‘Fifty quid. Fifty quid I couldn’t afford to lose.’
Jamie stopped short. ‘What do you mean?’
Lee leered at her, eyes fixed on her camisole top. Jamie crossed her arms firmly across her chest.
‘Rod. I bet him fifty quid he couldn’t get into your knickers.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
Jamie knew she sounded stuck-up as soon as she said it. She should have just laughed, tossed her hair and walked off. Lee was baiting her.
‘Rod. I said to him, there’s no way a top-drawer bit of skirt like you would let a bit of rough like him get his leg over. Seems I was wrong.’
Lee leered again. Jamie was tempted to pick up his glass and throw it all over him, but that was probably the sort of uptight reaction he expected. He was gazing at her crotch now, so she moved her handbag to cover it, wishing she hadn’t cut her jeans off quite so short.
‘He says you’re a right little wildcat. Can’t get enough of it. I’m going to have to pay him out now.’
Lee threw back his head and laughed long and loud.
Jamie tilted her chin in the air primly.
‘I don’t believe you. I don’t believe he told you anything of the sort.’
‘Pink panties.’ Lee presented the proof matter-of-factly. ‘Tiny little pink panties that wouldn’t do you as a hankie, he said.’
Jamie felt sick. She had been wearing pink knickers; Marks & Spencers bikini briefs. Lee chortled at the expression on her face. He leaned forwards conspiratorially.
‘Easiest fifty quid he’s ever made. Just you make sure he buys you a drink out of it.’
Lee picked up his glass and took a long, satisfying pull as he watched the girl fly off in distress.
There hadn’t been any such wager, of course. In fact, Rod hadn’t told Lee anything about Jamie at all. It had been his somewhat furtive behaviour of late, his reluctance to join the rest of them down the pub as usual, combined with his sudden preoccupation with his appearance that had alerted Lee to the fact that his little brother was up to no good, and that it involved a woman.
He hadn’t been spying on them as such. He just wanted to confirm his worst suspicions. Despite his brother’s attempt at secrecy, Lee soon realized Rod was besotted with the Wilding girl. He’d followed him on a couple of occasions, just to make sure his hunch was correct, and his heart had sunk when he’d seen the two of them mooning over each other like love’s young dream. And yesterday, he’d spied them by the river, using the powerful binoculars he had for keeping surveillance during a job. They’d given him a pretty clear view of his brother’s seduction of Jamie, and her obvious enjoyment had struck fear into his heart. Things had gone too far.
So when he’d seen her like that, tripping across the market square without a care in the world, smiling the smile of the recently satisfied, he couldn’t resist bursting her bubble. He was pretty confident that he’d put a spanner in the works. And even if he hadn’t, it had been worth it for the look on Jamie’s face. With any luck she’d send Rod packing with a flea in his ear. Lee wasn’t worried about dropping his brother in it. It was for his own good.
He knew Rod had no real understanding of why it didn’t do to get mixed up with people like Jamie Wilding. He’d always had a naive streak, had Rod. No doubt he fancied himself in love, and that the love was reciprocated. Lee knew better. You’d always be a toy, ready to be dropped as soon as the novelty wore off. Though they always made out you were the best thing since sliced bread at the time. Lee had been a bit of rough for enough middle-class women over the years to know all their tricks. They bloody loved it when you gave them a good seeing-to; the rougher the better usually. But if you started to get too close, started to ask anything of them, they became nervous. Nervous then cool. Then would come the excuses.
Lee didn’t mind. He’d always got his revenge. Pleasuring these women in their own beds gave them a thrill, but also gave him a golden opportunity to case their houses. And when he did them over a few months later, they could never point the finger at him, not without incriminating themselves. Rough justice, maybe. But justice nevertheless.
Lee took another slug of cider. His brother might not realize it now, but he’d done him a favour in the long run. Cruel to be kind, thought Lee. Cruel to be kind.
