Creature Comforts

by Trisha Ashley

  When they’d put Dusty in the car and gone, waved off by a farewell party of Debo, Judy and Sandy, I sent Rufus a brief message explaining I hadn’t thought he’d fancy an early swim that morning, and he replied saying he’d been a bit late getting up anyway, and then he’d had an appointment with a solicitor about changing his name. Now he was in the middle of listing everything that would have to be altered, from the signs and vans, to the website and business cards. Then he added that he’d call in later to see Pearl on his way to the Hut for the Regeneration Committee meeting and we could walk there together. It was just as well he did, since I’d quite forgotten it was Tuesday!

  When Cam sent over the pictures he’d taken that morning, I put them straight up on my website, making sure I’d written the right prices and item codes by each one, a task more complicated than I’d anticipated.

  Then, finally, I was almost ready to go live and feeling very nervous about it, but since I was sure my inner voice was urging me to do this, it just had to be a success.

  The Regeneration Committee meeting went well: the leaflets, postcards and map had all gone to be printed and among the advertised businesses were Izzy Dane Designs, the Hidden Hoards Gallery, Stopped Clocks, Rufus Salcombe Garden Antiques, and the Old Mill Tearooms, even though they were still a future project, rather than a reality.

  Lulu, inspired by that trunkful of Victorian clothes that she’d found in the attic, had decided to run a sideline taking photographs of visitors wearing them and intended setting up a little studio in the hotel.

  Tom had already pinned to the village noticeboard outside the shop a reminder asking for volunteers to help clear back the Sweetwell public footpath on Sunday next and I said I’d go for a little while, even though my arms and back still ached from helping clear the path to the falls. I expect the exercise was good for me.

  The four of us walked down to the pub after the meeting and I asked Lulu how Dusty was getting on.

  ‘It’s as if he’d always lived with us!’ she said. ‘I left him with Mum and Dad, being spoiled rotten, and even Bruce came out of the kitchen specially to toss him a chunk of chicken breast, still dressed in his full chef’s whites.’

  It was lovely to hear Dusty had settled down so well. When we arrived there was no sign of him and Lulu eventually discovered him curled up fast asleep in the hotel office with her mother’s Yorkie, wearing the grin of a replete and happy hound.

  After another dreamless night, Rufus joined me at the pool for an early swim. At first, it was very odd having him quietly swimming up and down with me in the flesh, rather than in my dreams, but I soon got used to it.

  When we’d dried off and changed, we walked up to where the smaller path to Sweetwell branched off behind its wicket gate and as we paused, I said, ‘Pub tonight?’

  ‘Or – maybe you’d like to come to dinner?’ he suggested, to my complete surprise.

  ‘You mean, at the Hall?’

  ‘Yes, and contrary to what Myra might tell you, I can cook. I do a mean kedgeree and my chicken curry brings tears to the eyes.’

  ‘Are you inviting all of us?’ I asked tentatively.

  ‘No, I thought it would be nice if it was just you and me … if you like the idea, that is.’ He released that rare and devastating smile at me and I blinked, my mind going temporarily a beautifully fuzzy blank.

  Then I got a grip and said, making a joke of it, ‘Oh, Mr Rochester, this is so sudden!’

  ‘You have to come out of your quiet corner sometime, Miss Eyre,’ he growled, twirling an invisible moustache in a villainous manner, then strode off up the path, the drying ends of his water-darkened hair glinting dark chestnut in the leaf-filtered sunlight.

  When I got back and told Judy I’d be out to dinner because Rufus had invited me to Sweetwell, she and Debo exchanged meaningful glances.

  ‘Don’t get excited, because we’re just friends. I mean, given what’s happened in the past, it’s not likely to come to anything else, is it?’

  ‘He’s so nice, I keep forgetting his mother’s that ghastly woman,’ Debo confessed.

  After breakfast I retired to put the finishing tweaks to my website and then went back to working on the latest designs, though loud hammering and sawing outside made it a bit hard to concentrate.

