He was still in the denim shorts, but had added a white T-shirt at least. He gave me a nod as he walked past and took himself off to sit alone in a quiet and shady corner of the open field. He wasn’t far from the doggy crèche and several of the dogs clearly recognised him and were poking their muzzles through the fence, trying to get to him.
I noticed him grinning at their antics and also noticed how the grin fell away once he turned back to face people rather than pooches. I also noticed that his glance grazed over me and felt a sudden blush sweep over my cheeks.
I don’t usually blush, but something about Matt – and, more specifically, the way I reacted to him – had me unnerved. I made a silent vow to either stop looking at him or at least buy a pair of tinted shades so he wouldn’t be able to spot it when I was eyeball-stalking him.
Cherie noticed me blushing, of course. In exactly the same way that she’d noticed me and Matt doing our polite-yet-distant nodding routine. I suspected that Cherie was one of those people who noticed absolutely everything and filed it away in the cavernous corners of her brain.
‘He’s not in the file yet,’ she said, tapping the blue folder on the table in front of us. ‘I’ve not quite got to the bottom of Mr Hunter, the handsomest vet in the county.’
I’d simply nodded again and tried not to choke on my strawberries. Poor Matt. I had the feeling Cherie was intrigued by his mystery and I was glad that I’d already told her everything there was to know about me in my letter. No mystery there, ma’am. No need for the alien mind probe with me.
After lunch, I’d gone with the kids for the promised paddle in the sea, which was cooling and gorgeous and very, very welcome. I’d half expected Lizzie to try and stay out with her new pals, but instead we came to the compromise of them visiting us later on. Cherie, obviously, seemed to know them, or at the very least their parents. One of them, I vaguely recalled, was the son of Scrumpy Joe Jones, who was one of my Comfort Food File VIPs.
By the time we rolled up back to our cottage, we were all warm and mellow and well fed and relaxed. Exactly as I’d hoped we would be on holiday – and certainly the most comfortable with each other than we’d been for a while.
Now, as I’ve done as much homework as my brain can cope with, and made the butties, and I’ve finished off the wine, I feel at a bit of a loose end. This is not an uncommon sensation for me. It’s one of the reasons I needed to get a job.
There are only so many books to read and TV box sets to watch before the alone-time starts to get to you. Having kids around the house – with all their noise and filth and mess and fun – helps, but it’s not enough. And, more to the point, it’s not fair for me to expect it to be enough – I want them to live their own lives, worry about their own problems and chase their own dreams. I don’t want them feeling responsible for me in any way.
Times like this can be dangerous. Times when they’re busy and I’m tipsy and the dog’s sleepy. That’s when it can creep up on you.
When you’ve lost your partner in life, it’s not the big stuff you necessarily mourn. It’s the little stuff. The goodnight cuddles rather than the spectacular sex. The quick chat over a rushed breakfast rather than the romantic three-course meals in a posh restaurant. The casual contact, the taken-for-granted communication, the fact that if you hear a noise in the night, there’s someone else to send to investigate.
It’s the small stuff that can break you – small stuff like listening to skylarks out in your new back garden and wanting to tell someone how beautiful they sound.
So to avoid any potential emotional hiccups, along with the physical ones, I get the lead and hook Jimbo up. He’s so tired he pretends he hasn’t noticed, and I have to physically drag him along the wooden floor for a few feet before he gives in and agrees to stand up.
I lock the door behind me – because you can take the girl out of Manchester, etc etc – and walk past the swimming pool. I squint my eyes to try and see through the steamed-up windows, but don’t see or hear any teenagers. Which means they’ve escaped.
I walk down along the path and can’t help but have a little nosy at the other cottages we pass. All of them seem to be inhabited by happy families getting ready for their dinner, although at least one contains a teenager leaning out of the bedroom window having a sneaky fag. That cheers me up, in a totally mean-spirited way.
We amble up to the car park and I see that the playground has been colonised by the Teens. Lizzie is on a swing, kicking up dust clouds with her feet every time she scuds downwards, and a boy who I vaguely remember is Scrumpy Joe’s son is next to her, also swinging. Two more are hanging upside down from the climbing frame, all dressed in black, like human-sized bats.
