“Nothing,” she says, smiling modestly, “is too much when it's the Lord's work.”
This must be Mrs Vicar. She turns to Bridget. “I don't think we've met before,” she says. “Staying with the Kirklands?”
“No –” begins Bridget, but Chris cuts across her. “This is Bridget Sweeny,” she says. “She's taken over as caretaker at Rospetroc.”
The woman raises her eyebrows. “Ah! I'd heard he'd found someone.”
“That'll be me.”
“And how are you getting on?”
“Fine. Thank you.”
“Not too lonely?”
“Not in the least. We've a houseful at the moment, anyway.”
“Yes. I imagine. Much better, at Christmastime. Horrible big empty place, otherwise.”
“Oh, it's not too bad,” says Bridget. “I've got good locks on the flat, anyway.”
“Good,” she says vaguely, not really interested. “Good. Now, do you have a family or are you here by yourself?”
“Just my daughter.” She gestures toward Yasmin. “She's starting at the school in January.”
“Good, good,” says the vicar's wife. “Have you met my husband?”
“Not yet. Hello.”
“How do you do?” He is a spare, bespectacled man, a line of white hair hugging the nape of his neck, who looks as though he might take the vow of poverty quite seriously. “And a very happy Christmas to you,” he adds with the reflexive goodwill of a royal on walkabout, and pumps her hand with both of his, actor-style.
“And to you,” she replies automatically. “Lovely service. Thank you.”
“No,” he says, “thank you for coming.”
“Ms Sweeny has just taken over at Rospetroc,” says the wife.
Again, the raised eyebrows. “Really?”
“Yes,” says Bridget.
“Well, well. I do hope you'll be happy there. We never saw much of your predecessor, I'm afraid.”
“Frances Tyler?”
He looks a bit unsure. “She wasn't here for very long, of course.”
“No. So I gather.”
“Never managed to settle.”
“No.”
“Nice lady,” says Chris. “Ate a lot of toffee.”
“Happy Christmas,” says the vicar. Give her the Meneglos hand-press.
“And to you.”
“And how are the little ones?”
“Not so little,” says Chris. “Hence the hangovers.”
“Ah, yes,” he says. “Have you met Ms...”
“Sweeny,” says Bridget. “Yes, we've met.”
“Good,” he says. “Good.”
She has another look for Yasmin. She's talking to a girl of about her own age, wearing pink dungarees and an orange jumper. The hall is thinning out, now. Everyone with a life is going home to baste the turkey. The only people left seem to be over sixty, or on their own, or to have a blemish or a disability of some sort, or to have tucked their trousers into the tops of their green wellies, which is a sure sign that there's something wrong with them. There's a normal-looking man in his mid-thirties, but he's on the floor wrestling a plastic pony from the grasp of a six-year-old boy. Obviously a bully or an inadequate of some sort. Shame, really: he'd be quite good-looking otherwise. Well-built, large shoulders, narrow hips, a well-shaped skull under a number-two cut, humour lines around the eyes. I bet he's a hit down the pub, she thinks bitterly. A rural lothario if ever I saw one.
“Zat your little girl playing with mine?”
She drags herself away from her reflections. She's being addressed by a woman in her late twenties. Light brown hair streaked with clumsy blonde highlights, multicoloured jacket made of blanketing, jeans, a welcoming smile.
“I don't know. Yours is the one with the dungarees?”
“That's right. Chloe.”
“Right. Yes, then. Mine's Yasmin.”
“Now there's a pair of aspirational names,” says the woman. Sticks a hand out. “Tina.”
“Bridget.”
“Still,” says Tina, “not as bad as my nephew Jago.”
“Now, there's a name.”
“Cornish for Iago, of course. Like in Othello. A leftover of the Spanish who fetched up on our rocks after the Armada. Not that they'll know that in the fleshpots of wherever he ends up. Jago Carlyon. Sounds like a character in a Mills and Boon. I hear you've taken over at Rospetroc?”
“That's me.”
