Saving Saffron Sweeting

by Pauline Wiles

  The joy crumbled as I saw the car was a Jaguar, and the man was Scott. And he wasn’t huddled like a desperate romantic hero, he was putting something through the letterbox.

  ‘Well, that’s lucky,’ he said brightly, as I coughed to announce my presence behind him. He spoke as if no animosity had happened between us.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I was five minutes away from the oblivion of my duvet and had no interest in being delayed.

  ‘I just put a copy through your door, but I think I’m supposed to hand one to you too.’ He paused and squinted at me in the darkness. ‘How was your Christmas?’

  ‘Best ever,’ I muttered bitterly. I sure as heck wasn’t going to enquire about Vienna. ‘What is it?’ I looked down at the envelope he’d put into my hand.

  ‘Er, it’s a Section 21 Notice.’

  ‘A what?’ I tucked the envelope under one arm and started to dig in my bag for my door key. I couldn’t find it amongst all the random rubbish which had accompanied me to San Francisco and back again.

  Scott looked fleetingly uncomfortable, but he settled on an expression of bland innocence. ‘Don’t go flying off the deep end,’ he said. ‘By law, I have to give you at least two months.’

  ‘Two months what?’ Where was that wretched key?

  ‘Notice to vacate.’ He shifted from foot to foot as if to keep warm, or perhaps just because he was shifty.

  ‘Sorry? What?’ I was definitely going to have to get my ears tested. ‘Did you say vacate?’

  But as I finally found my key and looked up at his face, I realised my ears were absolutely fine.

  I had eaten nothing but meagre airline rations for two days. The last of my savings were now lining the velvet coffers of British Airways. The only man I ever wanted to be with had given up on our marriage and disappeared.

  And now, I was being evicted from my cottage.

  CHAPTER 32

  ‘Oh bugger!’ exclaimed Amelia. Her shoe twirling stopped mid-circle as she looked at me in sympathetic horror.

  ‘That sums it up nicely,’ I agreed in a low voice.

  It was the morning of the second of January and I was too weary even to switch on my computer. I had told Amelia about the emails between James and Rebecca, my fruitless escapade to California and Scott’s unapologetic arrival at the cottage.

  ‘But I thought he said he wasn’t going to boot you out?’

  ‘It seems that was only the case while I was shagging him.’ I hugged myself, coat tugged tightly around me. The Hargraves office hadn’t yet warmed up after being closed for more than a week. ‘Now, all bets are off.’

  Scott was behaving perfectly logically. Still dead keen to develop executive accommodation in the village, his eye had fallen on Grey Stoke House. Uninspiring and relatively modern, it was unlikely to trigger the fierce feelings swirling around the malt house. And it stood on a hefty plot of land. He had made the owners a generous offer just before Christmas, which they’d accepted. By now, they were probably celebrating with rum punch in Barbados.

  ‘I feel awful,’ Amelia said. ‘I should have paid more attention to your rental agreement.’

  ‘You weren’t to know this would happen.’ I paused to rub my aching temples. ‘The house is going to be demolished for corporate flats. Apparently, my cottage is destined to be the fitness centre.’

  ‘Oh, darling, I’m sorry. How are you feeling?’

  I raised my red-rimmed eyes from the carpet to consider the question, but then let them sink again as I shook my head.

  ‘I’m not sure I care,’ I said dully.

  And I truly didn’t. My capacity to feel, to worry, to hurt was wiped out. Over the last few days, I had learned that chocolate ice cream tastes better swimming in Baileys, that Mungo was a warm but smelly bed companion and that Pot Noodles were the most depressing food on earth. I had spent the two remaining days of last year and the first day of the new year under the duvet, staring blankly at my bedroom ceiling. The alarm clock had ticked relentlessly beside me, and with the passing seconds and minutes my shock and denial had turned to hollow apathy.

