He was gallant enough to avoid agreeing this was true, but only just.
I was telling Amanda all this over a glass of wine in the wine bar while we were waiting for Rose, who’d rung demanding to meet us for lunch. ‘I think Liddy got a real fright on Saturday,’ she said. ‘She’s been giving Stephen hell these last two weeks and then when they do go out there you are looking stunning - in a dress I chose of course,’ she added with satisfaction, ‘and she begins to think maybe this time she’s gone too far, she’s pushed him into looking elsewhere.’ She smiled wryly. ‘And, of course, being Liddy, she over-reacts completely.’
‘I just hope she doesn’t over-react to the degree she badgers Stephen until he agrees to get another assistant.’
Amanda raised her eyebrows. ‘She wouldn’t be so stupid. She knows how long it took Stephen to find someone who suited him last time. I don’t think she’ll want to go through that again.’
Well, that was some comfort. Rose came rushing in, waving at the waiter and exclaiming she needed a drink, now. ‘What a weekend. Am I glad to get away from the house and to see you two,’ she said, sinking down in her chair and managing to get her cigarettes out all in one movement. She lit one, drew in a long puff with a blissful expression of satisfaction then, letting the smoke out, turned to me with a critical look. ‘You look completely knackered,’ she said, ‘so I presume you had the sort of rapturous reunion with Arnaud that we all fantasise about.’ She grinned. ‘You lucky cow. I tried to ring you yesterday, get you both to come over and have some lunch, the atmosphere certainly needed lightening, but I couldn’t get any answer.’ She leered suggestively, ‘I suppose you were both too busy to worry about things like the phone.’
‘I was riding around Rutland Water,’ I said. I’d had this idea that loads of physical effort exorcises restless, gloomy thoughts. All I can say is it doesn’t work. Not for me anyway. All that happened was that after twenty-six miles on a rented bike I was exhausted, still had restless, gloomy thoughts, in bucketfuls, and had to cope with a sore behind as well.
‘Arnaud? Was bicycling around Rutland Water?’ exclaimed Rose incredulously, as well she might.
‘No, Arnaud was back in London,’ I said in a resigned voice. I was going to have to spill the beans sometime, so I might as well get it over and done with. The explanations were complicated by the fact there was no way I was going to tell either of these massively indiscreet gossips I’d realised I didn’t love Arnaud any more at the same time as I was fighting all the base instincts I’d never known I possessed that were telling me to launch myself at Hamish. Naturally, they were rather puzzled about what had caused this massive sea-change and my explanations were patchy to say the least, but fortunately they were soon running ahead with their own conclusions, which they didn’t want muddled up by any accuracies from me. I’d have expected Rose to be dancing on the tables, singing Hallelujah! at the news - heaven knows she’d told me enough times to get rid of Arnaud - but she seemed rather shocked and subdued, even saying in a low voice, ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’
I nodded, a bit sadly. ‘Absolutely.’
‘What a shame,’ said Amanda regretfully. ‘I had a lovely time with him, but I suppose it’s a bit much expecting you to keep your boyfriend just so I can have a nice chaste clinch with him from time to time.’
‘Chaste? I exclaimed. ‘Arnaud’s never chaste!’
‘Chaste enough,’ she said primly. She winked at me. ‘I suppose you wanted to have your hands free so you could get them on that lovely Luke, did you?’
‘Not precisely,’ I muttered.
Rose laughed, somewhat shrilly. ‘Jeremy’ll be delighted, for one. He made the most terrible scene because he thought I spent too much time with Luke on Saturday, even though I told him that I was just looking after him for you.’ She glowered savagely at her glass. ‘He doesn’t have any right to talk to me like that.’
There was an awkward silence while Amanda and I tried to think of something that would deflect Rose from the memory of what must have been a humdinger of a row. In retrospect, riding around Rutland Water getting saddle sores seemed definitely the soft option compared to refereeing a thoroughly uncomfortable lunch yesterday.
