Starting Over

by Sue Moorcroft

  Tess,

  Hope you’re safe and well. The baby must be well on the way now and, naturally, I’m anxious to know ... Crap. Emotional, weak.

  Tess,

  There are things that must be sorted. I have a right to know the fate of my baby and have some input, financial and otherwise to its ... Businesslike and brutal. Perfect to keep her forever hiding.

  Princess,

  Madeline Gavanagh’s baby has been proved not to be mine ... No, why should he tell her? So she’d feel her flight had been perfectly justified, could condescend to return now he’d sorted things out? I hope you don’t fall out of love with our child so easily. Couldn’t be more wrong! What the hell did he want to say? Head on left hand, tap the pen impatiently with the right. Begin again. Don’t you think this has gone on long enough? What do you think is going to happen to you if you come back to Middledip? Rubbish. I love you. I love you. I love you. I miss you. I thought our love was huge.

  He stared at the wall. Loosed the page gently from the pad, folded it and slid it into his pocket. Dug in the wastebasket and fished out everything he’d just tossed, cramming his pockets with the litter.

  He handed Kitty her pad and pen, drearily. ‘Thanks anyway,’ he muttered like a browser to a shop assistant. ‘I’ve decided not to bother.’

  Her mobile phone sang.

  Tess swung away from bride and groom lizards to pick up quickly. Kitty was the only holder of the new number and her new e-mail address. ‘Your hyphenated boyfriend has just left.’

  A sudden thumping in her head. Ratty had been in Kitty’s office, in London. She could picture the office, picture him there.

  ‘He was asking after you but I claimed confidentiality.’

  Silence. Kitty waiting for a reaction. Tess not knowing how to react. ‘Oh?’ she mumbled, eventually. Then, as Kitty was obviously not intending to spout news, ‘What did he want? Exactly?’

  Shuffling of papers. Kitty’s sigh. ‘Information. Do I have an address, are you safe? Had I given information to Olly the Fink? He asked to leave a note for me to pass on if I could. I agreed.’

  Gripping the receiver, she felt the beginnings of excitement. Relief. Joy! Were things going to work out? ‘What does it say?’

  A pause. ‘Tess, I’m sorry. In the end he decided not to bother.’

  She could’ve cried. ‘Not to bother?’

  ‘He gave it enough tries, used half my pad. Then gave up, stuffed all the attempts in his pocket too, so I can’t even scavenge in my bin, though I’d love to! So. Thought I’d let you know.’

  Tess spoke to stop her from breaking the connection. ‘How did he seem?’

  Kitty puffed a sigh. ‘Pretty pissed off.’

  End the call. Cross to the window. Gaze at similar houses across a road jammed with parked vehicles. Pretty pissed off. Could mean anything. Cross. Hurt. Fed up. Lonely. Disillusioned. Let down.

  All of the above.

  She rang Kitty back, suddenly hungry to hear another human voice in this silent, empty house. ‘If he comes back,’ she began eagerly. But then her resolve dissolved. ‘Ring again, won’t you?’

  Kitty gave a tiny sigh. ‘Of course.’ Then, ‘Tess, if he wants to communicate with you and you want to know what he has to say – don’t you think it’s time you talked to him?’

  Despite feeling dismal all the way up the country, once he got home in the twilight he felt a sudden restless energy.

  What a fucking waste of time.

  What a waste of his life, rotting away here in Pennybun Cottage, like Lucasta had.

  But he was no old lady discarded by love, he was Miles Arnott-Rattenbury, single, free, well funded! Life was out there waiting, so was his previously awesome social life, pubs and clubs, race meetings, concerts, a world of women. Days gone by, he’d had sufficient choice of them. He would again.

  Shower, shave, cool blue shirt.

  Fill the Jag up on the way to Bettsbrough. Pete? No, not fair, he was going to pull, big time, and Pete had Angel.

  Jos? Too many questions, too much explaining.

  Just himself then, wallet, car keys. Drive straight past The Three Fishes, not thinking of Tess.

