What a complete and utter shit he was.
I picked up a clod of earth laced with ground elder roots and slung it over the fence into his pristine borders. There! Have that for starters.
I carried on in this vein for some time, until I had to stop for a rest and some squash. As I glugged it down I saw the gift voucher propped up on the windowsill. A good reason to go out. A good way to not hang around listening for the roar of Bryn’s truck as he came home. I trudged upstairs, washed most of the mud off and changed into some cleaner clothes. Then I set off.
First I called in at P.D. Smith Esq with my jewellery box and my grandmother’s little clock. It turned out that P.D. Smith Esq had died in 1976 but a very charming assistant took everything from me, gave me a receipt and promised that young Mr Smith would value it and get back to me when he returned from the jewellery auction in Okehampton later that afternoon. They would agree a price, sell things on my behalf and keep ten per cent of the sum involved. Was that satisfactory? Yes, it was. Did I still need to sell the stuff? Maybe not but there was something about owning jewellery bought with other people’s money that repelled me. And my grandmother’s clock had stood on my dressing table in Ian’s house. It just reminded me of the past now and they weren’t happy memories.
I mentally ticked off another job done with considerable satisfaction and headed for the South West Garden Centre. There was a handy map printed on the back of the gift voucher and it was only twenty minutes away.
Autumn was now well and truly here and the trees had steadily turned all sorts of seasonal colours. The valley below Holly Cottage looked so beautiful that afternoon. A thin autumnal mist lay over the little river softening the brightness of the sunshine and there was crispness in the air that encouraged me to open my car window, letting in the faint evocative tang of bonfires. Soon it would be Halloween, Bonfire Night and then another Christmas.
For the first time I wondered how I was going to spend it. On my own? I had spent the last five years fussing around Susan and her uncertain digestion. Maybe I would fly to Texas to see my sister kicking up her heels at the golf club? Perhaps I would drop a few desperate hints to the friends I had neglected. I had sent an email to Sophie telling her I was OK and would call in soon, but apart from that I had resumed my isolated lifestyle.
I wondered what Bryn was going to do for Christmas. I could picture his sitting room decorated with holly boughs along the mantelpiece, perhaps a tree in the corner scenting the air with pine. The warm darkness brightened with candles in glass jars, the light from the fire reflected from baubles and pictures. Or perhaps he didn’t bother at all. Did any man cook Christmas dinner for one? Saddest of meals – a cartoon turkey leg, instant gravy and some frozen roast potatoes and parsnips.
My jaw tightened in annoyance; perhaps he did none of those things. I expect he just landed on the Friend with the Most Benefits of the moment and spent the time charming her into providing him with yuletide treats and festive sex.
Perhaps Bonnie would welcome him back into her arms and her bed if there were nothing better on offer. I bet she had a Mrs Claus outfit somewhere at the back of a cupboard and would continue her prancing, stocking tops showing, on Christmas morning. Perhaps she would tease Bryn, standing with his beautifully wrapped present just out of reach at the end of the bed until he lunged for her and—
Bastard.
I reached South West Garden Centre just after three o’clock, found a space in the busy car park and took a trolley. Inside the vast shop was busy with a coach load of elderly ladies admiring scarves and jerseys in the women’s wear while their husbands plodded around with their hands in their pockets looking wistfully at the petrol strimmers and battery-operated cat repellers.
The café was full of couples enjoying afternoon tea. It looked like a well-stocked place and outside there was even more to see. Rows of winter pansies nodded their little cat faces in the air and there were plants, wooden troughs of onion sets, spring bulbs and all sorts of seed packets begging to be scooped up. There was any amount of paving, decking, sacks of decorative stones and hundreds of bags of compost stacked in rows. There were plenty of staff too, dressed in bright green polo shirts so they were easy to find.
I saw two in a corner opening boxes of Christmas decorations and complaining that Christmas seemed to be coming earlier than ever as they investigated the contents. I went up to one, an elderly man with more than a slight resemblance to Santa Claus who was looking with some bewilderment at a tree decoration made out of twigs tied with red tartan ribbon.
