Oh bugger, thought April.
‘He’s going to be checking up on all tenancy agreements, inspecting properties, you know . . .’
Double bugger. ‘So what’s Sebastian going to be doing, then?’
Martina preened. ‘Brittany, who will no doubt one day be our daughter-in-law, so it’s keeping it more or less in the family, has offered him a little job with Frobishers.’
Thank God, April thought. ‘Oh well, it’s always good to have a change, isn’t it? Will he be making beer or something?’
Martina frowned, looking as though she’d probably already been a bit too chummy with a subordinate. ‘No, it’s no secret that he won’t actually be working for the brewery. He’s down in bloody Ampney Crucis, masterminding the staging of the Platinum Trophy.’
Oh, double double bugger, thought April.
‘This is it, then. You can open your eyes now.’ Jix, who had insisted that April shut her eyes the minute they drove into Ampney Crucis, had switched off the van’s engine. ‘What do you think?’
April, expecting to be parked outside one of the villas along the main road, blinked.
The sea, rushing and crashing below them, looked like molten silver beneath the heavy sky. The wind whistled through the frost-bleached grass on the cliff top, and the strangely shaped trees, all leaning away from the sea, spread skeletal arms across the crisscrossed sandy paths. The Crumpled Horn and the Crow’s Nest Caff were just visible round a bend in the twisting shingle road, and several other cottages nestled in a rather higgledy-piggledy row on either side.
‘It’s a cottage . . .’ April stared at the little stone-built house, with its sloping tiled roof, and a holly bush hedge, and a tangle of gorse and heather and ferns in the garden. It was straight out of her dreams. ‘A cottage by the sea. Oh, it’s beautiful . . . Will there be enough room for us all to stay here?’
‘Three bedrooms, according to the brochure,’ Jix said, watching her face. ‘Two receptions, a kitchen and a bathroom. Loads of room.’
Bee and Daff and Cair Paravel were staring at it too. Cair Paravel had decided that as long as Daff wasn’t wearing floral polyester he didn’t want to savage her. Daff now spent most of her time in tweed.
April unbuckled her seat belt. ‘And the landlady knows about Cairey, does she? There’s not a problem with dogs? Or children?’
‘Not a problem at all. And there’s no landlady. We’re self-catering. ’
April wanted to laugh and cry with delight. ‘You mean we can pretend to really live here for a whole week? All of us? In a cottage by the sea? Oh, wow!’
They all tried to scramble out of the van at the same time, and eventually, with Bee clutching April’s hand, and Jix leading Daff, and Cair Paravel leaping between them, they negotiated the overgrown path and pushed open the cottage door.
‘It’s furnished like a proper home!’ April stood in the hall, gazing in complete rapture at the cosiness, it’s got a fireplace! And big armchairs – oh, and look at the kitchen! Oh, Bee, look – you can see the sea from the windows!’
She dashed away the tears. It was all far too much. This was the place she’d always dreamed of. Tomorrow, Cair Paravel may or may not win the Frobisher Platinum Trophy, but for the next seven days and nights she would be living in paradise.
Daff was busily unpacking things, bustling round the cottage as if she’d lived there for ever. ‘April, sweet – you look very pale. Leave Bee here to help me feed Cairey and get things shipshape, and you go and get a few lungfuls of that sea air.’
‘I ought to help you – ’
‘You’ll be more help to me when you’re feeling stronger. Now run along.’
April ran.
Once outside, she felt that she could run for ever. There were a few hardy souls striding along the shoreline, accompanied by dogs and children, all muffled against the wind. The Crumpled Horn was filled to the seams if the car park was anything to go by, and there were a couple of people visible down by the beach huts. Apart from that, Ampney Crucis seemed deserted. There was no noise except the rushing of the wind and the sea. It was invigorating and savagely beautiful.
April leaned against the railings, staring down at the slope of the cliffs and the wide white spread of the beach below.
‘Happy?’ Jix, wearing the leather jacket and the Doctor Who scarf with his velvet flares, leaned beside her. He was still carrying his rucksack. ‘Is this what you wanted?’
She nodded, unable to speak. All the anxiety and the humiliation and the worries seemed to be swept away in the vastness.