  He chose a town centre pub where women in short skirts drank bottled beer, shots and alcopops. Easy enough to put himself about, test the water, meeting eyes, smiling, noting telltale increased vivacity as he drifted by. He added himself to someone’s crowd and went on to the new Irish pub where the drink was Guinness. In the tremendous crush by the bar he let his arm rest behind a tall ash-blonde with hair past her shoulders and eyes outlined in vivid blue.

  ‘We want to be there before 10.30,’ she called into his ear, over the hubbub. ‘Or we’ll have to pay full entrance fee.’

  He nodded, not needing to know where ‘there’ was. ‘Just time for one more, OK?’

  The club, when they got to it, was big and loud and filling up fast. He detached himself from the group, did a complete circuit, up and down changes of level, drinking the driver’s allowance of one beer from the bottle, browsing.

  The ash-blonde followed his progress with her gaze, pouting and giving a twinkling wave when he looked over. He held her in reserve. She was pretty, she was tall, but young and avid.

  Another blonde in a short, shiny skirt blazed an interested look his way. Hmm, a possible.

  Three together, already on a dance floor lit from below, one dumpy but with a nice smile, one ill at ease, one dancing as if everyone watched, making sure her chest was moving, tossing back well-kept hair and glancing about for talent. She met his eyes fearlessly. And smiled. A banker.

  He finished his beer, got just ahead of the sudden influx as the pubs closed, bought a bottle of water. His eyes caught suddenly. Wow, that familiar yes!

  The blondes seemed suddenly insipid, other dancers amateur as he watched dusky breasts bustle under a lace top over a full bra, dark hair gleam down a sinuously moving back above the curve of her bottom. Such smooth, coffee skin, how could such subtle colour be described as ‘black’? Abandoning drink, he went into action.

  Easy. Closer and closer until he matched her beat with his and within an hour she was laughing up at him beneath incredible lashes. Melting eyes, sensuous lips, beautiful white teeth. Mesmerising body touching his and filling his arms in the slow dances, breathtaking. Her name was Milly.

  This was it! He was over Tess and back to the old life of serious fun. None of his talents had deserted him. He concentrated intensely on her, bought her drinks and asked her life story. And she became affectionate.

  He drove her around the edges of Peterborough to her flat in a modern block, window frames stained in many colours, and parked the Jag under a lamp. Fingers crossed it would be OK. Up to the first floor, fingers linked with hers as she led him through a green-stained front door.

  Back to the happy old routine: coffee on, jacket off. Music. Laughter. Expectation. Kisses, experimental and exploratory, becoming deep and arousing. Maybe, just maybe, he’d be able to leave in the morning with a smile on his face and some hope that he was getting over Tess.

  Half an hour later he was sinking with her onto her bed, the quilted gold satin fabric chill on his naked back. Her nearly-black hair was beautiful, heavy and thick when he tangled his fingers in it. Just as good as strawberry blonde.

  Luscious chocolate eyes were full of promise. Forget turquoise. Forget! Forget!

  He kissed her neck where it met her shoulder. ‘Where’s the bathroom, um…?’

  ‘Milly!’ She frowned at him in mock reproof. ‘Next room. Don’t be long.’ She stretched suggestively.

  He kissed her nose. ‘I won’t.’ Once in the bathroom he took his mobile from his waistband and rang Pete. ‘Extricate me,’ he whispered.

  He’d barely climbed back onto the gold quilt when his phone sang for his attention. ‘Sorry, sorry, should’ve turned it off!’ he apologised to her frown.

  In his ear, Pete recited blearily, ‘What am I supposed to be saying? The police are her
e, somebody’s been trying to break into your house. And Angel says, don’t wake us up to play silly phone games from bathrooms, you bastard!’

  ‘What? Oh no! Really? Will I? OK, I will. Thanks, Pete.’ He reached around his nearly bedmate for his shirt. ‘This is terrible! I’ve got to go! Somebody’s disturbed intruders at my place and the cops want to speak to me.’ He hurried into his jacket. And then, seeing her woebegone expression, ‘But I can have your number, can’t I?’ That would make her feel better. He watched her scribble on a piece torn from the corner of Red magazine and tucked it into his wallet. ‘Really sorry!’ Backing out, he apologised to her sulky expression and folded arms.

  Then he was clattering down the stairs, turning down his collar. The Jag was safely where he had left it and he was on his way.

