Thinking of You

by Jill Mansell

  “So you’ve found someone you like at last.” It was pretty obvious from the way her whole face was lit up that she was smitten.

  “I know! Can you believe it? I stopped going to the club and told myself that from now on, if it was going to happen, it’d happen.” Bev clicked her fingers and beamed at him. “And bam, a few weeks down the line, it did happen. Which just goes to show: you don’t have to schlep along to singles evenings or join a gym or buy a dog and take it for walks so you can get chatting to other people with dogs. Guess how we met!”

  “You took a job as a stripper.”

  “Gavin, you philistine, how did I ever fancy you? I was weeding my front garden! On my hands and knees with my big bum in the air, pulling up dandelions.”

  Gavin the Philistine wisely kept his thoughts to himself. But it was undeniably an enticing mental image.

  “When this guy who was walking past stopped at my gate.”

  Of course he did, thought Gavin the Philistine.

  “He was lost,” Bev went on. “He asked me for directions to Lancaster Road.”

  Oh yes, classic maneuver.

  “Which was back the way he’d just come from, so we had a laugh about that.”

  Naturally.

  “And then somehow we just clicked.” Bev clicked her fingers to demonstrate. “It was incredible; we just carried on talking and didn’t stop. There was this incredible… God, chemistry.”

  Total pro.

  “After about an hour, he asked me if I’d like to meet him for a drink that evening. And that was it. I said yes, of course. We went out and had the most amazing time. It was as if we’d known each other forever,” Bev said dreamily. “At last, I’d found my perfect man. He’s so kind and such a gentleman, so interested in me. It’s almost too good to be true. This is only our third date—I can’t believe it’s only our third date!—but I’ve just got this feeling about Perry, I really think this could be—”

  “Whoa,” Gavin abruptly halted her. “What did you say?”

  “It’s only our third date. We met last Sunday.”

  “Never mind that. Is his name Perry Kennedy?”

  “Oh my God, yes it is!” Bev clapped her hands in delight. “Do you know him?”

  Up until that moment Gavin had simply recognized Bev’s new chap as a fellow womanizer, a man after his own heart, and where was the harm in that? Now, like plunging into the sea in diving boots, it struck him that there was harm in it. He hoped he wasn’t as bad as Perry Kennedy. He did it because he had the attention span of a gnat, but he’d never deliberately set out to deceive a woman. He’d never been cold and calculating in his life.

  Bev, her smile wavering, said, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “I know him. He’s bad news. A fake.” Since there was no kind way to say it, Gavin didn’t waste time wondering how to soften the blow. “He went out with Ginny, duped her, played her for a fool. She found out he was shagging her best friend. And it turned out he’s done it a thousand times before.”

  Poor old Bev, the smile had well and truly melted from her face. Shock radiated from her. And any minute now, Perry would emerge from the bar with their drinks.

  “I hate him for what he did to Ginny,” Gavin went on. “He broke her heart”—OK, bit of an exaggeration—“and he’ll break yours too.”

  God, he hoped she wasn’t about to burst into tears.

  But Bev was made of sterner stuff. She exhaled slowly, sat back in her chair, and said, “Fuck, fuck, fuck it.”

  “Sorry, darling. I couldn’t not tell you.”

  “Story of my life. I suppose I should be used to it by now. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. And there was me, thinking my luck had changed.” She exhaled. “Thinking I was irresistible.”

  “Sweetheart, you are.” For an older woman anyway, Gavin allowed. “All the more reason not to get involved with a bastard like that. Trust me; he’s all pain and no gain. You need to cut and run.”

  Bev glanced down at her shoes. “Easier said than done in these heels.”

  She was wearing red strappy four-inch stilettos adorned with butterflies, the shoes of a woman out to impress the new man in her life. Quite sexy, actually.

  Gavin said, “You could always take them off.”

  “Oh God, why does this have to happen to me?” Bev glanced over her shoulder to see if Perry was on his way out.

  “It doesn’t only happen to you. Men like him need teaching a lesson.”

  “Pot.” Her tone was dry. “Kettle.”