Jamie hurried away as quickly as she could, Lee’s derisive laughter still ringing in her ears, hot tears of humiliation stinging her eyelids.
Had she really just been a wager between the two Deacon brothers? She could imagine them in the pub laughing, Lee ruefully and reluctantly counting out fifty quid in used tenners, with Rod telling everyone who wanted to listen about her sexual performance, how pathetically grateful she’d been for his attentions, boasting about her prowess. It couldn’t be true, surely. But then – how had Lee known she was wearing pink knickers? That couldn’t have been a lucky guess.
What a total and utter bastard Rod had turned out to be. Well, she wasn’t going to humiliate herself by confronting him and giving them all another chance to laugh at her. Jamie cursed her own stupidity. She should have known better: her own mother had always denounced the Deacons as black-hearted vagabonds that weren’t to be trusted, and had warned Jamie away from them. How on earth had she managed to persuade herself Rod was any different from the rest? The stolen horse: surely that should have set off alarm bells? They were a feckless bunch of petty criminals, the whole lot of them. And she was a naive little fool.
She tried not to think about the moments of tenderness that had seemed so genuine. The way he traced his fingers gently over her face. The way he always seemed to know what she was thinking, what she wanted. How they agreed over so many things. And how utterly fantastic making love had been –
Only it wasn’t making love. Not for him. It was a conquest, a challenge, a dare – a feat he’d probably be boasting about for weeks. And no doubt he was only good at it because he’d had so much practice.
She walked straight out from the market square into the road, blinded by her tears. A mad tooting alerted her to the fact she’d stepped right in front of a car. The driver was leaning out of the window, about to berate her for her stupidity.
‘Oh, fuck off!’ she snarled, in no mood for recriminations.
‘Jamie?’ It was Kif, looking at her anxiously. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’
She couldn’t deny there was something wrong. Kif leaped out of the car and put his arm round her, and she sobbed into his chest.
And from across the market place, Lee watched, his replenished glass in front of him, and smirked as Kif installed her gently into the front seat and drove her away. They always stuck together, the toffs. Well, so did the bloody Deacons. He’d take Rod out tonight, get him lashed, find him a girl who’d make him forget Jamie’s ladylike ways, her lily-white thighs, her pretty pink panties. Foxy Marsden would do the trick.
Rod was puzzled when Jamie hadn’t phoned him by half-six that night. She always phoned him, because no one in the Deacon house ever took any interest in phone calls that weren’t for themselves. An hour later he was increasingly anxious, worrying that he’d upset her in some way.
At eight o’clock he broke their golden rule and telephoned Bucklebury Farm. He’d make up a name if either of her parents answered; try and put on a pseudo-posh, casual accent. But it was Jamie who picked up the phone.
‘Jamie. Are you OK? What’s the matter?’
Hericy tones cut through him like a bitter east wind.
‘If you have to ask, then either you’re more stupid than I thought, or you must think I’m stupid.’
‘What?’
She sighed, wearily. ‘Just fuck off. And don’t bother phoning again.’
She hung up on him. Bewildered, Rod stared at the receiver his end. The temperature in the hallway seemed to drop, and he shivered fearfully. Something terrible had happened, but he didn’t know what.
Yesterday had been so magical. They’d left each other with tender kisses and promises, each in
agony at having to leave the other. What on earth had changed? He felt ill with foreboding. He hadn’t forced her into having sex, he was sure of that. But he’d heard about girls who changed their minds, when they panicked after the event. Surely Jamie wouldn’t do that? She wasn’t the fickle, highly-strung type who would blow the whistle on you just because they had doubts. And she’d had no doubts. There hadn’t been a moment when he’d thought she didn’t want to go through with it. There hadn’t been a moment afterwards when he’d thought she regretted what they’d done.