  Once home, he awarded himself a whisky to take upstairs. Bedtime ritual: watch, small change, wallet. He threw away Milly’s number. She wasn’t his type, after all.

  Apart from not being able to chase Tess from his thoughts, life went on. Some day, he told himself, he’d be able to shrug her into the past. For now he fixed cars, fetched cars, studied the small ads for bits and raked through autojumbles. Tried to regain the old satisfaction of running his business, of his name being known among classic devotees, of the E-Type fetching serious money.

  He drank at the pub and ate Angel’s glorious meals and played with Toby and Jenna who’d stopped asking, ‘Where’s Tess?’ Only Carola still asked, so he avoided Carola.

  Occasional calls came from Guy or Mari or James still puzzled or hurt or annoyed. His parents’ concern continued; Elisabeth had taken to dropping in at the garage for a cuppa, perching her neat self incongruously on the burst-open stool by the tool chest.

  And he, the man who thought sex had been invented just for him, wasn’t getting any.

  Tess’s heart bang-bang-banged and her throat clamped shut around her breath. There was someone down in the kitchen. She could hear man-sized footsteps. Now the sitting room! Was there time to get downstairs and out whilst he was in there? Slow steps back to the sitting-room door told her there wasn’t.

  Silently, fearfully, backing away from the stairs, she crossed the landing to the bathroom, perhaps the least likely place he’d look. Pushed the door to.

  Heart hammering, she eased into the gap at the side of the airing cupboard and hid herself with the folds of the shower curtain. It might suffice, if he didn’t put on the light.

  What did he want? Her? Things from the house? What was lying around to give her away? Not much in the kitchen, nor the unfurnished sitting room that she hardly used.

  His steps travelled upstairs, pausing on the landing, travelling on into the back bedroom. But no sound of a shutting door, no chance for her to creep past. Ages, it seemed, quivering against the cold, glossed cupboard, the roll of the bath edge digging into her leg, until the unnaturally quiet movements of the intruder stole back to the landing, stopped outside the workroom. She struggled to bring her breathing under control as she clenched shut her eyes, willed him, go, go.

  And he did. The same measured footfall on each tread and down onto the quarry tiles. Then, finally, the blessed, welcome sound of the kitchen door opening and shutting.

  Tess let out her breath. ‘Thank God!’ He hadn’t found her. He’d gone without doing more than look around.

  She slid past the clinging shower curtain, wiping sweating palms on her jumper. Fearfully, as if unable to quite believe she’d heard him leave, into the bedroom, to shut the door and light the lamp. Bare and tidy, just as she’d left it.

  Relief. She’d live to fight another day. She went down to secure the kitchen door, thinking she’d have to get into the habit of being more careful about locking it. A good strong cup of tea would calm her, then she’d come back upstairs to read, listen to the radio, continue her solitary, silent existence since last time she visited the supermarket and spoke to the person on the checkout.

  She turned the back door key, reached for the kettle.

  And he was there.

  Not safely out into the twilight as she’d supposed. But there. Leaning in the sitting-room doorway. Locked in with her.

  A scream, it must be hers, a banged elbow as she leapt backwards, water spilling and splashing from the kettle in her hand.

  Even as she madly computed the probabilities and possibilities of scrabbling for the back door key, turning it, opening the door and getting away from the expression in his eyes, she realised there was no real escape. He was a few leisurely strides away.

  He straightened up and stepped silently nearer, close enough to touch. His eyes glittered and she was scared.

  ‘Hullo, Princess,’ he said. ‘When did you get back?’

  Chapter Thirty

  His eyes pinned her, like a rabbit in the headlights. He broke the contact first, let his eyes travel over her. Size ten jeans where the bump should have been. ‘No baby,’ he observed neutrally.

  She gulped, tried for normality. ‘I’m going to have a cup of ...’

  ‘No you’re not. No baby?’

  Her eyes shut. ‘No baby,’ she whispered. She shouldn’t have come back. Or she should have gone straight to Pennybun and risked whatever reception waited. Not slunk back to Honeybun the way she had yesterday, squeezing the Freelander in the hut, hoping the shrubbery between the two cottages would hide her for just a few hours more until she’d screwed up the courage to face him. She opened her eyes at his silence, dared to look at his impassive face. ‘There wasn’t a baby after all.’

