When Fi didn’t answer, Daisy turned to her. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘You’re so old for your age sometimes, do you know that?’
Daisy couldn’t understand why and said so.
Fi thought for a few seconds. ‘I mean, who in their twenties would know anything about something that happened over sixty years ago; it’s odd.’
Daisy shook her head. ‘I don’t see why. I don’t even come from here and I know who Lydia Grey is. Maybe it’s because my mum was such a huge fan.’
‘Your mum can’t have been old enough to remember the fifties though, surely?
Daisy sighed. ‘No, but she loved fashion and old movies, and I suppose I inherited that trait from her.’
Fi looked her up and down. ‘Even in your uniform it’s obvious there’s something a little different about you,’ she said.
‘Meaning?’
‘Your make-up, or what little you use, is like something out of the fifties. You only put eyeliner on your top eyelid and wear red lipstick.’
Daisy pictured herself. ‘I suppose you’re right; I hadn’t thought about that before.’ It also hadn’t occurred to her how different she must appear to Gabe now. He’d only ever known her with a make-up free face sporting nothing more than a tan.
‘Hi there,’ he said, as if she’d conjured him up with her thoughts. He was leaning through the doors into Reception. ‘I can’t stop now,’ he indicated his mother calling him from the back seat of his car. She hadn’t noticed them getting in and hoped Francesca hadn’t given her any orders she’d missed.
‘I was wondering if you wanted to come out to see a band down at St Ouen tonight?’ he added.
Daisy didn’t have to consider the proposal. ‘I’d love to.’
‘Gabriel, will you stop drooling over that girl and drive us to the sodding airport,’ his father bellowed from the car.
Gabriel cringed. ‘He’s so embarrassing sometimes.’ He turned to leave. ‘I’ll pick you up at six-thirty,’ he shouted over his shoulder.
‘I can take the bus, if it’s easier?’ Daisy said.
His reply was a lazy half-smile that was so sexy; she heard Fi swallow and sigh.
‘I’ll be here,’ he said before running out of the door.
‘OK,’ she murmured, not sure if he’d heard her as he turned on the ignition and the car sped off down the driveway.
‘So, you’ve pulled then,’ Fi said giggling. ‘Lucky cow.’
Daisy frowned at her. ‘We’re old friends and we’re going out for the evening to catch up, if you must know.’
‘You keep telling yourself that,’ Fi giggled. ‘If you’re not interested in him then I most certainly would be, so don’t go making out that he’s nothing to you if he is.’
Daisy admired Fi’s honesty and couldn’t help liking how direct she always was about everything. She supposed it probably had something to do with never having to worry if you upset someone and knowing that whatever you did, your brother would be able to sort out any issues you inadvertently caused.
‘Fine,’ Daisy said. ‘I do like Gabe, rather a lot in fact. So keep your sticky mitts off him.’ She laughed. ‘I just know you’re going to be more offended by insinuating that you have sticky hands than the thought of you pinching some guy from under my nose.’
Fi held up her immaculate hands. ‘Damn right,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing mucky about me.’ She hesitated for effect. ‘Apart from maybe my imagination: that can be downright filthy.’
Daisy shook her head. ‘You’re impossible, do you know that?’
Gabriel was waiting for her outside the front of the hotel when she hurried through to meet him just after six-thirty. He was chatting to two elderly ladies, who came back to stay at the hotel several times each season. She waited for them to finish their conversation and stared out to the rectangular pool with its wooden steamer chairs which Fi told her had been sourced from an old liner and restored. She wondered how many times they’d had to re-order the cushioned covers in their navy and cream piping after they’d been ruined by a visitor getting careless with sun cream.
She breathed in the heady scent of tea roses and jasmine and rather than looking as if she was impatient for him to finish talking, headed left to the back of the hotel and the pretty herb garden. Watching the tall, toned man she’d missed so much made Daisy smile. He was beautiful inside as well as outside and now she knew how he’d left his own project to return to help out his grandmother, she loved him even more.
‘There you are,’ he said a few minutes later. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting.’ He bent down to give her a kiss on the cheek.
‘It’s no problem at all,’ she said. ‘It’s so tranquil out here, I was happy to wait.’
‘Isn’t it a perfect evening? You can’t beat Jersey on days like these.’
They walked a little further. ‘There are so many glorious smells out here,’ she said. ‘I was just admiring the roses, then the different herbs over there, and now I’ve got a waft of salty air from the bay.’
‘The wind direction probably changed,’ he said quietly. ‘Come on, let’s get going. We don’t want to miss the music.’
She walked with him back to where he’d parked. ‘I do love it here though,’ he said. ‘It’s a little like going back in time to a more genteel era.’
‘It’s wonderful,’ she agreed.
Gabriel shrugged. ‘Mind you, after a couple of months I need to get away and get back into discovering things in the ocean.’
She bent to sniff a dark-red flower; the scent was heady. ‘That is incredible,’ she said.
