by Jill Mansell
Remember? The horrible things were etched in sulfuric acid into her heart. “Rings a bell,” said Maddy, still finding it hard to believe that Kate was actually apologizing for all the hurt she’d inflicted over the years.
“Well, I got my comeuppance there, didn’t I?” Kate raised her hand to the left side of her face. “You must have laughed your head off when you heard what had happened to me.”
“I didn’t laugh,” Maddy protested. “I’d never laugh.”
“But?” prompted Kate.
Oh well, it wasn’t as if she was saying something Kate hadn’t already figured out for herself. She’d never been stupid.
“But I did think that now you’d know how it felt.” There, confession over. She’d admitted it.
“I don’t blame you. I was such a cow.” Wryly Kate gestured toward Maddy. “And see how the ugly duckling turned out. Look at you now,” she said bluntly. “Who’d have thought it?”
Gazing down at her yellow sandals, rather too bright against the tasteful bottle-green carpet of the sitting room, Maddy said, “For all the good it’s done me,” and felt her eyes prickle with tears. Oh no, she mustn’t start crying again, not here.
“You’ve finished with Kerr then,” said Kate.
Maddy nodded. “No choice.”
“I would never have told Marcella, you know.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. It’s my own fault. When you asked me not to say anything, I shouldn’t have let you think I might.” Kate paused. “Are you feeling as bad as you look?”
Maddy’s bottom lip began to tremble. “Worse. Damn, I don’t make a habit of blubbing all over the place… Oh, thanks.” She reached blindly for a tissue from the box Kate was holding in front of her. “I just can’t believe my bad luck. Years and years of being ugly and boys taking the mickey out of me, then getting less scary and going out but never finding the right chap, then finally finding someone and really falling in love for the f-first time…and I can’t have him. It’s not allowed. I don’t know, it j-just doesn’t seem fair somehow… Oh bugger, can I have another tissue?”
“Here,” said Kate. “Better keep the box.”
Chapter 32
An hour later, they headed together down Gypsy Lane. It was seven o’clock, time for Kate to begin her evening shift at the Angel. Dressed in a geranium-red sleeveless shift dress and high heels, with her face now carefully made up for the benefit of the punters, Kate was looking tall, glamorous, and—from this angle—flawless. Next to her, moping along in her frayed denim jacket, old jeans, and flat yellow sandals, Maddy felt inferior all over again.
“Well, this is weird.”
“Us, you mean?” Kate turned her head and smiled, revealing her scarred side. “Actually speaking to each other again?”
“And all thanks to Kerr.” Maddy pulled out her dark glasses as they approached Main Street, acutely aware that her eyes were bulging like a bullfrog’s. “So he came in useful after all, that’s good news. I’m sure he’d be pleased.”
“I’m pleased,” said Kate. “It’s not been much fun being back here in the village, knowing nobody liked me.”
“Not nobody.” Maddy shook her head. “Jake didn’t care how I felt. He liked you straightaway.”
“Really?” Flushing with pleasure, Kate said, “But I was so prickly with him.”
“Oh well, that’s Jake for you. Always up for a challenge.”
And thank goodness he had been. Smiling to herself, Kate felt her heart begin to quicken at the memory of their time in bed together this afternoon—and the thought of the next time, tomorrow with any luck. She couldn’t wait for a repeat performance.
“Coming in for a drink?”
Maddy glanced across the road at the pub, then shook her head. “Not tonight. Hey, did you ever see this?”
Kate turned. Maddy was making her way over to the old bench next to the bus stop. Following her, she watched as Maddy searched the wooden slats for a moment before finding what she was looking for.
“Here we are.”
Peering down to where Maddy was pointing, Kate saw the words gouged into the wood among the mass of graffiti carved over the years.
“Kate T-T is a cow,” Kate read aloud.