He held one out to me. ‘Wouldn’t you think people could tie their own twigs and save themselves two pounds fifty?’
‘Um, well I suppose so…’
‘I mean it’s not exactly difficult, is it?’
‘No, I can see that.’ I didn’t really want to get drawn into this discussion, so before he could start on anything else I introduced myself.
‘My name is Charlotte Calder; I was told you were expecting me. I’ve come to use up this voucher. It’s a prize. My friend won it and said I was to come here to spend it.’
I held it out in front of me and after dusting off his hands he took it and read it two or three times. After a while his face lit up.
‘Ah yes,’ he said, and he threw me a look. ‘You’re right, we’ve been expecting you.’
‘Shall I just fill a trolley with stuff or…’
‘Certainly not!’ he said, offended. ‘Come with me. I’m to take you to the office.’
He led me through the shop towards the back of the building. We passed an impressive display of wellingtons of all sizes and colours, wheelbarrows, a huge selection of ceramic pots and troughs then some rather ghastly gnomes and flowerpot men made from flowerpots of course. At last he stopped outside a door and knocked. Someone called for him to come in and so we did.
I should have guessed.
Why was I not surprised?
It was a small room filled with crates and boxes of random gardening stuff, books, balls of twine, piles of catalogues and at least one bird table in pieces. In the middle of all this chaos was Bryn.
He looked up from his laptop and his face relaxed into a smile.
‘Here she is, boss,’ the old man said, sounding rather pleased with himself. ‘Do I get a finders fee?’
Bryn laughed, ‘Thanks Malcolm.’
Malcolm ambled off and Bryn came round the desk towards me.
He stood in front of me and, for a mad moment, I thought he was going to hug me, but then he folded his arms and leaned back against his desk.
‘So, here you are, Lottie.’
‘Here I am.’
Could this be just an incredible coincidence? Or had I been set up? By Jess? By Bryn?
‘Jess – she said I had – that she had won a voucher in a competition.’
‘Yes.’
‘And I had to come here to get stuff for the garden.’
‘Yes.’ He looked at me steadily, waiting.
A shaft of late afternoon sunshine came through the window, highlighting his tawny head.
‘So?’
‘So?’
‘Are we going to stand here all afternoon saying so, or do you want to help me?’ I said. Perhaps I could cover my unease by being forceful.
He was still watching me. ‘Oh, I’d like to help you, Charlotte.’
Why did I love the sound of my name when he said it? Did I suddenly turn from being paint-splattered, mud-smeared, accident-prone Lottie into sensible, grown-up Charlotte?
He looked at me. I looked at him. The tension between us was palpable. I don’t think either of us knew what to do. Bryn took one step towards me and I felt myself sway in his direction as though he was magnetic.
He was going to kiss me, I knew he was.
I knew he was and I wanted him to. Why was I finding it hard to breathe? Perhaps he would sweep the paperwork off the desk onto the floor with a clatter of bulldog clips and lift me onto it. He would hold me again
st him, his arms a vice. I would know again the feel of his warm skin under my fingers, the taste, the scent of him.
Just as I was about to pitch myself at him the office door opened.
‘Sorry to bother you, chief, but the man from Parsons is here with a delivery of rotted manure. Shall I tell him to bring it round the back or do you want to have a word with him? We don’t want no more split bags after all, do we?’
It was Malcolm, back again at just the wrong moment. I looked at his cheery, honest expression as he stuck his head round the office door and silently wished him all sorts of indiscriminate harm.
Bryn turned away and looked through a pile of letters on his desk, pulling out one and scanning through it before handing it back to Malcolm.
‘Just tell him to put it round the back by the decking area. I’ll take a look later.’
‘Righty ho. And there’s a box of Christmas stuff that needs to go back. Half of the stuff smashed. It looks like someone drove over it with a fork lift truck, not moved it.’ He gave a wheezing chuckle. ‘I’ll get Dawn to sort out the paperwork.’
