Helena looked around for Vicky, feeling alarmed that Jess was apparently going into a trance. But at the last minute, her eyes snapped open again and she thrust her left hand towards Helena.
“Take him.”
Nestled in her outstretched hand was the tiny figure of a man with stag antlers on his head, and a cloak that dropped from his shoulders to his ankles. “Uh, the consort…?”
“The Lord of the Wild Wood, the Consort of Our Lady, and the Wild Man. Yes, take him home.”
Helena took him in her hands, gingerly. The model was only four inches high but it was surprisingly heavy. Jess’s words had made her feel hot, and her scalp prickled. “Why?”
She was expecting Jess’s eyes to roll back in her head, and some creepy premonition to issue from her mouth, possibly in an unnatural voice, but Jess just shrugged and laughed. “Why? Why not. Something to meditate on. Also, it means you’re going to come back.”
Helena shivered. “How do you know?”
“So you can give him back, of course.” Jess smiled.
Vicky had been listening and she moved up to stand by Helena’s elbow. “Fantastic. Well, it was a great night, as always. Thanks for having us…”
Helena stood to one side during the lengthy leave-taking. Her weariness had bloomed into full-blown exhaustion by now, and all she wanted to do was crawl into bed. She slid gratefully into the passenger seat of Vicky’s car, and couldn’t even be bothered to berate her about the unexpected ritual.
She muttered a few good-nights when Vicky dropped her off, and her eyes were barely able to focus as she staggered into her cosy house. She dropped her bag by the door and checked the answerphone - nothing.
And then she stood in the hallway, and her hand crept to her jacket pocket, where she’d put the figure of the horned man. She didn’t take it out, but she closed her fingers over the lump, and listened to the sound of her house.
There was no sound. It was an empty, silent place.
For the first time, she was struck by the hollowness. She was there, yes, but it felt uninhabited. She shook her head. Her over-tired mind was playing tricks on her. She went through her nightly routine, checking the doors and windows, before trudging up the uneven stairs to her small bedroom at the back of the house, under sloping eaves.
She undressed like an automaton, and slid between chilly sheets. The bed was a large one, a double, and she reached out her hand to the sides. Empty.
She loved her own company, she really did, and she reminded herself of that, over and over, as she lay awake in the dark, her eyes stinging with tiredness, as her mind whirled and sleep was a long time coming.
Chapter Five
Richard was on site an hour before anyone else. He could still hardly believe they’d got this far. But a month after that meeting in the school hall, here they were, about to start digging the first trench to lay in the fibre-optic cables for super-fast broadband. This was going to be better than a lot of urban areas.
He’d become fascinated by the details, and found himself drawn to the project, in spite of himself. His intellect had something to stimulate it again, beyond calculating how much animal feed to buy in for the winter, and he’d started reading up on the issues. He took to creeping into the offices when they were empty, hoping that he wouldn’t be discovered, so that he could peruse the booklets and leaflets that Vicky, Helena and their growing team were collecting.
He’d found the idea of sneaking about in his own property faintly ridiculous but he was acutely aware of the misunderstanding with Helena and he absolutely didn’t want to bump into her again; at least, not if they were alone. The sting of his actions and words being taken wrongly had faded now, but he still felt awkward when he caught sight of her, and he had taken care to avoid her wherever possible, often ending up pressing himself behind walls and ducking behind trees.
Vicky had approached him about the summer fete, and he’d been mutely supportive. The “Arkthwaite Community Team” - ACT - had started fund raising and a few donations had trickled in. Not enough to pay for the whole project, but they’d decided to go ahead and start digging the trenches while the weather was good. Privately, he thought it was a little foolish to commit themselves before the fete but he also acknowledged that fine, dry weather didn’t happen often enough in the north west of England for them to pass up any chance to start the groundworks.
