He pulled away, holding her at arm’s length facing him, his eyes feasting on her glorious glow. “Becky, I’ll go now, but could we spend some time together tomorrow, before you return to the mad metropolis? I did promise Max we’d finish the metal detecting and digging. And if you’ll let me, I’ll collect those apples for a pie for Dad.”
She smiled gratefully for the option he had given her. Her preferred choice was for him to stay longer, but now wasn’t the right time. She wanted to savour these new feelings before moving into a more intimate relationship. She needed to be sure, not only for her own, but for Max’s sake. He didn’t deserve another man leaving their lives, stealing their happiness away.
She walked Josh to the door. “We’d love to see you tomorrow. Thank Tom and James for their hard work in the garden. Maybe I can repay them when I get settled here, invite them and their partners for a barbeque and a few beers?”
“You’ll need a full keg to keep those guys happy, but sounds great! Night, Becky.” His lips lingered on hers in another kiss before he strode away down the newly cleared garden path, Poppy jogging along behind him.
* * *
Max and Rebecca took their time surfacing the next morning, luxuriating in not having to be up with the birdsong.
“Are Josh and Poppy coming today, Mum? Can we finish digging the hole in the garden? My metal detector’s still beeping and I want to find all the buried treasure, even if it’s not pirate.”
She kissed his freckled face and his turned up button nose. “Yes, Josh and Poppy will be ’round after lunch to help us to pick all those lovely apples from the tree at the bottom of the orchard. We’ll bake a couple of pies, one for Josh’s dad and one for us to take back home tonight.”
“I want to stay here, Mum. Do we have to go back to the flat tonight? I want to go to school in the village school you showed me. I promise I will be good.”
“It’s only for another three weeks—just until half term, love. Then we’ll come back and live in the cottage until it’s sold.”
Rebecca smiled down at the person she loved most in the world. For the very first time she felt no coil of guilt, no self-recrimination of her sub-par parenting. The decision she had taken to purchase Rosemary Cottage had improved her life and Max’s beyond recognition. It had enabled her to meet Josh, which in turn had caused Max to blossom, with the help of Poppy, from the anxious, sleeve-sucking little boy to the bright, confident, animal-loving child he now so clearly was.
And it was not only Max who had flourished. Rebecca could now accept that, with a little help from her friends and The Little Green Book of Wishes, she had found the courage to move on, too.
“Do you like Josh, Mum?
“Yes I do. He’s very kind to us.” For the first time Rebecca was enjoying the experience of real, unselfish love, but still, she watched Max’s reaction to her admission carefully. She was delighted to find intrigue and a soupcon of mischief.
“Do you want to kiss him?”
* * *
A familiar flip in her lower abdomen, followed by a tingling sensation rushed through her body as Josh pushed open the picket fence gate. Again, she experienced the melding of passion and comfort from last night.
Carrying a short wooden ladder, greyed with age, over his arm, he and Max marched down the back lawn to the orchard and positioned the ladder onto the gnarled bark of the oldest apple tree. Climbing into its boughs, Josh rained down apples to Max, whose job it was to catch them and pop them into the wicker baskets. Whenever his butterfingers dropped one they both giggled—Max chasing after the apple like a ball boy at Wimbledon.
The warmth of the sun bathed the garden in a golden autumnal glow, casting defused shards of sunlight through the fruit trees. It was one of the most relaxed days Rebecca could remember and she felt a surge of gratitude for Josh. Even if a romantic relationship didn’t develop, he had enhanced their lives by his solid, no-hidden-agenda presence.
Max was having the time of his life, too. Fresh air, exercise, and the pursuit of treasure had banished his pale peaky face, in its place was a smiling one sprinkled with freckles. She had no doubts at all about her decision to relocate to Northumberland, her home. But it was time to embark on the long slog back to London.
Josh stuffed the ancient hatchback with their sparse returning belongings, slamming down hard to lock the trunk on the catch on the boot—Rebecca terrified of a repeat performance of the time it flew open on the motorway. She squeezed Max into his booster seat and scooted back up the garden path to check the lock on the heavy oak door.
