Creature Comforts

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘While he was ranting on in the bar, he sounded peeved that Fliss hadn’t wanted to see him this weekend, didn’t he?’ she said.

  ‘Perhaps she’s getting tired of him at last. Rufus still thinks she isn’t serious and that she’s using him to try to get us out of the Lodge, so she can have it while her flat’s being renovated.’

  ‘But that was never going to happen, so she must be as thick as Dan!’ Lulu said.

  ‘Actually, sending all those people round from the council and the RSPCA might have caused us some real problems if we hadn’t already cleared off the extra buildings and got the kennels back under control,’ I confessed.

  ‘It’s just as well you came home when you did, then, and once Dan’s gone, things will be much more peaceful round here.’

  ‘Last night Judy and Debo suggested to Rufus that he give Dan’s job to Olly, because if he’s earning more money and has the cottage, then he and his fiancée can finally get married.’

  ‘Oh, wouldn’t that be perfect – and a wedding we’d all want to go to!’ she exclaimed. ‘But could he manage the job on his own, do you think?’

  ‘Oh, yes, he’s very self-motivated and good at his work, but his dad can keep an eye on things. Laurie’s retiring shortly and he’s going to do a bit of part-time office keeping for Rufus, anyway. Foxy’s an ace with machinery like brush cutters, too, so she can always put in a bit of overtime.’

  Lulu sang a snatch of ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ and then told me she now had several Haunted Holiday bookings, so things were looking up all round.

  I described Dan’s drunken scene to Rufus while we were walking down that evening and added, ‘I think Dan is going to be tricky until he leaves. But you’re forever stuck with Debo and Judy in the Lodge – and me.’

  That’s OK, because I don’t really want to get rid of any of you,’ he said. ‘As to Dan, while he may think he’s the only lover in Fliss’s life, she’s never been a one-man kind of woman, so goodness knows what she’s up to this weekend. Still, anyone except him!’

  When we passed through the public bar, where Jonas was sitting with a friend, downing a pint of Mossbrown Ale, we were startled to see Howling Hetty was wearing a bright pink bobbed wig. I had no idea where Lulu got that one, but hoped it wasn’t something she made a habit of wearing herself.

  ‘She must be trying to make the skull look more feminine,’ I suggested.

  ‘I don’t think it’s really working for me,’ Rufus said, following me into the empty snug just as Lulu and Cam entered it by the hotel door.

  ‘The most awful thing!’ Lulu exclaimed, looking absolutely distracted. ‘Guy has read one of my old emails!’

  She sank down onto the bench seat between me and Cam, and Rufus took a chair opposite. ‘That doesn’t sound very earth-shattering,’ he said. ‘I’m missing something?’

  ‘It depends which email it was,’ I told him. ‘But he doesn’t use the computer, so how did that happen, Lulu?’

  ‘That student Guy’s paying to look after the internet bookings sent her an email, too,’ Cam explained. ‘He said he’d got bored the other night so he’d hacked into her old emails. He was just reading one you’d sent to her, Izzy, when Guy looked over his shoulder.’

  ‘Unfortunately, it was the reply to one of mine telling you that Guy’s drinking was getting worse and how unhappy I was,’ Lulu said, and Cameron put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a comforting squeeze.

  ‘And then you asked me if I knew that Cam had broken up with his girlfriend in London and – well …’ She stopped.

  ‘Guy realised that actually Cameron wasn’t gay and the brown stuff hit the fan?’ I suggested. ‘Right.’

  ‘The student – Alain, he’s called – warned me, because he felt guilty. He did manage to fool Guy into believing that that was the only email left and all the rest had been wiped, though, which is something.’

  ‘Why would he think you were gay?’ asked Rufus.

  ‘Search me,’ Cam said.

  ‘It was only because you look quite arty – he has that kind of mind,’ Lulu explained. ‘And I admit I didn’t tell him you weren’t gay, because then he would have gone into jealousy-overdrive.’

  ‘He seems to have done that now, but it might be a good thing, in a way,’ Cam suggested. ‘If he thinks we ran off to be together, then he isn’t going to expect you to go back to him now, is he?’

  ‘No … perhaps you’re right,’ she agreed, her forehead smoothing a little. ‘I made it very clear I wasn’t going back in the letter I sent him, too.’

  Now she was calmer, I kindly informed her, as only a best friend can, that her hair looked like an electrified sheep and most of her Sultry Rose lipstick was on Cam, and she rushed off to tidy up.

  Cam, unabashed, scrubbed the lipstick off with a tissue I gave him and then he and Rufus set up the sound-effects equipment for the storytelling session.

  Rufus and I didn’t stay for that one but went back to the snug for a while and then returned to the Lodge, where we found Babybelle smugly installed in the kitchen with the other two dogs. Debo and Judy must have given up the struggle to get her into her kennel tonight.

  I made cocoa and found some almond biscuits, which we took into the studio, where we sat on the sofa together so I could show Rufus my photographs of the two women’s workshops in India I’d helped to set up, where my stock came from.

  ‘I’ll have to go out there later in the year and see them – in fact, I think I’ll need to go out annually.’

  ‘I’ve always wanted to visit India,’ he told me wistfully. ‘Perhaps I’ll come with you.’

  I wasn’t sure if he was serious or not, but I said he could if he wanted to … and then, right at that moment, his mobile went off and I could hear Fliss’s voice, loud and clear, even before he switched to speakerphone and mouthed her name at me.

  ‘There you are at last, Rufus!’

  ‘I tried to get hold of you earlier, Fliss,’ he said. ‘I’ve fired your lover and given him notice to quit the cottage by June.’

  ‘Oh, never mind Dan now,’ she said impatiently. ‘I’m having such fun catching up with the old gang that I’ve invited them to stay at Sweetwell next weekend. There’s plenty of room. We’ll party and liven you and that old dump up!’

  ‘Then you’d better un-invite them,’ he said evenly, but with an undercurrent of anger. ‘I’m not having any of that lot under my roof – in fact, if they so much as set foot on my land, I’ll have them arrested for trespass. And after what we discussed last time we spoke, I don’t even want you at Sweetwell – I told you.’

  I wasn’t sure what he meant by that last bit, unless he’d still been angry at her for inviting Dan and his friends up to the house last time – but she obviously hadn’t learned her lesson.

  ‘Oh, you know I didn’t mean anything by it and you never used to be quite so stuffy,’ she said disgustedly. ‘It’s that little girl from the Lodge, isn’t it? She’s turned you even prissier than you were before.’

  ‘I’m actually at the Lodge with Izzy right now,’ he told her levelly.

  ‘Then I suppose it must be love’s young dream and you’re never going to throw them out: so that’s it, then.’ She changed tack abruptly. ‘About Dan – he did leave messages on my phone, so let’s discuss—’

  ‘There’s nothing to discuss,’ Rufus interrupted. ‘And he’d be crazy to take me to an employment tribunal because he wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.’

  ‘I don’t care about him being fired,’ she said callously. ‘What I wanted to know was—’

  But neither of us was destined to hear what she wanted to know, for Rufus cut the connection at this point and then turned his phone right off.

  As always, after any contact with his mother, he went all inwards and gloomy and took himself off home, though he did suggest as he left that he could finally cook me that dinner at Sweetwell the next evening.

  And although the grisly spectre of Fliss still
hung over us, I said yes, anyway.

  While we were swimming next morning, Rufus told me he was heading over to Yorkshire first thing on the following day, to pick up a wrought-iron antique garden love seat and, if the price was right, some old agricultural implements.

  ‘People love them as garden features,’ he said. ‘There might be some other stuff, too.’

  Then he added teasingly that he really did wish I’d wear the white bikini I’d had on when he’d tried to drown me, which seemed to have stuck in his memory for some reason, probably the wrong one.

  ‘I know you’re not serious,’ I told him, because I knew now when he was winding me up. ‘I don’t think it did anything for me even when I was a skinny teenager and it certainly doesn’t now.’

  ‘I think you looked cute in it.’

  ‘Like a drowned pixie?’

  ‘I like pixies,’ he said gravely, and then, on some sudden impulse, I scooped great handfuls of water in his face and he splashed me back. Then he picked me up and whirled me around, before dropping me into the water … and when I came back up, there was Tom, looking puzzled.

  Then his face cleared and he grinned. ‘I wondered what all the noise was, but I see you’re just having a bit of fun – much like I did with my Pauline when she was a young lass.’

  Smiling benignly, he pottered off back to his garden, followed closely by Queenie, but I went all self-conscious and told Rufus it was getting late, and we’d both better get back.

  ‘OK, but I’ll see you tonight,’ he reminded me, and unleashed that rare and enticing killer smile.

  Probably due to it being a sunny, warm day, there seemed to be loads of people out and about by mid-morning when I went over to Cam’s gallery to pack an order. Many of them had the ghost trail map in their hands, which was a good sign.

  The gallery was quite busy too and Jonas, his little dog, Snowy, at his feet, was sitting on a tall stool behind the till, his shock of white hair standing out like a halo, while Cameron was getting down a painting he’d sold to a customer – one of his own.

  When Cam had a minute to talk, he told me he was going with Rufus on the Yorkshire trip and I felt a momentary pang almost of jealousy because Rufus hadn’t asked me, too. But of course, if he needed someone to help him haul large garden furniture into his van, Cam was a much better prospect!

  By late afternoon I’d stopped working and was having a little crisis of the ‘what am I going to wear tonight?’ kind. I mean, I was having dinner alone with Rufus … but as a friend? Or was this a date? I didn’t even know if he saw me in any other light but friendship, but even if he did fancy me, could anything warmer develop between us, given what had happened in the past?

  I tried consulting my inner voice, but all it told me was to put on a pretty dress, get myself up there and see what happened – a message I suspected didn’t come from my guardian angel.

  So I strolled up with Babybelle as dusk was slowly settling, though I quickened my pace as I passed the fatal spot, for the birdsong always seemed to be hushed just there and the trees feel as if they’re closing in, despite their having recently been cut back.

  Babybelle hadn’t been invited, but when we arrived, Rufus said he didn’t mind an extra guest in the least and it had been a bit remiss of him not to include her in the first place. She and Pearl certainly seemed pleased to see each other and at least talking about the dogs broke the ice between us, for I’d been feeling strangely self-conscious when he opened the door.

  ‘Come into the kitchen and talk to me while I finish cooking,’ he suggested, leading the way through. ‘In fact, I’ve laid the table in there, because it’s cosier than sitting in the dining room. This isn’t exactly a grand house, but it’s definitely grander than any I’ve ever lived in before.’

  ‘I like your little TV room,’ I said, ‘where we watched the film after the takeaway the other night.’

  ‘Officially, that’s the library, though the Salcombes don’t appear to have been great readers. There are only Baz’s thrillers and a few Victorian novels in there at the moment, but I’ll unpack my books soon and fill those empty shelves up a bit.’

  ‘Including the works of the Brontës?’ I asked curiously. ‘I’m surprised you know Jane Eyre so well.’

  ‘I did my degree in English Literature … and I’m a romantic at heart,’ he said gravely, so I wasn’t sure if he was serious or not.

  He took a bottle of champagne out of an ice bucket and poured us both a glass.

  ‘We’re celebrating something?’ I asked.

  ‘Lots of things, not least that I’ve rung Fliss and told her she’s permanently banned from Sweetwell.’

  ‘But she’s still your mother; she might want to see you?’

  ‘If she does, I’ll meet her in London. But this is my place and my new life, and I don’t want her in it, messing things up.’

  I wouldn’t put it past her to keep turning up anyway, but I didn’t want to rain on his parade, so I smiled instead and raised my glass.

  ‘Here’s to success for Izzy Dane Designs and Rufus Salcombe Garden Antiques,’ I said, and we clinked champagne flutes.

  ‘And to the future,’ he added, then as he turned away to stir something on the stove, he asked me whether I’d dredged up any fresh memories.

  ‘One or two, where I’m definitely driving the Range Rover, and totally terrified about it,’ I admitted. ‘I don’t know if the dreams will ever progress as far as the accident, but I suspect not. And anyway, even if they did, Cara’s the only one who could confirm if they’re right or wrong, and she isn’t talking. She isn’t even replying to my messages on her mobile.’

  ‘So – the mission has ended, more or less?’

  I nodded. ‘It’s probably going to stay mission unaccomplished because I’ll never know why I didn’t get out at the Lodge, or why I crashed.’

  ‘You might eventually remember all the answers,’ Rufus suggested.

  ‘I don’t know. I seem to have the other kind of dream more lately, the one where I’m swimming up and down the pool with you and—’ I stopped dead, going pink.

  Rufus was getting too easy to talk to!

  ‘And?’ he prompted, turning with a wooden spoon in one hand.

  ‘Nothing, we’re just swimming and it’s … nice,’ I said lamely.

  He gave me one of his serious, searching looks and then went back to finishing off the paella, which smelled wonderful.

  ‘No starter,’ he said, ‘but I told Myra you were coming to dinner, so she’s left an apple pie and cream in the fridge for dessert.’

  ‘Perfect, though I’ll be fat as a pig after all that,’ I said, as he piled paella onto dishes and sat down opposite me.

  Babybelle subsided heavily and hopefully on my feet. I was so glad Rufus didn’t have a glass dining table, because there’s nothing more disconcerting than a dog sitting underneath one and longingly following each forkful of food from plate to lips.

  After dinner we watched a film in the library and I picked out the solitary romantic comedy from the line-up of thrillers.

  ‘I’d forgotten that was there,’ he said. ‘It was in a mixed box of stuff I bought at auction with some books I wanted.’

  ‘What kind of books?’ I asked curiously.

  ‘Old gardening ones – I collect them. I’ve never had a lot of spare time to watch films, because I’ve been too busy building up my business. Clearly I need you to educate my tastes.’

  ‘You should chill out more,’ I told him, and he said he was working on it.

  We sat cosily together on the sofa with Belle and Pearl curled up asleep on the rug, and finished the champagne. It might have gone to my head slightly, because when he walked me home later, accompanied by both dogs, he had to put his arm around me to keep me going in a straight line.

  He was resolute about our not avoiding the hollow, too. ‘This is my property and if Hetty wants to haunt it, she’d better get used to seeing me about,’ he said. And maybe she heard him,
because there was nothing even remotely spectral hanging about the hollow.

  When we got to the Lodge, he had to find the key for me, and then, the moment the door was open, Belle almost knocked me off my feet while thundering past, eager to see if there was any forgotten food lying around the kitchen.

  I staggered and Rufus caught me … and then pulled me close and kissed me. It was a long, slow-burning kiss and I’m sure my feet weren’t touching the ground.

  When our lips finally slowly parted and I opened my eyes, I found myself staring into his pale green gaze from about two inches away.

  ‘Good night,’ he said softly, then set me down and strode off, whistling to Pearl to follow.

  Or maybe he was whistling to me, because I nearly did, too.

  Chapter 29: Floating

  We floated together in the opaque turquoise water, holding hands … Then Rufus stood up, crystal-clear droplets sliding down over his muscled torso, and pulled me into a close and passionate embrace …

  It wasn’t surprising that I should have a steamy swimming-with-Rufus dream after that kiss, but I awoke next morning feeling that last night we might have stepped over an invisible boundary. (And after that, in the dream, I’d not so much stepped, as hurdled over several more.)

  It was probably just as well that Rufus and Cam had left for Yorkshire early, so I hadn’t actually had to face him at the pool with that dream still fresh – even hot – in my mind.

  Last night’s kiss was probably just the champagne talking, though, and even if it wasn’t, his ghastly mother (who I thought unlikely to leave him in peace), and my involvement in the death of his half-brother, still appeared almost insuperable obstacles to any closer relationship.

  Unfortunately, these sensible reflections didn’t stop me from blushing when Debo and Judy asked me at breakfast if I’d had a nice time at Sweetwell.

  ‘Yes, and Rufus is a great cook,’ I said quickly.

  ‘What exactly did he cook up for you, darling?’ asked Debo interestedly. ‘Something with a little passion fruit in it, I hope?’