  Amelia watched me for a moment, then got up to microwave my cold coffee. She returned holding both my mug and a slim glass bottle. ‘I think it’s time for the emergency brandy,’ she said.

  ~~~

  I trudged through the workday motions, still numb but soothed by checking emails, taking messages for Amelia and placing our next advert with the Cambridge Evening News. Despite my claims that I wasn’t hungry, by early afternoon my stomach was grumbling and I was grateful when Amelia went to the bakery. Normally, this was my job, but she sensed I didn’t feel like village chit-chat today. She returned with sandwiches and mince pies.

  ‘I hope these haven’t been sitting there since before Christmas,’ she said, prising up the pastry lid of a pie and sniffing the dark, spicy contents cautiously.

  ‘Doesn’t matter. I don’t think they ever go off,’ I said. ‘And if they do, I can add food poisoning to my list of triumphs.’

  ‘Talking of triumphs, I forgot to tell you.’ Amelia went over to the coffee table by the door and started digging through the newspapers. ‘You didn’t recycle any of these yet, did you?’

  I shook my head, feeling boosted by strong cheddar and crunchy pickle on soft poppy seed bread. ‘Nope.’

  ‘Here it is. That sexy journalist got his piece published. It was in the paper a few days ago.’

  She was clearly thrilled and I took the article obligingly. Under the headline ‘New Year, New Hope for Malt House’ I read about our Anglo-American alliance to save local heritage. There was a flattering photo of Amelia with some of her groupies outside the malt house, and an inane quote from me on different nationalities rallying round a cause.

  ‘Nice.’ I folded it up and gave it back.

  ‘I think I might frame it.’ Amelia squinted at the prime wall space by the door.

  ‘Okay.’ I had just messed up the printing of some double-sided house details. Sighing, I dumped the whole lot in our recycling bin.

  ‘Grace,’ Amelia went back to her desk and began thumbing through her piles, ‘I know things seem pretty dire right now, but on the professional front, stuff is looking good for you.’

  ‘Hmm?’ The mince pie would probably be nicer warm, but I couldn’t be bothered to heat it.

  ‘One of the bio-tech companies asked me if we could provide full relocation services to their people.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘It’d be a whole new sideline. We’d help with orientation tours and schools, as well as the obvious stuff like housing.’ She had polished off her own mince pie in two bites, whereas I was dissecting mine slowly. ‘I thought you could manage it as a separate business. Maybe offer interior design too,’ she continued, eyeing me beadily.

  ‘Oh. Heck, I dunno. Sounds scary.’

  Amelia sat back and folded her arms. ‘I get it. You’re too deflated just now. But keep it in mind, Grace. You’d be brilliant and I bet we can charge a fat rate.’

  I sighed again and said I’d think about it.

  ‘And I was copied on that email from Visit Britain. That could be super too.’

  ‘I think I deleted it.’ Some pushy man from the tourist board wanted me to write a guide for small business owners about marketing to American guests. I had zero intention of responding. ‘So, um, has the Hobbs sale started yet?’

  Amelia was not to be distracted. ‘If you don’t call him back, I’m coming after you with a hockey stick.’

  ‘Okay, okay. I’ll give him a buzz tomorrow.’ Anything to get her off my back.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I know you’re tired. But take it from me, when your personal life comes crashing down around you, that’s when work can be a relief. It’s either that or the bottle.’

  I nodded so she wouldn’t think I was completely ungrateful. But right now, the only relief I wanted was to find a dark cave and crawl into it with my new cashmere blankie.

  ~~~
>
  Within a couple of days, I saw grudgingly that Amelia might have a point about work as an antidote for personal pain. The sheer necessity of getting out of bed in the morning, showering, finding something to eat and getting to the office, prevented me from descending into complete senselessness. Business was still quiet, but I had at least acknowledged the request from Visit Britain and arranged to meet with them. I had also agreed to take down the Hargraves Christmas decorations, before we reached Twelfth Night and tempted yet more bad luck by leaving the tinsel hanging.

  With considerably less enthusiasm than I had felt at Halloween, I started in the back corner of the office. Amelia was at her desk so I didn’t bother to turn as I heard the door open and her standard client greeting of ‘Hello, I’m Amelia, how can I help?’

  ‘Hi. Well – I’m looking to buy a house,’ answered a familiar male voice.

