him.
‘I’d like to think so.’
‘You must be bored rigid in Ren Dullem without your computers and mobile phones.’
Lara shook her head. ‘I haven’t been bored for a minute.’ And she only realized once she had said it how much she meant it.
Then Lara noticed that a small fish had been carved into a corner on the table.
‘That’s pretty,’ she said.
‘It’s my signature,’ Gene replied. ‘Like the Mouseman. Except I’m the Fishman.’ He smiled, and Lara was reluctant to admit how much his eyes lit up when he did so.
‘You made the table then?’
‘Yep.’
Lara stroked the smooth back of the fish. ‘You could be the Soleman. That would be cool,’ she said, smiling back at him. ‘You’re very good. Do you sell much?’
‘I’m doing okay, could do better. I’m just starting to make a name for myself, after years of trying. I was eventually able to drop the day job last year.’
‘What was that?’
‘Nosey, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘The village odd-job man, if you must know.’
‘So now you make a living from wood?’
Gene blew out two big cheekfuls of air.
‘Ren Dullem is hardly the enterprise capital of the world. But, yes,
I’m building up a nice order book. A shop in Whitby takes a lot of stuff.’ Gene proffered her the packet of biscuits again, but she waved it away.
‘One last question: why is such a pretty place so hostile to strangers?’
Gene stood up. ‘I’d better get you back home.’
One question too far, thought Lara. She levered herself to her good foot and then gasped as Gene pushed her firmly against the wall. Without saying a word he lifted her arm and marked a place on the wall with a nearby pencil. It was like a bizarre height chart for armpits. He didn’t explain and Lara didn’t have a chance to ask before he bent over to pick her up.
‘I can walk. I’m fine,’ she said, hopping away.
‘Suit yourself,’ he said, holding out a crooked arm. ‘You might need to lean on me, though.’
‘Thank you.’
He walked at her pace out to his van and opened the door for her. It was a working van, spartan inside but surprisingly clean, though it smelled of dog. They were back at the cottage within minutes.
‘I’ll bring some more comfrey round later when I come to take that down,’ and he flicked a finger at Milton’s metal monstrosity. ‘As soon as I’ve said goodbye to my lad.’
He helped her out of the van and she saw the shine of moisture in his eyes as he turned from her to drive back home.
Chapter 53
May and Clare were awake when Lara crashed into the cottage. They had both just dragged the mattresses back onto the beds.
‘How did you get o— Bloody hell, what happened to you?’ said Clare.
Lara hopped over to the sofa. ‘I fell into a dog grave and sprained my ankle.’
May’s hand shot to her mouth. ‘Oh, Lara.’
‘Don’t try to pretend you don’t think it’s funny.’
‘Let me get you a cloth. Your face is covered in mud.’ May went into the bathroom and brought out a face cloth which she had rinsed in warm water. ‘I won’t get you a mirror; you wouldn’t want to see. It’s not pretty,’ she said. ‘So come on, then, what happened?’
‘Which bit do you want first?’
‘Start slowly and build up to the most exciting part.’ May was almost crying with the effort of trying not to laugh.
‘I went over to Gene Hathersage’s place to tell him about the aerial, saw him in the distance and walked off towards him. I didn’t look down, fell into a bloody hole that he’d just dug and knackered my ankle. He carried me – and I so want to die about that – into his house and put this poultice on it. He’s coming back later to take off that thing on the roof, which he says was put up by his great-uncle Milton Bird. Apparently he invents things.’
‘Things to ward off us offcumdens, perchance?’ asked Clare, going over to put the kettle on.
‘Got it in one.’
‘Is Great-Uncle Milton responsible for the clouds as well? Did you ask?’
‘I didn’t, but I’d put money on it. Though God knows why.’
‘So . . .’ May raised her eyebrows. ‘You’ve been dancing with the devil then?’
Lara shrugged. ‘I’d hardly call it dancing. There was nothing remotely Strictly about what I’ve just done in front of him. Anyway, he isn’t that bad when you . . .’ She was going to say ‘get to know him’. She amended it, though, to: ‘fall down a hole and he has to come to your assistance. His dog died yesterday. He’s burying him now.’
May’s laughter dried up. ‘Ah, that’s sad.’
‘Apparently when I went storming around there on the first morning, the vet had just told him that the old chap was near the end. No wonder he was half-rabid.’
‘We’ll forgive him, then,’ Clare said with a smile. There was so much back-biting and politics in their day jobs that it was always like a gust of fresh air when things were smooth and friendly between people. ‘Let’s draw a line and start again.’
Lara huffed. ‘I’ll forgive him when he refunds us for the luxury hamper.’ But secretly she felt that a little bit of her heart already had forgiven Gene Hathersage.
Chapter 54
Just before midday Clare insisted on going to the village to bring back something nice to eat, even though the fridge was well stocked. She took a slow walk down the hill, peering into Spice Wood for signs of Val. Her heart fluttered when she saw a figure moving between the trees, but when she looked more closely her spirits dropped to see that it was actually a portly lady with her hair in a high bun. She wore a black coat and was carrying a basket. Clare walked on to the shops. It was Sunday so most of them were shut. Hubbard’s Cupboard was open, though. The shopkeeper, Mr Hubbard, was very pleasant to her now. She wondered if they thought she might be a relation of Raine’s. If that was the case, she would let them. It was much better to be received with a smile than with a grimace.
