An Autumn Crush

by Milly Johnson

  ‘You’re a good wrestler.’

  ‘Aye, I am,’ said Steve. ‘But I should have been grappling in the fifties when it was big-time over here.’

  ‘Or wrestling now in America where it still is,’ said the old man.

  ‘I wish,’ said Steve, waving goodbye to the old fellow now that he could see he was all right. ‘Don’t I bloody wish.’

  It was fairly quiet in Burgerov that evening, although a party of eleven were booked in at the stupid hour of 10 p.m. They were travelling up from Southampton en route to Glasgow and had paid Kenny Moulding over the odds to feed them. Kenny didn’t pass on any of the profits to the staff who would have to work so late to accommodate them – obviously.

  Steve’s words had been going around in Guy’s head since he left. He was right, he did both need and want to rejoin the human race and feel close to a woman again. The trouble was, he didn’t just want any woman, he wanted Floz Cherrydale. He had to get on the right foot with her, talk to her, get her to know the real him, and get to know the real her, give it every chance before he walked away and moved on. It defied reason why he had fallen so deeply and quickly for someone he had hardly spoken to – and who couldn’t stand the sight of him. All he knew was that it wasn’t infatuation: this was love – indefatigably and absolutely. And he wanted to impress her so much that all thoughts of mysterious old flames were extinguished.

  Guy checked his watch. Juliet would be on her date now, leaving Floz on her own in the flat. He had an hour and a half until the Southampton party arrived. A surge of adrenalin spiralled upwards through him. Yes, do it. It was now or never.

  He ripped off his apron and called to Gina: ‘I’ll be back in an hour. You’re in charge.’

  He grabbed his car keys and strode out into the balmy autumn evening. The moon was huge and low and pink as rosé champagne. A Wine Moon, or a Harvest Moon as it was more commonly known. He hoped that was a sign that tonight he was going to harvest the affections of Floz Cherrydale. Tonight he was going to make her take her previous opinion of him and rip it up into shreds. Tonight they were going to start everything again.

  Chapter 56

  Guy pressed the entryphone button outside his sister’s flat. He was so full of gung-ho natural chemicals, he felt he was either going to throw up or start ripping up cars.

  ‘Hello?’ came Floz’s gentle voice.

  ‘It’s Guy,’ he said. ‘Can I come up?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Floz replied, her voice stiffening by ten degrees. She instantly predicted what would happen next: he would walk in, ask for Juliet, find out Juliet wasn’t there and then use that as an excuse to do some saturnine Heathcliff-type frowning, as if his sister’s absence was Floz’s fault.

  Guy bounced up the stairs and pushed open the flat door.

  ‘Hi, Floz . . . er . . . where’s Juliet?’

  Yep, thought Floz. Correct so far.

  ‘She’s out. With Piers. Didn’t you know?’ replied Floz, getting ready for a sulky mask to drop over his face.

  ‘Ah yes, she did tell me.’ Guy slapped his forehead with his hand and it looked like the rubbish acting it was.

  ‘Can I help?’ she asked, wondering what the heck he was up to.

  She looked so tiny, he wanted to fold his arms around her, lift her up and kiss her soft lips again until her pale cheeks were as flush-pink as the Wine Moon outside.

  ‘Guy? Can I help?’ repeated Floz.

  Guy shook himself out of his reverie. ‘Sorry. I . . . er . . . wondered . . .’ His phone went off in his pocket. ‘I’m a Barbie Girl’, at a thousand decibels. ‘Oh God!’ Once again he’d failed to make the phone behave. He pulled it out of his pocket and saw it was Kenny Moulding who was ringing. Well, stuff him – for once he would have to wait. Guy tried to switch off the phone but his big finger wouldn’t depress the switch properly. Let’s go, Barbie. He was so flustered he dropped the phone and it bounced under the sofa. He fell to the floor, scrabbling around for it. He had the feeling that if he stamped on it and threw it from the window into a lake, the damned tune would still be playing. He couldn’t lever the back off to remove the battery. He banged it on the coffee-table to kill it, all the while aware that Floz was frozen to the spot, watching him make an even bigger arse of himself than all the previous times put together.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ said Guy. ‘I bought the phone from eBay. I can’t get rid of the last owner’s tunes from the memory, and however much I try and alter the ringtone . . . anyway, all that’s very boring, sorry. Erm, Floz, I came to ask—’

  Then the entryphone buzzed hard and impatiently as if someone was stabbing it.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Floz, going to pick it up. Guy could hear the sobbing coming from the receiver at the other side of the room.