Rose giggled suddenly. ‘Jeremy’s really cross with you, Susie. He says you’ve got to keep your boyfriends under control. One was all over his wife and the other was making up to his mother, and he’s not going to have it!’ She looked up, all her ill humour gone in one of her mercurial changes of mood as we all laughed. ‘And guess what? The colonel’s decided he’s not having it either. He’s damned if he’s going to be outclassed by a young whipper-snapper, and a Frenchie to boot. He’s invited Flavia to go and stay with him next week in Yorkshire. She’s started packing already.’ She rolled her eyes expressively. ‘And you’ll be pleased to hear I’ve decided to make my peace with her, and my first step in that direction is offering to go shopping with her in London to get new clothes so she can wow the long johns off the colonel.’
‘You’ll both enjoy that,’ I said, wondering if Rose and Flavia had found some common ground at last. Rose was an enthusiastic shopper.
She made a face. ‘If Jeremy doesn’t wreck it by making a fuss about all the money I might be spending. He found the credit-card slip for that dress I wore the other night and hit the roof. Honestly, you should have heard him! It wasn’t that expensive and he’d be the first one to complain if I didn’t look decent—’
‘Decent is one thing you didn’t look in that dress,’ I interrupted.
She flapped an exasperated hand in my direction. ‘I mean, if we need the readies that badly all he has to do is agree to this housing thing.’
‘Oh, isn’t it going ahead?’ asked Amanda, with a certain degree of professional interest. She was particularly good at selling modern houses.
Rose shrugged, ‘Who knows? I’m quite keen on it now, but Jeremy’s still deciding. As it’s his property, I suppose I’ll have to let him have the final decision,’ she said with large-minded generosity, attention on getting the waiter to look our way. ‘Ah! Three white wines, please. Now, Susie, explain. Was it before or after you made your decision to chuck him that you found out about Arnaud’s Fanny?’
The waiter delivered his wine to a table full of women nearly weeping with laughter.
CHAPTER 17
The next day was loweringly hot; by the time I got home that evening the air was still and heavy with the promise of a storm to come though the sky was still a cloudless metallic blue. I was buttonholed at the gate by Mr Tanner from next door who presented me with me a bunch of radishes from his garden and a whole lot of advice, which I hadn’t asked for, on pruning roses. Twenty minutes later I was able at last to go indoors, peel off my office dress which felt like a dishcloth that had been wrung out once too often and put on a blessedly cool pair of shorts and a sleeveless tee-shirt, twisting my hair up so its weight was off my neck and fixing it with a butterfly clip.
I was thinking of a glass of wine, a book and a chair in the garden when the bell went once more. Probably Mr Tanner again; he’d said something about having more lettuces than he knew what to do with, adding rather pityingly he’d seen over the fence that I’d planted some shop-bought seedlings and I should know they never did as well as ones you grew yourself. Instead of a demonstration of superior home-growing, a battered paperback met my eye.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Hamish apologetically. ‘It got a glass of water knocked over it. I think I dried it properly so the pages don’t stick together.’
‘Don’t worry, I read in the bath so it was bound to get wet sometime,’ I said, amazed my voice was coming out normally. My brain was screaming out dismayed protests. Why, oh why, couldn’t he have dropped round just after I’d had an extensive session of making-up and hairdressing, instead of when I was wearing a pair of shorts so short they were nearly indecent and most of my make-up had melted in the heat long ago? At least my tee shirt was clean but it wasn’
t the new one with the flattering scooped neckline. That was languishing uselessly in my cupboard. As for my hair… Hadn’t that magazine article I was reading last week said the only time you should wear a butterfly clip was in the bath? I wanted to put my head between my hands and howl with frustration - in every sense of the word.
Oh well, Hamish had shown on Saturday he was impervious to me even when I was looking my best, so what did it matter that I was looking like the ‘before’ in one of those magazine makeover articles? Needless to say, I found this philosophical reflection small comfort, but I managed to forget my mirror-cracking appearance for long enough to invite him in for a drink. The speed with which he accepted was some balm to my troubled spirit, but on the other hand, he might just have been thirsty.