And the day of the first digging was a proud one for everyone. The local press had been invited, and someone from a regional radio station. As it was crossing his land, Richard didn’t feel he could legitimately stay away from this event. He prowled the low-lying field and unrolled his map, double-checking the proposed route against the red-and-white tape that sagged between metal stakes, snaking across the grass and to a gate beyond. The cables were going to go down to the main road, and then continue for about a mile following the road until they came to an exchange, and there the system could link into the usual one. Luckily for the villagers, it was going to be entirely on his land, or the private land of the village residents. At one point, the route would divert around someone else’s land, but it was easier than paying for the right to dig up the notoriously tight farmer’s field.
The day was largely symbolic. Being volunteers, the digging was only going to happen at weekends, and when they’d planned it out, there were very few weekends when enough people were free to do it. The project promised to last months. But today was still a monumental day - it was a start.
Richard watched as the first vehicles bumped up the track and began to park along the edge of the verge. Others left their cars along the main road, and began to walk up. Someone brought a flat-bed pickup as close as they could get, and unloaded some trestle tables.
“Where do you want these?” a ruddy-faced man asked Richard after a cheery greeting.
“I don’t know. What are they for?”
“Cakes! Cakes and pies.”
“Why?”
Mavis, the doyenne of the local Women’s Institute, hove into view, stamping up the lane in polka-dot wellingtons and a paisley-pattern dress that had been in fashion at least three times in the last fifty years. “Am I hearing that, Richard? Why cakes? Why not!” she hollered, throwing her pudgy arms wide as if she were declaiming Hamlet on the stage.
“Well, quite.” Richard didn’t know what else to say as she sailed past, effortlessly taking over the matter of placing the tables somewhere suitable.
Next up the lane was a narrow digger with bucket-attachment, trundling on its caterpillar tracks, with the flat-capped Henderson at its wheel. No one knew Henderson’s first name, and talk was that his first name actually was Henderson - making him Henderson Henderson - a fact sworn to as true by the post man. He was flanked by his son, Henry, and a motley collection of labourers, odd-job-men, and likely lads.
Soon the area was alive with people. Whole families had turned out, partly lured out by the promise of cakes, and partly for the chance that a television crew might come from the area news channel.
Richard chatted as amiably as he was able with various local folk. He’d known everyone his whole life, and they knew him equally well. And to his surprise, people were seeking him out, to shake his hand and thank him.
“Thank Mavis, not me,” he kept saying. “She’s organised cakes!” And “It’s Henderson’s digger, he’s doing the hard work.” But it was him they were flocking to, and he soon grew hot with embarrassment. When it all got too much, he grabbed a cold meat pie from the WI table and walked briskly down the lane, pretending to have something important he had to hurry towards, and at an opportune moment he slid between a white transit van and the vicar’s ancient Volvo.
“I saw that.”
He whirled around and his heart seemed to do a double-thump as he was face to face with Helena. His furtiveness had given her the upper hand, and she folded her arms, a strange smile playing on her lips.
For God’s sake don’t mention her lips! “Saw what?”
“Yo
u’re sneaking off. Looking for peace and quiet?”
“I’ve clearly failed,” he said pointedly. Then, hastily, “I’m sorry. And I’ve been meaning to catch a word with you, actually.” He had, and he hadn’t, but it seemed the right thing to say.
She raised one eyebrow and he was momentarily impressed. “Really?”
“Yes, since… on the moor… I really ought to explain myself because it was a stupid thing for me to say. I get like that. Saying stupid things, I mean, I honestly didn’t mean it.”
“I believe you,” she replied. “My eyes are awful.”
“No! Yes. Of course they’re not. I just… oh shit.” Realisation dawned on him. “You’re messing with me!”
She laughed. “I am. I’m sorry, too. I reacted like a crazy loon and I should have come to apologise but I felt stupid. And the longer I didn’t speak to you about it, the worse it got! What are we like, eh?”
He laughed too, but it was a little strained. “Yeah, what a pair.”
