by Nicola Slade
And froze.
Hugh bustled up to divest his guests of their coats and brought them to be introduced to their hostess. The woman from the antiques fair smiled and simpered, while her husband chucked in a “ladyship” with almost every other word, clearly delighted to hobnob with the aristocracy. Leaving his wife to sparkle, the husband allowed Hugh to haul him into the dining room and be plied with drink and golf gossip.
For a moment Finn stayed in a state of suspended animation, then, as she began to come to, the worst happened. Charlie sauntered into the hall from the kitchen where he had been washing more glasses.
‘All done, Delia,’ he began then, like Finn, he became rooted to the spot, staring in horror.
‘Charlie!’ The newcomer rushed across the room and flung her arms round him, squealing in her little girly voice. ‘Oh Charlie, how wonderful to see you! Are you pleased to see me? After all this time?’
Finn winced as Charlie almost audibly ground his teeth, his dark eyebrows meeting in a ferocious scowl. She could almost feel the effort he was making to stay calm, though she had no clear idea what was going on.
‘Amanda,’ he said finally in a flat monotone. Then he let fly with an angry snarl that Delia, Finn and Julia could hear but that nobody in the drawing room could make out.
‘No,’ he said, with a furious, cold energy. ‘No, I’m not pleased to see you. Why would I be? And after all this time? What time would that be, Amanda? The time since you stood me up on our wedding day? That time?’
He towered over her, menacing and terrifying, his hurt almost palpable to Finn.
‘I stood there for forty minutes, Amanda. Forty minutes. I thought at first there was a problem with the car, a puncture maybe, or traffic. Then I started to worry, maybe there’d been a crash. At no time – at no time! – did I even begin to contemplate that you might be such a gutless, dishonourable bitch as to walk out without a word.’
He drew back and looked down at her, the passionate fury abating.
‘My mother, as you very well knew, was only there by sheer will-power. She’d fought all the doctors, everyone at the hospice, so that she could attend her only child’s wedding.’
A weary, blank misery flooded over his face as he turned away towards the front door.
‘She died the next day,’ he said in a shaken whisper. ‘You killed her, you murdering bitch.’
Chapter 12
The hammering in her head turned out to be twinned with the hammering on her door, so Finn crawled out of bed just as her sister lost patience and let herself in anyway.
‘Go away, Ju,’ she said tiredly.
‘No, I won’t,’ Julia pushed past her carrying a tray with two mugs of tea on it, together with a plate plied high with buttered toast. ‘I need some breakfast and so do you. There’s nothing you can do, Jamie called me. Charlie’s gone to Newcastle and won’t say when he’ll be back.’
‘Oh!’ Finn squatted on the bed, her eyes lowered miserably, tears welling up. ‘No, damn it, I’m not going to start crying again.’ She looked down at her bare feet and noted, in surprise, that large tears were dropping faster and faster on to them. ‘Oh God, Julia, what can I do? I love him so much. I’ve never felt like this, never.’
With a rustle of silk kimono Julia’s arms were round her.
‘There, there, sweetie, let it out. I don’t see that you can do anything at all, to be honest.’ Then, as Finn shuddered in protest, she temporised. ‘Well, you could drop a note in at his office to be forwarded to him, just to let him know how you feel, that might help. And you could ask them to pass on a message. Otherwise I’m afraid you’re going to have to sweat this one out, darling, until he’s sorted out what he wants.’
Finn wiped her eyes and Julia nodded in approval.
‘That’s right, honey, making yourself ill won’t help him. Drink this tea and have a piece of toast. That’s better. Now, do you feel up to telling me what happened when you ran out of Delia’s after Charlie?’
They had all stared as Charlie barged out of Daisy Cottage, Finn recalled, then she, Julia and Delia had – as one woman – turned to glare at Amanda.
****
‘Don’t look at me,’ the outcast had shrugged. ‘It wasn’t my fault, I just didn’t want to have a scene and I knew Charlie would be furious. As for his mother, well, I’m sorry but I didn’t know she was that ill. How could I have known?’
‘Get after him, Finn,’ Julia urged and Finn, who had been frozen to the spot in shock, found she could move again, so she raced out into the murky drizzle and ran in the direction of Charlie’s house.