  ‘You lost it?’

  She shook her head. ‘My period just arrived.’ Tears crept out between her lashes.

  ‘I don’t suppose,’ he mused, stepping forward so that she shuffled nervously back until the door handle jabbed her ribs, ‘that you lifted a few too many boxes?’

  Tears stilled in shock. ‘That was nothing to do with it!’

  ‘No?’ His eyes, which used to be filled with love, now accused. ‘What were you doing just before your miscarriage?’

  Heart flip. She gazed at the wall to avoid his eyes.

  He answered himself. ‘Carrying boxes! Running away. Something’s wrong, Tess must pack up and go. And flush a baby!’

  Her voice was hoarse, choked with disbelief. ‘There was no baby this time!’

  ‘How did you know? When you took your bold decision to clear out whilst I was safely out of the way, when you felt the only thing to do was scarper, when you stuffed your little world into boxes and loaded the Freelander, when you carried that monster computer monitor downstairs, did you think you were being very sensible?

  ‘Tell me.’ He moved forward, crowding without touching. ‘Why Princess Tess couldn’t just say, “I can’t cope with your past, I’m leaving”. Did you think I’d beat you up? Tie you to a stake?’

  Tears raced each other down her cheeks, her chin, jumped for safety as she shook her head.

  ‘But it didn’t occur to you to simply tell me it was over?’

  Another wild headshake, gagged by her throat muscles. This was awful, worse even than she’d imagined, because he was right! It had been blind reaction. So hurt, so angry that he’d been the bastard, left a relationship after unprotected sex without bothering to find out ... just like Olly. Fuelled with self-righteous indignation at his treachery, she’d run, fled. It wasn’t until she stopped that she wondered why.

  And he was accusing her of killing their baby in the process! ‘I rang ... after. Dr Warrington said the test showed I wasn’t pregnant after all.’ She covered her face, the choking sobs burst out in an ugly volley at the memory, at the disappointment, and she shuffled towards him. She was so sorry! And oh, to feel the strength of his chest and arms!

  But Ratty stepped back, leaving her marooned and foolish, drowning in her own tears.

  His voice, when it came again, seemed distant. ‘When Olly’s child was conceived,’ he asked, ‘it wasn’t rape, was it?’

  Her sleeve was scratchy and non-absorb
ent when she struggled to use it to wipe her tears. She gasped, tried unsuccessfully to sniff. ‘Of course not!’ She shook her head.

  His head levelled with hers and she looked down to hide the red, blotchy, swollen mess of her face. ‘How did that baby happen? Maybe you got carried away? Got unlucky?’

  Put like that, there was a startling resemblance to his own scenario.

  ‘Get out of the way, I want to leave,’ he said.

  ‘Tess’s back.’

  ‘Shit!’ Pete banged his head on a raised bonnet. Rubbing the sore spot, he stared, astonished. ‘When?’

  ‘I called at Honeybun last night to check everything was OK. There she was.’

  Pete reconnected a battery, careful not to over-tighten on the soft terminals, shook back his hair. ‘So, everything’s going to be all right?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Getting back together?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t you want?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about the baby?’

  ‘There wasn’t one.’

  He looked away from Pete’s shocked eyes. Pete had children, knew how loving them felt. Ratty’s baby may not have really existed but he hadn’t known that and had still to grieve. Feel aggrieved. For a stupid moment his eyes boiled. He blinked.

  Only the relationship debris remained. He must get used to seeing but not loving her. Realise that they wouldn’t be falling into bed together; he wouldn’t revel in her body, the intimacy she loved. This horrible, hollow, missing-her feeling would continue to gape in his chest.

  Her furniture would have to travel from Pennybun to Honeybun, but the finances were simple. Tess had kept herself distressingly separate.

  A colossal lot of bridges had to be rebuilt.

  Anxious at the prospect of a welter of problems, to settle her nerves Tess made a list, Lucasta-style. To Face – village shop, the pub. Oh, ouch, too horrible to contemplate, all those people; go back to that one later. Angel, Pete, Jos, Ratty. God he’d been so angry! How could she have thought for even a microsecond he’d want her back? But then why had he been looking for her?