Seven Week Itch

by Victoria Corby

  He sighed deeply. ‘Come on, give me a break, Susie,’ he muttered almost inaudibly.

  I looked up to see his eyes only inches from mine. My brain seemed to have turned to candyfloss, and for a moment I didn’t have a clue what he might mean. And I might be wrong. I smiled at him nervously. ‘Actually, that’s not true. I’m terrified of thunder.’

  ‘That’s better,’ he said, drawing me closer.

  What seemed like hours, yet was no time at all, later I had to come up for some air. I leant against his chest, my heart thumping so rapidly I wasn’t sure how it could fit the beats in. His breathing sounded none too steady either. ‘Was that the sort of break you meant?’ I asked against his collarbone.

  ‘It’ll do,’ he murmured unevenly. ‘For a start.’

  ‘We’re getting wet,’ I remarked as a breeze ruffled the leaves above us and dumped a small, warm shower on our heads. As ever, take refuge in the weather when actually you’re feeling so knocked back that all you really want to say is, ‘More! More!’

  ‘So we are,’ he said in an uninterested voice, arms tightening around me.

  ‘We’re also providing a display for the Tanners and the Hislops,’ I said in a slightly strangled fashion just before he began to kiss me again. ‘Hamish! Stop it! Not where they can see.’

  He drew back reluctantly, looking at me with a slow smile that turned my legs to jelly. ‘Well, let’s go where they can’t see then,’ he said. We did.

  ‘I had the most extraordinarily vivid dreams about doing this,’ I said some time later. We were on the floor in the sitting room - a two-seater sofa had proved itself definitely not large enough for all the interesting things Hamish was demonstrating you could do while keeping your clothes on. Though my shorts were so short and my tee shirt so brief there was plenty he could get at anyway. He wasn’t a man who believed in rushing his pleasures I discovered to my mingled delight and frustration, while a spectacular thunderstorm with loads of sheet lightning provided a magnifi­cent backdrop outside. The earth might not be moving, but the air was certainly trembling. My dreams were beginning to seem a bit too accurate for comfort, I thought uneasily as he nibbled my neck. As far as I know, I’m not psychic. ‘Are you sure the other night . . . that I didn’t . . .’ I asked suspiciously.

  He stopped what he was doing and lifted his head, the sides of his mouth quirking slightly. ‘Well, you did try to kiss me.’

  ‘What?’ I squeaked in dismay.

  ‘Only goodnight,’ he said regretfully, ‘and then went back to sleep. I kept hoping you’d wake up and continue where you’d left off, but sadly you didn’t.’

  I eyed him suspiciously. ‘I thought you said you didn’t molest comatose women.’

  ‘For a few minutes you were very enticingly awake and I may be noble, but I’m not bloody inhuman,’ he retorted. ‘There is only so much temptation that a normal man can put up with, especially when he’s been actively lusting from a distance.’

  ‘Had you?’ I asked in surprise.

  ‘You bet,’ he confirmed. ‘As it was, I spent most of that night cursing myself for not taking advantage when I had the chance.’

  I snuggled closer to him. ‘Well get on with it and make up for lost time then.’

  I must be a lot less transparent than I thought I was, for no one seemed to notice I was walking around on air or the silly smile that kept on breaking out on my face. Stephen was wrapped up in his plans for a long weekend in Paris with Liddy, Martin didn’t appear to see anything strange in the fact I smiled at him, and Jenny was immersed in the complexities of a new computer game that had arrived the day before. Even the sharp-witted Amanda failed to suss out why I spent my lunch hour in the lingerie shop, spending a good part of next month’s salary on some silky manpleasers, assuming I was cheering myself up, which suited me fine. I wanted to hug my incredible happiness to myself for a while, savour my secret in peace before it became public knowledge and I was asked for embarrassing explanations as to why I had been apparently bowled over by one man, while I was being actually knocked for six by his opposite. Not to mention only just having got shot of the long-term boyfriend... That was why my heart sank when Rose rang. Her talent for sussing out developments in her friends’ personal lives borders on the uncanny and I braced myself for an extensive question-and-answer session, with most of the replies greeted with withering scepticism by the interrogator. But she couldn’t have been less interested in me, she was rambling on in a most un-Roseish way about Flavia’s new wardrobe and how after the success of the party she’d been asked to join a fundraising committee for a new hospice, then added in an ultra-casual fashion, ‘Oh, by the way, if you happen to see Jeremy, I spent yesterday evening at your place.’