Josh caught up with her on the doorstep, raising her chin with the tip of his finger to gaze into her emerald eyes. Making sure they were shielded from the road by a rhododendron bush, he kissed her gently.
“The next three weeks will drag without your and Max’s company. I will miss you both. Drive carefully and call me when you arrive, no matter what time it is.”
“We’ll miss you, too, Josh. Thank you for making this such a special weekend and for being so kind to me and Max—for caring about his feelings. He says you’re his best Northumberland friend!”
“No higher accolade!” He chuckled.
“Josh, would you be up for attending Deb and Fergus’ wedding with me and Max? He’s my date of course, but you could tag along.” She half joked to ensure he felt no pressure to travel to a marriage of strangers.
“It would be an honour to accompany you both. Thanks, Becky. If I remember correctly, the wedding is being celebrated at the local village hall, isn’t it? I’ll book into a B&B in the village, if that’s okay.”
“That’d be great. Well, until the thirty first of October!” And she kissed him on the cheek before jogging happily down the garden path to the car. Rebecca considered performing one of those running skips she’d seen in the movies, where the girl clicks her heels together and joyously fist pumps the air, but she discarded the temptation as she knew she’d probably fall flat on her face.
With Poppy by his side, he raised his arm in a wave from the little wooden gate as she and Max tooted the horn and set off on the first leg of the long journey back to London.
It was this blissful image that remained seared into her mind’s eye for the next three weeks.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The day dawned like every other day in Dubai—hot, with the promise of blistering heat to come as the day grew older under the flat blue sky. Cheryl had to admit that after three weeks of the repetitive, uncompromising heat, and despite being an avid sun-worshipper, she found herself scanning the sky for a wisp of cloud, maybe a spell of rain, to escape the monotonous scorch of the sun. Monotony was the word for her life in Dubai.
Bradley’s baptism into legal services provision in United Arab Emirates had provided him with a ready-made social life—if one enjoyed socialising with one’s colleagues. But Cheryl found that her position as a ‘lady of leisure’ was not all it was cracked up to be. Filling her endless humdrum days with shopping and spa treatments had initially been immensely enjoyable, but now she craved more than that.
Their sumptuous apartment—leased for them by the law firm—was situated on the thirty-sixth floor of a cutting-edge design, glass monstrosity, but thankfully was air-conditioned to freezing point. Cheryl would never have admitted this to Bradley, who adored the minimalist, sharp lines, and symmetry of the building, but she preferred the black-and-white, mock-Tudor mews they’d shared in London.
All the apartment’s furniture, furnishings, and artwork had been provided by the firm’s contracted interior-design team, right down to their corporate-blue tea towels and crisp, white bed sheets—three hundred thread count Egyptian cotton. Their attention to intimate details was a little creepy. She’d almost expected to find a selection of fine lingerie in her bedside drawers!
The apartment was immaculate, visited daily by the company’s retinue of housemaids who scowled if Cheryl dared to lift a crimson-polished finger, fearing for their continued employment. A cha
uffeur, Zahid, had been placed at their disposal, available to drive Cheryl where ever the mood took her during the day. But where was that?
She’d shopped ‘til she’d dropped’, indulging in lightweight linen trousers and sheer, diaphanous summer dresses. Her ebony hair had been coiffed and tousled in one of the many salons. She’d treated herself to a number of spa treatments at several of the luxury hotels’ spas, her favourite being Hotel Armani. But, unlike Bradley, she had no work colleagues to team up with and had yet to make any female friends with whom to share her day and her woes.
She found herself mooching around the apartment, avoiding the accusatory stares of the maid—who clearly wanted the place to herself so she could rifle through the wardrobe—waiting for Bradley to return from his day’s work. For the last week, the tedious wait had been getting progressively longer, Bradley arriving later and later in an increasingly intoxicated state.
Cheryl now had to admit that she was bored with the sun, bored with the tedium of shopping, and bored with pointless spa treatments. Who would have thought it!