“So.” She glanced over her shoulder and he stiffened, ready to slink further behind the van. “Don’t worry. No one’s coming. Why are you hiding? You’re the man of the moment.”
“That’s exactly it.” He sighed, and used the excuse of having a pie to eat, to buy himself some time to think. Now that he was finally talking with her again, and she wasn’t throwing a mad hissy fit or accusing him of lechery or anything that he half-expected, he was relieved. And he was startled to discover that he wanted to carry on talking to her. Whatever impulse it had been that had made him take her for a walk on the hills was clearly still at work.
Well, she was his age, and she was clever, and she was easy to talk to. It was only natural. His rational mind tried to remind him that socialising would only make him feel worse in the long run, but he stamped it down. He munched through half of the pie, and then continued with his explanation.
“I don’t want to be the man of the moment. Or any moment. Everyone’s talking to me like I’ve made some momentous decision but I’ve done nothing. I’m not even doing anything right now. In fact, I’m being celebrated for doing nothing - it would have been different if I had done something, like objected to the project.”
“But why would you? Object, I mean.”
He shrugged. “People do. I think there’s a fair few villagers that did expect me to try and stop it.”
“Oh yeah, that Tom at the Post Office has been telling everyone that you…” she stopped, and blushed slightly. “God, I’m sorry. What’s worse than gossip? Telling the person being gossipped about, that’s what.”
He laughed with genuine feeling at her sudden self-censorship. “You’ve got to tell me, now.”
“I can’t.”
“I’ll ask Tom.”
“No!” Her eyes widened and once again he was struck by the light in them, but he held his tongue. “God no, don’t do that. You know Tom. I’m sure you know the sort of things he says.”
“Enlighten me.” He was enjoying making her twist and resist. “What has Tom being telling everyone…?”
She looked down, and mumbled, “That you’re going to let them dig all the trenches and then stop the work until they pay you to be allowed to put the cables in.”
“Why would I do that?”
She looked up again, and shrugged. “Because you’re the mad lord and that’s the sort of thing mad lords do.”
“Oh, right. I am sadly failing in my duty as mad lord, then. Anything else I ought to be doing?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t met many. You’re probably supposed to have someone locked in an attic, and wasn’t there that duke who thought he was a frog and spent all day in his swimming pool?”
He shook his head. “Dukes are different. They’re nobility. I’m not.”
“I remember… but still. A lord’s a lord.”
“No, there are lords and then there’s people like me. Honestly, the sooner all this is over, the better.”
“What? This conversation? The community project?”
“The lordship.” He stuffed the rest of the cold pie into his mouth to try and dissuade her from asking any more questions. It was too touchy a subject and one he only considered in any depth when he had plenty of whiskey inside him. She appeared to be about to say something else, so he glowered at her. That worked.
He felt like a git, but she stayed silent as he finished the pie.
Once he’d cleared his mouthful he changed the subject. “How’s the LETS thingy coming along?”
She rocked her head from side to side, and grimaced. “So-so. Actually, not at all. Everyone was full of ideas but we need to raise more money. I hadn’t thought it was going to cost anything to set up, but it will. It’s not straightforward. And some of the local businesses are against it, because they see a barter system as a threat to their livelihood.”
“By ‘some local businesses’ do you mean Tom? He’s the only local business.”
“Yes, he’s pretty much against it, and he’s turned some others too. The milkman, and that man who comes round with the fish van. It just seems a lot more difficult. Vicky’s so busy with the school stuff at this time of year that it’s kind of fallen to me, and I’m afraid I’ve been caught up with planning the fete. Everyone loves the idea of a fete… as long as someone else does the work.”
“Is it going to happen?”
She tipped her head back and gave him a fierce stare that sent a shiver down his spine. “Of course it’s bloody well going to happen!” she told him. “You watch me.”