I can hear low-level chatter and bursts of laughter and am lulled into a possibly false sense of security as I walk towards them. Lizzie spots me and her eyes narrow slightly as she meets my gaze. I narrow my eyes back at her and hope I’ve sent some kind of subliminal dominance message that will stop her saying anything rude to me.
They all go quiet as I approach and I’m reminded yet again of how every single generation of teenagers who ever existed was utterly convinced that their parents Don’t Understand. That we were all born, fully grown and boring, obsessed with curfews and eating vegetables, our voice boxes pre-loaded with dire warnings about looking twice before you cross the road, not going out with wet hair and avoiding dark short cuts on the way home.
‘Hi guys,’ I say, keeping my voice neutral. I’m comfortable enough with Lizzie’s friends back home and know them well enough to not worry about whether I’m going to mortify my daughter or not – but this is all new. These are potentially summer friends, who will both keep her sane and keep her off my back and I don’t want to embarrass her without even knowing I’m doing it.
There are polite murmurs, mumbled greetings and a slight shuffling around as they wait for me to either say something else or leave.
‘I’ve made a load of sandwiches,’ I say, working on the basis that teenage boys, at least, always love food. ‘And Cherie sent us home with a suitcase full of leftover cupcakes. Come back to the cottage in a while, if you like.’
More murmurs. A few thank yous. A couple of glances at phones – possibly to check the time. It’s around seven now and I have no idea how long these kids are allowed to stay out or how they get home. These are countryside rules and they may well be different to the ones we’re used to. I only hope none of them are expecting a lift back to the village as I am ever-so-mildly shitfaced. Not enough to fall over or vomit in a bin, but definitely enough to stop me from driving.
I move on towards the games room. It’s actually a very pretty summer house and the door is propped open to let the warm evening air in. I poke my head around it and see Nate is in there playing air hockey with the boy whose name I can’t quite remember but might be Jacob.
I let them finish their point before I speak – air hockey is a game that requires vast concentration – and then give them the same small, food-based speech as I gave the teenagers. I add to the friend-who-might-be-Jacob that he’s welcome too, as long as he tells his mum and dad where he is.
Jimbo and I wander back round to the central lawn and my eyes are drawn to the bigger cottage at the corner. It stands by the main gates and looks out over both the grass and the rear part of the Rockery, where we live.
I walk towards it, planning to pass it on my way back round to Hyacinth, and try very hard not to look in the windows of this particular house. Because this is Black Rose, where Matt lives, and the last thing I need is another brush with the blush patrol.
Obviously, I look anyway. I simply can’t help it. I tell myself that it’s all right, I’ve stared in every other window, and there’s no reason this one should be any different.
Unfortunately, it’s that time of the evening when the light is fading and people decide to turn on their lights. Often, when they turn on their lights, they also decide to close their curtains – probably to stop total strangers g
awping at them as they go about their business.
Just as I take my almost-against-my-will peek through the big Black Rose windows, Matt appears, his face framed by the floral curtains he’s holding in each of his hands. He stares out at me and our eyes meet. He sees me standing there with the dog. He pauses, then pulls the curtains together with a determined tug, shutting me out.
I experience a sudden rush of humiliation so strong my hands fly to my face, holding my own cheeks as I feel them flame up. Jimbo looks up at me, confused at the jerky movement of the lead and I clench my eyelids tight to squeeze out the bitter tears that have started to sting.
I have no idea why this snub – this tiny snub from someone I’ve only just met and couldn’t care less about – has made me feel so completely and totally awful. The only explanation is that I was already feeling pretty awful, just beneath the surface, and this one rude gesture has stripped away the veneer of ‘okay’ I was covering it up with.
I start to walk, briskly, past Black Rose, aiming for the safety of Hyacinth and the calm of my own solitude. Jimbo isn’t too happy at the uncharacteristic pace and I have to restrain myself from pulling his head along too hard. It’s not his fault, I remind myself, that I for some reason feel like a big fat loser from Planet Arsehole.