Or had he misread the signs? Could he have coerced her in some way without realizing it? He couldn’t bear to think that perhaps she was traumatized. He had to talk to her and find some way of discovering the truth. And if he had done wrong, he had to make amends…
*
At Bucklebury Farm, Jamie picked up her duffel bag, which she filled with a couple of changes of clothing and her night things. Kif was on his way over. He’d promised to pick her up at eight. She’d left a note for her parents, telling them where she was going. Kif had invited her down to Bristol, where he was about to start his third year in English at the university. He was going back early to move into his own flat; she was going to go down and help him decorate. A total change of scene and a few days’ hard work might help her forget the trauma of the past twenty-four hours.
At last she heard the sound of Kif’s car outside. She slipped out of the kitchen door. Turning the key in its lock, she shoved it under the mat.
They passed Rod driving hell for leather up the drive.
‘Don’t stop. Just drive on,’ commanded Jamie, and Kif obeyed her.
Bristol turned out to be the perfect tonic. Kif’s flat was wonderful – on the second floor of a high-ceilinged, spacious house overlooking the Avon in Hotwells. They spent three days with buckets of white emulsion, eradicating the dubious tastes of the previous inhabitants, with Bob Marley and Sting and Dire Straits blaring out on Kif’s sound system as the sun streamed in through the balcony windows.
Jamie loved Bristol. It had a buzz and an energy to it that she found totally seductive. She’d always thought she didn’t like cities – she certainly hadn’t particularly liked London, on the occasions her parents had taken her there with them – but Bristol was different. More intimate, less threatening. She was surprised to find she felt quite at home.
On the Saturday, to celebrate finishing and to say thank you, Kif took her out for dinner to Browns, where she met a crowd of his friends and they ate huge, fat juicy burgers and worked their way merrily down the cocktail list. Jamie for once allowed herself to get if not blind drunk then certainly very merry.
Later, they went on to a club, dark and sultry with unresolved sexual tension. Jamie lost herself in the throbbing music, totally uninhibited, relaxed by the alcohol and the atmosphere. She fell into a rhythm with Kif’s flatmate, Alistair, and when he pulled her in closer as the dance floor got more crowded, she didn’t protest, just melted against him. She felt dreamy, distant, languid and sensual; the air was thick with a strange sweet smell that she thought was probably dope. She felt cocooned from the real world, the world she had come from, the world she wanted to forget, where people shafted you and laughed behind your back, raised your hopes and then dashed them, and shattered your dreams.
Later, Alistair kissed her on the balcony of Kif’s flat as the sun came up over the river. And if she only felt a pleasant trickle of warmth, not a raging torrent of desire, she tried not to be too disappointed and enjoyed the encounter for what it was. She went alone to bed at six o’clock, light-headed from too much alcohol and too little sleep and the realization that there was life beyond Bucklebury Farm.
In the next few days, she buried away what had happened earlier that summer, passing Rod off as an adolescent crush whom she’d imbued with magical qualities because he was forbidden fruit. She even managed to convince herself that she’d only slept with him out of curiosity and to divest herself of her virginity. Being away from Bucklebury Farm and getting a taste of a different life also helped make up her mind about her future. She definitely needed to broaden her horizons and get a taste of what was out there in the big wide world – then perhaps she wouldn’t be gullible enough to be taken in by the likes of Rod Deacon again. She was going to go with her original idea to train to be a nanny, though she wasn’t going to study at the local college as she’d first planned. She found a private college in Berkshire where she could study full time. She’d only need to come home in the holidays, when it wouldn’t be too difficult to avoid Rod. They hardly moved in the same social circles, after all.
And so, that September, off she went to college.
And if sometimes, even years later, she woke from a dream that made her insides feel like melting chocolate, she knew she’d been dreaming of Rod, but she never admitted it to herself…
12
Jamie drove away from Owl’s Nest that lunchtime filled with fury and despair, and unable to face going back to Bucklebury Farm. She didn’t know what she would say to her father if she saw him. She needed to clear her mind a bit and get things into perspective, so instead of turning off for home, she headed straight along the main road back into Ludlow.