“I can remember exactly when I did it,” said Maddy. “September. We’d just started back at school after the summer break and I was here one morning waiting for the bus. Then you sauntered past with one of your posh friends, on your way to the shop. Bear in mind that you were both wearing stretchy halter-neck tops and tiny skirts, while I was in my six-sizes-too-big maroon school uniform. And you turned to your friend and said, ‘God, back to school already. Who’d be an idiot?’”
“I remember that!” Kate nodded energetically. “We still had another ten days of vacation. We fl—”
“It’s OK,” said Maddy when Kate stopped abruptly, “you can say it. You flew down to the south of France and spent a week on your friend’s dad’s yacht.” Drily she added, “You boasted about it when you got back.”
“You’re right. I was a cow.” Kate marveled that the wonkily carved accusation had been on show all these years, clearly visible to anyone who’d ever sat on this bench waiting for the bus. Never having caught a bus in her life, she would not have known it was here. “What are you doing?” she exclaimed as Maddy took her Swiss Army knife key ring out of her bag and began energetically digging away at the bench.
“Changing it. Bringing it up-to-date.” Working at speed with the sharp blade, Maddy brushed away the loosened paint flakes and sat back to show Kate the finished job. Instead of “Kate T-T is a cow,” it now said “Kate T-T was a cow.”
They gazed at each other in silence for several seconds, then simultaneously burst out laughing.
“Absolutely disgraceful,” a male voice barked behind them. Turning, Maddy and Kate saw a couple of middle-aged rambler types in matching baggy khaki shorts and “Save the Countryside” T-shirts.
“I know,” said Kate, “it’s outrageous.”
Infuriated, the male rambler boomed, “Defacing public property, wanton vandalism. You should be ashamed of yourselves.”
“I am,” Kate told the man who was by this time puce in the face, “but I’m feeling better now. Anyway, it isn’t vandalism,” she added with a sweet smile. “It’s local history.”
* * *
Fantasy time.
After the best night’s sleep she could remember, Kate was lying in the bath with bubbles up to her ears and a blissful grin on her face that wouldn’t go away. What a magical day yesterday had turned out to be. What a day today would hopefully turn out to be—heavens, from now on anything could happen.
Closing her eyes to make visualizing it easier, Kate conjured up a Christmasy picture not dissimilar to the final moments of It’s a Wonderful Life. There was Jake with one arm around her and the other around Sophie—actually, no, because then she and Sophie would be separated. Far better to have Sophie in the middle, hugging them both and being hugged in return to show how happy they were. Anyway, so there they were, all together, just like a proper family—and if she and Jake ended up getting married, there’d be no problem with warring in-laws because Estelle and Marcella got on brilliantly together, and she and Maddy had put their silly differences behind them. God, this was the best fantasy ever, and it could actually come true—
Yeek, phone—that was probably Jake now!
Racing downstairs with bath bubbles cascading down her body and a towel hastily slung around her middle section, Kate skidded breathlessly into the kitchen.
“Was that for me?”
Estelle, eating toast and compiling a shopping list, looked surprised.
“No, darling. Will Gifford just rang. He’s coming down this afternoon.”
Wrong answer. Completely wrong answer. Who gave a toss about
bumbling Will Gifford?
“Expecting a call?” asked Estelle.
No wonder she sounds amazed, Kate thought. What with me and my action-packed social life.
“Not really.” Realizing she was dripping water and foam onto the kitchen floor, Kate said, “I’ll go get dressed.”
“Darling, I’m so glad you and Maddy are friends again.”
Kate nodded. Estelle had, in fact, gotten quite tearful last night at the thought of happy endings all around. Not that her mother knew yet about the particular happy ending she had in mind for herself and Jake.
Struggling to contain a giveaway smirk, Kate said, “Me too.”
By eleven o’clock she was setting off down Gypsy Lane with a bounce in her step and a fully-fledged plan in her brain. Because basically, why hang about waiting for Jake to ring when she was perfectly capable of making things happen herself? Even Norris seemed more cheerful this morning, jauntily ambling along, exploring the hedgerows and almost—but not quite—breaking into a run when he spotted Bean cavorting outside Jake’s workshop.