In London, she would by no means have described herself as a culture vulture, but she enjoyed an evening out at a West End show, an occasional visit to the Tate, or the National Portrait Gallery. She adored the escapism of the cinema, too, especially a rom-com with her friends or sister whom she yearned to gossip with and missed tremendously. She’d even admit to having a great time in the corporate box at Chelsea.
But in Dubai? What was there to do here and who did she know to do it with except Bradley, who last night was so incoherent when he arrived back at the apartment, having been drinking since lunchtime—apparently a tradition for a Friday lunch. He’d been unable to escort a dressed-up Cheryl to dinner at the Indian restaurant, Asha, as promised.
They’d argued, culminating in Cheryl launching a crystal vase complete with cream roses—refreshed every day by the maids who had free run of their home—at Bradley, who’d staggered off to the spare room, where he remained, sleeping off the effects of Friday’s binge.
It wasn’t as if this was anything new. They both over-indulged in London, using Saturday to recover, before resuming their spree on Saturday night. Sundays they passed in a haze of sleep and hangover, recovering their faculties for Monday morning. But in Dubai, Bradley was not including her in his socializing, and she felt not only lonely but also jealous.
Bradley had settled straight away into the ex-pat community and lifestyle. He’d adopted a more relaxed dress code—which she couldn’t—accepted the provision of domestic services—which she hated, feeling it invaded her privacy and sense of equality—and as he slaved all day in an air-conditioned office, the oppressive heat didn’t seem to bother him, unlike Cheryl who loathed the permanent perspiration and her voluminous hair.
Bradley enjoyed man-bonding and networking accompanied by copious amounts of alcohol, but women held a different place in this society. As he’d returned most evenings intoxicated, they hadn’t made love in weeks. In fact, Bradley had shown very little romantic interest in her since they’d arrived.
It was eleven a.m. on a Saturday morning and Cheryl had hoped they could spend some time together, maybe at the tennis club the company had paid their subscription for, along with his colleagues and their wives or partners. It would be an opportunity for Cheryl to make connections and maybe friendships, but Bradley hadn’t yet surfaced from their second bedroom.
She stormed into the dim bedroom and shook him awake, noticing his expensive designer suit scrunched on the floor where he’d stepped out of it, and the fact he still wore the pink work shirt from the previous day. This would have been abhorrent to the Bradley in London, who was teased mercilessly for his attention to sartorial detail and meticulous hygiene. An aroma of stale alcohol fumes and vomit pervaded the darkened room.
“Brad, where were you yesterday? What exactly were you drinking? You’re disgusting. Will you clean yourself up? I want us to go out. I’ve been stuck in this clinical box all week. The only company I’ve had is the maid!”
Groaning, Bradley rolled away from the sharp, piercing light as Cheryl drew back the blinds, revealing vomit stains down the front of his shirt.
“Give it a rest, Cheryl. I don’t want to go shopping again and I certainly don’t feel like a game of tennis, so don’t even suggest going there. I’m spending the day in bed, and then meeting Jacob and Marcus at six at the Shark Club. Why don’t you go out shopping? Amuse yourself.”
Cheryl studied him as though she had never set eyes on him before and was repelled by what she saw. His weekly groomed hair was dishevelled, his eyes bloodshot and grey-rimmed. His five o’clock shadow, usually so attractive, was twenty hours too old, coupled with his crumpled, vomit-splattered shirt. This wasn’t the Bradley she knew and loved.
“Are we meeting Marcus and Jacob’s wives tonight?”
“No, Cheryl. It’s just the lads. We’re meeting a couple of potential clients we’re hoping are going to put some financial business our way, so no frivolity, I’m afraid. Look, why don’t you invite your sister across for a long weekend, just to help you get settled in?”
“Carrie’s pregnant, I told you! So she’ll loath this heat, too. It’s suffocating, and even I can’t bear it. And staying in the air-con plays havoc with my skin. I’m so bored here, Bradley, there’s nothing to do! I never see you and when I do, you’re drunk. It’s not fair. This is not what you promised me when I agreed to come here with you.”