She thought she might make a nice tasty pasta dish. Lud loved Italian food and she had made him a tiramisu cake for his birthday in March. As, once again, her thoughts touched on him, she wondered how he was getting on, if he was missing her, if he’d had sex with anyone else. That thought hurt.
She filled her basket with ingredients and took a slow stroll up the hill. When she reached the fallen tree trunk at the edge of the woods she sat and waited, anticipation tripping through her veins. At one o’clock, she admitted to herself that Val Hathersage would not be meeting her today. Her heart was a wild mixture of angry, disappointed and sad when she rose reluctantly to her feet and went back to the cottage.
‘Where the heck have you been, Clare?’ asked May. ‘We nearly sent out a search party.’
‘Sorry. Most of the shops were shut. I had to hunt around.’
‘It’s me who should be sorry,’ said Lara. ‘I know we were going to drive into Whitby today and find a nice pub for Sunday lunch. Once again I’ve cocked up.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ said May. ‘I’m happy staying here.’
‘Anyway, it’s nice to defy convention and have pasta instead of roast beef,’ said Clare, putting on a big smile to cheer up poor Lara.
‘You’re both too nice,’ said Lara.
‘I know,’ replied Clare. ‘May, open that tin of olives for me, would you? Do you and James and the children all go out for Sunday lunch at home or do you don an apron and cook? I love doing a roast. Mind you, you’ve got an au pair, haven’t you, Lars? You are so lucky.’
‘Kristina has Sunday off. I . . . er . . . usually do the lunch.’
I roast it and no one eats it. The children push it around their plates pretending it’s horrible. James, when he’s not at work – or shagging behind my back – doesn’t even acknowledge it as he chews.
‘I envy you, Lars. In a nice way, I mean.’ said Clare, pouring boiling water into a pan. ‘Having that lovely ready-made family and that gorgeous man. He’s like a film-star. I can’t imagine how you must feel getting into bed with him every night. As for that house you live in! You’ve got it all, haven’t you? I bet your mum and dad are so proud of you. Do you think you’ll get married? I can just imagine you in Hello! or even better, one of those posh society mags.’ Clare drew the headline in the air: ‘Super-gorge James Galsworthy marries Blonde Bombshell and Barnsley Brainbox Lara Rickman.’
May was the first to spot that Lara’s head was bowed and she was sobbing. ‘Jeez, Lars, whatever is the matter, love?’
Her sympathy made it worse. Lara could hold it back no more. They were being so sweet and she had ruined their holiday. First by booking the wrong damned place and then by falling down a hole and spoiling their planned day out. She couldn’t do anything right any more. She couldn’t book a holiday properly, couldn’t make friends with kids, keep her man . . . Feeling May’s long slim arms close around her and being enclosed in her lovely floral perfume, Lara’s tears continued to waterfall down her face.
‘What did I say?’ Clare rushed over, guilty that she had caused Lara to be so upset. ‘Oh Lara, you didn’t think I was being catty, did you, when I said you had it all? I think it’s great that you’ve done so well
.’ She ripped off some kitchen roll and pressed it into her crying friend’s hand. ‘Here, Lars. I am so sorry if it was something I said. Oh my, I feel terrible.’
‘It wasn’t you, Clare,’ sniffed Lara, taking the kitchen roll and blowing her nose on it. ‘It’s me. It’s all a mess.’
‘It isn’t a mess,’ May scolded her. ‘Don’t be daft. I’m having a lovely time. And so is Clare.’
‘May, trust me, it’s a mess. I’m a mess. My whole life is a bloody mess,’ Lara blurted out. There – it was said.
Clare sat down at the other side of Lara on the sofa. ‘What’s up? It’s not the holiday that’s upset you, is it? It’s something else.’
Lara blew her nose again before delivering the big news. ‘James and I are finished. I found him in bed with his ex.’
May gasped. ‘Oh, Lara, no.’ History repeating itself. Poor Lara.
‘His children hated me. I couldn’t do anything right for them. They hated my cooking, they hated me. I felt like a hired help. Actually worse, because Kristina got three hundred hours off per week. Now I don’t have anywhere to live because I’ve rented out my flat. And my boss is an arsehole. If he touches my bum once more I swear I’ll swing for him.’
Clare squeezed Lara’s arm. ‘Lars, why didn’t you say?’
‘I didn’t say because I didn’t want to wreck your holiday, but I don’t think I could wreck it any more than I have done.’
‘You haven’t wrecked it at all, silly,’ May said. It’s the oddest holiday of my life but I like it.’
‘And you mustn’t worry about where to live. You’re very welcome to stay with me,’ Clare suggested. ‘You’ll have to bunk up with me though and I snore.’
‘We know,’ said May. ‘I don’t snore and I’ve got a spare room.’
‘Thank you, both.’ Their kindness was humbling. ‘I just can’t believe that I’ve failed. Again. Another man goes back to his ex. I’m seeing a pattern develop.’
‘Yeah, you choose shit men,’ said Clare. ‘I thought you were really happy.’
‘I wanted to be. I thought it was just teething problems – you know, two single people learning to live together and having to adjust their boundaries and things.’ Except James didn’t adjust anything in her favour; with a little perspective and distance she could see how little he had actually done to help her. ‘That’s why I didn’t say anything. I thought everything would turn out okay in the end. Then when I found him in bed with—’ She shook her head in disgust.
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