by Jill Mansell
Except it wasn’t the end. As she was wiping her eyes and face with her equally wet hands, Daisy found herself caught in the glare of yet another set of headlights. As the car reached her at the hotel’s gates, it slowed to a halt. The driver’s window of the sporty black Mercedes slid open to reveal Dev Tyzack grinning up at her. Next to him in the passenger seat sat Jeannie, looking as if all her birthdays had come at once.
‘What?’ Daisy was curt, hideously aware of the muddy water trickling down her cheeks.
‘You know, when I was little I always wanted to be the Milk Tray man in those TV ads for chocolate.’ Dev acted as though they were continuing a conversation that had been interrupted only moments earlier. ‘I had this fantasy about rappelling from tall buildings, swimming through crocodile-infested waters, and swinging across ravines to give the lady what she wanted more than anything else.’
Go on then, Daisy was hugely tempted to retort, better get a move on, because we all know what the lady in your passenger seat wants right now.
Aloud, she said, ‘Really? How completely fascinating.’
‘The bad news is, I’m all out of chocolates,’ said Dev Tyzack.
‘Gosh. Tragic.’
‘Dev.’ Next to him, Jeannie sniggered with delight. ‘Come on, close the window now. I’m coooold.’
‘Here. Don’t say I never give you anything.’ Still grinning, Dev passed a box of Kleenex through the open window.
Then, with a wink, he roared off.
Chapter 9
‘This lot always amazes me,’ murmured Rocky as Daisy joined him behind the bar to help out. ‘I always thought writers were quiet, mousy types who wore tweed and wouldn’t say boo to a goose. I just can’t believe they make so much noise and drink so much. I’m telling you, these booky people know how to put it away.’
‘They’re probably excited to have been let out for the day.’ Unlike Rocky, Daisy didn’t bother lowering her voice. There wasn’t a lot of point. The writers’ group who met at the hotel for lunch and gossip every three months were networking madly and shrieking with delight at seeing each other again. Being allowed to talk to real-life humans instead of having to write about pretend ones was—along with the pre-lunch gin and tonics—clearly going to their heads. ‘Don’t forget I’ve got an hour off at lunchtime,’ Daisy reminded him as she emptied bottles of Schweppes into a row of glasses.
‘One till two. I know.’ Clattering ice cubes into a tumbler, Rocky said hesitantly, ‘Are you… um… looking forward to it?’
Oh God, was that a crass thing to say? He didn’t have a clue. It was one of those weird situations not mentioned in the etiquette books. Not that he’d ever read an etiquette book, but he’d bet a year’s wages it wasn’t covered.
And now Daisy was looking at him as if he’d just asked permission to change into a tutu and pirouette the length of the bar.
‘I don’t know if I’m actually looking forward to it.’ She pulled a face. ‘Depends what this chap’s like, I suppose. He’s the one who was so keen to do this. I just don’t want him to be, well, disappointed.’
‘Kind of like a blind date,’ said Rocky, and immediately wished he hadn’t. How did he manage to come out with this stuff?
But Daisy was grinning.
‘You know what you are, don’t you? A hopeless case. Me meeting this chap at one o’clock is absolutely nothing like a blind date. From now on, Rocky, it’s probably better if you stick to doing what you do best. Serving drinks.’
‘I know.’ Rocky was humble, mentally apologizing for all he was worth. ‘Sorry.’
‘Anyway, apart from that, do I look all right?’
Enough of the apologies. He flicked a practiced eye over Daisy as she did a brief twirl next to him.
‘You look awful, a complete mess.’
***
Barney Usher was early. Far too early. The train from Manchester had reached Bristol Parkway bang on time, at eleven o’clock. He had jumped into a taxi and arrived in the village of Colworth at eleven twenty-three precisely.
Which meant he still had an hour and a half to kill. For Barney it felt like waking up at five thirty on Christmas morning, knowing that your parents had warned you on pain of death not to wake them before seven.