  ‘Come up, Coco,’ said Floz into the phone. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

  ‘Oh shit.’ Guy meant to say this under his breath, but it came out loud.

  Quick – there’s still time!

  ‘Floz, the thing is . . .’

  Then Coco fell through the doorway and threw himself onto Floz.

  ‘Gideon and I are finished!’ he said. ‘He’s been seeing a florist behind my back. I looked at his mobile and he’s been making loads of calls to him. Oh, why are men such bastards? Why, why?’ Then he spotted Guy and temporarily broke off his dramatic wailing. ‘Oh hi, Guy. How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks, Coco,’ said Guy, his mouth a grim line. ‘Never better, in fact.’

  ‘What was it that you came for, Guy?’ asked Floz, holding Coco as he collapsed again onto her shoulder.

  ‘Why? Why me?’ cried Coco.

  ‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter,’ said Guy tightly. He was so angry that he had got so close to setting the record straight with Floz. Angry that fate – in the guise of an hysterical gay perfume shop owner – had stopped him from asking Floz out. Angry that he’d lost so much time. Angry that Hallow’s Cottage was out of his reach after so many years of coveting it. Angry that even his bloody phone was against him.

  Then Juliet walked into the flat and announced that she had just thrown up all over Piers Winstanley-Black’s Savile Row suit.

  Chapter 57

  Juliet sat on the sofa in her plum-purple flannelette pyjamas sipping on a glass of lemonade. Order had been restored. Whilst Floz was making tea, Coco had listened to the twenty voicemail messages that Gideon had left on his mobile. It appeared that he wasn’t ‘knocking off a florist’ as accused. And if Coco went home to his house he would find that Gideon had actually conspired with the said florist to fill his bedroom with bouquets as a surprise.

  ‘You should trust him or you’ll lose him,’ warned Juliet. ‘If you start hunting around for evidence, you’ll find something to twist and make it fit what you want to believe of him. Don’t be such an arse again.’

  ‘I won’t,’ said Coco, who more or less flew home on a current of glee.

  After being assured that his sister was just suffering from a tummy bug, Guy exited the flat quietly and returned to work without actually saying why he had called round. His expression was now so dark, he made Heathcliff look like Frank Carson.

  At last peace reigned in Blackberry Court and Juliet cracked open some Jaffa Cakes for which she had a sudden ravenous craving. She hadn’t eaten all day – give or take the cheese tarte that had been in her stomach temporarily in the Four Trees restaurant.

  ‘All those years waiting for a date with Piers Winstanley-Black and I end up throwing up on him,’ chuckled Juliet. ‘Can you believe it? You’d think dating would get less dramatic the older you get, wouldn’t you? Obviously not.’

  ‘No, it gets worse,’ nodded Floz with a telling sigh that she didn’t mean to make but which Juliet noticed and stored as further evidence of a mystery man in Floz’s life.

  The house phone rang; It was Coco, brimming over about how his flat was like Kew Gardens and there were rose petals all over his bed.

  ‘What was Guy doin
g here, by the way?’ asked Juliet, after that call had ended.

  ‘I never did get to find out,’ said Floz. There were a few moments of quiet before Floz braved what she was dying to air. ‘He doesn’t like me very much.’

  Juliet shook her head. ‘Don’t be daft. I just wonder . . .’ Then she stopped.

  ‘Wonder what?’

  ‘I just wonder,’ Juliet began cautiously, ‘if you might remind him of an ex-girlfriend. It’s just a wild guess but she was your height and build. Sour-faced cow.’

  ‘Great, thanks.’ Floz puffed out her cheeks. Juliet obviously attended the same charm school as her brother.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean that you’re a sour-faced cow,’ Juliet stressed. ‘You don’t actually look anything like her in your face. But he is a bit shy with you, I’ve noticed. It did cross my mind it might be because of Lacey.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Floz. ‘I’m presuming it wasn’t someone he split amicably from then.’