  No you didn’t, I thought smugly, then said sharply, ‘What do you mean? What are you up to, Rose?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said overcasually. I waited in pointed silence and she said sulkily, ‘OK, if you must know, Jeremy’s being absolutely impossible. He’s been in a filthy mood ever since the party because he thinks I flirted with Luke. And it’s not true!’ she added indignantly. I was glad she hadn’t asked me to agree with her. ‘Last night I just couldn’t take another evening of the silent treatment. So I decided to get out of the house for a bit and see that Meg Ryan film again... Only I knew that in his present mood Jeremy would assume I was up to something if I said I was going to a film by myself, and one I’d seen before too, so I said I was going to see you. Just back me up if the subject comes up.’

  ‘All right,’ I said doubtfully. ‘But listen, Rose, I’m not doing this again. Understand?’

  ‘Gosh, you can be pompous at times,’ she grumbled. ‘But I hear you.’

  I didn’t like the sound of this. Of course, it could be nothing but the truth. I hoped so. I really did.

  There was nothing I could do about Rose’s antics now and I had important things to think about. Like if I had time to wash my hair before going to Hamish’s house tonight, his reaction when he saw my new underwear, what I was going to buy for our dinner, whether he was going to have to work late like he’d warned me he might.

  He didn’t and his reaction to the new underpinnings was everything that I could have hoped for. As a result, we were very late in getting around to making the dinner, so it was a good thing I’d opted for the strictly simple and speedy. I left him to do the masculine part, grilling the steaks and opening the wine, while I made the salad and the dressing and found candles so we wouldn’t have to eat under the brilliant striplight above the kitchen table. Then, while he finished the steaks off, I picked a few sprigs of honeysuckle from the profusion around the kitchen door and stuck them in a jam jar in the middle of the table.

  ‘That looks nice,’ he said approvingly as he put the plates on the table. ‘It’s what men need women for, their civilising influence. It’s not the only thing we need them for, of course,’ he added with a sideways look at me.

  I was brought up not to waste food, so I ignored the suggestion in his voice. ‘If you think women are civilised, you should have seen where I lived in London,’ I said. ‘The only time it ever got cleared up was when one of us had a man coming round. At one time we all went through a dry patch on the man front and I don’t think the carpet saw the Hoover for about six months.’

  He grinned and said, ‘Was Rose handy with the Hoover? I find it difficult to imagine.’

  ‘We’ve never shared a flat. But we’ve been on holidays together, and were still speaking to each other at the end of them, which was quite something. Though on a couple of occasions we weren’t on speaking terms in the middle,’ I added. ‘But I can promise you that if Rose had been in our flat it would’ve been cleaned top to bottom every few days. She was never without a boyfriend, usually had two or three of them on the go. She was generous with them too, always trying to pass the spare ones on to her girlfriends, like me. She’s a reformed character now, of course,’ I said hastily. ‘She only sleeps with married men.’

  Ha
mish laughed. Then he said with a slight edge to his voice, ‘So that’s what she was trying to do, pass Luke Dillon on to you.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I said instantly. ‘She couldn’t. She never went out with him.’

  ‘But I thought that was why he turned up at the wedding…’ His fork stopped halfway to his mouth, and he stared at me incredulously, eyes narrowed into slits. ‘Was it Nigel Flaxman she went out with?’

  I nodded. ‘Not for long though. She found out he was married…’ My voice died away and I stared at him, brain whirling frantically. Then I made one of those lightning deductions I make occasionally and which led my teachers to believe I was very much brighter than I actually am. ‘My God! It was his wife you had the affair with, wasn’t it?’

  A quick look at his face showed that I was right. ‘No wonder you two detest each other so much,’ I breathed. ‘I knew it had to be more than what Luke said.’

  ‘What did he say, as a matter of interest?’ Hamish asked mildly.