The fact that he was also feeling slightly sick had been partly due to the fact that for the last twenty-odd minutes he had been enclosed in a cab with his own aftershave. In his nervous state, he had slapped on far too much Kouros. It was a relief to climb out of the taxi and breathe in lungfuls of much-needed fresh air.
The taxi driver shot him a knowing smirk as Barney, shivering with a mixture of cold and anticipation, paid his fare and added a generous tip.
‘Meeting a young lady, are we?’
Barney, who had been waiting for more than a year for this day to arrive, replied emphatically, ‘Oh yes.’
But now that he was here at last, he could relax. The village was like no village he had ever seen before, and he couldn’t wait to explore every inch of it.
The meandering main street was bordered by dinky Cotswold stone cottages. A river ran through the center of the village and hills reared up on either side. To Barney, a born-and-bred city boy, everything looked unbelievably picturesque, like something out of a Disney film. It was hard to believe that real people actually lived here. But they did, they truly did. A real person was at this very moment emerging from her cottage a little way up the street, pushing one of those old people’s shopping bags on wheels and heading for the village store.
Barney wondered why shopping bags on wheels were always tartan.
Well, why?
But at the same time he marveled at how relaxed the old person was. Any pensioner hailing from his own neck of the woods in a rough part of Manchester would be scuttling down the road by now, in fear of being mugged and battered senseless by some psychopath or mad drug addict. This one, by contrast, was actually stopping to stroke a fat tortoiseshell cat on her neighbor’s stone wall.
It was a complete eye-opener. Barney could hardly believe it.
Imagine stopping to stroke a cat! It genuinely hadn’t occurred to this old dear that she might be on the verge of being set upon by thugs.
He took his time exploring the village, enjoying himself every inch of the way. There were three knickknacky, souvenir-type shops. A village store doubling as a post office. One church. One pub. And an astonishing number of tourists, seeing as it was still only eleven thirty on a Friday morning in a small Cotswold village miles from the nearest town.
Plus, of course, there was the hotel.
Barney had done his homework; he knew that Colworth was famous for being one of the most beautiful villages in England. But he was still knocked out by just how fantastic it managed to be on an icy-cold morning in late January.
Aware of just how over-the-top he had gone with his aftershave, he was glad of the opportunity to walk around the village dispersing some of it into the cold, crisp air. He wanted to make a good impression, after all. Not send Daisy Standish heaving and vomiting into the nearest flower bed.
Checking his watch for the hundredth time, Barney decided to pay a visit to the post office-cum-general store. He would buy a packet of chewing gum and maybe some postcards of the village to take back and show his mum.
As he approached the shop, the door clanged open and a girl maneuvered a pushchair with some difficulty out onto the pavement. Barney watched her struggle to get the wheels straight, but something was stopping them turning.
‘Sorry, I’m in your way,’ the girl panted, kicking the brake to make sure it was off. ‘Damn, the wheels are locked, I don’t know what’s going on here.’
She was young and pretty, with wide grey eyes and dark brown shoulder-length hair, cut in a bob. The baby, by contrast, was very blond with dazzling blue eyes that exactly matched his all-in-one snowsuit. Ente
rtained by all the frantic to-ing and fro-ing and jiggling about, he waved his carton of Ribena and shrieked with delight.
‘It’s OK, I can see what’s happened.’ Crouching down, Barney followed the plaited length of wool from the baby’s discarded mittens and found it wound tightly round the nearside front wheel. ‘The wheel’s being garroted. Keep it still…’
The plaited string was muddy and oily. Carefully he began to disentangle it. As he bent his head lower to see what he was doing, Barney felt something cold drip onto the back of his neck.
‘Oh God, Freddie, stop it! Give me that,’ the girl exclaimed, and the baby let out a squeal of outrage. Above Barney’s head a swift battle ensued as the baby fought with his mother for custody of the Ribena carton. Barney flinched as a fountain of cold liquid sprayed his left cheek.
‘There, all done.’ Triumphantly he sat back on his heels and held up the freed length of mangled mitten string. The baby, making a grab for it, dropped the carton, watched the remains of his blackcurrant drink seep out into the gutter, and promptly began to howl.