Malcolm closed the office door behind him with a bang. I could hear him whistling as he went away. I hoped the roof would fall on him, or that he might be run over by a posse of the elderly ladies with their sweater-laden trolleys.
Bryn opened the office door for me. ‘Look, I’ll get one of the chaps to give you a hand. Any idea what you want?’
‘Not really, I was hoping you might advise me.’
‘I’m a bit busy, to be honest.’
‘I thought you wanted to help me a minute ago.’
He turned with an exclamation of annoyance and picked up a walkie-talkie. After a few minutes it crackled into life.
‘Malcolm? Can you come back and help Miss Calder?’
There was a crackle of static in reply and some unintelligible but obviously irritated words from Malcolm.
Bryn turned his back on me and spoke more quietly. ‘Yes, I know, but I need you to do this now. Just get one of the others to help him and I’ll send her down.’
He ushered me out, his arm around my shoulders but not touching me.
‘Malcolm will give you all the advice you need,’ he said, and he closed the door behind me.
What was I to make of that? One minute it seemed as though he might drag me onto the desk, the next he could hardly be bothered to speak to me.
I trailed miserably after Malcolm who seemed just as irritated with my company as I was with his.
Once he realised I wasn’t interested in buying Christmas decorations or in vegetable gardening he steered me in the direction of the spring bulbs, cyclamen tubs and the winter hanging baskets. It was obvious that £250 would take a lot of spending. After fifteen minutes he was getting very fidgety so I made a grab for the nearest ornament and heaved it onto the trolley. Malcolm’s eyes widened in horror. Perhaps a resin statue of a grotesque, evil-faced pixie firing a bow and arrow wasn’t his idea of money well spent but I thought it would serve Jess right for putting me in such a hideous situation.
Between us we lugged my haul to the tills and I presented my voucher. The assistant hid her feelings very well but she and Malcolm exchanged a knowing glance as she searched for the pixie’s price. For the first time I noticed there was a great deal of red biro scribble on the label and a considerable price reduction.
‘Cheerio then, Pixie Pete,’ she said, scanning the bar code, ‘we never thought we’d see the back of you!’
I felt a right fool.
Malcolm loaded the statue into the back seat of my car and with a humorous twist of his mouth fastened the seat belt across it. As I drove out of the car park a woman pointed in open-mouthed astonishment as we passed her, the pixie apparently aiming its bow and arrow towards her small son, who promptly burst into tears.
CHAPTER 19
Morning glory – love in vain
Back at Holly Cottage, the autumn sky was darkening into evening. I dragged my swag into the garden and arranged Pixie Pete so that his bow and arrow were aimed directly at Bryn’s back door. It seemed highly appropriate. Then I dumped the sacks of bulbs outside the kitchen, aimed a kick at them, and in a more than filthy temper, slammed the back door and locked it. Bloody men. Bloody Bryn.
To add to my mood I had somehow managed to leave the fridge door open. The milk carton had fallen over and the contents were sloshing around in a revolting mess of salad leaves and plastic cheese wrappers. A carton of six eggs had fallen out and smashed on the floor. I cleaned up the mess, gagging. How on earth had that happened? Just what I didn’t need.
I sat at the kitchen table and tried to understand. I had begun to think things were going to be OK between me and Bryn, but now it was all going wrong and I didn’t know why. What had I done? Perhaps Ian had been right after all.
‘Look, Lottie, it’s a fact of life. All men play around a bit if they get the chance. You know that. Any man who says he doesn’t is a liar.’
Blast. Why did I keep remembering that particular sentence? It was thumping through my brain on a loop.
And at last I stopped making myself think about something else and allowed myself to think about that moment.
That awful moment during the party when I was looking for Ian. Wanting him to open the champagne for our guests so we could toast the New Year. Then I noticed the door to the study wasn’t closed properly. And I found them. Ian and Trudy locked in an unappealing embrace. His hands halfway up her skirt, her hands on the back of his head, the hairs on her arms glinting in the light from Ian’s desk lamp, as they clamped lips together on the red leather Chesterfield.
The breath had been driven from my lungs. I stood shocked and silent for a moment and they were so absorbed in each other that they didn’t notice me.