“Great,” she says. “It's great up there. What a lovely place to grow up.”
“You're the first person to say anything positive about it,” she gives her a smile, warmed by her enthusiasm.
“Oh, you don't want to go paying any attention to any of those old biddies,” says Tina. “They think buying into all the old superstitions makes them more country, so to speak. It's nothing but signs and portents with them.”
“It does seem that way.”
“So, how are you settling in? Yasmin coming to the school, is she?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Good. Looks like she and Chloe are getting on like a house on fire, anyway.”
“Yes,” says Bridget. “I'm glad to see it. I was a bit afraid she'd end up being one of those weird children who's never had any friends.”
“Don't you worry about that,” says Tina. “Much harder to keep people out of your business than get them into it. That's the country way. Jago!”
The last word is shouted. The small boy looks up.
“You give that back to your cousin now!” she shouts.
The man, looking up too, lets go of the plastic pony and the boy trots obediently over to Chloe, pushes it into her hands. “He's got no control,” says Tina. “Doesn't see him often enough, that's the problem.”
He approaches. Grins a sheepish grin. “Five minutes I've been trying to get that off him,” he says.
“I've told you before. There's no point reasoning with them. They're children, not people. They need to be treated like puppies. Give them clear orders and they'll usually do what you say.”
“Whatever,” he says. He's looking at Bridget with a shy sort of curiosity. It's a nice face, she thinks. One of those clear country faces. Innocent. Not a lothario at all. I'm just over-cynical.
“Hello,” he says. “I'm Mark.”
“Carlyon. My brother. Bridget,” says Tina. “She's just taken over at Rospetroc.”
“Oh right. Hello. How's your electrics?”
“Dodgy, as it goes,” says Bridget, rather taken aback.
“He's going to have to face up to it and stump up in the end,” says Mark. “Tom Gordhavo. Tight as a gnat's chuff when it comes to that house. Pardon my French. Don't let him fob you off. I'm sure that's why Frances left in the end. Couldn't stand the lights going out without warning like that.”
“I'll remember that,” says Bridget.
“My brother's an electrician,” says Tina.
“Ah.”
“I'm down in the village,” he says. “Just give me a ring if you’ve got any trouble.”
“Okay,” she says, wondering how she's going to do that without a phone number. “I will.”
“Come on,” says Tina. “We'd best get back or there won't be any dinner this side of Boxing Day.”
“Okay,” says Mark, “I'll get the kids.”
“Nice to meet you, Bridget,” says Tina. Shakes her hand again. Begins to walk away, then turns back. “Perhaps we should get those girls of ours together again before term starts. So Yasmin's not all by herself when she goes to school.”
Bridget is pleased. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, that would be nice.”
“Bring her over. In the new year.”
“That would be great.”
“Good-oh,” says Tina. “We're down at the other end of the village. In the modern bit. Well, modern-ish. Four Betjeman Grove. Just come down any day. It's not like I've ever got anything to do. Single mother dole scum scrounger, that's me.”
“Cool,” says Bridget. “We
've already got a lot in common, then. How do I find it?”
“Just ask,” says Tina. “Everybody knows me.”
“Okay. What's your surname?”
“Teagle.”
“Teagle.”
“Don't start. My Mum and Dad didn't know I was going to marry a Teagle, did they? Anyway. It could be worse. Our mother's maiden name was Bastard, if you want to know. She was glad to get rid of that. Probably why she married Dad the minute she was legal.”
“Bastard?”
“Bastard. It means High Dwelling, apparently. What's yours, by the way?”
“Fl- Sweeny,” says Bridget.
Chapter Twenty-one
“Hello?”
There's no noise at the other end, then some breathing.
She tucks the phone into the crook of ear and shoulder, stirs the bread sauce.
“Hello?”
Yasmin is sitting at the kitchen table, drumming her heels against her chair-legs with her knife and fork clutched in her fists like a hungry cartoon child. She is chewing on a lock of hair which has drifted loose from her tiara. She's been dressed as a princess – pink tutu, pink costume jewellery, pink shoes, all found at the end of her bed when she woke this morning – since they got in from church. Bridget is still surprised that she managed to persuade her not to wear the clothes to church.