‘You twit,’ the girl exclaimed, adding hurriedly to Barney, ‘Not you, I didn’t mean you! Oh no, and now you’re covered in Ribena, this is so embarrassing.’
She rummaged in the bag dangling from the handles of the pushchair and produced a packet of baby wipes. Barney rubbed one of the wipes over his face and the back of his neck. The baby, his screams doubling in volume, drummed his heels against the pushchair’s footrest, pointing in dismay at his upended Ribena carton.
‘I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. Once Freddie gets started, there’s no stopping him,’ the girl apologized profusely. ‘All you did was help me out and now look at the state of you. I feel terrible.’
‘I’m fine, really,’ Barney assured her. ‘It doesn’t matter a bit. And he’s only upset because he’s lost his drink. Let me buy him another one and he’ll soon cheer up.’ He waggled his fingers at Freddie as he spoke. He liked children. When he crossed his eyes and pulled a face, Freddie was so entranced he actually stopped crying.
The next moment, remembering his motivation, he started again. Barney laughed.
‘God, you are so nice,’ the girl marveled. ‘I mean it. You’re a seriously nice person.’
‘I’ve got three nephews and four nieces,’ said Barney. ‘I’ve had plenty of practice with children. Now wait here, don’t go away.’
Two minutes later he emerged from the shop with two cartons of Ribena, a Milky Bar, a box of Black Magic, several postcards of Colworth, and three packets of Wrigleys Extra.
‘Oh, come on.’ The girl held up her hands in protest when she saw the Black Magic. ‘I definitely can’t let you buy me a box of chocolates.’
‘Actually, I didn’t get them for you,’ said Barney, and grinned when she flushed pink.
‘Sorry. Just ignore me, I’m an idiot.’
‘There you go. Don’t drink it all at once.’ Barney stuck the plastic straw through the top of the Ribena carton and placed it carefully between Freddie’s chubby hands. This earned him a gurgle of delight followed by a hefty burp.
‘He says thank you,’ the dark-haired girl solemnly explained.
‘I know. His hands are cold.’
‘Tell me about it.’ She rolled her eyes in good-natured despair. ‘He won’t keep his mittens on for two minutes.’
‘Anyway, he can have these later.’ Barney slipped the Milky Bar and the second carton of juice into the bag containing Freddie’s nappies and baby wipes.
‘Oh God, you’ve got Ribena on your shirt! It’s all soaked into the collar.’ She looked appalled.
Barney couldn’t see the dampness but he could feel it. He said, ‘Maybe we could sponge it out somehow.’ It was his best white shirt; he had bought it specially for today, from Next. It crossed his mind that this pretty girl, who must live here in the village, might offer to take him home with her in order to help with the sponging. ‘I’m meeting someone up at the hotel,’ he added by way of explanation. ‘I really wanted to look my best.’
‘I know what we can do.’ Mind-reading, sadly, didn’t appear to be one of the girl’s great strengths. ‘The pub at the end of the street will be open by now. We’ll go there and sort your shirt out in one of the loos. I’ll scrub the collar with hot water and you can dry it under the hot-air thingy.’
Barney forced himself not to be disappointed. Of course she couldn’t invite a total stranger into her home; for all she knew, he was an axe-wielding maniac.
Or, or, she might be embarrassed because her house was a tip, with washing-up in the sink and crumbs inches deep on the living-room carpet.
Then again, she could be married. Just because practically all the girls he knew back home were single mothers didn’t mean there weren’t some around who still did things the traditional way.
Stomach lurching, Barney glanced at her left hand. No rings, apart from a big swirly silver one on her thumb. Not married, then. Although she could still have a live-in boyfriend who might not take kindly to her bringing home unknown men in order to scrub purple stains out of their shirts.
Barney hoped she didn’t.