‘I can’t go on with this. Ken suspects something. You’ve got to tell her,’ Trudy panted, coming up for air.
‘Soon, soon,’ Ian gasped, his hands navigating the many folds of her dress.
I stepped forward into the room, my head dizzy. ‘Tell me what? What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
They sprang apart like repelling magnets and Ian struggled to his feet, tucking his shirt in and almost falling over.
‘Lottie!’
‘Ian, what the hell are you doing?’
‘Nothing, it’s nothing,’ Ian said. He hiccupped and turned to Trudy, spittle at the corners of his mouth. ‘Why didn’t you shut the door?’
Trudy got to her feet and patted her dress down modestly.
‘It’s not nothing, Ian,’ she said. She turned her muddy gaze towards me. ‘It’s time you knew. We’re in love.’
In the distance our guests were shouting.
‘Three minutes to go till the New Year, where’s Ian?’
‘I want some champagne!’
‘Trudy!’ Ian said, his voice cracking with the horror of the moment. His eyes were wide as they swivelled between Trudy and me.
‘Well, we are, aren’t we? We’re in love. That’s what you just said.’ Trudy turned to face me, quite composed, her mouth spewing out horror. ‘We’re in love and have been for ages. We’ve been having an affair for over a year. That week you thought he was in Northampton at the builders’ conference? Well he was with me in Torquay. The weekend he said he was in Liverpool? He was with me; we went to Paris. Ian loves me. It’s time you realised. I wanted you to find out.’
I couldn’t catch my breath for a moment. The whole thing seemed utterly ridiculous.
‘What? Paris? But, we’ve been together for years,’ I said. ‘He said he would take me! He loves me!’
Trudy sneered at me and tucked her hair behind her ears.
‘Really?’ she said. ‘Really?’
I think it must have been the wine but I began to laugh. Not the sort of laugh you do when something is funny but a disbelieving, almost hysterical sound.
Somewhere in the distance I could hear our guests.
‘Five, four, three, two, one. H
appy New Year!’ and then there was a cheer.
I could imagine people embracing in my sitting room, in the village, all over England and still I stood in the doorway and laughed, the tears springing into my eyes.
I felt a hand on my arm and, thank God, Sophie was there.
‘Champagne?’ she said.
And then she must have realised something was happening. She took in the scene and then hiccupped.
‘Oh bugger. What’s the matter?’
I wiped hysterical tears from my eyes. Trudy put one hand on Ian’s arm and he seemed to change in front of me. He became someone else, a smaller man, he suddenly looked his age. I couldn’t quite recognise him. I turned away.
I staggered to the kitchen and Sophie put her arms around me. I stood very still, the tears running down my face. I didn’t seem able to stop them. How could Ian do this? It couldn’t be true. I could trust him with my life. He wouldn’t do a thing like that. Had he been having an affair with her? With her?
I was aware of the noise from the party fading. Someone had switched off the television. I could hear people starting to talk in quieter voices, the what’s-going-on sort of conversation people had at moments like these, I suppose. Someone laughed and another person shushed them. It was as though someone had died.
I tried to focus; the whole room was starting to move. I was hovering in that dangerous place between intoxicated and being seriously pissed.
OK, I wasn’t exactly Ellie Goulding in the looks department, but I was damn sure I was more attractive than Trudy. She was short, miserable, dumpy. She had facial hair and no dress sense. What the hell did Ian see in her?
A horrible thought struck me; for all her shortcomings she might have advanced bedroom tricks that would leave me for dust.
I began to gulp for air. I was ill. I was going to throw up. The bile hit the back of my throat. All the party food and wine churned in my stomach, mixed with my disgust and absolute shame. I pushed Sophie to one side and ran for the utility-room toilet where I was violently and humiliatingly sick. After a few moments I pulled myself up to sit on the loo. Hot, dizzy, shaking. I wiped my face with a damp J Cloth that smelled of lemon bathroom cleaner and leaned on the edge of the sink, my head spinning.
The Summer of Second Chances Page 21