‘I know you’d planned to do this with Noah,’ Jix said quietly, ‘but it’s the best I could do . . . No, listen. April what have you always wanted? Truly?’
She stared out at the ocean. ‘You know very well. A family, a proper family, a proper home, to live in a place like this and feel that I belong to something, someone . . .’
‘You’ve got all that.’
‘What?’ She turned to look at him.
‘All of that. You’ve had most of it for ages. Me and Bee and Mum and Cairey – we’ve been your family. And now you’ve got the cottage by the sea.’
She smiled. ‘Yeah. It’s brilliant, but it’s not for ever, is it?’
‘It could be. If it’s what you want.’ Jix scuffed at the stubbly grass. ‘The cottage is a holiday home, available on a yearly lease. I’ve – um – made enquiries. If you’re happy with the rest of it, we could stay here and find work. We can both turn our hand to anything – and in a holiday place there’s bound to be loads of opportunities. And you left something out just now.’
‘Did I? I don’t think so.’ April was just allowing the rest of it to sink in. She’d wake up in a minute, she knew she would, and find none of this was real. ‘Jix – you mean, really mean, we could live here – all of us? No more Bixford or Copacabana or debt-collecting or Gillespies or –’
‘None of it. I told you, I’ve been saving for my dream too. I’ve got the van, and this is the rest of it.’
Biting her lip, she looked at him. The wind had whipped his hair across his face so she couldn’t see his eyes. ‘You said I’d forgotten something – what was it?’
He didn’t answer immediately. When he did, he wasn’t looking at her. ‘Love. You always said you wanted to spend the rest of your life loving someone who loved you in return. And no, don’t say anything – there’s this first . . .’ He swung the rucksack off his shoulder, undid the buckle, then handed her a parcel wrapped in holly-and-mistletoe paper, it’s my Christmas present to you. Because things were so shitty on Christmas Day, and because you and Noah were together, I didn’t – couldn’t – give it to you then.’
Tearing at the paper with icy fingers, April gazed at the purple box inside. She lifted the lid and was stunned into silence.
Nestling in billows of the softest tissue paper was a pair of shoes. The most beautiful shoes she’d ever seen. Designer shoes, hand-crafted, pale blue and pink entwined strips of leather, with high, slender glass heels with pale blue and pink rosebuds caught inside like jewels in aspic.
She kicked off her boots and slid her feet into the sensational softness. The shoes looked slightly out of place with jeans, but she sighed with happiness. Her feet felt as though they were cushioned in thistledown.
‘Probably the first pair of shoes you’ve ever had that fit you . . .’ Jix’s voice was husky. ‘Um – I thought that as a declaration of love, they’d – um – ’
‘Oh, thank you so much!’ April threw her arms round his neck, crying properly now. ‘Thank you . . . Oh God, Jix! They’re absolutely incredible! They are just wonderful! Oh, I can’t believe it . . .’ She stopped. ‘What did you say?’
‘I love you.’ He pulled her back against him. ‘I’ve loved you from the minute you moved in with Noah all those years ago. I know you don’t love me – ’
She smiled through her tears. ‘I never got the chance, did I? Every other woman in Bixford was there before me.’
‘Had to do something to pass the time . . .’ Jix lifted her, face up. ‘Anyway, if you’re happy with the idea of the cottage on a long-term basis, I thought you might just get used to having me around too.’
He kissed her gently, properly, for the first time. April felt her whole body melt. Shivering, she kissed him back, softly at first, and then not so softly, and then not softly at all.
‘Jesus . . .’ she whispered into his hair. Her legs were shaking. ‘Can we go home now, please?’
‘You want to go home to Bixford?’ Jix kissed her again.
April held his face between her hands, smiling. ‘Never. I want to go home with you. To our family. Our cottage. And I need time to get my head round this love thing, don’t I? After all, falling in love with your best friend is a pretty major step.’ She looked down at her feet. ‘But at least now I’ve got the right shoes to take it in . . .’