  ‘That you lost Nigel a lot of money over an error.’

  ‘What a miserable little crawling skunk he is,’ he said levelly. Though his voice had been even, his eyes glittered with anger. ‘He’s tied himself so thoroughly to Nigel’s coat-tails he’d go around telling everyone his own sister turned tricks in King’s Cross if that was what suited Nigel. Still, I daresay it’s one of the things he’s paid for - to do Nigel’s muck-spreading for him.’ He put his fork down with a slight clatter. ‘Nigel did not lose one penny through me,’ he said emphatically, as if it was me who had made the accusation. ‘He couldn’t even claim that I alienated his wife’s affections, as they used to put it. He had a string of girlfriends, including Rose, so it seems.’ He shook his head in amazement. ‘And Bettina was indifferent to everything except the weight of his wallet by then. I wasn’t even her first lover.’

  ‘So was it just spite that made him report you to the Law Society?’ I asked.

  ‘Gina has been busy,’ he said mildly. ‘Partially, and he disliked me even before he knew I was sleeping with his wife. What did he call me when I’d just joined the firm? A “pompous young prig”, I think, probably quite justified too.’ He smiled wryly. ‘I was very earnest in those days. I ventured to point out that his methods of rent collection didn’t bear too close a scrutiny, and neither did some of the pay-back clauses in his leases. He’s a mean-minded, vengeful sod by any standards, but where I was concerned I reckon he couldn’t resist the chance to bring down someone who was too cocky by half, and of course I’d been idiot enough to lay myself wide open. I knew perfectly well what the rules were too.’ He sighed ruefully, ‘But it seemed worth the risk at the time.’

  ‘What was she like?’ I asked, avidly curious to know what sort of woman could have made Hamish chance so much.

  ‘Bettina?’ He reached over and refilled both our glasses, thinking for a moment. ‘Very, very glamorous -’ I loathed her already - ‘even though she was a good bit older than me -’ that was better - ‘one of those tiny little women who look like they could fit in your pocket -’ I hated her even more, ‘who make you think that they need looking after.’ I was definitely going to tear her into pieces if I ever met her. ‘She was a director of a couple of Nigel’s companies. I met her when she came in to sign some papers and thought she was the most stunning thing I’d ever seen.’ I’d already gathered that. ‘Of course she sensed it, women like that do, and she was looking for amusement. And I was available,’ he said flatly. My fingers curled into vindictive little claws. ‘I didn’t realise how stupid she was until later,’ he went on thoughtfully, ‘or how vain. She had a mirror on the ceiling above her bed, not for anything kinky but so she could admire her reflection.’

  I smothered a snort of disbelief. He looked up and smiled. ‘It would have petered out eventually, except Bettina was writing down when we were meeting in her diary - I said she was stupid - and Nigel happened to leaf through it on one of his rare visits to the family home and worked out immediately that this HL she was meeting all over the place wasn’t her hairdresser. He put Luke onto finding out who HL was and Luke must have been delighted at the result; we’ve detested each other since we were at school together. Nigel snapped his fingers and Bettina came rushing back, ready to do anything he told her to. No matter how dissatisfied she was with him, she wasn’t prepared to live without the lifestyle his money brought her, so there was no question of standing by a shortly to be disgraced solicitor.’

  Hamish took a long swig from his glass, then, gazing into the distance said, ‘I knew Nigel’d go all out to get me once he found out, but I really didn’t expect he’d try and put me in prison.’

  ‘Prison?’ I gasped. ‘Why?’

  ‘Revenge, of course,’ he said matter-of-factly, as if it was a quite normal reaction. There were some times when I thought I would never understand men. ‘He was livid I only got hauled over the coals by the Law Society.’ His mouth twisted. ‘That wasn’t exactly a bundle of laughs, I can tell you, and being told by the firm they’d like to shake my dust off their feet as quickly as possible wasn’t fun either, but it wasn’t enough for him. He’d wanted me to be disbarred. His financial director was in the middle of being investigated for skimming money off leases so Nigel told the Old Bill that I’d been taking backhanders in return for turning a blind eye.’ His fingers tightened so hard around his wine glass that I was afraid the thin stem would snap.

