by Georgia Hill
‘Must be something wrong with me,’ she announced to the silent and listening house. ‘Oh, well, I’ve got too much work to do, anyway. Can’t take time out to be wined and dined by good-looking men, however eligible they are. Did you have these problems, Hetty?’ she whispered as a relaxing floorboard creaked upstairs. ‘Did you have to endure men going on at great length about things you had no interest in whatsoever?’ The house refused to answer. Somehow, Rachel didn’t think Hetty did suffer in silence, despite the mores of the time.
Aware she was more than a little drunk, she yawned. ‘You got through two husbands as well. Wonder what your secret was? Way to go, Henrietta!’ Rachel said and staggered up to bed.
Chapter 14
‘Well, colour me rural and call me Felicity Kendal! She’s gone all Good Life on us!’ Tim leaped out of the car obviously impressed. ‘Hello Clematis Cottage.’
Rachel snorted with laughter and went to get Tim’s bags from the boot. She’d picked him up from the London train forty minutes ago and had been giggling ever since. Now, though, his camp voice seemed to ring too loudly around the hills. She glanced about nervously, worried that Stan might have changed the habit of a lifetime and come to garden on a Friday. Somehow, she didn’t think the two men would see eye to eye. ‘Come on in, let’s break out the corkscrew.’
But Tim stood for a moment, enjoying the view. ‘Oh darling heart, it’s enchanting, simply enchanting. I can so see why you did it.’ He watched as swallows swooped and dived across the sky and then lifted his face to the warm June sun. He took a theatrical breath in, ‘I love it here!’
Rachel frowned. She was still feeling defensive about the state of the cottage. ‘I’d reserve judgement until you’ve see inside, Tim. I haven’t been able to do much with it yet, what with all the building work going on. The sitting room’s okay, but the rest of the house is in a bit of a mess. I wish you’d waited and seen the house when it was finished, when it was all perfect. Not that you’re not very welcome, of course,’ she added hastily, realising how ungracious she sounded.
Tim followed her into the hall and raised his eyes to the, still unpainted, ceiling. ‘You haven’t changed,’ he said drily, ‘still obsessing over perfection. Relax.’ Then he giggled, ‘Just wait until you see my wellies, sweet pea. They’ve got diamante strips down the side! Besides, I wasn’t going to wait another second before seeing my best bud, no matter how horrible a state her little house was in. I’ve come to see you – oh God!’ He stopped abruptly.
‘I did warn you, Tim! It’s a bit primitive still.’ She looked around through his eyes. Mike had finally begun to install the central heating, having persuaded her that summer was the best time to get it put in. He and Gabe had begun to rip up the floorboards to lay pipes. In most rooms, at the moment, there were gaping holes in the floor and the tiny hall was being used as a store for the radiators yet to be fitted. The walls still had to be re-plastered, now the damp had been fixed and Rachel had given up keeping the dust at bay. It was pointless and even she was beginning to learn to live with the mess.
Tim let his bag drop with a thump. ‘How the hell do you get any work done?’
‘I just try and ignore it all.’ Rachel shrugged. ‘And I manage to most of the time. The workmen aren’t here all the time anyway, so I squeeze in some work when they’re not around. Actually, Gabe’s very good. He makes sure they don’t disturb me unless it’s absolutely necessary. Kev’s a bit of a nuisance, though. He’s a friend of Gabe’s and helps out a bit. And I never get much done when Stan’s here.’
‘Kev, Stan … Gabe?’ Tim chuckled. ‘Well, I know we haven’t seen each other for a while, sweetie, but you have got to fill me in. Are they all gorgeous rural types with muscles like tractor tyres?’
Rachel thought about Stan’s skinny torso revealed through his string vest and laughed. ‘Not quite. Come into the kitchen. The holes in the floor aren’t quite so life-endangering in there.’
‘Oh,’ said Tim, clapping his hands together as he followed her across the hall. ‘I can just see it. An Aga to toast my tootsies on, herbs gathered under a waning moon hanging to dry, an airy Victoria sponge to welcome me – oh Lordy, sweet pea. It’s a mess!’
Rachel winced. Now she really wished she’d put Tim off until everything had been done. To see the dust and mess anew, through someone else’s eyes, brought it all into a sharp and cruel relief. She was amazed she’d been able to live alongside it. And a little proud that she’d made steps to conquer her tendency to be anal, in a way her mother never had.