  ‘Actually, they did split amicably and stayed friends,’ said Juliet. ‘That was the problem, he was too good a friend to her, to be honest. She used him. She was a nutter. I hated her. We all did.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Floz. So, Guy thought she looked like a nutter-ex of his. Someone that everyone hated. It was getting better and better.

  ‘Anyway, I shouldn’t really speak ill of— her.’ Infuriatingly for Floz, Juliet stopped herself from finishing off the sentence and picked up an earlier thread of the conversation. ‘About Piers – I exaggerated slightly when I said I threw up all over his suit. He only got a splash on his sleeve. The floor got the rest. It was tiled so I imagine it was quickly cleaned away. How bloody embarrassing.’

  ‘Well, it couldn’t be helped.’ Floz topped up Juliet’s glass of lemonade for her.

  ‘I had absolutely no warning my starter was going to come back up or I’d have rushed out to the loo. That was the scary thing.’

  ‘What did Piers say?’

  ‘Not a lot at first,’ cringed Juliet. ‘I think he was in shock. I don’t imagine anyone’s ever thrown up on him before in an exclusive setting or otherwise. I have to give him his due though; he drove me straight home and saw me to the door. He was a perfect gentleman all evening – just like I imagined he would be, courteous, handsome, attentive . . .’ then Juliet fell silent.

  ‘But?’ Floz was forced to supply.

  ‘You’ll laugh,’ said Juliet. ‘I’d laugh myself if I didn’t feel so confused.’

  ‘Try me,’ said Floz, nudging her arm with her own.

  ‘Bloody sodding swining Steve Feast, that’s what’s up.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Juliet dropped her head into her hands. ‘It’s mad. There I am, sitting opposite Piers Winstanley-Black – my dream man who I have been slavering over for years. He’s just poured me some wine which is fifteen quid a glass, I’m choosing from a menu created by an award-winning chef and all I can think is, “Steve will be wrestling tonight. Which costume will he be in? Will Chianti be there watching? Have I crossed his mind at all since he pulled the plastic cow?” ’

  Then she burst into tears. ‘Oh, Floz, I can’t believe I’m saying this but I think I’ve managed to fall in love with him. How the fuck did that happen?’

  ‘Oh, love.’ Floz put her arms round Juliet; her shoulder was still damp from Coco’s sobs. ‘I don’t know how these things happen, they just do and we have no control over the way our hearts work. You should tell Steve how you feel, because I think he’d be thrilled.’

  ‘How could he be?’ said Juliet, wishing she could stop crying. She never did a soft thing like girly crying. And never over a man. ‘He’s going out with his dream woman tomorrow. We had a “just sex” arrangement and it was me that kept hammering the point home that that’s all it was. Look at me, I’m a bloody wreck. My periods have stopped, I’m crying, throwing up and everything I eat tastes funny. What the buggering hell is up with me?’

  Floz pushed Juliet back and looked at her square in the face.

  ‘Ju, you’re not going to like this,’ she said.

  ‘What? What?’ cried Juliet.

  ‘Juliet, I think you need to do another pregnancy test.’

  Asda was open all night. Floz drove down to get one whilst Juliet stayed at home within striding distance of the loo. After Juliet had weed on the stick again, they both sat on the sofa and watched it. Two faint blue lines appeared in the boxes and got darker and more defined.

  ‘But I did a pregnancy test and it was negative,’ said Juliet, too shocked for tears.

  ‘Maybe you did it too early for the test to pick up,’ said Floz, who felt a bit light-headed herself.

  ‘What am I going to do?’ said Juliet. It was too enormous to take in. Pregnant? By Steve Feast, whom she had hated since school and yet now she couldn’t get him out of her brain – something she had only discovered when he left her life.

  ‘You’re going to go to sleep, that’s what you’re going to do,’ said Floz. ‘Because we can’t do anything now, it’s far too late. And you need to rest your brain and your body.’

  ‘I won’t sleep,’ said Juliet.

  They put on Bridget Jones and watched it sitting together on the sofa, until the pair of them nodded off like two brain-weary bookends.

  Chapter 58

  Juliet awoke first the next morning and stretched out her arms. She felt hungover, rough, adrift and hurting, because the predominant thought in her head, eclipsing everything else – even her apparent pregnancy – was that Steve was seeing Chianti that evening. Beautiful, leggy, slim (if chavvy), designer-dressed, unpregnant Chianti, who he had been in lust with for aeons.

