by Della Galton
OK, so it wasn’t her dream home – that would definitely be bigger and less hemmed in by other people and probably even closer to the sea. A house on a clifftop with a huge garden big enough for children to grow up in would have been perfect. But number five would do nicely for now. Unless she made it big on the small screen, or possibly hooked up with a millionaire, she couldn’t see the clifftop dream house ever becoming a reality.
She drew up outside Phil’s house behind his old blue Ford Focus. Phil earned a half decent salary at The Bluebell, and sometimes she wondered what he spent his money on. Not cars, that was for sure. The Ford Focus was getting on for ten years old.
Tom had been well off. She gave a little shiver. He had also, as it turned out, been flaky and unreliable with no integrity. Thankfully he was no longer in the country. A mutual friend had told her that Tom had got a new job – still in sales and had moved to Spain at the end of last year.
Olivia had been relieved because it had meant there was no chance of bumping into him unexpectedly. The informative friend had also said that Tom had a new girlfriend, but she wasn’t sure if she’d gone to Spain with him or not.
Annoyed with herself for even thinking about him, Olivia put Tom out of her mind. She had already wasted far too much of her life on Tom.
Her phone pinged with a text just as she got to Phil’s front door and rang the bell. They hadn’t yet got to the stage of having keys for each other’s houses.
The text was from Ruby, answering her earlier message.
Yes please to the chat. I could really use your advice.
Another surprise. Ruby rarely, if ever, asked for advice. She was one of those ultra-confident people who soared through life.
Olivia’s hand hesitated over her sister’s number. Maybe she should phone her back now. But she and Phil only had a few hours as it was, before he’d be leaving for work. She didn’t want to eat into their time. Was that selfish?
It probably wasn’t urgent. It was most likely about cakes. That was the only thing she imagined she could possibly give Ruby advice on.
The front door opened and the decision was taken out of her hands.
‘Hey, honey.’ Phil bent to kiss her. He was barefoot and his black hair was unruly. He was one of those guys who looked even sexier when he was a little tousled.
Her heart gave a flip and all thoughts of Tom vanished like mist in the morning sun.
She stepped inside and followed him back along his hall to his galley kitchen.
‘I haven’t just got up,’ he said. ‘In case you were wondering. I’ve been busy.’
‘Busy doing what?’ she asked, almost tripping over a wicker basket that was just inside the kitchen door.
‘Packing a picnic. Sorry. I should have warned you it was there,’ he added, as she stepped round the basket more gingerly. ‘I thought it would be fun to eat outside for a change, as it’s such a nice day.’
It was true it was. The weather forecasters had been right about it being a blazing weekend.
‘What’s in it?’ She knelt down and lifted the lid which was attached to the basket by a couple of old-fashioned leather straps. Inside, tucked into the lid in special holders, were a couple of plates, two knives and forks and two glasses. In the basket itself, which had a red checked inner lining, were several tinfoil-wrapped packages.
‘Salmon and rocket sandwiches, mini quiches and a selection of cheese,’ Phil said. ‘And there may be some strawberry shortbread.’
‘That sounds brilliant. I didn’t know you were such a romantic.’
‘The strawberry shortbreads are from Mr B. They’re an apology for a little argument we had.’
‘What did you argue about?’
‘He thought it would be entertaining to replace all the money in the restaurant till with peanuts,’ Phil said.
‘Peanuts?’ She swallowed the urge to laugh because he didn’t sound amused.
‘Yes, the till was updated recently with a modern one and it’s the kind that pings out really quickly when you press a button. So there I was, getting the delivery guy from the brewery some cash for an order and I find myself being snowballed with peanuts. They went bloody everywhere. The guy from the brewery – who’s a bit of a Jack the Lad – thought it was hilarious. He was choking with laughter when he realised what was going on. And Mr B was howling like a hyena. I could hear him even though he was on the other side of the room. Out of hitting distance.’
‘That is quite funny, you have to admit.’
‘Yeah, his timing is impeccable.’ Now she could see the hint of a smile. ‘I’ll give him that.’