“Hello?”
“Fucking bitch.”
He's drunk. The two simple swearwords are slurred, but the venom is no less palpable.
She doesn't say anything. Thinks: I should hang up now, cut him off. But she is frozen, powerless, as though he were actually in the room. The very lights seem to dim as she fights to breathe.
“Happy fucking Christmas,” he says.
A gust of laughter bursts through the floorboards. There are eighteen to dinner downstairs.
He can't get you. There are people here.
He doesn't know where you are.
Mustn't let Yas see me frightened.
She turns her back to her daughter, drops her hair over her face.
“How's my daughter?” he asks.
“F-fine.”
Don't engage with him. What are you doing? Don't speak to him. Hang up.
“Let me speak to her.”
“I'm sorry, but that's not possible.”
“Let me speak to her. I want to speak to my daughter.”
“No,” she says.
My God, I just said no to him.
“No,” she repeats more firmly.
He shouts: “Let me speak to my FUCKING daughter! You can't do this! You can't run a-fucking-WAY and expect me to just – you'll fucking LEARN, Bridget! You'll fucking – ”
She hangs up. Presses the off button and powers the phone down.
He can't get you, Bridget. He's miles away. He doesn't know where you are.
Her hands are shaking and she feels sweaty.
It's all right. It's all right. Breathe.
There's a smell of burning. The bread sauce, still on the heat, is catching. She takes it off the hob, stirs frantically. Breathes.
“Who was that?” asks Yasmin.
Two more breaths. She plasters a smile onto her face, turns back into the room.
“No-one,” she says. “Wrong number. Would you believe it? Christmas day and they're still trying to sell things, eh?”
Chapter Twenty-two
How can something so good go so bad?
She has asked herself this question a million times. Gone over and over her history. Relived times, incidents, words, looks, searching for the clue, searching for the truth.
Was it me? Was it something about me? Did I drive him to it, turn him from alpha male to rage machine?
Or was it that I couldn't see? That I was so blinded by my want, by my wish for love, by my arrogant belief in my own judgement, that I couldn't see signs that were always there?
Is it me? Is it just that I am stupid? That I am one of those stupid women who chooses these things for herself? Can I ever trust myself again? Can I ever be trusted? How can I be trusted to take care of my daughter, protect her, show her how to survive and be strong, when I couldn't even see the freight train as it thundered up the track towards me?
Yasmin's gone downstairs to play charades with the Aykroyds and she's allowed herself the luxury of gin and crying. He was so beautiful. That's what she remembers. She was dazzled by his beauty the first time she set eyes on him. He had sensitive eyes. She remembers thinking that. Blue, they were, and surrounded by long, black lashes.
Eyes aren't sensitive. They're just a product of your genetic inheritance. I should have looked at his mouth. Not been carried away by lust into projecting onto him qualities he never possessed. It's the mouth, not the eyes, that are the window to the soul. Lips can be misleading, too, of course. Those downturned corners can denote great sadness as well as habitual petulance. That upward curve that leads to a dimple is as likely to be telling you that you're looking at self-satisfaction as good humour. But in the end, your mouth reflects far more of your habitual expressions than your eyes do.
Kieran's upper lip was thin, but it was curvy. If she'd had her right mind in place she'd've seen that that curve was the sort of shape you get if you spend a lot of time sneering. But she didn't. She saw:
- the ripped torso
- the Armani suit
- the convertible Audi parked carelessly on the curb
- the twinkle as he took her in behind the desk
- the thick mop of shiny Irish-black hair, just ripe for grabbing hold of.
And she thought:
- I want that
- I want to touch those arms
- I want to be in that passenger seat
It's my punishment, she thinks. My karmic reward for my shallow ambitions. That I chose the father of my child on the basis of a flash car and a well-turned cheekbone?