She caught up with him at his front gate.
‘Charlie, wait for me, let me come with you.’
He forged on without stopping to reply. As he thrust his key into the lock he snarled at her, still without turning round.
‘Go away, Finn, leave me alone.’
She reeled with shock and hurt but it only made her even more desperate to throw her arms round him, to kiss him and try and make it better.
‘I mean it, Finn,’ he flung at her when she cried out in dismay. ‘For God’s sake!’ His voice cracked ominously and he pushed her roughly aside. ‘I can’t handle this, Finn, just go away.’
****
‘I didn’t know what to do,’ Finn mopped her eyes as she told Julia the story. ‘I mean, I could tell he was nearly crying and I wanted to hold him but he just shoved me out of the way and slammed the door. I hung around for a while and then I came home and rang him, but he’d put the machine on and when I went over to his house a bit later his car wasn’t there. He must have packed a bag and taken off straight away.’
‘Poor Charlie,’ sighed Julia. ‘And poor Finn. He’ll have to work out how to handle it and you’ll just have to sit tight and wait till he’s ready for you, sweetheart. It’s tough but you don’t have a choice, not if you really want him.’
In spite of her extremes of misery Finn felt slightly comforted and, feeling like a little girl again, allowed Julia to bully her into a bath and then into getting dressed and drinking another cup of tea.
‘What happened at Delia’s?’ she asked eventually, after fruitlessly trying Charlie’s home number and his mobile again. ‘It didn’t spoil everything, did it?’
‘Nobody else heard a thing,’ Julia assured her. ‘Delia swept that girl into the drawing room and charmed and smarmed at the husband until he stumped up a cheque for fifty pounds for one of Guy Muncaster’s autographed books. She also introduced him to Rosemary and somehow got him to commission a watercolour from her. He wants a picture of his house apparently. I had to kick Rosemary hard to shut her up when Delia announced in her lordly manner that Rosemary’s fee would be two hundred and fifty pounds, but as she said afterwards, he wouldn’t have been happy with anything cheap and cheerful. As it is, Delia talked Rosemary up so much that he thinks she’s a well-known water-colourist and he’s promised to tell his friends to contact her. He’s also under the impression that he’s getting a privileged rate and that his pals will have to cough up a substantial lot more.’
‘That’s nice.’ Finn was feeling better, enough to realise what a difference such a contact could make to Rosemary. ‘When you’ve stopped your fund-raising for this crazy holiday it means Rosemary can work up a profitable sideline. Good for her.’
The weather was vile all day, reflecting Finn’s mood. Hourly calls to Charlie’s mobile brought no result, nor did Jamie have any further insights. Delia looked in to report that the evening had netted a satisfactory amount and that she had warned Hugh off Amanda and her husband.
‘He was inclined to be a bit sticky at first,’ she admitted. ‘Thinks the sun shines out of the husband’s arse, but I soon put the fear of God in him. How?’ She sank the gin Julia automatically put into her hand on arrival. ‘Simple, I just told him that the girl has a reputation for seducing older men and causing horrendous scandal. I said I’d spotted her eyeing him up last night. Of course, I said, she only ever goes
for the most attractive men, and I reckoned he was next on her list.’
‘You’re evil.’ Julia laughed at her and topped up her glass as a reward. ‘I can imagine Hugh’s expression of terror.’
‘Uh-huh, he scuttled back to hide under Rosemary’s apron, poor sap. Still, he seems to be what she wants, can’t think why. If I had a choice I’d go for something a damn sight sexier myself.’ She stood up and flung her aged, politically incorrect fur wrap round her shoulders, her smile every bit as vulpine as the glassy-eyed fox on her shoulder. ‘Better get a move on. Now, what else did I want to say? Oh yes, meant to congratulate you, Finn, on your gypsy’s warning stint. It pulled in a lot of money and you sent the punters away happy.’
Finn smiled wanly then managed a small laugh as she remembered her efforts.
‘Hedgehog and his friend were really pleased with my reading for Bunny,’ she told Julia and Delia. ‘I asked Hedge later on how Bunny squared Hedgehog owning an occult shop with Bunny’s muscular sort of Christianity, but he said there was no conflict. Bunny does the praying, he said, and he does the rest. It’s all smells and bells, after all, he reckoned.’
