by Jill Mansell
“…when the skin is cracked and red, when a person’s entire body is one mass of swollen weeping wounds, when members of the public turn away in revulsion from the sight of a face so hideously disfigured it is barely recognizable, life becomes intolerable for the sufferer,” Dr. Murray pronounced. “And it is our task to do everything in our power to alleviate that suffering.”
Robbie and Michelle, on the platform behind her, looked as though they were suffering intolerably too. Reaching into a large manila folder on the table beside her, Dr. Murray withdrew a sheaf of 11x17-size photographs and held the first one aloft.
“I would like everyone to pay close attention here. This is what happened to a seventy-three-year-old patient of mine whose eczema overtook his body and sadly became infected. Do not look away,” Dr. Murray barked as several people at the front flinched, gasped, and covered their mouths in horror. “I want every one of you in this room to look at these photographs and consider how lucky you are not to be similarly afflicted.”
Cowed into obedience, the captive audience gazed in terror at the first full-color photograph. You could have heard a pin drop. The silence was absolute. Grimly and without speaking, Dr. Murray held up a second photograph, this time depicting a close-up of the sufferer’s legs and—
“HIIIICCCC.”
It was one of those gulping, barking-in-reverse hiccups, possibly the loudest Lottie had ever heard. Everyone in the room turned to look at the perpetrator, who was standing just in front and to the left of her. Tall, male, and rangily built, he was wearing a baggy pink shirt, faded jeans, and a baseball cap.
Clearly infuriated by the interruption, Dr. Murray stared at him.
“HIIICCCCCC.”
The hiccupper made no effort to leave the room. It wouldn’t have been easy, surrounded as he was by a solid mass of people who were far too terrified of Dr. Murray to move and allow him to escape.
“HIIICCCCCC.” The man gulped, his shoulders jerking in time with the ear-splitting noise. “HIIIIICCCCCC!”
Dr. Murray was by this time quivering with outrage. Acting on sheer instinct, Lottie squeezed past the fat woman to her left and managed to move up behind the world’s loudest hiccupper.
“HIIII—FUCK ME!” The man let out a bellow and leaped into the air as if he’d been electrocuted. Twisting around, fighting to free the back of his shirt, he came face-to-face with Lottie and burst out laughing. “I don’t believe it. The girl with the perfect arse!”
“HOW DARE YOU?” thundered Dr. Murray.
People were starting to whisper and giggle. The man grinned at Lottie, aware that they were the very center of attention. Having finally managed to escape the confines of his shirt, the ice cubes Lottie had tipped down the back of his collar dropped out and skittered like kittens across the polished wooden floor.
“HIIIICCCCC.”
“GET OUT!” Dr. Murray roared across the restaurant, cowing the snickering audience into silence.
Seb-from-the-supermarket seized Lottie by the hand and dragged her with him. This time, miraculously, the crowds parted like the Red Sea. All eyes were upon them—most of them openly envious—as they made their hasty escape.
Once they were safely outside on the pavement he held her at arm’s length and said seriously, “So, how is it?”
Lottie was still reeling from the surprise of seeing him again. Dazedly she wondered if he meant how was the bottle of Veuve Clicquot he’d presented her with in the supermarket parking lot before disappearing in a cloud of dust.
“Think I’d better check.” Gently turning her around, Seb nodded appreciatively. “Oh yes. Still there, still perfect.”
It was probably wildly un-PC, but when it came to flattering compliments, being told you had a perfect bum had to be one of the best. So deliriously happy to be out of the restaurant that it was all she could do to stop herself giving a celebratory wiggle, Lottie said, “Sorry about the ice. I didn’t know it was you. I was just trying to stop your hiccups.”
“And you did.” He spread his hands in amazement. “See? It’s a miracle. All gone.”
“What can I say?” Lottie shrugged modestly. “I’m good at what I do.”
“We must celebrate.” His blue eyes crinkling at the corners, Seb pulled off his baseball cap and ran his fingers through his unruly blond hair. “You broke my heart last time. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. But now fate has brought us together again, given us another chance.”
