More to Life Than This

by Carole Matthews

  He wondered how she could be so uninhibited whilst wearing so little clothing. It had taken him all his courage to wear his shorts to lunch. Jeffrey was not a shorts man. It wasn’t that he had bad legs, a bit on the pasty side perhaps, but he was more of a suit person.

  ‘Very well-behaved,’ she added when he failed to comment. ‘Yes,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Although Kate worries that they’re too docile. Most of our friends’ kids have a rebellious streak a mile wide. These two are completely domesticated.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ he agreed readily. ‘She thinks it’s unnatural that Kerry prefers to drink water to Coke and hates the taste of chocolate and that Joe’s favourite food is salad. Is that unusual?’

  ‘I’d say that’s pretty unusual,’ Natalie laughed. ‘But not just cause to bring in a team of behavioural psychologists?’

  ‘They’re individuals.’

  ‘Isn’t that what they say about most psychopaths?’ Jeffrey shivered. ‘My word, I’m sounding like Kate now. I think they’re perfectly well-adjusted, well-balanced, well-behaved children. She feels that Joe is an exact replica of her father, who is a sixty-five-year-old architect. Kate thinks our son isn’t a child, he’s a senior citizen in school uniform. Joe spends his spare time innocently designing houses for the oppressed masses and my wife thinks he should be lying on his bed idling away his life trying to imagine what Beyonce Knowles would look like without her clothes on.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Try to imagine what Beyonce Knowles looks like in the buff?’

  ‘No!’ Jeffrey felt himself blush to his hair roots. ‘Of course I don’t. But then I’m not ten years old any more.’ Which served as a jolly good reminder. He had been very disconcerted to find, whilst prodding his scampi, that his mind was dwelling on what Natalie would look like without her clothes on. And it wasn’t too hard. She left very little to the imagination.

  ‘Perhaps he’s taking after his father then?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Jeffrey said cagily, sure she was making fun of him. They walked along in silence, watching the children run in and out of the edges of the woods, the sun piercing the gaps between the trees. The scrubby driveway was dusty with dirt and the grass was parched and brown. Even the towering majestic oaks looked thirsty.

  ‘How are you enjoying England?’ Jeffrey asked politely, keen to get away from all discussions of nudity.

  ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Not that I’ve seen much yet. I’ve been into London a few times, but looking after Jessica’s tribe keeps me pretty busy. I was going to have some fun this week, but well… I need the money. I want to do Europe.’

  ‘All of it?’

  ‘I don’t plan to stay in one place very long,’ she told him. ‘I want to earn some cash, see some sights and then move on.’

  ‘Where have you been so far?’

  ‘This is it,’ she laughed. Her chuckle was as hearty and uninhibited as the rest of her. ‘Grand plan! First stop, Bedfordshire!’

  ‘I don’t think our home town of Leighton Buzzard is necessarily representative of the rest of Europe.’

  ‘It’s a nice little place,’ she said, and gave him a sideways glance. ‘The natives are very friendly.’

  Jeffrey tugged at his polo shirt collar. That was another thing. Kate always liked him to wear his T-shirts outside his shorts, but he was happier when he was safely tucked in.

  They had arrived at the base of the monument.

  ‘This is cool,’ Natalie observed, shading her eyes to look at the top. ’Can you go up it?’

  ‘Well, you can,’ he said uncertainly.

  ‘Now?’

  He looked at the white-haired old ticket lady shaded by her National Trust umbrella; she had a hopeful glint in her eye and was fingering her roll of pink tickets expectantly.

  ‘I’ve no head for heights,’ Jeffrey confessed. ‘It would take a braver man than me to venture to the top of that thing. It looks decidedly rickety.’

  The children had joined them. ‘Can we go up, Dad?’ they chorused, sounding suspiciously like two of the Famous Five that Kate always accused them of being. ‘Can we?’

  He turned to Natalie for support. ‘The steps are probably really narrow and dangerous, like in a castle.’

  ‘I’m Australian,’ she pointed out. ‘We don’t have castles.’

  ‘It’ll be okay going up,’ he warned. ‘But just wait until you have to come down.’

  ‘Where’s your sense of adventure, Jeffers?’