Even our dogs get on, Kate thought joyfully. What could be more perfect than that?
It was cooler than yesterday, with an overcast sky and the threat of rain in the air. Instead of sitting outside his workshop with his shirt off, Jake was inside, wearing a pale-gray lamb’s-wool sweater and jeans. He was working on a casket, painstakingly brushing varnish over a transferred painting of a snowy mountain range.
Looking up as Kate entered the workshop, he flicked his sun-streaked blond hair out of his eyes and flashed his trademark dazzling smile.
“Hi.”
He loves me.
“Hi.” Kate felt herself go fizzy all over. When a man smiled at you like that, you knew that yesterday had meant something extra-special. “Listen, what are you doing tonight?”
This was Jake’s cue to do his sparkly-eyed thing and murmur flirtatiously, “I don’t know. What am I doing tonight? You tell me.”
Instead, he said, “I’ve been bullied into taking Sophie to the cinema to see the new Spider-Man movie. I must be mad; the last one scared me witless.” He pulled a face. “But that’s Soph for you. What can you do with a girl who has three pairs of Spider-Man pajamas?”
“Well, it’s my night off,” said Kate, “so why don’t we all go? Then I can hold your hand during the scary bits.”
“It’s good of you to offer, but it’s Spider-Man.” Jake shrugged good-naturedly. “Hardly your kind of thing. You wouldn’t enjoy it.”
Actually, this was a fair point. Not that she wouldn’t enjoy sitting in the darkened cinema holding Jake’s hand, but as a breed, movies starring comic book heroes left her cold.
“OK, better idea. I’ll meet up with you after the cinema and we’ll go for a pizza.” Kate beamed, pleased with herself, then realized that Jake was hesitating and added hurriedly, “I meant all of us go for a pizza: you, me, and Sophie.”
“Kate, look, I’m sorry, but I have to say no.”
Time stood still. She wondered if she’d somehow misunderstood this last sentence—if, in fact, he was actually saying yes. But that was taking fantasy too far.
Slowly Kate said, “No to what? Pizza?”
“No to all of it. Meeting up, visiting cinemas together, doing the kind of things couples do, the whole works.” Jake shook his head. “Yesterday was great, OK? We both enjoyed ourselves. But that’s as far as it goes. I keep my private life and my family life separate. It wouldn’t be fair on Sophie, introducing her to an endless stream of girls, letting her think I might be getting serious about this one or that.” He paused, then said gently, “Does that make sense to you?”
It made about as much sense as being hit across the face with a wet towel. This wasn’t what Kate had been expecting to hear at all.
Stunned, she said, “Is it because of the way I look?”
“Oh, please. I thought we’d cured you of that. I just don’t want to confuse Sophie, that’s all. If I know I’m not going to be settling down with someone, why get her hopes up?”
What about my hopes? Kate wanted to scream, and the awful realization that he meant what he said struck her like a stake through the heart. This was rejection of the most brutal kind, brutal because she genuinely hadn’t been expecting it.
Despising herself for being pathetic, already knowing the answer deep down but still needing to hear it from Jake’s mouth, she heard herself ask, “So do you want to carry on seeing me when Sophie isn’t around? Or was yesterday just a one-off?”
Jake sighed. “I wouldn’t have put it quite like that. But OK, it was a one-off.”
“So you lied to me.” There was a telltale tremor in Kate’s voice. “I thought you really liked me. You told me you liked me. But it was just a big lie.”
“That’s not fair. I do like you,” Jake said evenly. “But we’re never going to be a couple.”
Kate felt her fingernails digging into her palms as a glimmer of hope shone through. “We could be!” Her heart raced as she realized what this was all about. “Is this because your family’s poor and mine is rich? Jake, it doesn’t matter a bit. I don’t care that you don’t have any money—”
“Well, nice of you to say so,” Jake interrupted, “and I’m very flattered, but it’s nothing to do with that.”
Helplessly Kate blurted out, “It is my face.”