‘I’ll just put the kettle on, shall I, and then we can have a good old gossip? Or would you rather have a proper drink?’
‘Oh whatever, wonderling. Whatever you can rustle up in this pit.’
This hit a nerve.
‘I did mention the cottage was a mess and hardly habitable, Tim. You insisted on coming.’
Tim slapped a hand over his mouth and said, in muffled tones, ‘Gone too far. My apologies.’ He blew a kiss. ‘Forgiven?’
‘Sit down and stop winding me up.’
He pouted. ‘But I’m so good at it!’
Rachel laughed. She could never stay cross with Tim for long. ‘We’ll have tea, then, and drink it in here. Believe it or not, along with the sitting room, it’s one of the least-worst rooms.’ She switched the kettle on. ‘Go on,’ she added, nodding towards the kitchen table, ‘sit down. Just mind those gaps along the skirting board.’
Treading gingerly, Tim made his way to the table and settled down. He ran a hand over the old oak. ‘I like this,’ he said, ‘you’d pay a fortune for it in London.’
Rachel looked startled. ‘What, even in that state?’
‘Oh, yes, my darling. Shabby chic they call it. The good folk of Chelsea are spending all their ill-gotten gains on distressing their furniture and impressing their house designers’ bank accounts.’
‘Well, you’d know all about it,’ Rachel said, bringing over the teapot. She sat down. ‘You and Justin are far more aware of trends than I’ll ever be.’
‘He’s asked me to move in with him.’
‘Tim, that’s marvellous news!’ Rachel put down the milk bottle and took his hand. ‘I’m so pleased for you both.’ Then she noticed his expression. ‘What’s wrong? Are you having doubts?’
Tim nodded.
‘Oh, come on, how long have you two been together?’
Tim shrugged. ‘Five or six years. More off than on, though.’ He blew out a breath and watched as Rachel poured tea.
‘I’ve never met two people better suited.’ She pushed his mug over to him.
‘Despite the fact we have nothing in common and have completely different sets of friends, you mean?’ He arched an elegant eyebrow.
‘Well, yes, apart from that.’ Rachel smiled and gave his hand a little shake. ‘You’re going to do it, aren’t you? You are going to move in with him?’
Tim grimaced in comic fashion. ‘Well, if I can get him to let me take any of my stuff with me, all of which, I hasten to add, he says is only fit for a skip and …’ he trailed off and gave Rachel a wicked look. ‘Of course I’m bloody going to move in with him. Have you seen his house? It’s to die for.’
Rachel laughed and leaned back. She thought of Stan’s words, that you never have enough time with the ones you love. She reached forward, making her chair creak ominously and took hold of Tim’s hand again. ‘Do it! Be with the one you love, before it’s too late!’
‘God alive, Rachel! Has moving to the country addled your brains? What’s all this about?’
‘Oh, it’s just something Stan said. That there isn’t enough time to be with the ones you really love.’
‘And Stan is?’
‘My gardener.’ Rachel said it without thinking.
‘Gardener, sweetie? Get you! My, you have gone up in the world. Time was you were scraping by in a one-bed in Camberwell.’
Rachel laughed. ‘Oh, it is good to see you, Tim.’
‘And
you, my darling heart.’ He looked at their joined hands. ‘And I do love you, you know. If I were only straight!’
Rachel laughed again. They’d had this conversation many times. ‘And I love you too, Tim.’
He straightened and released her hand. ‘Now, enough of this maudlin stuff. Have you heard about Jyoti?’
‘What about Jyoti? Do you know, since I moved here, she’s not been in touch nearly enough.’ Rachel drank her tea. ‘I was wondering if I’d upset her in any way, although I can’t think of anything I’ve done. Maybe –’
‘She’s getting married,’ Tim interrupted.
Rachel slammed her mug down. ‘What?’ she stared at Tim.
‘Don’t look so shocked, dearie! It comes to us all in the end.’ He pouted camply, ‘Well, maybe not moi. Someday someone may even come up to your perilously high standards. Yup. She’s getting married. To a very nice young man her family know. He’s a doctor, based at UCH.’