Chapter Thirty
The Benny Clegg Stadium was ablaze with lights. The normal floods and spots had been joined by thousands and thousands of tiny pink bulbs, rosy pinpricks suspended in ropes like dowagers’ pearls in the darkness. Huge red helium Valentine hearts floated in their hundreds against the night sky, and the lasers, in a constantly moving rainbow, spelling out ‘Frobisher Platinum Trophy here tonight!’ were visible for miles.
At ground level, the coach and car parks were already full, and queues were snaking round the turnstiles and out towards the cliff top. Frobisher’s Brewery staff, warmly wrapped up against the continuing icy weather, were moving amongst the waiting crowds, doling out tiny free glasses of their new winter beer – which Jasmine had sampled earlier and quite enjoyed – and peanuts. Doris Day, who had been trilling out all her best romantic ballads in surround sound since twilight, was currently getting the collective feet tapping with ‘By the Light of the Silvery Moon’.
All across the stadium, the themes of Valentine’s Day and the Platinum Trophy were cleverly intertwined: red roses and pink-cushioned hearts were on every post, pole and railing, while cut-out silver trophies, looking like the overspill from an FA Cup production line, adorned walls, doors, and practically anything else that didn’t move. The word ‘Frobisher’ was everywhere you looked, and still the crowds were arriving in droves.
The Ampney Crucis board members were in paroxysms of delight.
Clara and Ewan, looking quite Torville and Dean in matching red and black outfits, had been appointed greeters-in-chief, and were cheerfully showing all the local dignitaries to the posh seats in the stands, and all the various newspaper competition winners and Clara’s massive extended family to the even posher – and warmer – seats behind the glass viewing screens, where Gilbert and Eddie Deebley were serving up chicken and chips and pints of Old Ampney like it was going out of fashion.
The six greyhound finalists for the Platinum Trophy had arrived earlier, and were ensconced in a special part of the new kennel block with their connections. Ewan, Jasmine noticed, had spent quite some time down there, and had come back beaming almost soppily. After the really strange goings-on) at New Year, when he had been missing from the Frobishers’ party for hours, and had then come back with some cock-and-bull tale of having had too much to drink and fallen asleep in one of the centrally heated lavatory cubicles – which Clara had believed and Jasmine hadn’t – Ewan had actually behaved himself amazingly well. Jasmine hoped this silly smile when returning from the kennels was merely because of his love of greyhounds – and had nothing to do with a pretty handler.
Peg was wearing a 1950s style fur coat, much to Jasmine’s disgust, with stilt-high black courts and the French pleat wig. Jasmine, who had shunned dressing up on the grounds that as she’d be in the front betting line she just needed to keep warm, was wearing clean jeans, her thickest sweater and Benny’s waxed jacket.
As well as the Platinum Trophy, there were eight other races on the card tonight – all also lavishly sponsored, thanks to the hype stirred up by Brittany – and Jasmine, Roger and Allan had watched with a sense of foreboding as the out-of-town bookies set up their very flashy joints, boards and umbrellas along the rails.
‘Plenty of business here for everyone,’ Peg said, swishing her coat along the ground. ‘And it’s only for tonight. You’ll get your exclusivity zones back for the next meeting. Don’t frown so, pets.’
‘All right for her,’ Roger grumbled. ‘This could have been my swan song.’
Allan and Jasmine had looked at him in surprise. ‘You’re not going to retire, surely?’
‘Not now,’ Roger blew on his hands. ‘Not when yon Ladbroke’s laddie is going to undercut me on every bloody dog.’
The fever-pitch feeling was building rapidly. Brittany had just arrived, looking very elegant and not at all cold in a silver trouser suit and huge velvet hat, and accompanied by her parents and what appeared to be the entire remainder of the Frobisher workforce. The paparazzi pack had swooped on Brittany immediately, and she had smiled happily and confidently cracked jokes with them all. A whole area had been set aside earlier in the day for the media, and suddenly the enclosure emptied as microphones and cameras of all types were homed in on the It Girl of the moment.
Jasmine watched and tried not to be envious. Brittany, true to her word on New Year’s Eve, had made regular visits to Ampney Crucis, accompanied by a host of Frobisher ‘suits and boots’, and had proved to be truly amazing it promoting and marketing the event. Having grown to like and admire Brittany more each time they met, Jasmine really tried not to think about what would happen tomorrow when it was all over.