“Fate could have brought us together again a bit sooner if you’d asked me for my phone number.” Lottie couldn’t resist pointing this out.
He laughed. “You didn’t ask me for mine.”
“I didn’t get a chance, you just buggered off!”
“But you would have done? Hey, that’s great.” Looking pleased, Seb said, “I like a girl who knows her own mind. So what’ll we do now? Are you hungry?”
Eczema. Weeping wounds. Yellow pus oozing through taut cracked skin…
“Funnily enough, no.”
“Great. Me neither.” He gave Lottie’s perfect bottom a pat. “Come on, we can discuss our new business venture over a drink.”
* * *
“OK, the Dr. Murray diet,” Seb announced with relish. “It’ll be bigger than Atkins. All we need is an MP3 of Dr. Murray giving one of her famous talks. Any time a dieter feels peckish they just listen to the file on their MP3 player and bingo! Instant nausea. Sound good to you?”
“Brilliant.” Lottie clutched the vodka and cranberry juice he’d ordered for her even though she didn’t have cystitis. “Cheap. Simple. We could call it Now That’s What I Call U-Sick.”
He grinned. “And I suppose the charity will want a cut of the profits. Charities are so selfish like that. We’ll get some dodgy lawyer to draw up the contract. Two percent of net royalties to them, 98 percent for us.”
“The world will be a skinnier place,” Lottie said happily, “and we’ll be superrich. I’ve always wanted my own private jet.”
“We’re a winning team.” Seb clinked his glass against hers and sat back, surveying her with undisguised pleasure. “In fact, I think the time has come for you to tell me something.”
What was it about him that made him so attractive? Enthralled, Lottie leaned closer. “Tell you what?”
“Your name for a start. And other pertinent details,” said Seb. “Like where you live.”
“Lottie Carlyle. Hestacombe.”
“Married?”
“Divorced.”
“Kids?”
“Two. Nine and seven.” Oh God, would that put him off?
“And you are…?”
“Still Lottie Carlyle.”
He smiled. “How old?”
“Oh, sorry. Sixty-three.”
“Well, you look fantastic for your age.” Seb slid off his bar stool, seized her free hand, and kissed it, then downed his vodka and cranberry juice in one. “So, Lottie Carlyle. There’s a barman standing over there with nothing to do. How about we help him out by having another drink?”
Chapter 36
“There’s something I have to tell you,” Lottie announced as the taxi pulled up outside Piper’s Cottage.
“Oh yes, and what’s that?”
“You’re a bad man.” She nudged Sebastian Gill, next to her on the backseat, and peered at her watch. “In fact, a bad, bad man. It’s one o’clock in the morning, and you have spent the last five hours being a very bad influence on an innocent sixty-three-year-old. And if you think you’re coming in for a nightcap you’re seriously mistaken.”
“You’re a cruel, cruel woman.” Seb shook his head in mournful fashion. “But I respect you because you’re a virgin. Which I think is extremely decent of me, seeing as this taxi is going to end up costing me near fifty quid. Now, am I allowed out of the car to give you a gentlemanly good-night kiss, or would t
hat be overstepping the mark? I might be eighty-seven, but I’d still like to express my appreciation…”
“You may do that.” Fumbling for the door handle, Lottie marveled that he was still able to enunciate such big words. She’d drunk more tonight than she’d drunk in the last month, and her head was spinning like a plate on a stick. With any luck it wouldn’t suddenly stop spinning, go all wobbly, and fall off.
Oh, but what a night it had been. Her sides were aching from laughing so much. She and Seb had had the best time, and the more she learned about him the more perfect he became. His full name was Sebastian Aloysius Gill (which was weird, granted, but you couldn’t hold someone’s middle name against them). He was thirty-two years old. He was living in Kingston Ash, midway between Cheltenham and Tetbury, and like herself had been divorced for a couple of years. Best of all, he had an eight-year-old daughter, Maya, which meant he was comfortable around children and less likely to do or say the wrong thing in their company than some people Lottie could mention.