  “Ouch. That’s me put in my place.” Gavin’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “I’d better get off, leave you to it.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To get something to eat. Probably not at the Blue Moon.” He paused, watching Bev make up her mind. “Why?”

  She shrugged. “Could you do with some company?”

  “Only if you promise not to keep nagging me about my terrible ways.”

  Bev slipped her feet out of her stilettos, stood up, and drained her glass of wine. “And you aren’t allowed to keep saying you could quite fancy me if only I wasn’t so old. Just for once, try and be nice to me, OK? I’m a woman in crisis.”

  Gavin winked and said, “My favorite kind.”

  ***

  The queue at the bar had been ridiculous. Having finally been served, Perry emerged with a drink in each hand. Bev was nowhere to be seen.

  What was this, a clip from You’ve Been Framed? He paused, peering around. The table at which he and Bev had been sitting was now occupied by a family of four. Approaching them, Perry learned that it had been free when they’d got here.

  He scanned the rest of the drinkers gathered outside. No one else was wearing a red dress. Had Bev gone inside to the loo and somehow managed to slip past him unnoticed?

  Yet more waiting. She didn’t return. Feeling increasingly foolish, Perry finally approached the group of office workers at the table behind the one now occupied by the family of four. “Um… excuse me, did any of you notice what happened to the lady who was sitting over there? Dark hair, red dress…”

  “She pulled.” A freckled, tufty-haired boy grinned at his friends.

  “Warren.” The girl next to him gave him a nudge. “You can’t say that.”

  “Why not? It’s true.”

  “What do you mean?” Perry’s shoulders stiffened.

  “She was sitting there on her own. Then this guy walked past. The next moment she jumped up and launched herself at him. Pinched his bum and everything. They were all over each other.”

  “They talked for a bit,” the girl at his side elaborated, “then walked off together down the road.”

  “He was carrying her shoes,” a second girl chimed in. “Kind of like Cinderella, only the other way round.”

  The freckled boy looked scornful. “So, not like Cinderella at all then. More like he’s got some pervy fetish thing for shoes.”

  “She just went off with him?” Perry blinked in disbelief. “What did he look like?”

  “Forties. A bit overweight. Losing his hair at the front. Not exactly Pierce Brosnan.” The first girl shrugged then said thoughtfully, “He had a nice smile though. And sparkly eyes. He looked quite… fun.”

  The boy sniggered. “She obviously thought he was fun.”

  Perry was in a state of disbelief. Bev had abandoned him for another man who wasn’t even that good-looking. Gone off with him just like that, without so much as a good-bye.

  How could she?

  He’d never been so humiliated in his life.

  ***

  Bev was smiling to herself.

  “What?” said Gavin.

  “I’ve just realized something.” She turned onto her side to face him. “I bet I’m the oldest person you’ve ever slept with.”

  “By a mile. But you know what? It wasn’t as scary as I thought.”

  “Cheek!” Bev hooked one of her bare legs over his.

  “It
’s a compliment. Seriously.” In return Gavin pulled her against him. “You know a lot of tricks.”

  “Years of practice. Almost as many as you. And a man in his forties is past his sexual peak. Whereas I”—she trailed the tips of her fingernails in tantalizing circles along his inner thigh—“am a woman in my prime.”

  “Past my peak? Now that’s a slur I’m going to have to disprove.” He rolled her over, intent on making his point, but Bev wriggled away before he could pin her down.

  “No time now. It’s eight o’clock. I have to be at work by nine.”

  This was frustrating but true. Neither of them had expected last night to end the way it had. Following dinner in Padstow, Gavin had invited Bev back to his house in Portsilver for a nightcap. At first they had talked about Perry Kennedy. Then they’d stopped talking about him, because that was just depressing, and had moved on to other subjects instead. It was at this point that Gavin had realized how refreshing it was to be able to hold a flirtatious conversation with someone who had a brain, intellectual curiosity, and a quick wit. Bev was terrific company; she made him laugh and she didn’t look blank when he mentioned Nixon and Watergate. She knew who Siouxie Sioux was. She remembered a world before mobile phones. When it came to singing Duran Duran, she was word perfect.