“Stop whining, Cheryl. This apartment is spectacular. We could never afford anything like this in London. You’ve got a housemaid, a chauffeur, and money to go shopping for anything you want. Stop being so damn selfish and think about how important it is for me to make a mark here! I’ve got to be seen around in the right places, get my face known, build up my reputation.”
Silent tears drifted down Cheryl’s cheeks. She never cried, never had cause to, which stopped Bradley in his self-focused tracks. He pulled her down on the bed and kissed her hard.
“Sorry, Cheryl. I do understand it will take you time to get used to your new life here, but it’s a fantastic opportunity. Come on, let’s get dressed and I’ll escort you out to Adriano’s Ristorante, a romantic lunch a deux.”
Cheryl would have loved to have told him where he could stick his offer of two hours of his valuable time, but self-interest kicked in as she couldn’t stand another day of mooning around the apartment doing nothing. Being alone and the long lonely Saturday night stretched in front of her.
She nodded, slinking away to her bedroom to repair her face and select one of her new flimsy chiffon, ivory tea dresses, decorated with tiny peach rosebuds she’d not had the chance or occasion to wear. Not her usual London attire, but tightly fitted shift dresses and hip-hugging skirts produced an unacceptable level of perspiration, which she loathed.
Zahid drove them to the sumptuous restaurant where they were directed to a pristine, white leather circular booth, their table bedecked with crisp, starched linen and crystal glasses. It was her favourite restaurant, the food was delicious, and she immediately relaxed over her flute of icy vintage rosé champagne, giggling at the anecdotes Bradley was spouting about his new career and work colleagues.
Cheryl hadn’t approved of Bradley ordering another bottle of bubbly, hoping to return to their apartment for an afternoon of passionate love-making, her desire for Bradley rekindled, but Bradley had insisted on ‘hair of the dog’, and reminded her he wasn’t driving.
It seemed to do the trick as Bradley morphed into his charismatic, attentive self—stroking her hand, brushing his lips against her earlobe as he whispered slurred words of passion. She felt his desire for her growing, especially as they had not made love for three weeks. As he ran his finger delicately up her inner thigh, her body’s response was immediate.
“Not here, Bradley!” She glanced around the packed restaurant. “Come on, let’s get back to the apartment.” She watched as Bradley knocked back the remainder of their third
bottle of champagne. They had paid for it, he’d retorted and struggled up from the table, seizing Cheryl’s hand roughly to steady his stance.
As they reached the pristine lobby, Bradley stumbled down the last of the cream-coloured marble steps. He clutched Cheryl to prevent falling, grabbing at the neckline of her flimsy chiffon dress, tearing the delicate material to her waist. As Cheryl had chosen not to wear a bra with the flimsy dress, her pale, pert breasts were immediately exposed to the lobby full of diners waiting for their chauffeurs.
Horrified, Cheryl screamed, shoving Bradley away from her, leaving him sprawling drunkenly on the marble floor, whilst she tried to repair the torn chiffon and resume her dignity, but the front of her dress had torn in tram-lines. Her tears of mortification and Bradley’s fumbling at her breasts made matters even more embarrassing for Cheryl and the mesmerised audience, until the maître d’ swept over, draping her shoulders with his own jacket as her face burned with humiliation.
Within moments, the police arrived, arrested and handcuffed Bradley, stuffing his disheveled head into the backseat of the patrol car, and drove him straight to Jebel Ali police station and the end of his glittering career.
Zahid arrived to drive Cheryl back to the apartment. She politely asked him to wait whilst she changed into white jeans and an orange t-shirt, stuffed as much as she could into her brand new, matching designer suitcases, and located her passport and credit cards. Zahid sped directly to the airport, Cheryl desperate to escape the month’s nightmare she had endured in Dubai.
The knot in her stomach, the lump of rock in her throat, did not unravel or abate until she sank into her allocated seat in Emirates first-class cabin where she spent seven long hours sobbing for her failed relationship. Having terminated the lease on their mews house and resigning from her job at Fortnum and Mason to follow Bradley, she wondered where she went from there.
The Wish List Addiction Page 18