‘An arranged marriage!’ Rachel was aghast. Jyoti had always been adamant she would never allow her parents to persuade her into one. ‘Why hasn’t she told me?’ She thought back over the last few phone calls. Jyoti had been her usual jokey self, but Rachel had a sense she was holding something back. At the time she’d thought it was Jyoti’s lingering reproach over her move out of London. ‘Oh why hasn’t she told me? We’ve been best friends since college!’
‘I would imagine she was rather fearing your reaction,’ Tim said with a smile. ‘And judging from your present expression, she’d be bang on. What’s so awful about it? He’s a nice-enough bloke, they get on well.’
‘Get on well! That’s not enough for a marriage!’ Rachel shrieked and stared across the table in horror. ‘Tim, you know Jyoti’s battled with her parents for years. They didn’t want her to go to university, didn’t want her in student digs, hated her clothes and friends. And now,’ Rachel gestured emptily to the kitchen, searching for words, ‘she’s just given in.’
‘Rachel, dear girl, think about it. Jyoti, like you and me, has rattled around London doing the same old same old, ever since she graduated. She’s gone out with some real horrors. Remember Frank?’
Rachel shuddered. Frank had been more controlling than her parents. And with a coke habit, to boot.
‘Precisely. She’s finally seen that she can have a good home, children, companionship, security. The usual things. And with a man she likes, that she feels comfortable with.’
‘It’s not enough,’ Rachel began.
‘Not for you, perhaps. You want the hearts and roses, the romance, the passion, the man who would die for you – as well.’
Rachel looked at Tim, askance. ‘Do I?’
‘Of course you do, darling heart, that’s why you’re still single. Plus the fact that you freeze the bollocks off most men who come near you.’
She let a twitch of a smile play about her lips at his outrageous remark. This was old territory. ‘That’s not fair, Tim!’
He poured himself another mug of tea. Stirring sugar into it, he said, ‘Really? And who have you been out with in the last few years?’
‘Er … well, there was Owen.’
Tim raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘He lasted how long?’
‘About three months.’
‘And why did he get the Rachel Makepeace vote of no confidence?’
Rachel mumbled something into her now cold mug of tea.
‘Sorry, dear, didn’t quite catch that. Would you care to repeat it, just a little louder?’
‘I said, he never picked the towels up off the bathroom floor.’
‘So, you gave a perfectly decent, nice man the heave-ho due to his bathing habits?’
‘Oh, come on Tim, he’d leave them all over the wooden flooring! It used to leave stains.’ She blushed. She knew she was being pathetic.
Tim shook his head in disgust and tutted. ‘A perfectly nice man, with a good sense of humour and hung like a donkey. Who else has there been?’
‘Graham?’ Rachel said half -heartedly. She knew Tim would never allow Graham.
‘First-year university fling. Doesn’t count.’
‘I went out with him all year.’
Tim simply shook his head again and folded his arms. ‘Who else?’
Rachel didn’t want to admit to Charles. She’d tried her best to forget all about him. ‘Charles,’ she whispered. ‘I went out with him for the best part of two years.’
‘And why did he get the old heave-ho?’ Tim raised his eyebrows.
Rachel gave him a sullen look. She was still raw from Charles. She’d really opened up to him and had been badly hurt in return. ‘You know why. He was seeing Lorna on the side. Give me a break, Tim, I’ve hardly been lucky with men.’
Tim was silent for a minute, recognising Rachel’s pain and then returned to his theme. ‘It’s all compromise, darling,’ Tim said airily, in the manner of one who knew best.
‘Oh yeah, like you’re going to compromise by not taking your grotty old furniture to Justin’s?’
Tim sniffed. ‘I think you’ll find that’s a completely different matter. Some of that stuff is antique.’
‘It’s a load of crap, Tim.’ Rachel grinned. ‘I’m with Justin on that one. Hang on, though, how did this turn into an attack on my love life? We were talking about Jyoti.’
Tim put his mug down and sighed. ‘Well, to be honest, darling heart, I understand it as little as you do. I can only assume our little Jyoti is looking for something her current life hasn’t provided. Who knows?’ He shrugged. ‘But, we’re invited to the wedding. I hear Hindu weddings are a feast – for the eyes and the palate.’