‘And I assume you’d done nothing to provoke the peanut prank?’ She shot him a suspicious look.
‘As if,’ Phil said in a voice of such guilelessness that Olivia knew he was lying through his teeth. ‘What?’ He caught her gaze and raised his eyebrows innocently. ‘OK he may have been getting his own back for the exploding birthday cake.’
‘The what?’ She shrieked with laughter. ‘Oh, do tell.’
‘It was a balloon that we’d covered in icing and decorated for his birthday – I never thought he’d go for it. But he didn’t think I had anything to do with it because I was off work at the time. To be fair, I didn’t have that much to do with it. I just gave a couple of temporary waitresses the idea – and they did all the legwork. They thought it was hilarious. They videoed the whole thing for posterity. And for me, of course.’ Phil’s eyes lit up with amusement. ‘You should have seen his face. It was priceless. He jumped about two foot in the air, sacked both waitresses on the spot and then ranted about health and safety and giving people heart attacks for about ten minutes.’
‘He might have a point. And what about the poor waitresses?’
‘He hasn’t got a heart condition. A black heart maybe.’ Phil chuckled. ‘Don’t worry. It was the waitresses’ last day anyway. So no harm done.’
‘Until the peanuts.’
‘Yes, he left it just long enough for me to think he wasn’t going to retaliate. Then he sprung it on me. Sprung being the operative word. Fortunately, it wasn’t a customer who witnessed it, just the brewery guy, who will never let me hear the end of it. He mentions it every time he comes in and the entire staff think it’s funny to make nut jokes at my expense. Egged on by Mr B, naturally. It was starting to wear a bit thin and we ended up having a row about it. For which Mr B apologised.’
Olivia looked at the strawberry shortbreads suspiciously.
‘Do you think he’s put anything in them? Should we be worried?’
‘No. That would be way too obvious.’ He gave her a lopsided grin. ‘Besides, it’s my turn, not his. We do have this kind of code of honour.’
Olivia decided that, nevertheless, she’d treat the shortbreads with extreme caution.
She grabbed hold of the picnic basket handles and lifted. ‘Wow, it’s heavy.’
‘I know. It was heavy before I put anything in it. We may need to have a picnic quite close to the car.’
‘Where are we going anyway?’
He shook his head. He refused to tell her, even when they were in the car.
‘You’ll have to wait and see,’ he said peaceably as he drove out of Brancombe, towards Corfe Castle. ‘I think you’ll like it.’
Olivia guessed it wasn’t the coast, although she supposed they might have been heading for Kimmeridge Bay. Dorset was full of sheltered little coves with sandy beaches and the occasional cave once used by long-ago smugglers.
They passed the turn-off for Kimmeridge, so not there either then. Olivia gave up trying to guess and just enjoyed the scenery, which was a mixture of fields and woodland and, of course, what remained of Corfe Castle, which stood high up on a hill dominating the skyline. The towering dark grey slabs of stone were still pretty impressive even in ruins. Below the castle, the town of Corfe nestled, all Purbeck stone and incredibly picturesque. Maybe they were going to Corfe Castle. She dismissed that idea. Lugging the picnic basket up th
e steep path to the top would have been hard work.
They passed Corfe Castle too and then Phil turned off just before Wareham and went across a cattle grid. There were fields dotted with horses and the occasional sheep on either side of them now and about ten minutes later he pulled up into a layby.
They appeared to be in the middle of nowhere, but then she spotted a path that led off into the distance.
‘Can you manage that little rucksack?’ Phil asked her as they got out of the car. ‘It’s quite light. It’s just got a ground sheet in.’
‘You are organised. I’m impressed.’
‘I try. It shouldn’t be too damp, but you never know. Best to be prepared.’
He picked up the picnic basket and she followed him along a track that ran parallel to the road.
‘This is Hartland Moor,’ he told her as they walked. ‘I’ve been coming here since I was a kid. It’s really peaceful. Even in the height of summer, it doesn’t get that busy.’