  Eventually I went to investigate and discovered Tom in the process of dismantling the last of the makeshift kennels. Although dog numbers were down, Sandy said it still made a tight squeeze fitting all the dogs left into the old kennels. But the new small block, which would back onto the garden wall where once an old greenhouse had stood, was due to be delivered any day. At least the fence panels had arrived and were stacked ready to go up. It was getting there.

  Just as I was debating what to wear that night – something that wouldn’t send out any wrong messages – Rufus rang, his voice back to sounding as strained and tight-lipped as when we’d first met as he told me that Fliss had turned up out of the blue.

  ‘She’s staying overnight and she was being her usual totally unreasonable self, so … well, we’ve had a bit of a row. She’s gone out with Dan. I saw his car pick her up, but I think they’d arranged that already.’

  ‘Is she going to be out all evening, do you think?’ I asked tentatively, not liking the idea of coming face to face with her.

  ‘Probably, but if you don’t mind, I’ll pick you up and we’ll go out to eat.’

  ‘Yes, fine,’ I agreed, and so we ended up having dinner in the Green Man in Sticklepond, which had good food, even if it wasn’t on the same level as Bruce Benbow’s at the Screaming Skull.

  I don’t think Rufus had much appetite for it anyway. Over dinner he told me that Fliss had been at him again to throw Debo, Judy and me out of the Lodge, and she seemed unable to grasp that he couldn’t even if he wanted to.

  ‘And I certainly wouldn’t want her living in the Lodge anyway!’ he added.

  ‘Surely she wouldn’t want to? Didn’t you say she hated the country?’

  ‘Yes, and she’d soon tire of it and be off again. But I now know the reason why she’s so keen, because she has to move out of her flat for six months, while the whole building is renovated. Her mother was from an old and wealthy Hungarian family who cut Fliss off long before I was born, but she does get an allowance and the London flat is in a property they own.’

  ‘So she wants the Lodge until that’s done?’

  ‘So she says, and then keep it as her bolthole in the country, since when she does go back they’ll have divided her flat up into two and it wasn’t that big to start with.’

  ‘People will rent something the size of a shoebox in London,’ I said.

  ‘They will, and of course she’s never paid any rent, so she can’t really complain.’

  The grim expression, which I’d hardly seen for ages, crossed his face and his jaw set. ‘I told her straight that she could forget about the Lodge and there was no way I’d have her under my own roof for more than a couple of nights, though I offered to store her furniture for her, if she liked.’

  ‘Could she possibly have really fallen for Dan and thinks they’ll live happily ever after in Halfhidden, and that’s why she’s so keen?’ I asked.

  ‘No, she’s just having a bit of fun with him and when I told her she was making things difficult for me, because I was on the verge of sacking him if he put one more foot out of line, she said I was picking on him because of their affair.’

  He brooded for a few minutes in silence.

  ‘So, that’s when she went off with Dan?’ I said finally.

  He gave a wry smile. ‘I remembered that she has a really bad dog phobia so I told her I was getting a lovely big Alsatian tomorrow. Then I said I wouldn’t have Dan under my roof, in case she was thinking of inviting him back there at any point, which was the last straw.’

  ‘Seems reasonable to me,’ I said. ‘It’s your house.’

  He sighed. ‘Trust Fliss to ruin what I’d hoped would be a nice evening.’

&nbs
p; ‘Well, I’ll allow you to cook me dinner another night, if it’ll cheer you up,’ I promised, and he smiled.

  ‘I’ll hold you to that,’ he said, and then finally seemed to notice what he was eating. ‘This is the most enormous plate of food I’ve ever faced. And what have they done to the vegetables?’

  ‘Cooked each one in a different way,’ I said, poking a whole small stem of charred tomatoes aside to reveal a pile of what looked like caramelised parsnips and a puddle of chopped leeks in a glutinous white sauce. ‘It’s all just a little too much.’

  We talked more easily after that, and I gave him a copy of the extensive and expensive list of dog essentials that I’d written for Lulu, which at least diverted his mind from his mother’s antics.

  We decided to call at the Screaming Skull on the way home for a drink, though first checking that Dan’s old Fiesta wasn’t in the car park. There was no flashy sports car, like the one Lulu had said Cara drove, either, so it looked like she was back from wherever she’d been with Kieran.