‘She’d better ring me and explain,’ Rachel said, with a mutinous look on her face. ‘Where is the wedding, anyway?’ She looked around at the dirty cream walls still waiting to be painted. The tins of designer paint were lined up along the wall. She was itching to get started, but there was no point until Mike had finished putting in the heating. ‘Might be nice to get away from the cottage for a weekend.’
‘Perhaps you ought to ring her, seeing as she sent me as peacemaker, although God knows why she’s so scared of you. And it’s in Wembley, in some leisure centre or something. You can pitch your tent at Justin’s if you want.’
‘A leisure centre in Wembley?’ Rachel said, horrified. It wasn’t her idea of a wedding venue. ‘Poor, poor Jyoti.’ And it wasn’t quite the weekend away she’d envisaged.
Reading her expression Tim tutted again. ‘She won’t want your sympathy. This is what she wants. Can’t fit all the guests in anywhere else, apparently. It’s going to be a huge event, apparently. I can’t wait. Cheer up, wonderling, she’s not being forced into anything. She likes the bloke and she wants to give up work and have lots of little chubby babies.’
‘Tim!’
‘Sorry, darling heart, not pc enough for you? Now, let’s change the subject. What delectation have you planned for me tonight? What’s the buzz in Stoke St Mary on a Friday night?’
‘Well,’ Rachel began, ‘I thought I could cook something nice and we could open a bottle or two, catch up on all the gossip, you know.’
‘What?’ exclaimed Tim, ‘and miss out on the village delight that is the pub quiz? I saw the board outside the most gorgeous run-down place as you drove me through the village. It’s bound to be all sticky carpets and frantically clashing patterns. I adore places like that.’ He beamed.
‘You’ve got to be kidding!’
‘Why not? We used to be a dab hand at quizzes at uni. We’ll miss Jyoti’s input on science and politics, I grant you, but we can muddle through. We’ll easily beat a few rural-oaf types and an old codger or two. You know how I like to win!’
Rachel winced as she recalled Tim’s fiercely competitive streak. It had seen him through some major athletic events too, before he’d become, by his own admission, lazy. She wondered who might be in the Plough. There was every chance Gabe and his friends would be there. She looked over at Tim. He was dressed in ski
n-tight pebble-washed denim over which hung a boldly striped shirt proclaiming ‘I’m the Gayest Cowboy in Texas’ in sequins. She wondered how the Plough’s crowd would take to him.
‘No goading, alright?’ She pointed a stern finger. ‘I’ve lost track of the times I’ve had to rescue you from getting beaten up.’
Tim followed her eyes to his clothes. ‘Well, people ought to be more tolerant. Far too much queer-bashing going on, if you ask me.’
‘Tim, you always start it!’
He pouted. ‘Oh, alright, point taken. Now, what would be suitable for an evening in the local? Corduroys and a Barbour? Or overalls and green wellies?’ He leaned forward with a grin and patted her hand. ‘Would you like me to change, darling heart? Are you worried about me showing you up in your new rural idyll?’
‘I’m more worried about their reaction to you.’
‘Have no fear! I’ll find something a little more conservative to put on. Have I time for a shower? There was this divine blonde who kept giving me the eye in the train on the way down. It made me feel positively filthy, I can tell you.’ Tim gave Rachel an amused look and noted her horrified expression. ‘Don’t worry, darling heart, I’ll be on my best, best, bestest behaviour in the pub. Absolutely no flirting of any kind. Nor shall I tease the straights. I will be completely angelic! Any hot water, then?’
Rachel began clearing the table. ‘Should be but there’s no shower, only a bath. Loads of hot water, though. One of the first things Gabe fixed was the boiler.’
‘Then, whoever the delightfully named Gabe is, he shall get a big juicy kiss from me tonight.’ Tim stood up and hoisted his bag over his shoulder. He noted Rachel’s tight lips and relented. ‘Only kidding, tweedle-dums. I’ll only kiss him if he’s very, very good-looking.’
‘Bathroom!’ Rachel shot out. She’d had enough of Tim’s teasing. ‘First on your right. You’ve got twenty minutes if you want to eat before going out.’ She clattered the crockery together, regardless of possible chips.
‘Oo-er Miss Bossy! I simply can’t imagine why you haven’t got a man,’ Tim said and made his escape before she threw something at him. He clattered up the uncarpeted stairs, singing out of tune, ‘I am what I am, I am my own special creation…’