  He answered uncomfortably, ‘I think it bypassed me. Like punk rock and bondage trousers.’

  ‘Come on.’ She tugged his hand. ‘Let your hair down. Feel the fear and do it anyway!’

  ‘I take it from this gung-ho attitude that you’re probably an exponent of bungee jumping?’

  Natalie nodded, a fire in her eyes.

  ‘Yes,’ he said thoughtfully. I might have guessed. ‘If you’re good, I’ll buy you an ice cream afterwards,’ she promised.

  He didn’t know if he could cope with the sight of Natalie’s tongue flicking lazily over a dripping white cone. ‘I think I’d rather have a nice cup of tea,’ he said, and Kate’s voice popped out of his subconscious—and perhaps some angel cake?

  ‘The view will be spectacular,’ Natalie cajoled.

  He knew when he was beaten. ‘Go on then,’ he said, magnanimous in defeat.

  The white-haired old lady had already ripped the tickets off her roll and was proffering her tin, in which Jeffrey deposited the requisite four pounds. ‘You can go up as many times as you like,’ she said cheerfully.

  Goodness, don’t encourage them, Jeffrey thought. One near-death experience per day is quite sufficient for someone who is used to dealing with nothing more alarming than a bought ledger account.

  The view from the top was spectacular. And it was a bloody long way down. Jeffrey curled his fingers over the top of the wholly insubstantial iron railing that bounded the viewing platform. He didn’t know where this irrational fear of heights had come from—not inherited, he assumed; his father was, after all, a pilot in the RAF just after the war. Jeffrey liked his feet firmly on the ground, flying nothing more threatening than a desk. His breath was white-hot in his chest and his knees were wobbling like jelly. Despite insisting to Kate that golf kept him perfectly fit, he wondered if it really did.

  Natalie came and stood next to him. There was no discernible breeze, but fine wisps of hair trailed across her face and he longed to reach out and brush them away.

  ‘You could bungee jump from here,’ she said, looking down. ‘Ah, it’s gotta be about a hundred feet.’

  ‘One hundred and eight,’ he puffed. ‘One hundred and eight feet and one hundred and seventy steps.’

  She wrinkled her nose up at him. ‘You counted them?’

  ‘I read the information at the bottom,’ he wheezed. Natalie laughed. ‘You’re a funny guy.’

  Yeah—hilarious.

  When he had stopped shaking, he could appreciate that the view was indeed wonderful. It was a clear day and you could see for miles and miles—out over to the tiny village of Tring and then beyond to the unattractive 1970s town of Aylesbury in one direction and far past their own little market town of Leighton Buzzard in the other. Jeffrey turned to Natalie and pointed out into the distance. ‘If you squint, you can see the urban sprawl of Hemel Hempstead from here.’

  ‘That right?’

  ‘It’s where I work.’

  ‘No kidding?’ natalie squinted obligingly. ‘What do you do?’

  Jeffrey grimaced. ‘I’m an accountant.’

  Natalie smiled. ‘I had you down as an accountant sort of guy.’

  ‘I take it that’s not a compliment.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Natalie disagreed. ‘You’re a very thoughtful, sincere person. Not a lot of people have those qualities these days.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe you just need to hang loose a little more.�
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  He wondered exactly which bit of him she wanted to ‘hang loose’.

  ‘Shall we head back down?’ Natalie asked. ‘I think the children have probably had enough,’ Jeffrey agreed quickly.

  ‘Are you ready to tackle those stairs?’

  ‘Quite ready.’

  As he was about to move, she put her hand over his. It was surprisingly cool, given the heat of the day, and he hoped she wouldn’t notice how disgusting and sweaty his was. ‘Was it worth the risk, Jeffers?’

  ‘I think so,’ he answered, heart hammering in his chest.

  ‘It didn’t hurt one bit, did it? ‘She gave him a winsome smile.

  Jeffrey had to agree that, at that moment, he was feeling no pain at all.

  chapter 7

  The library at Northwood Priory was well stocked with leather-bound, serious-looking tomes—a distinct lack of Nora Roberts or Stephen King adorning the polished shelves. There was a gentle hum of conversation buzzing on the air and the sun blistered its way through the stained-glass windows, making the trays of melting cream cakes look an unappetising shade of pale green.