She felt suddenly really privileged. He didn’t talk about his background much. She knew fragments of his story – that he was an only child, and that when his father was in his early forties, he had died of a heart attack. In typical Phil fashion, he had glossed over the details of that, saying it was a long time ago. But he’d blinked several times when he’d told her and he’d looked so sad that Olivia had grabbed hold of his hand and squeezed it tight.
Phil’s mother was a Lancashire lass. She’d met his father when she’d been on holiday in Swanage and when they’d got married, she had moved down to be with him. Phil had been brought up in Swanage. Then, when his dad had died, his mother had moved back to Lancashire to be closer to her mum and two sisters. But Phil had stayed in the area he knew and loved.
He didn’t see his mother and aunts very often these days.
‘We get on OK, but she has her life and I have mine,’ he’d told Olivia. ‘And hers is very rooted in her village. She’s not averse to the south, but she has a phobia of public transport and she doesn’t drive. So, if I want to see her, I have to go back up there.’
Olivia wondered if it was either or both of those things that had made him so independent.
‘This place is beautiful,’ she said now, looking around her at the heathland as they walked and breathing in the scents of gorse and fresh air and the underlay of spring newness that was everywhere. ‘Are we going to a particular spot?’
‘Oh yes.’
After they’d been walking about five minutes, he turned off the track, which a little while later opened up into a large clearing dominated by a circular pool which must have been about ten metres across.
There were a few gorse bushes straggling around the perimeter and some convenient mounds and it was on one of these that Phil put down the picnic basket with a sigh of relief.
‘This is it. Our very own, utterly private picnic spot. Not many people know about this.’
He sounded enormously pleased with himself and she nodded in delight. The pool wasn’t even visible from the main track. You’d never know it was there unless you knew exactly where to turn off.
‘You know you said you fancied trying wild swimming?’ Phil said, as she tipped the groundsheet out of the rucksack and discovered it was rolled up with a couple of towels. ‘Well, now’s your chance.’
‘Before lunch or after?’
Phil shrugged off his jacket and began to unpeel his T-shirt. ‘I reckon before.’
‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any swimmies in that rucksack?’ Olivia asked lightly, not expecting there would be, but interested to see his reaction.
‘Do wild swimmers need costumes?’ He lifted one eyebrow in a challenge and they both smiled.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘Last one in gets the picnic laid out.’
9
He raced ahead of her as she knew he would and Olivia looped her hair up into a scrunchy and followed him in more cautiously. The water was freezing and there was a mix of silty clay underfoot, which felt squishy between her toes, but thankfully not too many stones, she discovered, when they had splashed out into the middle, shrieking and gasping at the temperature. They laughed even more when they realised it didn’t get more than waist deep even in the very middle of the pool.
‘Have you swum in here before?’ she called when they were a metre or so away from each other.
‘Yeah, but it was deeper then. Mind you, I think I was only about ten.’ He turned round, managing, in typical gentlemanly Phil style, not to stare at her breasts.
She splashed him, which made him yell, and then swam away before he could retaliate. Swimming fast was the only way to cope with the cold, but it was amazing how freeing it was, swimming without clothes beneath the sky, even if it was in a pond in the middle of nowhere in water that wasn’t very deep.
Or maybe it was because of these things that it was so freeing. For a few moments, Olivia rolled over and floated on her back and looked up into a sky that was patterned with white clouds. It was incredibly peaceful. There were no traffic sounds. All she could hear was birdsong and the sounds of a faint breeze rustling the leaves on the trees. Sunlight reflected off the water and tiny flies skittered and danced just above the surface. Olivia breathed in the scents of the outdoors – faintly brackish water, fresh air and the new growth of forest fauna that surrounded the pool – and she knew she would always remember this moment.
Phil swam across to her. He had a splodge of silt on his cheek. ‘What do you think? Was this a good idea?’
‘It was an excellent idea. I love it. Although actually, when I said wild swimming, I was thinking of somewhere less muddy. Like the sea,’ she teased.
‘I thought mud was supposed to be good for your skin.’