OK, maybe she was getting a bit carried away, envisaging fun-filled afternoons together and idyllic picnics on the beach. She had only known Seb properly for five hours. But it had been a promising start.
“Need a hand, love?” The taxi driver lit a cigarette as Lottie clambered out of the backseat and hesitated at the front gate. “Sure this is your house?”
Honestly, what kind of a state did he think she was in?
“I’m fine, fine, absolutely fine.” She was fumbling inside her handbag. “Just looking for my—oops.”
“Elephant? Lipstick? Shotgun?” Seb suggested helpfully. “Cookies? Come on, give us a clue. How many syllables?”
“Bloody front door key,” Lottie wailed, dropping to her knees and groping blindly around in the darkness.
“God, five syllables. They’re always the hardest ones to get.” Seb followed her out of the car and joined her on the ground. “Where did you drop it?”
“If I knew where I’d dropped it, I’d be able to find it, wouldn’t I?” Giggling as his hand brushed her ankle, Lottie said, “The key ring got caught on something inside my bag, so when I tugged it free, it flew out of my hand.”
Seb said, “God, I hate it when that happens.”
“OK, concentrate. This is serious. It could be in the road or on the pavement or in the yard or…or…anywhere.”
“If you ring the front doorbell,” Seb suggested helpfully, “wouldn’t the butler let you in?”
“Sadly, it’s the butler’s night off. A flashlight would be useful.” Lottie flinched as her searching hands encountered a snail on the pavement. “I’ve got a flashlight in my kitchen…”
“Bloody butlers, never around when you need them.” Kneeling to address the taxi driver, Seb said, “You wouldn’t happen to have one with you, I suppose?”
“What, a butler? Nah, mate.” The taxi driver grinned broadly and took a drag of his cigarette. “More trouble than they’re worth.”
Seb clapped his hand to his chest. “A flashlight, a flashlight, my kingdom for a flashlight.”
“Bleeeurrgh, slug.” Lottie uttered a muffled shriek and almost toppled into the gutter.
“Ah, but does it know how to open front doors? Could it maybe slide under the door and unlock it from the inside? You look very cute like that, by the way. On your hands and knees.” His teeth gleaming white in the pitch-dark, Seb said cheerfully, “Like a playful dog.”
“Look, this is all very amusing”—the taxi driver yawned—“but you’re not actually any nearer to finding the damn key, are you?”
“That’s because it’s the middle of the night”—Lottie regarded him loftily from her playful-dog position at the edge of the curb—“and we have no way of finding the damn key because none of us has a flashlight.”
The taxi driver heaved a sigh and knocked his gearshift into reverse. “Right, try not to get yourselves run over. I’ll back up and shine my headlights onto the pavement.”
“That’s an excellent idea.” Lottie nodded with approval. “Truly wonderful. Now why didn’t I think of that?”
“Because you’re drunk as skunks, the pair of you.” The taxi driver chucked his cigarette end out of the window. “Now come on, out of the way. And I’ve still got my meter running,” he added as he executed a neat ninety-degree turn. “So I just hope you can afford this.”
It was Murphy’s law of course that within seconds of the taxi reversing across the road to light up Lottie’s front yard, another car would appear and be unable to get past. Lottie, scurrying around on all fours and praying the key hadn’t fallen down the slatted drain cover, heard the second car slow to a halt and their taxi driver yell across, “Sorry, mate, couple of customers lost their marbles. Give us a minute, will you?”
“Two lots of headlights,” Seb said happily. “Excellent.”
Then a familiar voice reached Lottie’s ears, and she looked up too suddenly, causing her head to start spinning again.
“They’ve lost what?”
Lottie froze like a rabbit caught in…well, headlights, then said defiantly, “Our taxi driver thinks he’s being funny. All I did was drop my key. The situation”—gosh, difficult word to say when you were tired, shichashun—“is completely under control.”
“Glad to hear it,” Tyler drawled. “By the way, you’ve got a snail on your dress.”
Lottie let out a muted scream and gave the snail a swipe, sending it cartwheeling into the bushes. Dazzled by the lights, she shielded her eyes and said impatiently, “You could always help, you know. Seeing as it’s all your fault I can’t get into my house.”