“I do,” he said, and then bit his lip. “I mean, I will. I shall. But not in a stalker kind of way…”
“I should hope not.” Helena’s facial expression was hard to read. He wanted to ask her what she was thinking but he was too aware of her as a woman. Why couldn’t he banter with her like a friend? He would get so far, and then his tongue would play tricks on him.
Ugh. Social nonsense was clearly better left to other people.
“Come on. Have you had one of those pies yet?”
“No.”
“You must! I shouldn’t hide here all day. The numptie from the local paper wants me to spout on about duty and community cohesion and tradition, so I should go and find him. Walk back up with me?”
She agreed and they made their way back up to the crowd of people. Most were happy to stand, eat cakes, and watch three men do all the work.
“It’s a tough job, shouting encouragement, isn’t it?” Helena remarked dryly as they got nearer to the WI tables.
“Someone’s got to do it. It’s easier to tell people what to do than to do it yourself. As you’re finding, with the fete business, and the LETS project.” Richard mulled it over in his mind. In the course of his research, he’d read up on LETS and other barter schemes. Impulsively, he said, “I have some free time. Why don’t we meet and I’ll see if I can relieve some of the burden?”
She hesitated and he held his breath. He looked away, trying to seem nonchalant, fighting down the curious eagerness that was bubbling up. “Okay then,” she said at last, and he looked back and smiled broadly.
“Excellent. Some evening next week, perhaps? We can meet at the office.” This is business, this is business, he told himself sternly. “Also, bring Vicky, if she’s free.” There, that would cover him.
“Of course,” Helena said, brightly, her smile never dipping. “Thursday? Seven o’clock?”
“Marvellous.” He urged her towards the cakes. As the local news reporter descended on him, he felt almost chipper, and was soon swallowed up into a photo shoot for a potential feature.
He was just happy to be helping out.
* * *
It was late on Saturday afternoon when Helena got back to her house. She was tired after the hectic day, and the hectic weeks at work. Now the good weather was on its way, every farmer and builder and home-improvement aficionado was coming to Gussy’s to buy timber and nails and glue and power tools. Clive was back from his time off, though st
ill a little ill, and it was all hands on deck. At peak times, Helena had even been asked to leave the office work and help out on the shop floor, sorting out invoices in between scanning lengths of two-by-four.
She was enjoying every moment. On Fridays, they indulged in a “chippy dinner”, sending out one of the warehouse men at noon to collect bags of steaming hot chips wrapped in paper, and tubs of gravy, curry sauce and mushy peas. Sometimes she’d join them after work in a pub, before jumping on the bus home. She knew the regular drivers now, and nodded to familiar faces. They all seemed to sit in the same seats, and she fell into that routine as well.
Her house had become a welcoming place, though sometimes she found it oddly quiet. But she’d chase away the maudlin thoughts by turning up her music loud, or playing through a well-worn DVD box-set. All in all, she was feeling warm and happy as she kicked off her shoes in the hall and padded through in her socks to the living room. She dropped her bag on the sofa and glanced around.
It was a bit of a mess. Maybe not today, but certainly tomorrow, she needed to have a major tidy-up. One that involved actually moving the furniture, not just vacuuming around the chairs. How is it that my house looks scruffy like this, but Vicky’s seems exotic and comfortable and exciting all at the same time?
She was about to potter through to the kitchen to grab a cold drink from the fridge when she noticed there was a missed call on her land line. She pulled out her mobile to see if they’d tried to reach her that way, too, but it was blank.
Only one person resolutely refused to call her mobile phone. It would be her mother.
Helena hadn’t got in touch since moving to Arkthwaite and she knew she should have. A few days after receiving the housewarming parcel, she’d phoned her mum at a time when she knew her mother would be out of the house, thereby neatly fulfilling her daughterly obligation and cleverly side-stepping any actual conversation, following it up with the handwritten thank-you note.
Well, it’s not going to go away. She played the message back and her heart sunk to her socked feet, and kept on sinking.
Bad Boys and Billionaires (The Naughty List Bundles) Page 47