She felt drained; utterly humiliated that she’d broken down in front of Rod like that. But she’d suddenly been overwhelmed with despair. After the initial high of coming home the night before, thinking everything was all right, thinking that she was going to be able to cope and rebuild some sort of cosy idyllic life at Bucklebury Farm with Jack, she’d found that dream shattered. Jack the leopard was never going to change his spots, her mother was gone, the farm was going to be snatched away. Add to that the bitter irony of Rod Deacon being the one to benefit from the plan, and it was hardly surprising she’d lost it.
As she pulled into the market square, Jamie thought grimly that she’d certainly made a fool of herself. In front of Rod’s perfect wife Bella as well – what must she have thought of the screaming fishwife in her living room? She remembered Bella’s cool gaze upon her, the incredible composure, the dignified exit, while she ranted and raved like some harpy.
It occurred to her that today was the first time she had actually spoken to Rod face to face since that day by the river. She’d only clapped eyes on him a few times afterwards, which was incredible when you thought what a small community they lived in, and how close their boundaries were. The last time she’d seen him was in the congregation at her mother’s funeral, when there had been too many emotions jostling for pole position for her to give his presence much thought. Thankfully, he hadn’t come back to the house afterwards, so she hadn’t had to face him, but there had been a note, brief but polite, on his headed paper, sending his condolences and signed ‘with best wishes’. She hadn’t written back, though she’d replied dutifully to every other letter of condolence. She didn’t know what to say.
She’d seen the wedding photos in the local paper a few years earlier, Rod looking rakish in his morning suit, his eyes crinkling for the camera, and Bella looking utterly stunning in a low-cut white wedding dress. Jamie didn’t even have the satisfaction of thinking she looked tarty; she didn’t, just beautiful and radiant. The wedding had been in the church at Upper Faviell, with a reception afterwards at a country house hotel, which must have cost a fortune – even before you took into account the amount of drink the Deacons were likely to consume between them. But then, Rod’s kitchen business was doing very well. A Rod Deacon kitchen had become something of a status symbol locally. She’d seen a feature on him in Shropshire Life when she’d been to the dentist a year or so ago. It had been a three-page colour spread, with photographs of him in his workshop and examples of his handiwork, which she’d had to admit were exquisite. And a photograph of him and Bella in their kitchen at Owl’s Nest, the epitome of domestic bliss, hands curled round mugs of coffee, beaming for the camera, the perfect couple, successful and content. Jamie’s ensuing root canal treatment had been less painful than seeing those
photos.
She knew of Bella. She’d been to classes at her mother’s dance academy with Kate and Emma, when she was about seven, before pony mania overtook the desire to be a ballet dancer. Bella had been a precocious tot even then, immaculate in her tutu with her black hair scraped back into a bun, always used by her mother to demonstrate the correct moves, which she did with an air of smug satisfaction as if to say ‘You will never be as good as me as long as you live.’ Jamie was sure Bella and Rod were happy together. They obviously couldn’t keep their hands off each other, nipping home for lunchtime sex…
As she pulled into a parking space, Jamie tried not to dwell on the image of the two of them in bed together, and focussed instead on the spending spree she’d promised herself. She desperately needed a good splurge in the chemist to make up for neglecting herself over the past few months. And, she noticed, with her mother gone, the house had lost some of its softness. Jamie resolved to give it the feminine touch it was sorely lacking.
The town was thriving, and she smiled to see it. Like a lot of country towns dependent on agriculture and tourism, it had suffered badly a few years ago from the foot-and-mouth crisis, and a lot of businesses had gone under as a result. But Ludlow was now happily resplendent again. It lifted her mood. She spent the next hour exploring, investigating the changes and indulging in her old favourite haunts. As well as the predictable antique shops, there were many unusual emporiums selling things that were hardly essential to life, but were totally irresistible nevertheless. She bought a dozen beeswax candles, and some muslin lavender bags, several bunches of flowers, fresh coffee and loose leaf tea, then deposited her purchases back in the car before setting out on her own transformation.
Wild Oats Page 13