‘This is true. You can pay a fortune for certain types of mud. I’m not so sure about it being good for your hair.’ Most of hers had escaped from its hastily tied knot and was fanned out in the dark water.
‘We can go in the sea next time.’
‘It’s a deal.’
They didn’t stay in very long. It was way too cold. Phil went ahead of her back onto the bank where the picnic basket was and brought a towel down to the edge of the pool. ‘Thanks.’
She felt as though her entire body was tingling. Every inch of her skin felt invigorated and alive. They dried themselves off and got dressed. Then Olivia shook out the picnic blanket and was amused when a couple of peanuts fell out on the ground.
Phil tutted good-naturedly. ‘I’ve been finding flaming peanuts everywhere since the till stunt.’
‘I bet.’ She smiled at him. ‘Thank you for this. I think that’s one of the most exhilarating things I’ve ever done.’
‘And we haven’t even been scuba diving yet. Do you have any of the kit?’
‘I do as it happens. It’s in my shed.’ She had learned with Tom. It had been one of his fleeting passions. In typical Tom fashion, he’d gone overboard and bought top-of-the-range kit, before they’d even qualified, along with membership of a dive club. They’d gone several times in Weymouth, but then he’d lost interest. She’d gone a few more times with Hannah, who was also a keen scuba diver, but then when Hannah moved to Cornwall, Olivia had stopped going too. ‘How about you?’ she asked Phil. ‘Do you have the kit?’
‘No, although I’ve got a mate with a boat who dives regularly. He’d loan me some stuff, I’m sure.’
‘How long ago did you qualify?’
‘Five years. I didn’t do a lot. It was one of those things I thought might be handy for my CV. Not that there’s a great deal of call for actors who can scuba dive.’
She laughed. ‘No.’
As they ate the picnic, they talked about where they could go. Swanage Pier sounded pretty safe. But there were also a few prime spots near her.
‘There’s a little cove on Portland Bill where I’ve done a shore dive a few times,’ she told him. ‘That’s pretty popular.’
‘We could go there.’
‘Maybe we should go on a r
efresher course first. Just to make sure we can remember how to do it.’
‘That’s not a bad plan.’
‘I’ll haul out my kit and check it over. Some of it will need servicing,’ she said.
He smiled in the sunshine and she tilted her face up to the sky, loving the feeling of being outdoors surrounded by birdsong.
They stayed for another hour, soaking up the spring sunshine and chatting. They saw no one else. Not even a dogwalker disturbed the peace. It was one of those fabulous days, Olivia thought, when nothing could go wrong.
As Phil drove them back to his house where they showered and changed, she was reminded of an old Lou Reed song, ‘Perfect Day’. That’s what today had been. A perfect, timeless day, even though they were bounded by Phil having to fly off to The Bluebell for work at four. Maybe this was what had made it all the more precious.
She forgot all about Ruby’s text until she had waved Phil off and was sitting in her van about to make the journey back to Weymouth.
She toyed with the idea of phoning her back, but she didn’t have Bluetooth in her van so that would have meant sitting outside Phil’s house for the duration of the call. She would be virtually driving past Ruby’s house anyway, so she may as well pop by and see her.
Ruby didn’t live with anyone and she’d split up with her last boyfriend – Olivia thought his name had been Scott – a few weeks earlier. They hadn’t been together long – they’d only met just before Christmas – and Ruby hadn’t said much about the split, other than he hadn’t been what she’d thought he was. She hadn’t sounded particularly upset.
The bottom line, Olivia thought, was that Ruby wasn’t as interested in dating as she was in art. Her world and her social life revolved around it. Scott had probably been someone on the fringes of her world.
Ruby was a social butterfly and loved schmoozing people, which was a huge part of her job and probably one of the reasons she was so successful.
Olivia imagined that one day, when she was ready, her sister would settle down with some guy who would be the yin to her yang. He would appear out of the blue and sweep her off her feet. But so far, he hadn’t materialised. Ruby may love people en masse, but she’d told Olivia after a slightly tipsy meal just before Christmas, that she’d never been in love.