  We found Lulu and Cam in the snug, looking at a postcard of the haunted clock, which had the story printed on the back. The cards with the ghostly white horse had come out well, too.

  Rufus and Lulu discussed dog essentials and he said he was going to be on the doorstep of the pet store at opening time next morning, clutching the list, so he could collect Pearl later.

  He’d cheered up a bit by then. We were just thinking of going home when there was a sudden rumpus in the public bar and a husky female voice started singing something I couldn’t quite make out.

  Rufus blanched. ‘That’s Fliss!’

  Lulu went to see what was happening, then reported that Fliss had just told the assembled customers her name and that she was a famous singer.

  ‘Though most of them didn’t look as if they’d ever heard of her,’ she added. ‘She and Dan are both a bit the worse for drink.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Rufus said.

  ‘Don’t worry, if they get too rowdy, Bruce and the barman will put them out,’ she assured him.

  ‘I think we’ll go anyway,’ he suggested, and I gathered up my bag and jacket. But before we could even get up, the door to the public bar was flung open and there, like a superannuated and unwanted genie, stood a tall, white-blonde woman with a haggard, wild face and a pair of red-painted lips that had been inflated to the size of a car tyre inner tube.

  ‘There you are! Dan said you liked to hide out in here with your friends … and especially one little friend. So now I know why you don’t want that lot at the Lodge to move out, don’t I?’ she husked, in a bathtub-gin-and-cigarette voice.

  ‘You don’t know anything, Fliss,’ Rufus said. ‘That’s your whole problem.’

  She eyed me curiously, from strangely dead eyes, while I stared at her, quite fascinated in a horrified kind of way and wondering if she used a small trowel to put her make-up on.

  ‘So, you’re Lisa’s little mistake, then? You look just like your father, the way Rufus looks exactly like his – I’m only surprised Hugo Carlyle didn’t twig before!’ She giggled, swayed and put out a hand to the door frame to steady herself.

  ‘But you’re nothing much to look at, are you?’ she said, considering me critically. ‘Practically a hobbit, and you could do with a bit of slap and lippy on, darling, if you want to get a man’s attention.’

  ‘At least I haven’t had my lips pumped up so much that my face looks like a baboon’s bottom,’ I said coldly, and Lulu choked on her glass of Baileys.

  ‘Are you going to let her say things like that to me?’ demanded Fliss of her son.

  ‘Why not? You started it. And anyway, Izzy’s quite right.’ He looked at her, his expression angry and exasperated. ‘You’re drunk – better let me run you back to the house.’

  ‘No way! I haven’t had nearly enough to drink – not nearly enough of anything! Have fun, darlings!’ she added and then wobbled off on her vertiginous heels. The silence that had fallen in the other room while everyone strained their ears to catch what was being said was replaced by a sudden babble that was only muffled when the door to the snug was shut.

  That seemed to have put the clappers on our evening, so we left by the hotel entrance and Rufus dropped me at home. He wouldn’t come in and said wryly that this wasn’t quite how he’d imagined the evening ending and then, before I could digest the implications of that remark, apologised for Fliss.

  ‘It’s not your fault, and anyway, I feel I gave back as good as I got,’ I assured him.

  But coming face to face with the woman who, not long after I was born, had drawn my poor young mother back into her circle of drink and drugs had been difficult, to say the least. I’d have to keep reminding myself that Rufus was her son and nothing but friendship could be allowed to develop between us.

  Rufus had only just gone when Lulu rang my mobile to ask if he was there with me.

  ‘No, he’s probably back at the house by now. Did you want him for something? I could give you his number.’

  ‘I just wanted to warn him trouble might be headed his way. Fliss sang for ages after you left and then got really argumentative when Bruce came out and asked her to stop, so he told her and Dan to leave.’

  ‘You think they’re coming back to Sweetwell?’

  ‘She told Dan they could carry on the party there. Then she invited all Dan’s cronies, too.’

  ‘I’d better ring Rufus right now,’ I said, but even as did, I heard several cars going past.

  ‘Your mother, Dan and his friends are on their way to Sweetwell,’ I said urgently when he answered.

