The McCabe Girls Complete Collection

by Freya North

  She yawned expansively.

  Neither.

  She let her eyes close.

  Nope.

  She thought of Adam and of Eve. She told herself that this was the reason for her visit today.

  Nope. Neither Matt or James. Not worth it – not worth the hassle, not worth the gain.

  She fell asleep feeling that, above all, she’d been unfaithful to Julius Fetherstone.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.

  Oscar Wilde

  James had no ingredients for soup. He didn’t even have a tin of Safeways home-brand, let alone Baxters or Heinz with which to improvise or serve as a base. He did have some Cup-a-soup but the fleeting thought of using it appalled him so much that he pushed the box to the back of the cupboard. He didn’t want to go and ask Fen what she’d like instead. He decided that he’d make chicken sandwiches. And he’d put lashings of mayonnaise on hers, because she looked like she needed feeding up.

  I bet she lives in a shared house where supper is invariably baked potatoes or Marks & Spencer ready meals.

  You can talk, James, you who frequently dines on Heinz tomato soup, infrequently on Cup-a-soup, invariably followed by a bowl of cornflakes, then a packet of ham which you eat, slice by slice, while watching the television and ignoring the heartstring-tugging gaze of your dogs. Jaffa Cakes before bed time which, if your dogs are lucky and their soulful looks are imploring enough and if the packet is more than half full, you share.

  James cut the bread into doorstep wedges. The chicken, leftovers from a Sunday roast, was still succulent and he licked his fingers frequently. He mixed a little mustard in with the mayonnaise for piquancy and made a potato salad with left-over boiled new potatoes. It all looked hearty and appetizing.

  ‘Fenella,’ he called, ‘lunch.’

  But there was no response. He wanted her to come into the kitchen, so he could have the distance and the propriety and the safety of the table between them. A working lunch.

  ‘Fen?’

  Still no reply.

  Oh God, I hope she hasn’t gone snooping.

  James ventured into the snug. Fen’s arm was lolling over the side of the chair which he had told her to sit in. It had its back to him. He walked around and came across Fen fast asleep. It made him smile. She looked ten years younger, her eyelids softly closed, her lips parted, breathing lightly and rhythmically. Her white cotton shirt was open at the neck. He saw a pulse twitching calmly at the base of her throat. Her white cotton shirt revealed more now that she was slumped and relaxed. James came nearer and peered carefully, to delight in the soft undulation of her right breast. Her skin looked good enough to lick.

  Chicken sandwiches. Chicken sandwiches. Wake her.

  He inched closer, captivated more by what the shirt concealed than what it revealed. She didn’t so much have a cleavage as a slight dip between her breasts. But that looked good enough to lick too.

  Wake her. Sandwiches.

  He held his breath the closer he came to her. He didn’t want to wake her. His lips were inches away from her skin. He glanced at her face. Fen McCabe gazed back at him. Wide awake. And just as hungry. A suspended moment, a pregnant pause, lips wet and willing. James, though, straightened up.

  ‘I didn’t know whether to wake you, sleeping beauty,’ he said hoarsely, one hand on his stomach, the other in his back pocket, ‘but lunch is ready.’ He turned.

  ‘Prince Charming woke Sleeping Beauty with a kiss,’ Fen said, the pulse in her neck racing.

  James pretended not to hear.

  But you woke up. You woke up.

  They ate in cordial silence. James was pleased to observe how Fen wolfed down the sandwiches and helped herself to seconds of the potato salad. Conversation was frugal and polite over coffee.

  ‘Where are the dogs?’ Fen asked.

  ‘In the utility room,’ James replied. ‘How’s your uncle?’

  ‘Fine,’ Fen said, ‘Django is fine.’

  ‘Will you see him today?’

  ‘No,’ Fen said, looking ever so slightly shifty, ‘it isn’t that kind of visit.’

  ‘What time is your train?’

  Fen’s eyes flitted from side to side though she tried to fix her gaze on a piece of potato on the table. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘See how things go?’ James suggested. Fen nodded.

  ‘I suppose you’ll be wanting to see them,’ James laughed. Fen’s eyes sparkled.

  They were in his bedroom. The oil sketches were propped on the chest of drawers behind all the old framed photographs; the sculpture was by the side of the doorway leading to the ensuite bathroom.