  And that’s how it came about, that I was balanced on an eight-foot ladder with a mouth full of fake holly when I realised that my husband had found me.

  ~~~

  To Amelia’s credit, she was quick to catch on. It could have been the way James was looking straight past her at me, his face a picture of last-ditch hope. More likely, though, it was the way I gasped, yelped and promptly fell off the ladder, bursting into tears even before I hit the floor.

  ‘Bloody hell, darling, are you all right?’ Amelia swivelled on a pointy zebra-print ankle boot, but James was faster.

  He knelt down beside me in the holly-strewn corner, and from my humiliated huddle against the wall I looked into the kindest pair of brown eyes I’ll ever know.

  ‘Grace?’ He touched me tentatively on the arm.

  ‘I’m okay. Ouch.’ I reached for my ankle as a needle of pain shot through my foot, but by now I was smiling as well as crying. ‘Sod. I’m fine, really. I’ll just sit here for a minute.’

  I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. Great, another clumsy triumph. No doubt I was doing a good impression of a dog’s dinner.

  Amelia leaned over my desk to peer down at the pair of us. Satisfied no ambulance was needed, she retreated to the edge of her own desk where she perched with an expression of rapt bemusement.

  ‘How did you get here?’ I asked between sniffs.

  ‘I drove,’ James said.

  I shook my head. ‘No – I meant, how did you – ’ sniff ‘ – find me?’

  ‘Ah. Well, your name was in the Cambridge newspaper. It came up on Google.’

  Presumably, he was talking about the article by the journalist Amelia fancied.

  ‘After I saw you off at Liverpool Street,’ James continued, ‘I had an idea of where to look. But it turns out I was barking up the wrong tree in Saffron Walden.’

  I wondered how many trees he’d barked up, and for how long.

  ‘You sublet the apartment,’ I said, a hint of accusation in my voice.

  ‘Yeah.’ He sighed, then inclined his head to one side. ‘How did you know that?’

  I couldn’t answer, pressing my lips together and shaking my head slightly as I gazed at him, having trouble meeting his eyes. He was looking surprisingly non-scruffy, in inky blue jeans and a black zip-neck jumper.

  James rocked back on his heels and pondered my ankle for a few seconds. I was still massaging it with both hands.

  Then he said softly, ‘You’re wearing your wedding ring again.’

  I finally managed to look at him and in that moment we both saw in the other the mirror of our brittle hopes.

  ‘Gruff …’ James put his arms around me and I felt the firm reassurance of his chest as I leaned my head against him. I breathed out, a long sigh that felt like it had been churning inside me for the last six months. As he rubbed my shoulder and kissed my forehead, I let the tears roll down unchecked onto his lambswool sweater.

  We sat like that for several minutes, before James pulled away slightly. He waited for me to look up, then kissed me gently on the lips. Ankle forgotten, I began kissing him back, and I’m not sure where that would have led had we not been disturbed by a politely assertive cough from Amelia.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt, you two.’ She didn’t look sorry at all, grinning down at us from on high. ‘But did you say something about buying a house?’

  ~~~

  The pub had just opened for the evening, so James and I were able to tuck ourselves away in a secluded corner. Amelia had shooed us out of the Hargraves office, suggesting that as we were clearly in no fit state to buy a home, James could start by buying me a drink.

  I had remembered to comb my hair and wipe away the tear streaks, but I still felt shy and awkward. Once again, my name was proving ironic.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ James asked, as he returned from the bar with a glass of red wine and a pint of pale ale.

  ‘I don’t know where to start.’ I gave a hesitant smile.

  ‘Were you in Menlo Park?’

  I nodded. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘Well, with my mum, for Christmas. Then I made a quick trip up to Holt.’

  ‘To my parents?’ I hadn’t seen that coming.

  ‘Don’t worry, they were very loyal. But they did say you’d left for Heathrow in a hurry. I didn’t know what that meant, so I decided I’d just have to visit all the estate agents in Cambridgeshire.’ He grimaced. ‘I’ve been shaking eager hands ever since.’

  I drank some wine, careful to sip although I wanted to glug.

  ‘Then,’ he continued, ‘I got lucky. Your name and something about a malt house came up. So here I am.’

  I frowned. ‘Your office said you don’t work there any more.’

  ‘No. Did you get the emails I printed?’