  ‘I hear them,’ he said grimly. ‘But don’t worry, they won’t be here long.’

  And he was right, because most of the cars returned down the drive only a few minutes later, followed, after an interval, by one final car that I recognised by the terminal rattle of the exhaust as Dan’s.

  Chapter 25: Bird of Passage

  ‘If you don’t, then Simon will have to and we’ll probably end up in a ditch,’ Harry said. ‘Come on, Izzy – don’t make such a fuss, you can do it!’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ snapped Cara from the back seat. ‘If you’re going to drive, then get on with it before Simon’s sick again!’

  I’d had a brief text from Rufus later that night saying, All sorted. Good night, sweet dreams, but in the morning, when he didn’t answer my message saying I was off for a swim, I was worried, until I remembered that he was going out to the pet store early to get all the things Pearl would need before he collected her.

  It was a misty kind of day – that slightly damp, candyfloss type that seems to cling like a wet veil – so I decided to postpone my swim for a bit. The sun was attempting to get through, so I thought by the time I’d had breakfast it would probably be quite a nice morning.

  While we were making inroads into the scrambled eggs, I gave Debo and Judy a brief sketch of what had happened last night.

  Debo said indignantly that she would set the dogs onto ‘That Woman’ if she came anywhere near the Lodge, though if she meant Babybelle, Vic and Ginger, I imagined the first would sit on her and the other two lick her to death.

  Later, at the Lady Spring, I spotted Tom doing something to his beehives and I waved. There was no one else about. The mist had vanished, so it was pleasantly warm as I swam lazily up and down.

  No Roman soldiers or attractive, green-eyed antique dealers swam with me; it was all just birdsong and humming bees, and as soothing as ever.

  All my jumbled thoughts slowly dissolved: the sudden and surprising surge of anger I felt at my mother for letting someone like Fliss draw her back into her toxic circle; at Harry for stupidly and thoughtlessly spiking Simon’s drink on the night of the accident – and even towards my absent father, who’d played no part in my upbringing, financial or otherwise.

  I had to let them all go …

  As I came out of the enclosure, in a much better frame of mind than I’d gone in, Cam was just heading out from
Spring Cottage to open the gallery.

  ‘Cam, wait!’ I called, and he stopped and turned till I caught up, so we could walk up to the drive together, though until the big clear-up next Sunday the path was so overgrown in parts that we had to walk in single file.

  He already knew from Lulu what had happened at the pub last night, so I told him about the cars all leaving again, and Rufus texting that it was OK. Then we reached one of the narrower bits of path and I went ahead of Cameron, ducking to avoid some fiercely encroaching brambles.

  Then all at once there was a sharp snapping noise and something zipping through my hair, followed by a sharp sting on the cheek.

  ‘Cam, I think I’m being attacked by killer bees—’ I began, half-turning, when suddenly he knocked me flat with a rugby tackle from behind.

  ‘Really, Cam!’ I gasped, winded. ‘That’s not funny.’

  ‘Those weren’t bees,’ Cam said, looking round and then cautiously getting up. ‘Look at the tree behind you.’

  He hauled me to my feet, took out one of those nifty Swiss army knives from the pocket of his slightly sullied white linen trousers and dug something out of the bark.

  ‘Air rifle pellet, I think,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve been shot?’ I put a hand to my face and it came away with a trace of blood.

  ‘No, you’ve been shot at, but it didn’t hit you, thank goodness. A chip of bark must have caught you, but it’s only a tiny scratch,’ he assured me. ‘And whoever did it is long gone – I heard them crashing about in the bushes.’

  ‘Perhaps it was someone shooting rabbits,’ I suggested, a bit shakily.

  ‘It would have to be a very tall rabbit, wearing a red mac.’

  ‘True, and come to think of it, all the locals know there’s no shooting allowed in the grounds …’

  I tailed off as an unwelcome thought struck me. ‘Dan? He wanted to stop me talking to Simon and he might not know I already have. And he’d love to see me, Debo and Judy off the place. I just didn’t think he was that keen!’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so, and I’ve never seen him out with anything other than a shotgun. It’s more likely to be a careless teenage boy.’