  Sonia curled up her nose at the curled-up cucumber sandwich, minus crust, that she held between her fingers like a dead fly. It was unlike her friend to be fussy with food, but being fussy she was. Kate helped herself to a piece of perspiring cheese and pineapple from a passing waitress. The canapés were wilting at an alarming rate in the heat and the ice-cold white wine was sliding down far too quickly.

  Sonia sidled up to her. ‘So this is where all the ecowarriors come for their holidays?’

  ‘Behave,’ Kate instructed, trying not to stare at the group of cropped-haired women in embroidered waistcoats and gypsy skirts. Nose-piercing seemed to be popular with them—and they all looked so young. She suddenly felt even more middle-aged—a real old fuddy-duddy.

  ‘One of the few benefits of getting old,’ Sonia elucidated in between sips, whilst surveying the room, ‘is that you don’t have to worry about baring your midriff or going through the pain of having your belly button or your nose pierced.’ She waved her glass expansively. ‘Tell me,’ she continued, ‘exactly how do you eat your breakfast cereal with a tongue stud in?’

  It was too disgusting to contemplate, Kate agreed. She just wished Sonia weren’t voicing her opinion quite so loudly. Particularly since every other woman in the room looked quite likely to have several parts of their anatomy pierced. ‘Sssh,’ Kate hissed. In vain.

  ‘And I bet tattooing hurts like shit.’ Sonia nodded, staring fixedly at an anorexic-looking woman with a snake banding her skinny upper arm. ‘I’ve had electrolysis,’ she said knowingly. ‘The sting of a thousand bees.’ She winced in remembrance. ‘And while it might seem a very good idea to have “GIRL POWER” tattooed on your firm little derrière when you’re eighteen, it’s going to look a bit silly when you’re sixty and half the letters have disappeared into folds of elephant skin. You could end up with “GROPER” on your bum,’ she sniggered.

  Kate tried to work out whether this was alphabetically or even politically correct, and gave up. ‘Grief, it’s hot in here,’ she said, fanning herself with her serviette.

  ‘Shall we go in the garden and check out the talent? There isn’t any in here and I’m starting to perspire like that cheese.’

  They wandered out through the French doors, onto an uneven terrace bearing little flowering mounds of saxifrage between the stones. The terrace was bordered by a sweeping manicured lawn, mowed into stripes with a meticulous touch that Kate could never quite understand. It was the sort of thing that Jeffrey could well turn to in years to come if she didn’t nip it in the bud.

  There was a croquet lawn, too, mallet and balls lying redundant against one of the hoops, begging someone to play. A towering Cedar of Lebanon spread its majestic branches earthwards to act as a natural signpost. One branch indicating the sheep-speckled meadows that sloped away from the priory towards the dried-up river bed, and the other pointing back at the main house which had put on its party best and was glowing golden in the sun. It was built of a mellow sandstone, covered in the twisting, gnarled stems of a rampant wisteria, unfortunately no longer in flower, which reached up to the crenellated ramparts and gave it the air of a toy town fort. The Benedictine monks had long since gone, and having been a hospital during the war and a mediocre public school, Northwood Priory was now enjoying a renaissance as an adult education centre.

  ‘What’s your room like?’ Sonia asked. They were housed in an attractive redbrick modern annexe, just behind the priory. ‘Mine’s a bit pokey. Definitely lacking in the frills and flounces department. And there’s no room to put anything anywhere.’

  ‘That’s because you’ve brought enough stuff to stay for the next forty-two years rather than a week.’

  ‘I’ve never been able to travel light,’ Sonia allowed. ‘You never know what you might need.’

  ‘I’m not sure your bikini will come in that handy.’

  ‘I didn’t know if they had a swimming pool or not.’ She shrugged.

  ‘If you’d read your blurb, you would have seen that not was the answer to that particular question.’

  ‘I don’t suppose I’ll need the blow-up air-bed then either.’ Kate chuckled. ‘Possibly not.’

  ‘You’re not being very sociable, ladies,’ a voice like a melted Milky Way said from behind her.

  She turned and came face to face with its owner. A pair of the palest blue eyes she’d ever seen stared back at her. ‘We’re clinging together out of fear,’ she said as lightly as she could manage.