And hot. I set the bottle down on the table in the garden and opened it while Hamish threw off his suit jacket, ripped off his tie and stuffed it in his pocket, then rolled his sleeves up to his elbows. I watched this transformation from the formal solicitor with every button done up correctly who’d arrived at my door into something quite different with frank interest and not a little alarm. I could cope with a solicitor, not make a fool of myself, just be cool and act like he was any of my friends. After all it wasn’t the solicitor who got my hormones racing, though he didn’t do a bad job on them either, and it was the solicitor whom I’d invited inside. But a half dressed, even three-quarters dressed, solicitor was another affair altogether.
‘I frequently wonder why I ever took up the law. If I’d been a video cameraman I’d never have had to wear a suit again,’ he remarked idly as he undid a couple of buttons at his neck.
‘Is that what you wanted to do?’ I asked in a strangled voice, trying not to watch, and failing.
‘Not really, I was always interested in doing this. Boring, isn’t it?’ he remarked, looking anything but as he ran his hand through his hair.
He looked around and saw me watching him. I could feel myself colour vividly. ‘You must have air-conditioning in your car,’ I said. ‘I’d have melted in about five minutes in this heat with that suit on.’
‘I do. It comes into its own on about four days a year, and for those four days it’s worth every penny it costs, especially when you’ve just been visiting an eighty-year-old who’s very hot indeed on the appalling informality of the younger generation,’ he said wryly. ‘I didn’t dare do so much as loosen my tie.’ He took a glass from me and sat down on one of Preston’s wrought-iron chairs with a sigh of pleasure. I flopped down on the grass in the shade of the tree, not just so that I could look up at him winsomely and make my eyes seem larger, but because it’s not flattering to milky-white thighs, even ones a lot slimmer than mine, to be spread out over an only slightly whiter seat. And this way, I could arrange my legs so the flabby bits fell in the most flattering positions.
Not that he seemed to be paying any attention to my legs at all, I noted resentfully as we chatted about the other night. Though unfortunately pale unless I’ve had time to apply fake tan, my legs are generally acknowledged to be quite a decent shape. Particularly my ankles. I drew my legs up so I could draw attention to my crossed ankles, but he didn’t give them a second look, just one brief glance, before carrying on with a story about a self- proclaimed wine buff who’d insisted that the Chardonnay at the party had been bottled under the wrong labels and it was actually Sauvignon.
At least he didn’t seem in any hurry to leave, I thought as I got up to pour the second glass of wine. Merial must be on duty tonight. ‘What did you do with Arnaud on Sunday?’ he asked as I sat down again. ‘Did you do the grand tour around the area?’
My hand shook. Bugger it! I was going to do my usual trick of pouring my drink all over myself in front of Hamish if I wasn’t careful. I put the glass down carefully on the grass beside me. ‘No.’ This seemed a bit short, so I added neutrally, ‘He had to go back to London.’
‘That’s a shame for you. When’s he coming to see you again?’
I dropped my eyes and began to study the varnish on my toenails with close attention. ‘He won’t be.’
There was a long silence. ‘Poor bloke,’ he said at last. ‘You could have seen it coming, I suppose. It was pretty obvious the other night that your attention wasn’t on him. I won’t offer you my commiserations, because you don’t look as if you need any.’
‘Neither does he, actually!’ I said, stung by the acid note in his voice. ‘He insisted on leaving at the crack of dawn, not because of a broken heart, but so when his girlfriend from Paris rang him at his hotel he wouldn’t have to make any awkward excuses about why he wasn’t there at breakfast time.’
‘You’re joking,’ he exclaimed, putting his glass down on the little iron table with a clink and added thoughtfully, ‘Surely the answer was for him to tell her to ring him on his mobile, then she wouldn’t know where he was.’
‘Even Arnaud would draw the line at arranging to be called by one woman when he’s anticipating being in bed with another!’ I protested.
‘It doesn’t appear he draws the line at anything much,’ Hamish said, then looked at me curiously. ‘You sound as if you were used to it. Didn’t you mind, about his other girlfriends?’
‘Of course I did! I hated it, used to pretend to myself it was only flirting and wouldn’t lead to anything.’ As Hamish raised his eyebrows sceptically I added, ‘It didn’t - most of the time. If Arnaud went to bed with all the women he flirts with he’d never have the energy to get up. We split up a couple of times over the more blatant cases, but he’d promise to behave himself and I’d believe him. Until the next time of course.’