  ‘I did. They – um – they helped. I wish I’d seen them sooner.’ I couldn’t manage more. My feelings were still complex, multi-layered, but reading the messages between him and Rebecca had reduced my inner storm. It still wouldn’t fit in a teacup, but a bucket might now be big enough.

  ‘I’m kicking myself for not thinking of them before.’ James took a drink of beer. ‘The thing is, I’d deleted my own copies. So to get them, I sort of had to access the central mail server.’ His tone was sheepish.

  ‘What do you mean, access?’ I had been married to him long enough to know when to dig further.

  ‘I hacked it. Totally worth it, though,’ he added, as he read the dismay on my face.

  ‘And that’s when they fired you?’

  He nodded, with a what’s-a-guy-to-do type shrug.

  ‘Oh no.’ I forgot about sipping my wine and took a big gulp. ‘Do you think they’ll prosecute?’

  ‘Nah, I doubt it.’ He genuinely didn’t seem bothered. ‘Once they check the system logs, they’ll realise I was after personal emails, not their precious source code. It’ll be okay.’

  I was silent, amazed and alarmed that he would do something like that to salvage our marriage.

  ‘Sweetheart, don’t panic,’ James said after a minute or two, covering my small hand with his much larger one.

  ‘When did you put your wedding ring on?’ I asked.

  He looked down at the platinum band. ‘I always wear it.’

  ‘No. You weren’t wearing it the day I saw you in London.’ I tried to pull my hand away.

  ‘Yes, I was.’ He added his right hand to our pile of fingers, keeping mine trapped. ‘But – well, I took it off in the park, after you said you were seeing someone.’

  I swallowed. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said in an undertone.

  James looked at me carefully. ‘Are you still …?’

  ‘No! Hell, no. No, I’m not.’ I told him the basics about Scott. ‘So, as our American friends would say, he’s a jerk.’

  ‘He sounds like it, if he’s kicking you out of your cottage.’

  ‘Yep.’ I gazed down at our matching beer mats.

  ‘Shame,’ James said casually. ‘I was hoping you might have room for one more.’

  I shook my head, but caught his meaning. I leaned in to kiss him, magic a
nd heat flaring inside me as his hand stroked my face and he rubbed his thumb over my lip. We sat for a minute, foreheads touching.

  ‘Well, there’s nothing else for it.’ James sat back and finished his beer, setting the empty glass down purposefully.

  ‘What?’ I smiled at him and drank the last of my wine.

  ‘We really will have to look at buying a house.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. You’ve got no job and prices are insane. We’d be lucky to get a chicken shed.’

  ‘That’s what I love about you, Gruff.’ He pulled me to my feet and into his arms, pushing a strand of hair behind my ear. ‘You always look on the bright side.’

  CHAPTER 33

  ‘We have to get up,’ I said.

  It was a Saturday evening in late January, and we were due at the first fund raiser for the malt house. It had been dark for hours and the cottage bedroom was lit by a single soft lamp. From the bedside table, my diamond earrings winked knowingly. I had dropped them there in a delicious hurry.

  ‘No, we don’t.’ James stretched out beside me in bed and then pressed his long legs against me. He reached around and wrapped his hand over mine, kissing my naked shoulder as he did so. I sighed and let him nuzzle the back of my neck, enjoying the heat of his body and the quiet rhythm of our breathing. I felt as though I’d been dipped in melted chocolate, my whole body bathed in warm, sensuous pleasure.

  My breath grew more shallow as the nuzzling became kissing and James ran a lazy hand down over my arm, then hip.

  ‘Mmm.’ I closed my eyes and enjoyed the bliss of the two of us hiding from the world. Reluctantly, I shifted. ‘That’s lovely. But we have to get up.’

  ‘We can’t get up,’ James murmured. His warm fingers had reached the top of my thigh.

  ‘Why not?’ I wriggled and turned over, trying to sit up.

  Mungo, who had been snoozing on the rug at the bottom of the bed, got to his feet lazily and stretched. He and James had become firm friends and had spent happy hours exploring the countryside while I was at work.

  My husband propped himself on one elbow and leaned over me, preventing my escape. ‘Because,’ he said, eyes bright with tenderness as he looked into my face, ‘I haven’t told you how much I love you.’