  ‘Surely not?’

  Well, it was true in her case, but Sonia was clinging to her simply because she hadn’t spotted anyone sufficiently fanciable to bother to pursue.

  The newcomer held out his hand. ‘Ben,’ he said. ‘Ben Mahler.’

  Sonia thrust out her hand and clutched him in a death grip. He grinned good-humouredly, showing a slightly crooked front tooth which spoilt his heart-stopping smile and rendered it merely devastating.

  ‘Sonia Buchanan,’ her friend said, making her eyes go round and soulful like Ally McBeal’s.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Sonia,’ Ben said and turned to Kate.

  She resisted the urge to wipe her palm on her dress and took his hand. His fingers were strong and sure. Warm. ‘K-Kate Lewis,’ she stammered.

  ‘What course are you doing?’ he asked politely.

  ‘T’ai Chi,’ she said.

  ‘Both of you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What about you, Ben?’ Sonia said girlishly, twisting her blonde hair round a finger.

  He pursed his lips. ‘Same.’

  ‘I didn’t have you down as a T’ai Chi-er.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I am,’ he admitted. ‘I was booked on The Beauties of Bordeaux—the wines, not the women.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘But it was cancelled last week because the tutor died.’

  ‘How awful!’

  ‘Cirrhosis of the liver,’ Ben explained. ‘Hazard of the job, I suppose.’ They all sipped their wine in a moment of reverent silence. ‘I’d already booked the week off work, so I decided to come anyway and transferred to the next available course. I thought Trying Out T’ai Chi would suit me infinitely better than Fun with Fur Fabric or Beaded Bags for Beginners.’

  They both laughed. Sonia more loudly.

  Ben shrugged. ‘It’s just good to get away.’

  Kate knew how he felt. It was a shame that she couldn’t stop her mind wandering back to Jeffrey in the woods with Ms Pneumatic Knickers.

  ‘Are you local to here?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Bedfordshire,’ Sonia replied.

  ‘Which part?’

  She smiled in what Kate assumed was intended to be a seductive manner. ‘All of me!’

  He was polite enough to laugh. The sound was soft and gentle, like summer rain on canvas. It seemed somehow at odds with his appearance. Ben’s face was classically handsome, with high cheekbones—the lot—bu
t on first impression he looked rather aloof and arrogant. His hair was light brown, mousey if you were being unkind, cropped short in the current style. Nice. There were flecks of silver-grey through it, picked out by the sun, which said that he was probably a few years older than he looked. Kate hazarded a guess at mid-thirties. Sonia clearly wouldn’t have cared if he was mid-teens, she was totally besotted already.

  ‘Where are you from?’ Sonia asked.

  ‘Surrey, originally—Richmond,’ he answered. ‘All of me, too.’

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I run an advertising agency in town,’ he said. ‘And now I live there, too.’ By town, Kate assumed he meant London.

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I have my own health club,’ Sonia said with a sweep of her arm. ‘Nothing much,’ she added, failing to acknowledge Kate’s open-mouthed stare. ‘Wall-to-wall mirrors, dance studio, sauna, Jacuzzi, hi-tech gym. You know how it is?’

  Ben looked impressed. ‘What do you do, Kate?’

  ‘I’m a housewife,’ she said lamely.

  He nodded with an attempt at an encouraging smile that may have been pity. ‘That’s nice.’

  No, it isn’t. It’s a conversation stopper. Perhaps I should have invented a glamorous alter-ego like Sonia, whose only work since Andrew was born was a disastrous two weeks in a shoe shop before she was unceremoniously given the boot.

  As expected, the small talk suddenly petered out and they both turned to Kate as if she was the one to rescue the embarrassed silence, having caused it. If they were looking for inspiration, they’d come to the wrong place. It was years since she’d done this polite chit-chat thing and the strain was showing. It probably wasn’t a good idea to ask Ben whether he’d finished his homework, which was the level of conversation she’d been having for the past five years. No wonder her mind felt like it had been put out to grass.

  Kate shuffled from foot to foot and glanced at her watch. ‘Oh, is that the time?’ she said. ‘I’d better go and get changed.’ Her tummy had begun to churn nervously. ‘The first class will be starting soon.’