‘I see,’ he said stiffly. ‘So you’ll be having a grand reconciliation in a few weeks?’
I shook my head. ‘This was different. I didn’t even know about her until afterwards.’ I smiled wryly. ‘It’s the first time I’ve ever been pleased about one of his girlfriends. Knowing he’s going to have ample consolation helps me feel less of a heel for dumping him.’
‘It doesn’t sound as if he needs an enormous amount of sympathy,’ Hamish said dryly as he picked up his glass again, twirling it around in his fingers. ‘And when will you be riding off into the sunset with Luke Dillon?’ he asked, in a voice that was disappointingly free of jealousy.
‘I won’t,’ I said promptly. I scuffed my toe around in the grass a bit and, since I was hardly going to tell him the real reason I’d lost all interest in Luke, said vaguely, ‘I’m not going to have any more part-time boyfriends. I’m fed up of not seeing them from one week to the next. If he doesn’t live within reasonable distance, all week long, I’m not interested.’ I hugged my legs tightly. ‘In fact, he’s got to work the same sort of hours as me too, no one who often works nights or weekends either.’ I stared fixedly at a pair of daisies in the grass. ‘You must find that very difficult with Merial, don’t you?’ I asked in an ever-so-casual voice, as if it was just any old afterthought.
‘Merial?’ he asked. ‘What was she got to do with it?’
‘Well,’ I said, beginning to curse myself for starting this, ‘her hours and things, being a doctor and all that. It must make it difficult to know when you’re going to see her.’ I rested my face on my knees, hoping to hide the crimson tide of self-consciousness I could feel creeping up my face in the most hideously embarrassing way.
‘What gave you the idea I had anything going on with Merial?’ he said. Well, to start with she was virtually sitting in your lap and you seemed in no hurry to push her off either. ‘She’s just someone I consult from time to time. Of course she’s very pretty.’ You aren’t kidding. ‘And she’s a bit of a flirt.’ A bit of a flirt? Given half the chances she’d have been undoing his shirt buttons with her teeth. ‘But she doesn’t mean anything by it.’ Doesn’t she? Was he being wilfully obtuse? ‘We’re just friends.’ How very, very disappointing for her. ‘Though I suppose,’ he said, looking into the bottom of his glass thoughtfully, ‘something could have happened, except I’m interested elsewhere.
’
His words seemed to hang on the air. I didn’t dare look at him in case I was fantasising, again. I glanced around uneasily and saw the brilliant blue of the sky was being covered by purplish-black clouds, which were advancing across the sky at a remarkable speed, especially considering that so far not a breath of wind had disturbed the heavy, still air where we were sitting.
‘It seems the weather’s breaking at last,’ I gabbled, snatching with relief at the traditional English solution when faced with a potentially sticky subject. With immaculate timing, there was a low rumble of thunder in the distance to emphasise what I was saying. A minute later a fat drop of rain fell on my knee. ‘We’d better go in before we get soaked,’ I said hastily, as another drop landed on the end of my nose. I began to scramble up, but I’d been gripping my legs so tightly they’d gone to sleep. Hamish put out a hand to help me up, and I shot upwards a lot faster than I’d expected, stumbling over one foot. I’d have landed back on the grass, flat on my face, if he hadn’t grabbed me around the waist so I cannoned into him instead.
‘Thanks,’ I gasped, cursing myself for my clumsiness. God, I really went out of my way to show myself in a good light in front of Hamish, didn’t I? Spilling things, passing out, falling over. Now I could probably add winding him to the list as well, since my elbow had caught him squarely in the midriff.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, somewhere in the region of my hair, arms still holding me steady.
‘I’m fine,’ I mumbled, eyes fixed on the two top buttons of his shirt, not daring to look up in case he read my every desire in my face. I had goose pimples everywhere despite the heat radiating from his hands on my waist, and I was burning hot at the same time. There was another rumble of thunder, much closer this time.
‘Are you frightened of thunder?’
‘Not really.’ Oh, brilliant! Another own goal, Susie! I thought crossly. There are times when you can be just too bloody honest.
Seven Week Itch Page 25