As we half-jog, half-amble along the path, crunching on the gravel and, in my case, keeping my eyes front and forward as I make my escape, I hear a voice from behind me.
‘Laura!’ he says. ‘Wait up!’
I don’t particularly want to ‘wait up’. I want to curl up, and wise up, and entirely possibly blow up. But Jimbo hears something different in Matt’s voice – he doesn’t hear potential embarrassment, he hears the sound of someone who fondles his ears and gazes into his cataracts and lets him lick his face. He plants his paws in the gravel and then follows with the rest of his body. He’s fat and solid and determined and impossible to budge.
Short of dropping the lead and making a run for it – which wouldn’t be at all dignified – I have no option. I plaster a fake smile on my face, hope my blush has died down and turn around.
‘Hi,’ he says, as he leans down to scratch Jimbo’s head. ‘I saw you through the window.’
‘Yes,’ I reply, with scorching banter.
‘And I wondered how you’d been today. And if you wanted to …’
He stands upright and tucks his hands in his pockets. His hair is flopping over his forehead in the gentle breeze and his hazel eyes are yet again fascinated with a spot just over my shoulder. I wouldn’t have thought it was humanly possible, but he seems almost as awkward as me.
‘… come in for a drink?’
Chapter 12
Black Rose has a different layout from Hyacinth inside. There’s a separate kitchen and a dining room with open double doors that leads through to a lounge. The lounge is cosy and feels snug, even to me. Matt automatically bends his head when he walks under certain beams and I suspect he’s learned the hard way when to duck and dive.
The windows take up most of one wall and the others are lined with bookshelves, all of them crammed with paperbacks and textbooks and files. There are papers scattered over a small work station, and a closed laptop. I wonder absently if he’s been checking out pictures of himself with my bra on his head, but decide he probably hasn’t.
There’s also a guitar lying across the sofa, as though he was just playing it. I wonder idly if he’s a ‘Stairway to Heaven’ kind of guy or a classical flamenco kind of guy.
Jimbo immediately curls up in a ball in the corner, tucking his head under his tail but leaving one eye poking out so he can watch what’s going on, and be alert in case any bacon appears. I am standing up, feeling confused, and wondering why on earth I walked through the door at all.
Matt appears with two cans of Guinness. Not my first choice of drink, but it’s chilled, and if I drink it quickly I can leave. I can stop feeling like a teenager, because really, that’s Lizzie’s job.
This is, quite obviously, not the first time I’ve been alone with a man since David died. I was alone with the funeral director on several occasions. There were parent-teacher meetings about Lizzie’s eyeliner, with me and Mr Jeffers saucily close in his broom-cupboard office. A whole five minutes with the bloke who came round to read the gas meter that time. And … well, my dad.
As I compile this mental list, I realise that none of those men had given me the nervy, tingly feeling in my tummy that Matt does. Which, in the case of my dad, is clearly fantastic news.
This is new, and therefore frightening, and I don’t feel entirely in control of my mind or my body. Both of them, for example, wanted to say no when he asked me in – but somehow, here I am. Hoping I don’t spill Guinness on his laptop and wondering how quickly I can drink it without being sick.
‘Who’s this?’ I say, pointing to a framed photo of a dog. It’s massive, possibly some kind of Great Dane/Grizzly Bear cross. Behind it is a woman, or at least her legs. Bare, slim, fashionably brown ones.
‘That’s Nico,’ he replies, smiling at the picture in such a genuine way that I immediately know that Nico is the dog, not the girl.
There is no sign of a giant dog roaming anywhere around the cottage, which tells me it’s either dead or elsewhere. Maybe with Legs.
‘Did you lose him in a custody battle?’ I say, before I have time to censor the words coming out of my mouth.
His shoulders stiffen slightly and he takes a good, long pull on his can of Guinness. The room is small, the beamed ceilings are low and I feel like I’ve hugely overstepped, in his own territory. I prepare to apologise for being such a nosy cow, but he starts to talk before I get the chance.