  ‘Have you got any idea what it’s like being asked to account for every minor financial transaction over the last three years? What you did with the two hundred pounds you took out of the cash point a year ago or why there was a cheque for seventy-five pounds twenty paid into your account? It took six months of delving into everything before they realised I’d virtually never spoken to the bloke and certainly hadn’t accepted any money off him, but by then the whispers had gone around that I was being investigated. And, believe me, mud sticks. That sort of mud, in particular. Nobody likes a shady lawyer. If I didn’t have a few good friends and colleagues I might still be jobbing around, looking for some proper work.’ He bared his teeth in an unamused smile. ‘That’s why I’m not very fond of Nigel Flaxman.’

  He looked as if he would be in no hurry to fetch the lifebelt if Nigel was drowning in front of him. I wouldn’t bother to get it at all. ‘No wonder he spent most of Rose’s wedding skulking around in the garden, he must have been afraid you’d come out and deck him.’

  Hamish laughed. ‘That hadn’t occurred to me. I thought I was suffering from delusions. I kept on thinking I’d caught a glimpse of Nigel, and then when I’d go and investigate he’d have disappeared. I like the idea of him playing hide and seek around the tent. I wonder why he was there,’ he added thoughtfully.

  ‘To cast a critical eye over who Rose was marrying, I expect,’ I said. ‘She gave him the push, which I gather makes her quite a rarity amongst his girlfriends.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Hamish agreed, a shade doubtfully, and appearing to lose interest in the subject picked up his knife and fork again.

  ‘What’s happened to Bettina?’ I asked quickly, before the opportunity was lost.

  He shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Don’t care.’ He glanced at me with a glimpse of humour. ‘You needn’t worry that I’m still carrying a candle for her. Hearing someone tell lies about you in public is a bigger turn-off than any number of cold showers. You, however…’ He looked at me meaningfully.

  ‘In that case, finish your food. You need to keep your strength up,’ I said severely, though my heart was lifting.

  His eyes crinkled at the corners. Aye, aye, ma’am!’ he said smartly.

  I got the impression there weren’t going to be many areas in which he’d obey me so readily.

  CHAPTER 18

  I often wondered in the days that followed what would have happened if I’d given into temptation and committed the one unpardonable offence against the sisterhood by cancelling my friend Tilly’s visit on Thursday night when she was en route to Scotland.
I was going to my parents’ for the weekend and I’d been given the impression it was the full disinheriting scenario if I cancelled without good cause - my father was having important business contacts to dinner on Saturday and required my presence to stop my mother lobbing a couple of handfuls of tofu into the pheasant casserole or trying out one of her ‘interesting’ ideas for the pudding. Only death or complete immobilisation in hospital would have been accepted as excuses, merely being in love didn’t even make it to the foothills of mitigating circumstances. It seemed intolerable to have to wait until Sunday to see Hamish again, so I was tempted to suggest that Tilly could just as easily come and see me on her way back. Only briefly tempted, mind you. Along with an interdiction against speaking with your mouth full, another of my mother’s precepts indelibly imprinted on my psyche is that you never, ever cancel a pre-­existing arrangement with a girlfriend for the sake of a man. Actually, as second-bests go, sitting up half the night with an old friend and drinking a lot of cheap red wine while you put the world to rights goes very well indeed. She’d been working in a hotel in Cornwall for the last nine months, so there was plenty of material for serious gossip. Naturally, I made good use of the opportunity to eulogise about my own newly wonderful love life. Tilly was decent enough to listen and not let her eyes obviously glaze over.

  It took me quite two minutes the next morning to realise that the sound reverberating through the house wasn’t the alarm, but the doorbell. Groggily, I got out of bed and flung the window open, intending to say something extremely rude about people who ring bells before the milk arrives.

  ‘Hi, Susie! Did we wake you up?’ called Rose cheerfully, peering out from under the shelter of the porch where she’d taken refuge from the drizzling rain that had been falling most of the night.

  ‘Yes,’ I said grouchily. ‘And as it’s not May Day, I don’t need to wash my face in dew at the crack of dawn, thank you very much.’