  OK, not everything they’d discussed had been intellectual.

  After that, the rest had just happened. He’d been making coffee in the kitchen and Bev had been spooning sugar into his cup. His hand had accidentally brushed against hers and she’d jumped, spilling sugar all over the work surface. Amused, Gavin had said, “Do I really have that effect on you?”

  “Yes,” said Bev. “You do.”

  “When we were outside that wine bar, you said you used to fancy me. Was that a joke?”

  She shook her head. “No, it was the truth.”

  “You never said anything.” Gavin was enchanted by her honesty.

  “No point. I couldn’t turn myself into a twenty-two-year-old.”

  The last twenty-two-year-old of Gavin’s acquaintance had been talking about this summer’s V Festival. When Gavin had proudly informed her that he’d been at the original Live Aid concert, she’d trilled excitedly, “Oh wicked, we learned all about that at school in history!”

  The next thing he knew, he’d found himself kissing Bev. Sugar crystals had scrunched underfoot as they’d clung to each other. The coffee had been abandoned; the spilled sugar was still there. Last night had been a revelation, all the better for being so unexpected. Sex with Bev was a joy.

  A repeat performance would have been nice but she was out of bed now, hurriedly dressing in order to shoot home and shower and change before heading off to work.

  In no time at all she was ready to leave. Gavin realized he didn’t want her to go. When she gave him a good-bye kiss, he said, “What are you doing tonight?”

  “Me? Nothing. Watching Last of the Summer Wine. Polishing my walker. Looking through my Thora Hird scrapbook.” Bev shrugged. “How about you?”

  “Well, if you could bear to give Last of the Summer Wine a miss, I could demonstrate that I’m not past my sexual peak.”

  Her eyes searched his face. “Would that be to prove it to me, or to yourself?”

  “Hey, I want to see you again. I wasn’t expecting this to happen and neither were you. But it has.” He surveyed the tiny lines at the corners of her eyes and realized they gave her face character. Reaching up to touch the side of her jaw—at least she wasn’t jowly; he really couldn’t handle that—Gavin said, “And I’m glad it’s happened.”

  “You’re not just saying that to be kind, to cheer me up?”

  “I promise you, I’m not that unselfish. So, Moneypenny, are you coming over here at seven o’clock tonight or not?”

  “Coming over here for what?”

  Gavin did his best Sean Connery impression. “I thought maybe rampant sex and toasted cheese sandwiches.”

  “Oh well, if you put it like that.” Bev’s dark eyes danced as she kissed him on the nose. “I suppose I could always record Last of the Summer Wine.”

  Chapter 48

  The postman had delivered a hat trick of envelopes together with a small recorded delivery parcel addressed to Laurel. Ginny carried them through to the kitchen and opened the first envelope.

  Electricity bill, fabulous.

  The second was water rates, great.

  The third was a bank statement. As ever, Ginny fantasized that this would be the one containing an outrageously vast sum that had accidentally been credited to her account instead of somebody else’s, but—and this was the best bit—the person who should have received the money was so rich that he never realized he hadn’t. Like when Sting, eons ago, hadn’t noticed several million pounds being fraudulently siphoned from his account. Imagine that. And who was to say that a completely innocent computer blip couldn’t do the same for her?

  Sadly a quick skim through the statement revealed that yet another month had passed and it hadn’t happened.

  Even more sadly, her balance was less than it should have been. Checking through more carefully, Ginny saw what was missing.

  “Laurel?”

  Laurel appeared in the doorway. “Yes?”

  “Your rent hasn’t gone through yet. Could you have a word with Perry, see what’s happened?”

  “Oh.” Laurel shifted awkwardly, not meeting her gaze. “Um… he can’t afford to pay it anymore.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Sorry. I meant to tell you.” Laurel’s tone was defensive; she’d clearly known for a while.