‘Kind of,’ he says. ‘Although it wasn’t quite that simple. Nico was her dog – that’s how we met. She brought him to me for his injections when he was a puppy. I suppose our eyes met over a crowded waiting room and the ice was well and truly broken when Nico peed on my leg. We moved in together eventually, but … well.
‘Let’s just say it didn’t work out. As ever with these things, it was complicated. It’s one of the reasons I came here, though. I’m covering for the regular village vet. She’s off working in South Africa on a sabbatical. It was only supposed to be for a year, so I should be leaving in September.’
‘And how do you feel about leaving?’ I ask, intrigued by his story and surprised he’s told me even a part of it. Maybe I’ll be able to give Cherie a run for her money after all.
‘I don’t know, to be honest. This place has been good for me. It’s … special. The place, the people. Cherie and her gang of merry pranksters. They’ve welcomed me – sometimes a bit too much – and made me feel at home. They’ve constantly tried to set me up on dates and Cherie’s fed me so much cake I must have put on a stone.’
He slaps his midriff and his T-shirt rides up. All I see is perfectly toned muscle, flat beneath bronzed skin. I suspect it’s all I’ll see for a while.
‘Oh God, I’ll have to be careful!’ I say, meaning it in all kinds of way, but one hundred per cent about the cake. I can’t afford to gain an extra stone. I’d have to leave Jeans Town and head for Leggings Land if that happened.
‘So … how was your day? How are you finding things?’ he asks, obviously keen to move the subject away from his failed relationship, his missing dog and his obesity problem. I can tell, from his carefully neutral tone, that he already knows at least part of my story.
I wonder if Cherie made some kind of announcement about the arrival of the poor old Widow Woman, or even if she photocopied my letter and handed them out to the regulars … I doubt it, but I don’t know her well enough to be sure.
‘Good!’ I say, full of beans and positivity. I’ve had enough of people feeling sorry for me, and am desperate not to hear pity creeping into this man’s voice. Pity makes me feel useless and pathetic and, well, pitiful.
‘You caught us at our worst last night,’ I add. ‘I don’t usually scream at the kids or have to chase my own under
wear, honest. It had just taken too long to get here and everyone was exhausted. A good night’s sleep and a day in the sun has sorted us all out. I’m looking forward to starting work on Tuesday, and getting to know everyone, and … do you mind me asking, Matt, if Cherie has told everyone about me? About my family situation, I mean?’
He shakes his head and gives me a small smile.
‘She told me because she knew you’d be arriving here and she wanted you to be met by a friendly face … or me, at least. I’m not the world’s best at friendly. I seem to fall into grumpy without even knowing it … and, to answer your question, she didn’t hold a meeting in the village hall or anything, but she’ll have told Willow about you, and some of the regulars. Does that bother you?’
I ponder that question and ultimately decide that it doesn’t.
‘No,’ I reply, firmly. ‘No, not at all. In some ways it’s a bit of a relief. It saves me explaining myself to everyone over and over again. People always assume I’m married, and when they inevitably ask about it, it’s a bit of a mood-killer telling the whole dead-husband story. They always feel embarrassed and don’t know how to react, and usually can’t get away fast enough. So no, this will be better.’
I see his gaze wander briefly down to my ring finger, which is, indeed, still graced with both my engagement and wedding rings. He doesn’t say anything, though, which is good. He could, of course, have said something along the lines of: ‘Maybe they wouldn’t assume you were married if you stopped wearing those?’
My mother has actually uttered similar words to me, at around the time she started suggesting I sign up to match.com, and it did not go down well. Matt is obviously made of more sensitive stuff.
‘And,’ I continue, before the silence has a chance to stretch, ‘you were perfectly friendly. I don’t think people need to be grinning like idiots twenty-four hours a day to be friendly. I understand the need for the occasional grump, and not everyone can be a social butterfly. Some of us don’t want to be, and some of us –’
Summer at the Comfort Food Cafe Page 9