The trouble was, she had got so used to having Sebastian around. When he’d told her, during the dancing on New Year’s Eve, that he intended to leave Bixford, and jack in his job at the Gillespie Stadium, Jasmine hadn’t really been surprised. Everything she’d learned about him during their friendship had indicated that this was something he really wanted to do. She’d wished him luck in breaking the shattering news to his parents, and he’d said that if she could survive what had happened to her with her parents and Andrew, then what he was contemplating should be a piece of cake in comparison.
They’d danced and talked all night, and over the daybreak breakfast, Sebastian had sleepily promised her that he’d be seeing her very soon. Jasmine had returned to the Travel Lodge with the victorious Ampney Crucis crew, more hopelessly in love than ever.
Within two days Sebastian had turned up at the beach hut, with a selection of doughnuts and a holdall, explaining that after the expected parental explosions, he was now working for Frobisher’s as a sort of back-room Platinum Trophy promotions boy, and he was at her disposal. She’d swallowed the all-too-obvious retort, hugged him – trying to keep the hug friendly so as not to scare him off – and said that if he didn’t mind getting his hands dirty she was sure that Peg and the other Ampney Crucians would also welcome him with open arms.
Jasmine had also been brave enough to suggest immediately that he bagged a room at the Crumpled Horn while he was working at the stadium – just in case he’d intended to stash the holdall behind the chiffonier and leap under the poppies and daisies. As she actually wanted nothing more than Seb in her bed, this, she felt, was quite a grown-up thing to do. Sebastian Gillespie as a permanent sleeping – and waking – partner would be sheer unadulterated bliss. Sebastian Gillespie as a sort of prolonged one-night stand who was going to leave her as soon as the Platinum Trophy was over, was asking for lifelong heartbreak.
So Seb was staying in the Crumpled Horn, and for the last few weeks, while they’d been working round the clock to prepare the Benny Clegg Stadium for tonight, he had slogged as hard as any of them. He had fitted in so easily that it sometimes seemed impossible to remember a time when he hadn’t been around. But Jasmine was constantly aware that once the Platinum was over, when all the hoo-ha had died down, Sebastian would be off to spread the Frobisher word elsewhere.
And even worse, she was convinced that Sebastian was not only going to be Brittany’s busi
ness partner, but would no doubt also resume his role as her part-time lover.
He’d laughed when Jasmine, over a huge fry-up in the Crow’s Nest Caff some days before, had voiced this opinion.
‘When the hell have I had time to be anyone’s part-time lover? I haven’t done anything since new year, except work thanks to you. I collapse into bed – alone – every night, and I’m asleep before my feet have left the floor.’
‘You know what I mean . . .’ Jasmine had mopped up all the delicious juices with a doorstep of white bread and butter. ‘You and Brittany were together in a snuggly-up way before all this happened – and you’ll be together again after it’s all over ... I mean, I’m really glad that you’ve left Bixford, if that’s what you wanted to do, and by working on promotions for Brittany you’ll have a lovely itinerant life, but – ’
‘But what?’ Seb had balanced a mountain of beans on his last piece of fried bread.
‘I’ll miss you.’
He’d grinned at her. ‘I’ll write to you – and send you doughnuts. It’ll be just like old times.’
And then Bunny and Muriel had turned up, as someone always did when she and Sebastian were together, and said there was some new crisis at the stadium and could she come and sort it?
The stadium had been open for business as usual all through the preparations, and Jasmine, as Benny Clegg – the Punters’ Friend, had set odds, negotiated prices, won and lost money on at least ten races, three nights a week, ever since Sebastian had arrived. Still fascinated by the fact that she was a bookie, he hadn’t tired of watching her work, and even volunteered to replace Muriel on writing up when she had her tea breaks.
Jasmine had teased him mercilessly. ‘God, you ran a multimillion-pound business for your dad – had your fingers in all sorts of iffy pies – you go out with the financial whizz-kid babe of the century – and you still can’t pay out quicker than that? And what’s that supposed to be? Even Clara was better than you – and she was hopeless.’
Nothing to Lose Page 37