She let out another tiny giggle, raising a fleeting smile of relief on her sister’s face.
‘I asked Bunny if he was into drugs like Hedgehog but he shook his head indignantly.’
‘“I wouldn’t touch a spliff if you paid me”,’ he had told her. ‘“I don’t do drugs, my dear, I just drinks”.’
‘And so he does,’ put in Delia with something like awe. ‘It’s not often I’m impressed by anyone else’s intake but that tweedy fella really put it away last night and stayed upright too.’
****
Finn spent the next day or two in an unhappy daze. A visit to Charlie’s office early on Monday morning produced no results.
‘He’s expecting to be in Newcastle all this week,’ said the lumpy woman who managed the office of Ramalley Software Solutions. ‘No, I can’t give you his hotel number but I’ll tell him you called in … What? … Well, of course you can’t get hold of him on his mobile, he’s taken one from work, that’s why.’
Finn lost her cool and pleaded with the woman but she was adamant.
‘I’ll let him know you want to speak to him,’ was the best she would commit herself to. ‘Then he can get in touch with you. If he wants to,’ she added with a spark of malice.
All dignity in shreds, Finn meekly nodded and asked if the woman would send on the brief note of love and longing she had scrawled during the night. When the woman grudgingly agreed, Finn handed the envelope over and trailed back to the shop.
Never, in the last couple of months, had Finn felt so badly in need of a female friend to confide in. Julia tried her best and was, Finn admitted, a great comfort, but it wasn’t the same; from the age of fifteen Finn had looked on Julia as a mother.
‘I’ve got nobody to confide in,’ she bewailed to Hedgehog one day during the lull after lunch. ‘I’m not close enough to Rosemary and co, and Julia’s too emotionally involved, she gets upset. I think I really need a proper heart to heart.’
‘You could try me,’ Hedgehog offered diffidently, trying to mitigate her misery by plying her with home-made fudge sent by Bunny.
‘Hedge, you’re a sweetie,’ she gave him a pale smile. ‘But you’re a bloke, in case you hadn’t noticed.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ he retorted robustly. ‘You can’t go running to mummy – even if she is your sister – all the time, at your age, so I’m all you’ve got. You can’t rustle up that kinda friend just like that. Besides, just ’cos I’m off women just now don’t mean I don’t know nothin’ about them. Try me.’
She raised her head from where she had been resting it on her folded arms on the counter and stared at him. From the top of his spiky head to the bottom of his thick-soled clumpy boots Hedgehog was aquiver with the urge to be of assistance.
‘You’re a pet, Hedge.’ She reached out and patted his hand. ‘You’re a really sensitive person; Bunny and I are very lucky to have you as a friend.’ She blew her nose and decided to give it a try. ‘I suppose I just feel so devastated, to realise Charlie’s still in love with Amanda. I really thought he was happy with me. I knew I was falling in love with him and although we never talked about it, I was sure he felt the same.’
‘Why should you think he’s still in love with her, then?’
‘Get real, Hedge. I told you what he was like – he was broken up, nearly crying. He wouldn’t have reacted like that if he didn’t still love her.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Hedgehog maintained sturdily in the face of her disbelief. ‘The way I see it, from what you told me he sounds more as if it was his mum dyin’ that did his head in. An’ you can’t blame him, can you? It musta bin hell for Charlie, seeing his mum so upset. And she woulda bin, wou’n’t she? Stands to reason, her only child left stood at the altar, think how you’d feel yourself. And his dad, he’s the strong silent type, in’t he? Suffer in silence, stiff upper lip? He’d be no help, worse than Charlie.’
In his agitation Hedgehog reached in his pocket and Finn sat in thoughtful silence, mulling over his words, till he was calmly blowing smoke rings.
‘See what I mean? Your sister, now, think how she’d be if it was you. She’d be broke up that you was broke up, if you follow what I’m saying. Don’t mean Charlie was still in love with whatserface, but he did love his mum, that’s clear. And quite right too.’