But he was beautiful, and the breath caught in her chest as he approached the counter. Don't, she thought. He'll be wanting flowers for his girlfriend. That's the only men we see in here, outside Mother's and Valentine's Days: ones with something to make up for. Ones who are hoping to wheedle their way back into some angry woman's good graces. Bridget put on her most professional front, concentrated on picking over a big batch of baby's breath that had come in boxed from New Covent Garden.
He stopped in front of the counter. Put a hand on the stack of tissue paper ready laid out for the wrapping of bouquets. He was wearing a Rolex Oyster, she noticed. Six grand's worth of watch in a small shop-front on Lavender Hill. The nails had been recently manicured. She'd never seen a manicure on a man down here before, though plenty of her Chelsea bankers had that never-been-dirty look to them.
Deep breath. Deep breath. She looked up, met those eyes. Candid, clear, full of naked admiration. He held her gaze for just that fraction too long. Her heart – she felt it – skipped in her chest. He is beautiful. The most beautiful thing I've ever seen. That smooth skin, the way his nostrils flare slightly. It's as though he's been carved from marble...
"Can I help you?"
It was as though the world had dropped away. The sounds of the shop – her assistant Gemma stacking oasis in the back room, the swish of traffic going down toward the Latchmere Road traffic lights – faded into the background and all she could hear was the whoosh of her own blood in her ears.
He smiled.
"I was driving past," he said, "and I saw you."
Not me, she thought. My shop. It's a figure of speech.
"Uh-huh," she said.
"I'd like," he said, "if you've got them, a dozen red roses."
"Of course," she replied, and her heart plummeted. No-one buys red roses for themselves. It doesn't happen. They buy gerberas and peonies and lilies and alstroemeria. Not roses. Everyone knows that roses are for love.
Things like that don't happen to people like me. Who am I kidding? Get real, girl. You're not the sort who gets the beautiful ones. He's buying them for some well-groomed bl
onde up on Prince of Wales Drive. Buying them for someone who would look right perched there next to him with the top down.
Oh, but if it could be me, God. Just once, if it could be me. A man like that. If a man like that wanted me, I would be happy forever...
She went into the back room to fetch the bucket of roses. Black Baccara, delivered from Jersey that morning: scarlet so dark it was tinged with midnight, lush petals, rich velvet like a royal evening gown. Gemma hovered just inside the door, eyes wide with excitement, a giggle barely contained by her lips. "Omigod, omigod!" she whispered. Bridget threw her a frown. "It’s like having Brad Pitt walk in off the street!" she continued. "Can I go out and serve him?"
"No you can not," hissed Bridget. "You can stay out here ’til you’ve calmed down."
And with shaking hands she picked up the bucket and returned to the Adonis outside.
"How about these?" she asked, tried to control her voice, to sound breezy and professional. "The world’s darkest rose," she added. "Classy."
He reached out caressed a petal. The sight of his fingers set off an involuntary shiver in her. Kieran glanced up, held her eyes, and once again he smiled. Looked fleetingly triumphant, had she but realised it, then covered the expression with complicity and warmth.
"Beautiful," he said. And she couldn't tell if he meant the flowers or herself.
"How would you like them wrapped?" she asked.
A pause. Another look. He's flirting with me.
No he isn't. Some men just flirt, naturally. It comes as naturally as breathing.
"How would you like them?"
"Oh, quite simple," she said. "Just loosely tied to stop them spilling and wrapped in some of this black tissue."
"Whatever way you like best," said Kieran. He looked around the shop as she set about turning the roses – long smooth stems, vicious thorns – into a simple, stunning, bouquet. Allowed herself the luxury of a brief daydream. Quashed it down deep.
"How come I've never noticed you before?" he asked. "Have you been here long?"
Bridget shrugged. "About three years."
"Business good?"
"Blooming," she replied; what she always replied to that question. She had the strangest feeling that time had gone into suspension, that things were happening at a third of their normal speed. "Would you like a card with that?" she asked.
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