  She sobbed into the furry throw which she must have reached for in the middle of the night to cover herself. She did so silently, so she wouldn’t wake Floz. What a bloody fine mess she’d managed to get herself into.

  Floz awoke to the smell and sizzle of bacon. She went into the kitchen to find it on a low heat unsupervised because Juliet was in the loo throwing up. She looked green in the gills when she emerged, wiping her mouth. Floz couldn’t have imagined that someone as strong as Juliet could look so sad, so bewildered.

  ‘I rang in sick,’ she said.

  ‘Too right you did,’ said Floz. ‘Shall I take over the cooking?’

  ‘I don’t know why I started cooking bacon. I don’t want any. I think I just wanted something to do.’

  ‘I’ll make some tea and toast,’ said Floz, pushing Juliet back down onto the sofa. ‘I’ll take the day off, we’ll sit and watch the breakfast TV news and Jeremy Kyle . . .’

  ‘I feel like someone off Jeremy Kyle,’ Juliet huffed, catching sight of herself in the wall mirror. She was the colour of an anaemic snowman.

  Halfway through the DNA results on a ‘who was the father’ story, Juliet nodded off. Floz crept off to check her emails whilst she could. There were a couple of briefs from greetings-card firms but nothing from Nick. She sat on the sofa next to the sleeping Juliet and wrote some jolly birthday jokes because her own head was full of stuff she wished she could lose too.

  Chapter 59

  She was absolutely beautiful. A body to die for, thought Steve, as he ran his hands all over her. He wanted to shag her there and then, but she was a car and there were rules about that sort of thing. He inserted the key into the ignition, and fired her up. She purred as he slipped out of his drive and smoothed out into the road. He was going to buy a Merc from the slimy salesman. And the one he had in mind was two luxury grades up from this available-for-hire model. He couldn’t wait to climb in and pull the scent of her into his lungs. There was no perfume like that of a brand new car.

  Steve took her for a burn-up on the motorway and felt like a king as she eased past everything to the left of him whilst he listened to ‘Silver Dream Machine’ on a continuous loop on the surround-sound CD player. Who needed women when there were machines like this? He held onto that thought hard, because it kept wanting to slip away.

  J
uliet’s day had been the worst she could ever remember. The best bit was falling to sleep and finding oblivion. She woke up to Alan Titchmarsh’s smiling face on the television, and it was no reflection on him that five minutes later she was retching again. But there were things inside her that ached far more than her strained stomach muscles ever could. She couldn’t think straight. The one thing she never wanted to be in life was a single mother.

  Dear Floz was fussing around her like a red-haired hen, tucking the big snuggly throw around her and feeding her lemonade and the ginger biscuits she had been out to the corner shop to buy because apparently ginger was a vomit-suppressant, so she said.

  The clock hands had crawled around the face more slowly than was legal in the laws of time and physics, Juliet was sure. Somehow it had gotten to EastEnders time and she tried to concentrate on what was happening, but her brain wasn’t strong enough to bat away the images of Steve in a suit, Chianti in a slinky size zero strapless, backless, frontless, sideless frock and Empire-State-Building heels. Chianti would probably be in Steve’s arms now, and his brain would be full of nothing but savouring the moment. And her body.

  The sound of the entryphone buzzer thankfully interrupted those torturing thoughts.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ said Floz. ‘You sit there and rest.’

  ‘Please tell me it’s not Coco and more wailing,’ said Juliet. ‘I can’t handle him tonight if it is.’

  ‘Er no,’ coughed Floz, a few seconds later as she buzzed the visitor up.

  ‘Who is it then? Guy? Not Mum and Dad. Please, Floz, don’t let them in if it is,’ Juliet called as Floz opened the door, and in sauntered Steve.

  ‘All right then?’ he said, casual-as-you-like. He was in black trousers and a white shirt, and a loosened blue tie, the same shade as his Swedish eyes.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Juliet gasped, acutely aware of the dress imbalance. He was all smart and she was in baggy pyjamas that she had been wearing for nearly twenty-four hours. And she felt even more of a slattern for not having any make-up on.