  “So who is going to be paying it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Ginny shook her head in disbelief. As if she didn’t have enough to worry about. The past couple of weeks had seen Laurel slipping back into her old neurotic ways as the date of Kevin’s birthday had approached. Laurel had for some reason convinced herself that Kevin would choose this date to come back to her. When it didn’t happen, her misery had been of epic proportions. That had been a week ago and Ginny had done her best to sympathize, but now her patience was running out.

  “Look, I have bills to pay.” The words came out clipped and irritated. “Jem isn’t working anymore so I’m having to help her too. You can’t expect me to say, ‘Oh well, never mind, maybe we’ll have a lucky night at the Bingo.’ If Perry’s not paying your rent anymore, you’ll have to pay it yourself.”

  With her pale green eyes, Laurel had never looked more like Ophelia. “But I don’t have any money.”

  The knicker elastic of Ginny’s patience finally snapped. “Then you’ll just have to do what normal people do and get yourself a job!”

  Laurel flinched as if she’d been slapped. “I can’t.”

  “You can,” Ginny shot back, “you just don’t want to. And I’m sorry, but if you don’t pay your rent, you aren’t staying here. Because you aren’t the only one with problems, OK? Things are pretty crap for me as well right now, but somehow or other I have to get on with it, because that’s life.”

  Laurel welled up. She glanced at the small parcel on the kitchen table.

  “That’s yours. It came just now.” Ginny eyed it jealously; how come Laurel got sent a parcel while all she got was stinking rotten bills?

  “Thanks.”

  “Open it, then.”

  “Later.”

  Oh, for heaven’s sake, what was the great mystery? It wasn’t big enough to be a vibrator. Too het up by this stage to even care that she was being unreasonable, Ginny barked, “Open the damn parcel!”

  Miserably Laurel did as she was told. Her chin began to wobble as the wrappings came off.

  Ginny’s eyes widened. “Somebody’s sent you a Gucci watch!”

  “No.”

  “You mean you bought it for yourself?” Bloody hell, how much did a Gucci watch cost?

  “If you must know,” Laurel blurted out defensively, “I bought it for Kevin. I thought it would make him love me again. He’s alw
ays wanted a Gucci watch.” She unfolded the accompanying note, scanned the few lines, and crumpled it in her hand. “But not from me. I can’t believe he sent it back. Oh God, why can’t I ever get anything right?”

  Ginny’s own hormones were jangling. “Look, I thought you’d stopped all this. It’s crazy, Laurel. Kevin’s never going to love you again. He’s never going to come back. It’s over and you have to accept that.” Before Laurel could start sobbing, she added hastily, “And look on the bright side. You can take the watch back to the shop and get a refund.”

  And pay your rent with it hopefully.

  “I can’t.” Laurel sniffed and gazed mournfully down at the watch.

  “You can! Unless it’s a fake one.” Ginny peered more closely; actually, if it was a fake she wouldn’t mind one for herself.

  Laurel was outraged. “Of course it’s not a fake! What kind of person do you think I am?”

  Was she serious? “Well, obviously the kind of person who spends hundreds of pounds she doesn’t have on someone who doesn’t want anything from her. For crying out loud, just take it back to the shop and get a refund!”

  “I told you, I can’t. I bought the watch three weeks ago.” Laurel fiddled with the dangly, too-long sleeves of her sage-green cardigan. “They only give you your money back if you return it within fourteen days.”

  God. Exasperated, Ginny said, “Next time, go to a department store and buy him a pair of socks.”

  “I’m sorry. I love him.” Tears were once more sliding down Laurel’s colorless cheeks. “I just don’t know what to do anymore.”

  “Don’t you?” It was knicker-snapping time again. With an embryo in her stomach and bills strewn across the kitchen table, Ginny felt the elastic go twaannggg. Her voice spiraling, she yelped, “Seriously, don’t you? Because I can tell you. You have to forget Kevin and stop feeling so sorry for yourself. You need to sort out your life and start acting like an adult. And if you want to carry on living in this house, you have to get out there and find yourself a job.”

  Ginny took a deep breath. Crikey, had she really just said all that? From the way Laurel stifled a horrified sob, ricocheted off the doorway, and stumbled out of the kitchen, it rather seemed as if she had.