****
There was no word from Charlie. Finn struggled through the week in a state of unhappiness such as she had never known. It wasn’t like this with Luc, she thought drearily on Friday evening as she trudged home by bus – the car was in for a new battery – the persistent murky drizzle suiting her mood. Nor any of the others; this time it’s not just about me and my feelings, I suppose. I’m worried sick about Charlie, how he feels, what he’s likely to do, I just want to hold him and keep him safe.
Daily pleas to Charlie’s battleaxe of a secretary brought no relief, except that at least she knew he was still working in Newcastle. I suppose that’s some comfort, she told herself as she turned the key in the lock at Forge Cottage. If he’s able to work it must mean he’s coping somehow and not standing on top of the Angel of the North, poised to jump.
‘Come and have a drink, darling?’ Julia thrust her head round Finn’s door, looking anxious.
Why not? Finn shrugged, hung up her coat and trailed disconsolately into the main house after her sister. Rosemary Clavering was huddled over the open fire and Delia Muncaster was totting up figures in a notebook.
‘Oh, sorry?’ Finn hunched her shoulders. ‘Are you having a meeting? Shall I go back to my place?’
‘I invited you, darling,’ her sister reminded her. ‘Delia’s been given a new brand of gin so she’s using us as guinea pigs. Want some? Or there’s beer in the fridge.’ She raised an eyebrow without comment as Finn wandered back from the kitchen with a bottle of beer. ‘Okay? Well then, Delia, what were you saying?’
‘We’ve got off to a terrific start with our fund-raising. I checked the figures with Bobbie this morning. We’ve already reduced the outstanding balance by over a thousand pounds and while this means we still need around three thousand pounds, assuming …’
She glanced briefly at Finn and changed track, Julia noticed thankfully. No need to remind Finn that final costs depended on her own and Charlie’s participation.
‘This gin tastes all right.’ Julia shifted the direction of the conversation. ‘Why were you iffy about it, Delia? Not Bulgarian or something, is it?’
‘No, no, nothing like that,’ maintained Delia, draining her glass with a practised wrist movement and pouring a refill. ‘Just an old chum of Guy’s who sends me a bottle now and then. This one’s from Texas, so I thought it might be made from cattle by-products but it’s not bad, is it?’
Finn roused herself to ask about Margot.
‘As well as can be expected is about it.’ Rosemary was looking in
creasingly thin and strained. ‘Poor old Margot, she’s still occasionally aware of what’s going on and she gets terribly distressed. I feel so wretched when that happens because there’s nothing I can do, or anyone else, for that matter. She’s much weaker though. The consultant was quite kind about it; he says it’s just a matter of all the systems quietly closing down.’
A ring at the front door saved Rosemary from disintegrating into exhausted tears and she mopped herself up as Julia brought Sue Merrill into the room, handing out the inevitable glass of gin as Sue sat down.
‘We’ve got some good news—’ Julia began, then stopped short, eyeing her latest visitor with interest when Sue made an extraordinary sound, a cross between a gulp and a snort. ‘What? What’s happened, Sue?’
For a few moments Sue struggled, a weird mix of emotions flitting across her heavy, pleasantly plain face. At last she made up her mind.
‘I had sex with another man last night,’ she blurted out. ‘And it was fantastic!’
To the accompaniment of a chorus of ooohs and aaahs from the other women – even Finn who was struggling with disbelief and some embarrassment at the thought of discussing sex in front of someone like Delia – Sue told her tale.
It had been after seven the night before when she locked up her office, she said, and headed for the staff car park. As she walked past one of the other entrances to the main university building she heard a muffled but desperate sobbing.
‘I couldn’t just walk by,’ she told Julia and the others. They nodded in agreement and she continued. ‘I peered nervously into the door and there was a young man hunched up on the step, with his head on his knees, obviously breaking his heart. He didn’t look like an ordinary drunk or addict so I went a bit closer and spoke to him.’
‘Can I help you?’ she said in a nervous murmur.
He looked up and she recognised him at once as Richard Fennel, a lecturer in the Maths Department. Last time she had seen him had been at a charity day organised by the students. In his late twenties, he had looked happy and contented, walking with his young wife and pushing a double buggy with two little girls side by side in it.