  ‘Hullo,’ Fen said to them, to James’s amusement. She turned to him. Slightly flushed. ‘Can I use your bathroom?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, motioning to it with a nod of his head, ‘go right ahead.’ He could hear her taking a pee. An unmistakably feminine trickle. His cock stirred in his trousers.

  For God’s sake.

  Inside the bathroom, Fen was disappointed. The fantasy of taking a bath in a roll-top cast-iron classic was sadly dampened by reality presenting her with a modern plastic suite in a discouraging shade of peach.

  ‘Can you manage them OK?’ James asked, remembering that the sculpture, despite its humble proportions, was heavy.

  ‘Sure,’ said Fen, gazing at the intertwined figures. ‘I don’t want to go home just yet.’ She looked a little unhappy.

  ‘The trains are regular,’ James offered.

  She looked at her feet and caught sight of a John Grisham novel lying on the floor by the bed. She was quite taken aback. She’d imagined Garcia Marquez being James’s night-time reading. Grisham was on a par with the peach bathroom suite.

  ‘Fen?’ James was saying. ‘Train time?’

  ‘What?’ Fen said. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Or,’ asked James, ‘would you rather I kidnap you for an extortionate ransom? Then I could keep the Fetherstones.’

  ‘My family aren’t very flush,’ Fen responded, ‘and most of my friends have excessively burdensome overdrafts.’

  ‘Not such a good idea, then,’ James replied, wondering why on earth he’d said such a thing anyway. What would Trust Art think? What would Mrs Brakespeare think? What would Fen think?

  ‘You could kidnap me for free,’ Fen suggested, shy in voice but coy in her sideways glance and tilt of her head. ‘Adam and Eve look very at home here,’ she said, ‘right here, in the bedroom. They shouldn’t be in a gallery. They should be in a bedroom, or outside in a garden of Eden of their own.’

  ‘My roof, remember,’ said James, wanting to deflect attention away from the intimacy of the bedroom setting.

  ‘James,’ Fen said.

  ‘My sodding roof.’

  ‘Kiss me.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Kiss me, James.’

  ‘No, Fen.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She goes over to the window and looks out over the garden. What on earth did she just say? Oh God. Out loud. James gazes at the back of her head. What did she just say? And he’d said no? Of course he wants to kiss her. But it is absolutely out of the question. She’s young enough to be, to be – to be absolutely out of bounds.

  Bollocks, James, you’ve had women far younger than Fen.

  It’s not right.

  Why not?

  Suddenly, Fen feels him behind her. He is encircling her in his arms. They do not speak. He takes his left hand and runs his fingertips lightly over her forearm until their fingers lock. They move their bodies around a little. They instinctively find each other’s mouths and they lock lips. Fen feels herself dissolve, like bubbles in a bath. She could crumple to the floor because she knows that James’s arms are holding her. For James, kissing Fen is like having one’s mouth filled with honey. Or petals. Sweet-pea petals, he decides, as her tongue darts lightly over his. James sm
ells heavenly. After a morning’s gardening, there’s a slight musky sweatiness shot through with pheromones; there’s the scent of cold roast chicken, and a very faint linger of a light aftershave. He is tall. He appears to be strong. She can sense his hard-on. She wants it badly.

  Fen feels enveloped. Completely enclosed by masculinity. She is overwhelmingly turned on, brought to the edge of orgasm by James’s kiss alone.

  ‘I have to go,’ she says, pulling away from his lips.

  ‘No,’ James murmurs, ‘couldn’t we—?’

  ‘Yes,’ Fen melts, closing her eyes and offering James her lips. He cups her face in his hands, takes his lips to her eyelids, to the tip of her nose, to the corner of her mouth where he flicks his tongue tip tantalizingly.

  ‘No,’ says James, ‘you’re right. You have to go, Fen. You must.’

  They stand facing each other, eyes scorching into one another. She wants to be kissed by him again. She wants to stay.

  ‘Take the bronze today,’ James says quietly, ‘because of course the oil sketches aren’t here, are they?’

  Fen and he regard the oil sketches.

  ‘No,’ said Fen, ‘they’re not here. They’re at the framers. And I’m cross because I’ve told you to leave them unframed.’