The pub, the ludicrously picturesque Hollybush Inn, opened early in order to serve coffee and overpriced croissants to the tourist trade. Thankfully nobody else—no ladies, at least—were in need of the loo. Having stripped off his navy sweater and the brand new Next shirt, Barney watched the dark-haired girl rinse the collar under the hot tap, douse it with liquid soap from the squidgy machine, and scrub it for all she was worth. Freddie, in his pushchair, was delighted to discover that by waving his fat little fingers in the air he could make hot air whoosh noisily out of the machine on the wall.
Fifteen minutes later, the shirt was dry.
‘We’ve cost them a fortune in hot air,’ said Barney. ‘The least we can do is buy a couple of coffees.’
Freddie’s mother looked with regret at her watch. ‘I can’t. We have to go. Dentist’s appointment.’ She pulled a face, then straightened his shirt collar. ‘Still, at least you’re sorted. You’ll make your good impression.’
She was right. Of course she was. For a few minutes he’d forgotten why he was here.
‘Thanks,’ said Barney.
Freddie’s mother broke into a broad smile. ‘My pleasure.’
***
Tara, halfway through her shift, was polishing tiles on autopilot. Her body might be working away energetically but her mind was elsewhere, going fretfully over and over last night’s horrendous discovery.
It had been awful, it really had. One minute she’d been draped across the sofa happily watching some drippy girl in EastEnders whining, ‘But why’s it always me wot gets dumped? Woss wrong wiv me, eh?’ The answer to this one being that whining drippy girls with lank hair and as much personality as a parsnip deserved to be treated appallingly and surely couldn’t expect to keep a boyfriend for longer than it took to boil an egg. The next moment, a weird creeping sensation Tara wasn’t immediately able to place had made its insidious way up the back of her neck.
With a jolt of horror, she had realized finally that the sensation was one of… familiarity.
EastEnders forgotten, Tara had begun mentally counting back on her fingers, running through her list of boyfriends in reverse order.
Oh no, surely not, she wasn’t that much of a loser, was she?
But it was looking that way. Still counting, Tara reached the ages of fifteen and sixteen, her earlier dating years.
There was Trevor, who’d had the most extraordinary up-and-down voice—God, he’d practically yodeled when he talked. Then Dave, who’d had funny ears but a cute smile. And Andy Buckingham, who, despite being the star of the school football team, had had skinny legs and a sprouty mole on his cheek. None of them had been what you’d call perfect, yet—
‘Hi, it’s me.’ Daisy stuck her head
round the bathroom door. ‘Fancy going out tonight? We could hit a couple of clubs in Bath.’
Crikey, it’s not as if we’re talking Brad Pitt here, Tara thought wildly. I mean, if you went out with Brad Pitt you’d expect to be dumped. But these had just been ordinary boys, nice enough, each with their own good and bad points.
‘If you polish those tiles any harder,’ said Daisy, ‘you’re going to end up crashing through the wall.’
‘Every boy I’ve ever been out with,’ Tara blurted out, ‘has finished with me! Every single sodding buggering boyfriend I’ve had! I can’t believe it, I never realized until last night. I even wrote them all down, made a proper list in case I’d accidentally missed anyone out, but I hadn’t. Oh God, can you imagine? It’s so humiliating. I’ve never been the one to do the dumping, I’ve always, always been the dumpee.’
‘Oh, come on, you’re exaggerating.’ Daisy attempted to reassure her. ‘That can’t be true.’
‘It is, it is!’
‘What about when you were at school?’
‘Especially when I was at school! God, I’m a completely pathetic person,’ Tara wailed.
‘OK, right, we’ll sort you out.’ Daisy took control. ‘This evening we’ll go into Bath. You can chat up heaps of men and hand out your phone number to all and sundry. Then, when any of them ring you up to invite you out for a drink, you can say no. Turn them down flat. Would that make you feel better?’
‘Tuh. Doesn’t count.’
‘It’s a start.’
‘Anyway,’ Tara bent down to polish the bath taps, ‘I don’t fancy giving my number out to a load of idiots.’
‘OK, tell them to call you on this one. Write it down for them,’ said Daisy, taking a pen from her jacket pocket and reversing out of the bathroom. She returned moments later with a sheet of hotel writing paper upon which she had scrawled: