Creature Comforts

by Trisha Ashley

‘Don’t tease, Debo,’ Judy said, coming to my rescue.

  I made my escape and went to check for orders, for it was strange how many nocturnal shoppers there were. I had two and, after printing out the packing slips, I walked across to the gallery to parcel them up. At this rate, I’d soon be wearing a groove into the Green.

  I had to let myself in, because of course it was Monday and so closing day anyway, but I’d texted Lulu earlier to suggest that since Cam and Rufus had gone jaunting off to Yorkshire without even asking us (that rankled with her a bit, too), we should have a girls’ day out in Southport.

  She’d agreed and was to pick me up mid-morning, but instead tempestuously burst into the studio ages before I expected her while I was still finishing sketching an idea for a new dress. I had photos of hippies scattered all over the place and a Mamas and the Papas CD compilation playing, to get me in the right retro vibe.

  ‘Izzy!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘What’s up?’ I asked, switching the music off, then swivelling round and staring at her. She gazed back at me, wild-eyed, waving a piece of paper.

  Dusty swaggered insouciantly in after her, with one battered ear up and the other down. Babybelle, unimpressed, raised her eyebrows and sighed, heavily.

  ‘Why have you brought Dusty? We’re not taking the dogs to Southport shopping with us, are we?’

  ‘No, I just forgot to leave him behind, because I’ve had an actual email from Guy! He says now he knows all about Cameron, he’s going to come and sort him out – and he’s not going back without me.’

  She brandished the print-out again.

  ‘He emailed?’

  ‘Not personally. He got that student, Alain, to do it for him.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because Alain emailed after Guy had gone out, to say he’d had to do it, but he was sorry. He seems nice, apart from the hacking into my private emails thing. He’s only working for Guy until he’s saved up for a motorbike.’

  ‘What does Guy mean, he knows about Cameron? That he isn’t gay?’ I asked, having read the bellicose and threatening email.

  ‘Of course, if he wasn’t so stupid he’d never have thought he was in the first place,’ she said. ‘Look at the way the women who came to Cam’s painting week always drooled over him!’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t there for any of them, so I’ll have to take your word for it, but I can imagine. That flaxen hair and those big blue eyes get them every time.’

  ‘I think now Guy’s finally twigged, he’s jumped to the conclusion that we’ve been having an affair for years and that’s why he’s threatening to sort Cam out.’

  ‘But it’s probably just an empty threat?’ I suggested. ‘He can’t very well make you go back with him if you don’t want to, and anyway, he’d need someone to look after the place if he was away, even for a few days.’

  ‘But his brother’s moved in, remember, so he could leave him in charge. Solange says Guy’s only renting out the four separate self-catering gîtes now, and not having any guests in the main house, so even he should be able to manage that.’ She shivered. ‘Guy could already be on his way over here!’

  ‘I doubt it, he was probably just in a jealous strop when he dictated the email. Send him one back telling him that if he comes near you or Cameron you’ll report him to the police for harassment and threatening behaviour.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I should … and I’ve just had four more bookings for the first Haunted Holiday, so I could really do without this hassle right now,’ she said, exasperation beginning to take over from the initial panic. ‘I’ve had to warn the family, just in case Guy does suddenly appear, and Mum and Dad wanted me to move into their flat, but I said I was safe enough in the trailer with Dusty to protect me.’

  ‘And Cam,’ I added innocently, and she blushed. Her parents were very strait-laced, so her living with Guy for years hadn’t gone down too well. They certainly wouldn’t let Cam stay over in the flat as, I suspected, he often did at the caravan.

  ‘Izzy, you know when I said Cameron and I had decided just to be good friends for now and put anything else on the back-burner?’

  ‘I do, but let me guess: you’ve discovered now that you’ve really fallen in love and want to be together all the time,’ I suggested helpfully. ‘It’s been obvious for a while that someone had taken the brakes off the go-slow clause.’

  She laughed. ‘That was me! I suddenly saw that there was nothing to be afraid of: Cam wasn’t Guy, he was the man I’d known my entire life as a close friend and he’d always be that. The love bit was just an added extra.’

  ‘Of course it is, and it will work out wonderfully well, you’ll see. I’m so happy for you both!’ I gave her a hug.

  ‘Cameron wants us to get engaged. He says my parents and his family aren’t going to like it if we just live together, which I suppose is true, and anyway, he wants to get married.’

  She looked at me slyly. ‘So, if you and Rufus stopped staring longingly at one another when the other one isn’t looking and got things going, maybe we could have a double wedding?’

  ‘Does he look at me like that?’ I asked involuntarily.

  ‘All the time.’

  I sighed. ‘Well, whether he does or not, nothing can ever come of it except friendship, given all the ramifications with Fliss and Harry, can it?’

  ‘You had dinner alone with him last night. I call that a date!’

  ‘No it wasn’t, it was just …’ I broke off and got up. ‘It’s too complicated to even think about! Come on – Judy’s in the kitchen and she can bribe Babybelle into staying with her. We’ll drop Dusty at the pub, send a quick email to Guy, and then get off to Southport.’

  So we did just that and also, at my suggestion, emailed Alain to say that if he let us know if Guy suddenly set out for the UK, we’d cross his palm with euros.

  We returned home hours later, tired but happy, because there’s nothing like a bit of retail therapy to calm the troubled soul.

  Cam obviously felt the same way, because when he and Rufus called in at the pub on their way back from Yorkshire, he immediately got down on one knee, formally proposed to Lulu and then presented her with an antique diamond ring!

  ‘After we’d collected my stuff, he had me all over York searching for the perfect ring,’ Rufus said with a grin.

  ‘I think he found it!’ I said, admiringly, and then Lulu’s parents, who had been let in on the secret so Cam knew the right size ring to get, brought out the ready-chilled bubbly and we toasted the happy couple.

  Luckily all this excitement made me forget to be shy with Rufus about that kiss until much later, when he gave me a lift home in the van, leaving Cameron and Lulu still celebrating. He stopped by the Lodge to let me out, since he was keen to get back to Pearl, who was being dog-sat by Myra and Olly in relays so she didn’t get lonely.

  ‘I’m tired, too,’ he admitted, ‘though it was a successful trip all round. I got a very pretty old wrought-iron gazebo and a pair of gates, among other things. Foxy will help me unload them in the morning. Then you’ll have to come up and see them.’

  ‘I’d love to,’ I replied and then, as I climbed down and was about to shut the door, he leaned over and handed me a small, tissue-wrapped package.

  ‘Here’s something I picked up for you today, because it had your name on it.’

  ‘Oh … thank you, but you shouldn’t have!’ I stammered, flustered.

  ‘It’s a little thing of no great value, but fun,’ he said. ‘While you, on the other hand, are a small thing of great value and also fun.’ Then he released that killer smile at me and drove off.

  When I’d disentangled myself from Babybelle’s enthusiastic welcome, I unwrapped my gift, which was a quirky, dear little antique brooch in the form of a short-legged, square-eared dog, set with amber stones.

  I slept with it under my pillow and dreamed, unsurprisingly, only of Rufus.

  Chapter 30: Blighters

  In the early morning, while we we
re swimming, I thanked Rufus again for the brooch and he said it was nothing, he’d just thought I’d like it.

  ‘I do, it’s lovely,’ I enthused, though I was trying to maintain a sort of cheerful, brisk friendliness, so he’d know that I realised that the kiss the other night meant nothing serious. But I think he’d forgotten about it anyway, because he was his usual quiet self and went straight back to Sweetwell after our swim, intending to start unloading the van.

  I had Lulu on the phone right after breakfast, full of the joys of spring and her engagement and saying what a surprise it had all been, as if I hadn’t been there and witnessed it for myself.

  ‘I didn’t realise that Cam could be so secretive, but it was sweet of him, wasn’t it? And Mum and Dad are delighted.’

  I passed on Debo and Judy’s warmest congratulations, but after that I only had to make the occasional noise of agreement, while she burbled happily on.

  When she finally ran out of steam and rang off, and I was making a cup of coffee before going into the studio, Simon got me on my mobile: this was obviously not going to be a very productive morning.

  ‘Sir Lionel’s home, and he and Cara have had a blazing row right in the middle of the stable yard,’ he announced. I was just wondering what that had to do with me, when he added, ‘He told her that he’d had enough of her carryings-on and wanted a divorce and then she said she didn’t care, because it had been a huge mistake marrying an old weasel like him and she wanted a divorce too, so she could marry this Kieran.’

  ‘That was speedy!’ I said. ‘But really, Simon, if she’s that fickle, you’re well out of it.’

  ‘You’re right, and when she started taunting him in a really vicious way about how old he was, and so mean with his money, the scales really fell from my eyes.’

  ‘Then that’s a good thing, because you’ll get over her all the quicker,’ I said bracingly.

  ‘I think I already have. And Sir Lionel managed to shut her up, by reminding her that she’d signed a prenuptial agreement.’

  ‘That was super-cautious of him!’

  ‘Cara’s his third wife. The second one died, but he’s still paying alimony to the first. Cara’s much younger than he is and so beautiful that he must have known she was only marrying him for his money.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Simon. Most rich older men with pretty young wives probably delude themselves that they’ve married them for love.’

  ‘I was just a diversion; she was never serious about me,’ he said, but in a resigned sort of way. ‘I’ll be off to my new job in a couple of weeks, though when Cripchet calmed down a bit and finished calling his solicitor, he came to find me and tried to get me to change my mind about handing in my notice.’

  ‘I hope you didn’t.’

  ‘No way! I need to be off out of it. But when he said I was leaving him in the lurch, I had a brainwave and suggested he give my dad the job and the cottage that goes with it, because he fancied a change of scene from Sweetwell. And he has, too!’

  ‘Let’s hope he’s not expecting a glowing reference from Rufus, then,’ I commented drily. ‘Still, Cripchet probably won’t ever know that Dan was fired, because he’s not plugged into the Halfhidden grapevine at all.’

  ‘No, and he’s hardly ever even at Grimside. But it’s a relief to me that Dad will have a place to live and a job after I’ve moved away.’

  ‘He’ll probably find himself working more hours for his money.’

  ‘Yes, Sir Lionel’s a bit of a slave driver,’ Simon admitted. ‘I told Dad he’d be out on his ear if he didn’t pull his weight.’

  ‘Well, at least some good has come out of it all, though I’m sorry things didn’t work out with you and Cara. I feel a bit guilty that Kieran only came up here in the first place because of me.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I can see she’d have dumped me as soon as something better came along, anyway.’

  ‘And she’s obviously never going to talk to me about the accident. She hasn’t even answered my text messages.’

  ‘You won’t be able to try to see her again if she goes off with this Kieran bloke, will you? He lives down South, somewhere.’

  ‘Yes, Oxford.’

  Simon rang off, promising to update me on any new developments, though I don’t know why. After all, it was really nothing to do with me any more.

  The pared-down kennels looked so much neater that morning. While I’d been in Southport with Lulu, Tom had finally finished off the new block with a couple of coats of weatherproofing wood stain. Now Debo was painting the new fence white, while Judy had marked out where the rose bed was to be dug and begun to remove the turf.

  I showed Rufus the fruit of their endeavours before we went to the last of the regular Regeneration Committee meetings. Everything was now either in place or, like the Victorian tea gardens, well on the way.

  After the meeting, as Lulu, Cam, Rufus and I walked down to the pub, I told them about Cara and Sir Lionel divorcing – and that Dan had been offered Simon’s job and the cottage that went with it.

  Rufus, who’d seemed a bit abstracted till then, said, ‘I already knew about Dan getting Simon’s job. Fliss told me when she called to say she was having to move out of her flat.’

  ‘What, straight away?’

  ‘Yes. They gave her lots of notice but she refused to go until the noise and dust got unbearable and she had no choice.’

  ‘But where will she go to, that’s the million-dollar question?’ I asked. ‘You’ve already told her you won’t have her at Sweetwell again.’

  ‘No way!’ he said firmly. ‘She actually suggested that she could have Dan’s cottage, once he’d moved to the one that comes with his new job!’

  ‘But – she can’t,’ Lulu objected blankly. ‘Olly and his fiancée are going to live there. I mean, Olly’s handed in his notice at the alpine nursery and set the date for a summer wedding.’

  ‘I told her the cottage was going to the new gardener, but Fliss is coming down to stay with Dan anyway,’ Rufus said. ‘And when I said I thought things were cooling off between them, she said they were on her side, but she couldn’t spend six months living with friends.’

  ‘Until he moves to the new place, I don’t suppose you can really stop him having visitors in the cottage,’ Cam said.

  ‘No, but I only hope she thinks better of it, because I might have a hell of a job getting her out when Dan moves,’ Rufus said gloomily.

  After that, he wasn’t exactly a ray of sunshine for the rest of the evening. Luckily Cam and Lulu were too engrossed in each other to notice.

  Judy drove Debo to the station next morning, because she was off on a modelling assignment. She left wearing jeans, an old sweatshirt and her ancient green waxed jacket, though once she got to Daisy’s, she would as usual transform herself from everyday duck to elegant swan.

  After she’d gone, persistent rain set in, making trotting to and fro from the Lodge to the gallery to process clothes orders more of a chore than a pleasure, though at least my new red mac didn’t leak water through the seams and down the back of my neck, like my old one.

  It was still raining when Lulu and I met to walk the dogs after lunch. Lulu was girding her loins for the very first Haunted Holiday, which was to start next weekend, on the first Saturday in May, when, annually, the Morris men danced all the way up the paths from the village of Middlemoss to Halfhidden.

  I was just thinking that, other than the threat of Fliss’s unwelcome presence in the village, everything was going well, when late in the afternoon I had a text message from Lulu saying that Alain, the student helping Guy, had emailed warning her that Guy had gone off somewhere yesterday and hadn’t come back.

  ‘But Guy might just be off on a bender?’ Cam suggested, when we were all down at the Screaming Skull later and discussing it. ‘Despite his threats, he must know he’s no chance of getting you back, so coming here would be pointless.’

  ‘I don’t know …’ she said doubtfully. ‘He’s vain
enough to think that one look at him and I’d fall into his arms again.’

  ‘Kieran was harbouring that idea, too,’ I said. ‘Or at least, he did right up to the point when he set eyes on Cara.’

  ‘If Guy does suddenly appear, perhaps we should introduce him to Cara?’ Lulu suggested. ‘She might like a ménage à trois of rejected lovers.’

  ‘Dusty and I’ll protect you, if he shows up,’ Cameron promised.

  ‘Or you could just bash him with that huge rock you’re wearing on your left hand, Lulu,’ I suggested, and she grinned.

  ‘If he comes to the pub, Mum and Dad will get Bruce and the barman to throw him out,’ she said. ‘He isn’t going to know I’m living in the trailer because he doesn’t have any local contacts. I should be safe enough.’

  ‘Do you still feel someone’s watching you when you’re alone in the woods?’ asked Rufus, as we walked home. Cam had set out with us, then doubled back to the caravan, though I don’t think he was fooling Lulu’s parents. Still, I expect they felt better about it now Lulu and Cam were engaged.

  ‘No, it seems to have stopped, and anyway, it was probably all in my imagination.’

  ‘Or it was Dan, in which case it won’t happen again now I’ve told him to stay off my property … though come to think of it, I don’t suppose I can bar him from using a public footpath.’

  ‘I suppose it could have been him lurking about, but he’s never actually done me any harm. I’m certain he wasn’t the one who shot at me, too.’

  ‘I’m sure it wasn’t, too,’ he said rather grimly.

  I stopped dead and stared at him – or what I could see of him, for even though we’d reached the moonlit clearing by the Lady Spring, it was still hard to make his face out clearly. ‘You know who did it!’

  ‘I do, and they won’t do it again,’ he said … and then suddenly, I knew, too.

  ‘It was Fliss, wasn’t it?’ I demanded.

  ‘I’m afraid so. She took an old air rifle and some pellets from Dan’s unlocked gun cupboard on impulse, though she’s an excellent shot and only meant to frighten you.’

  ‘She did that, all right! And now I can see why you told her you never wanted her to come back to the village again.’