  ‘But though we have been able to stop the process,’ James says, ‘the earliest I can have them here is next week.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Fen, ‘next Monday. I can come and collect them then.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  ‘She’s switched her phone off,’ Matt said, having tried Fen for the fourth time that day. He scratched his head. Otter shrugged. He hadn’t told Matt what he’d told Fen. He didn’t want it to become an issue between Matt and her. Otter had told Fen because he sincerely thought he would be setting straight what Judith had undoubtedly twisted. He simply wanted to furnish Fen with the facts so that salacious inaccuracies would not hinder her impending union with Matt. Otter cared about both of them. He didn’t care for Judith at all. Of course, Matt didn’t know that Otter knew about the recent coupling with the assistant director; certainly not that the assistant director had told Otter herself. So, Matt was merely concerned for Fen’s welfare on a day when she wasn’t at work and her phone was off. He’d been hoping to take her out that night, to make up for yesterday. ‘Flu, perhaps?’ Matt suggested out loud. ‘I wonder if Bobbie has her home number?’

  While Matt went downstairs to Reception, Judith paid a visit to Publications.

  ‘Where is he?’ she asked Otter, who twisted his legs around each other and placed his bony rump firmly on top of his skinny hands in a bid to prevent himself from going over to Judith and hitting her.

  ‘Loo?’ Otter suggested.

  ‘I tell you something,’ Judith said, regarding Otter levelly with very dark eyes, ‘he’s bloody odd. Warped, you could say. Twisted. Sexually – I don’t know – unstable.’

  Otter couldn’t help looking sheepish and shy – because he had absolutely no idea what on earth he could say in response or in Matt’s defence.

  Matt returned. Otter held his breath, wondering if this was perfect timing or the worst timing imaginable.

  ‘Hi,’ Judith breathed, ‘I was just telling Otter about last night.’

  Matt observed her but remained silent. Then he grinned and laughed out loud, curtly. Judith raised an eyebrow and sashayed from the room.

  ‘And what exactly did she tell you about last night?’ Matt demanded of Otter.

  ‘That you’re sexually warped, twisted and unstable,’ Otter replied with extreme nonchalance, as if simply recounting Matt’s age, height and weight. Matt laughed and shook his head. It disconcerted Otter greatly. What was he meant to tell Fen now? Because surely, she’d ask. She’d expect to know, at any rate, and Otter had of course given himself the role of her confidante. There was a sharp pain in his stomach and a pervasive acidy taste in his mouth. He thought he very probably had developed an ulcer, on account of so much stress and responsibility.

  ‘I hear you’re in Derbyshire – you skiver!’ Matt leaves a message on Fen’s phone. ‘Just thought I’d ring, though. I was hoping to wine and dine you tonight. Give me a call if British Rail has deposited you home at a reasonable hour. Um. Or I’ll see you at work tomorrow. Yes. Bye.’

  Matt rings her phone again, almost immediately. Otter pretends not to hear though he is listening hard, peeling his ears to catch Matt’s lowered voice.

  ‘Fen, it’s me again, Matt. Er. I just wanted to – well, basically I’m sorry again for last night. It was pants, anyway.’

  He wonders whether that was too corny. But there’s little he can do about it. He hopes she’ll call. He feels badly about last night. And hopeful for tonight.

  But Fen didn’t call. The train whisked her back down south. She listened to his messages when there was a signal on her phone. They made her smile. But she didn’t want to speak to Matt. She wasn’t punishing him. She wasn’t playing games with him. In fact she didn’t feel cross with him at all. She wanted to linger over memories of James, instead. Uninterrupted. Because it would be nearly a week until she saw him again. She hugged his rucksack close to her, though the bronze was heavy, digging into her ribs and poking her stomach. The bag smelt of James’s hallway. She closed her eyes and tried to conjure the smell of the man himself. She felt no regret that they hadn’t had sex. Just a yearning.