One eyebrow went up. “And that would be…why?”
“Because I managed perfectly well for years keeping my spare key under the geranium pot next to the front door. Until you came along”—Lottie pointed an accusing finger—“and told me how ridiculous it was to hide a key there, that I was just asking to be burgled by burglars. So I moved it, and now my spare key is sitting in the cutlery drawer in my kitchen, which is what I call ridiculous, which is why I think you should be—”
“Found it!” cried Seb.
“Really?” Still on her knees, Lottie swiveled around in relief.
Seb flashed a grin. “No. Only joking.”
“Oh God!”
“But just for a split second there you felt better, didn’t you?”
“And now I feel worse,” Lottie wailed, “and I want to go to bed, but I can’t because nobody’s helping me to look for my stupid damn key!”
“Hey, you’re beautiful when you’re angry.” There was a thunk as a car door opened and closed and Seb turned to address Tyler. “Don’t you think she looks beautiful, with her hair falling all over her face and her eyes flashing? Like a feisty springer spaniel.”
Tyler gave him an odd look. Lottie decided she’d had enough of being told she resembled a dog. Careful not to lose her balance, she pushed herself upright and…whoops, lost her balance, Just for a moment. OK, lean against the wall and look casual. Better still, look sober. Did she really look like a springer spaniel? And what was Tyler doing out at this time of night anyway? It was late.
“Right.” Tyler was standing on the pavement now, hands on hips. “If you don’t know where you dropped the key, which you clearly don’t,” he added pointedly, “then you’re better off waiting for the morning. Let your friend go home in his taxi. You can stay at my place tonight, and we’ll find the key tomorrow. How does that sound?”
Lottie stifled a snicker. How did it sound? Like he didn’t want Seb hanging around Piper’s Cottage a minute longer than necessary.
Seb, who was evidently thinking likewise, surveyed Tyler with amusement. “Are you her ex-husband?”
“He’s my boss.” Lottie wondered if Tyler’s suggestion that she should stay the night meant he had more than a working relationship in mind.
“The grumpy one who complains about your work all the time? The one you can’t stand?”
“He’s joking,” Lottie said hastily. “I didn’t say any of that.”
In the end, her bursting bladder made the decision for her. Lottie waved Seb off in the taxi, safe in the knowledge that this time they had each other’s numbers keyed into their phones. (With any luck they hadn’t had so much to drink that they’d keyed their own numbers into their own phones—wouldn’t that be hilarious?)
“You’re going to have one hell of a hangover tomorrow,” Tyler remarked as he helped her into the passenger seat of his car.
“Thank you for pointing that out. I’d never have thought of it otherwise. We had fun.” Lottie wrestled unsuccessfully with her seat belt then gave up and allowed him to fasten it for her. It felt like being six years old again. “I’m allowed to have fun, aren’t I?”
“As much as you like. I’m not trying to stop you.”
In the darkness, Lottie smiled. “Sure about that?”
“Well. You know what I mean. I’d rather you didn’t hook up with a complete idiot.” Tyler’s tone of voice indicated that this was his opinion of Seb.
“I like him. Don’t spoil it for me.” Her head began to spin again as he rounded the sharp bend past the pub. “Where have you been tonight anyway? Who says you haven’t been sneaking off to see some dippy girl?”
“The Anderssons checked out of Walnut Lodge at eight o’clock this evening to fly back to Sweden. At ten o’clock I got a frantic phone call from them at Heathrow,” said Tyler. “They’d left their passports in the cookie jar in the kitchen.”
Lottie realized she was glad he hadn’t been seeing some dippy girl. Aloud she said, “So you drove all the way up there. Very noble.”
“Customer relations. They were grateful.” Tyler paused. “Where are Nat and Ruby tonight?”
“With Mario.” Lottie was bursting for the bathroom. “They mustn’t find out I stayed with you. They’d give me no end of grief.”
“Luckily we aren’t on speaking terms,” Tyler said lightly, “so they won’t be hearing it from me.”