“Stop jumping to conclusions and just listen to me. And you do have to stop blaming everything on your face, by the way,” said Jake. “Because, trust me, it matters to you a damn sight more than it matters to anyone else.”
“Go on then, fire away.” Outside the workshop, Kate could hear Norris and Bean playing, happily rolling around together—not unlike Jake and herself yesterday afternoon. Now, fiddling with the button of her thin navy jacket, she said, “What, then?”
“It’s quite simple,” said Jake. “When you fall in love with someone, it doesn’t happen because you want it to. Sometimes it’s the last thing you want—hell, look at the mess Maddy’s gotten herself into—but you don’t have any kind of control over it. It just happens.” He paused, and there was compassion—or sadness—in his green eyes. “Or not, as the case may be.”
And that was that. Stung by the rejection, Kate stalked back up the hill to Dauncey House at such a rate that poor Norris’s paws barely touched the ground.
So much for having thought she might actually be about to discover how it felt to be happy. Now she was back to square one all over again.
Chapter 33
“Oh God, not you again.”
“Enchanting to see you too,” Will Gifford said amiably, stepping to one side as Kate swept past him. Catching the front door before it had a chance to slam shut in his face, he added, “Is your mum in?”
“Does it make any difference?” Kate shot him a look of irritation. “You usually enjoy a good nose around whether anyone’s here or not.”
“Ouch,” said Will with a grin.
Contemptuously Kate hissed, “Oh, grow up.”
Estelle had her mouth full of chocolate when Will came into the kitchen. Jumping guiltily away from the fridge where she kept her stash of secret candy supplies, she covered her mouth with one hand and gave him an embarrassed wave with the other.
“Just passed the ray of sunshine on her way out,” said Will.
Estelle winced, managed to swallow a giant chunk of chocolate in one go, and said shamefacedly, “Hence the comfort eating.”
“Still giving you the runaround?”
“I don’t know what’s happened. Yesterday she was fantastic, so cheerful you wouldn’t believe it.” Seeing from Will’s face that he didn’t, Estelle went on earnestly, “Really, it’s the truth. She was happy, laughing. She even made up with an old friend she’d fallen out with years ago. I thought, ‘This is it. We’ve turned the corner at last,’ but this a
fternoon we’re back to square one. It’s as if yesterday never happened, like Brigadoon, and I don’t know what’s wrong. I mean, am I being really dense here?” As she said it, a sob burst from Estelle’s throat, as unstoppable as a sneeze. “Other people seem to manage to have children who don’t treat them like a pile of poo, but it just doesn’t seem to be h-happening for m-me.”
“Hey, hey,” Will crooned, crossing the kitchen at the speed of light. Then, Estelle found him holding her and realized that this was what she’d been subconsciously longing for ever since Will had last left for London. “It’s all right,” he murmured soothingly. “It’s not you. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Dizzily, Estelle breathed in the fresh detergent scent of his diabolical plaid shirt. She was struggling to take in this startling turn of events. If she was honest, she’d daydreamed about something like this happening but never believed for a moment it would ever actually happen.
“I really shouldn’t be saying this”—Will’s mouth brushed her ear—“but you have no idea how much I’ve missed you.”
Estelle’s stomach did a pancake flip. She couldn’t be attracted to a more wildly unsuitable man if she tried. For a start, Will Gifford was thirty-eight while she was forty-five, and when you weren’t exactly drop-dead glamorous, seven years was a lot. Secondly, Will was here because he was making a documentary about her husband, which was scarcely ideal. What’s more, she hadn’t been involved with any man other than Oliver since her eighteenth birthday. For heaven’s sake, if anyone in this house was suited to Will, it should be Kate.
But Estelle’s tangled train of thought was distracted by Will’s mouth finding hers, and she gave herself up to the sheer mindless pleasure of his kiss. Because sometimes chemistry happened and you made the discovery that you just didn’t care. Anyway, when was the last time Oliver had pressed her up against the fridge and ravished her? Determined not to feel guilty, Estelle reminded herself that the only thing that got Oliver excited these days was profit margins and business plans.