  Jake and Matt met at their local after work. They loved the place. A rarity in London – a pub that has not lost its identity, a pub at ease with itself, a pub whose landlord and clientele had no interest, no desire for even a change of carpet, let alone cosmetic surgery to turn it into a wine bar or gastro-pub or a meetery-eatery with leather sofas and candles. You couldn’t order a Sea Breeze because the landlord didn’t trust pink drinks. If you wanted vodka, the mixers available were all in little bottles, because the landlord did not trust those one-gun-gives-all gadgets. Tonic. Coke. Ginger. Bitter lemon. No diet versions available. There were glacé cherries for the ladies, lemon slices and lime cordial. Crisps were available in ready salted, cheese and onion and salt and vinegar. There were peanuts too, in bags which were a bugger to open. Sandwiches, and sandwiches only, on white pre-sliced bread, were served at lunch-time, and at lunch-time only. No salad garnish. No cutlery. Kitchen roll in lieu of paper napkins. (‘Unnecessary,’ the landlord had explained to Jake and Matt one Saturday lunch-time, ‘poncey paper napkins would just put up the price of the sarnies.’ Kitchen roll was fine for Jake and Matt – more than they had in their flat.)

  Though Jake and Matt were lager drinkers, there was something so classic about the bitter at their local – its colour, its luke warmth, its slightly repellent odour of eggy fart, that they rarely ordered anything else. There was a jar of pickled eggs behind the bar, but the contents hadn’t diminished in all the time that Jake and Matt had frequented the establishment. A giant whisky bottle sat on the bar, half filled with coins to benefit charity, but the contents hadn’t increased much in all the time that Jake and Matt had been frequenting the place. The clientele, integral to the atmosphere, hadn’t changed at all.

  Ages spanned decades. Personal circumstances probably ranged from flat broke to absolutely loaded. It was irrelevant. All were equal there. They gravitated to this particular pub, because absolutely nowhere else could serve them better. Faces were therefore always familiar, yet the atmosphere was never cliquey. Everyone knew the bar staff’s names and the bar staff knew the names of all the clients. But the clients merely exchanged nods with one another. Affable but respectful. Specific seats had invisible ‘reserved’ signs on for particular people. It was a quiet pub; it smelt – not unpleasantly – of beer towels that needed a wash, windows that should be opened more often, stale Hamlet cigars. It was totally unpretentious and honest, as a good pint itself should be. People went there to sup in peace or in company; not to get drunk, but to wile away an evening. Though it was called the Coach and Horses, its clientele only ever thought of it and referred to
it as The Pub. As if there was no choice, no contest; the one and only. Which is precisely why Matt and Jake had gone there. Sitting at a corner table. Two pints of bitter. Salt and vinegar. Cheese and onion. Jamie Oliver would be hard pressed to come up with a better repast for two young men on a weekday night.

  ‘Did you? Did you shag her again?’

  From whose lips came this? Because it could have been Matt enquiring after Gemma, or Jake wondering about Judith.

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘No,’ Matt said, ‘I didn’t. But she spent the whole evening coming on to me.’

  ‘But you didn’t,’ Jake said.

  ‘Didn’t want to, mate,’ Matt told him.

  Jake understood this to mean that Matt hadn’t wanted to mate, as in fornicate. Matt laughed. ‘No,’ he confirmed, ‘I don’t. Not with Judith. I’m ready for Fen, now, I think.’

  Jake whistled in admiration. He didn’t think Matt had gone soft. He actually rather admired his outlook. Partly, because it was so diametrically opposed to his own.

  ‘Abi and Gemma suit me perfectly,’ he said, with a tinge of woe, ‘blonde and brunette. Night and day.’

  ‘Salt and vinegar,’ Matt said, offering the open packet of crisps to Jake.

  ‘Cheese and onion,’ Jake responded likewise.

  ‘You’ll get caught, you will,’ Matt warned.

  ‘But until I do,’ Jake said, ‘I’ll continue as normal.’

  Normal? Matt thought, I don’t think so.

  ‘I don’t know how you do it,’ Matt said.

  ‘High levels of testosterone,’ Jake shrugged, ‘interacting with a very, very dirty mind.’

  I meant, I don’t know how you do it – how you maintain such a clear conscience.

  ‘Abi? Gemma?’ Fen called down from her room on hearing the front door open. She had half hoped to avoid both. After all, it had only been that morning – though the trip to Derbyshire made it seem weeks ago – that she had come across Jake and Gemma.

  ‘It’s me,’ Abi called back.

  Shit, thought Fen. Though, had it been Gemma arriving home, Fen’s response would have been exactly the same.