‘I think that’s Nan’s favourite,’ he said. ‘If it is then that one is called Deep Secret. Nan has a few of those in her rose garden.’ They walked a few steps further. ‘So, how do you like living in Jersey; is it to your liking?’ He grinned at her.
‘It is,’ she said trying not to giggle. ‘I never thought I could find anywhere I’d be as happy as I was in Vietnam,’ she admitted. ‘But it’s lovely here, if not quite as exotic.
‘Or as hot,’ he laughed. Gabriel took her hand in his, lifted it to his lips, and kissed it. ‘Meeting you here has made the anticipation of an amazing summer even more special than it usually is,’ he said.
Daisy didn’t answer: she was unable to trust herself not to fling her arms around his neck and kiss him, hard.
He led her over to his car and they got in, fastening their seatbelts. Gabe started the engine and they began the short drive to St Ouen’s. He sighed. ‘I was pretty upset having to leave my team,’ he said. ‘But I knew I couldn’t leave Nan to look after the hotel alone, especially now the high season is nearly upon us.’ He shook his head. ‘I still can’t believe you’re living and working here.’
Neither could she sometimes. They continued in silence for a few moments. ‘That storm last night woke me up,’ she said recalling the loud clap of thunder that had given her such a fright sometime around two in the morning.
‘It was,’ he said. ‘I could hear Nan’s little rescue dog, Jack, yelping and barking the whole time it thundered. I went down to the house to check everything was OK.’
‘Poor little thing. Did he calm down in the end?’
Gabriel shook his head and yawned. ‘No. Nan took him up to her room. He sleeps in the utility room and is usually perfectly happy. I think I eventually fell asleep around four o’clock.’
‘Me too,’ she said. ‘Poor little dog. How long has she had him?’
‘About a year or so. He’s a Jack Russell cross about four other breeds. He’s a funny-looking thing, but he’s sweet and she adores him.’
They drove the rest of the way in silence. Daisy stole glances at him when she thought he wouldn’t notice. The last time she did it, he turned and smiled at her.
He turned down a narrow road. ‘Look,’ he said, pointing across to the beach where a paraglider was circling. ‘The tide is up at the moment, but when it goes out there’ll be all sorts of flotsam and jetsam
dumped on the beach from the rough tides. It always happens after a storm.’
‘I’ll have to make sure I pop down to the beach later to do a bit of beachcombing then,’ she said. ‘I could do with finding a few bits of faded glass and driftwood for my windowsill. It’s a bit bare in there at the moment.’
‘Good idea,’ he said.
‘I can’t believe your parents are my bosses,’ she giggled. ‘They’re characters, aren’t they?’
‘A bit larger than life, would you say?’ He smiled, the skin around his dark-brown eyes crinkling in amusement.
Daisy laughed. ‘You could indeed say that.’
‘Have you been this way before?’ he asked, motioning down towards the sea on their right-hand side.
‘No,’ she said looking down the cliff face close to the road at the waves crashing against hidden rocks below the surface. ‘St Ouen is on the north west of the island, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. I love it down on that beach; it’s still so wild and unspoilt.’
The car meandered its way through the narrow lanes, with grassy banks and flowers leaning precariously over towards the side of the car.
‘I’m sure these roads would be wider if the grass wasn’t so long,’ she said wishing she could have shown him around the places she loved in Devon. Her emotions dipped as she realised that the chances of her having a reason to return to her home town were minimal. There was no one she wanted to visit there, no one worth the risk of being seen. She fought her resentment. She realised Gabe was speaking and focused her attention to what he was saying.
‘The banks and bushes on the sides of the roads will be cut soon. They call it “the branchage”. We’ll all be moaning when they’re doing it because there will be traffic hold ups as drivers take it in turns to pass the bollards they’ll put in the roads to stay safe. Even worse are the machines hired to cut the grass; they’re slow and a lot of them damage the hedging. It drives me nuts when I see that happening.’
‘That’s awful.’
Daisy closed her eyes and relished the heat of the evening sun warming her face. This island seemed so similar to her home in some ways, but the use of French road names and words like ‘branchage’ reminded her that she was on an island off the coast of France and not in south-west England. She’d never experienced anything this glorious when she lived at home with her mum. They hadn’t lived in a pretty house or with a sea view and her mum had never driven, let alone owned a car, so their lives had been ruled by bus timetables whenever they wanted to go anywhere. Their estate could have benefitted hugely from banks of grass and flowers.
‘You’re very lucky growing up on such a pretty island, Gabe.’
‘I know and I do appreciate it. In fact, leaving for work can be quite a wrench at times, but I know I’ll always come back.’ He reached out and took one of her hands in his. ‘Do you envisage staying here for long, Daisy?’
She hadn’t decided, but being with him right now, and having her hand in his made the thought of never leaving this place very tempting. ‘I would like to,’ she admitted. ‘Now Mum has gone and what’s left of her belongings are in storage, I don’t have anywhere else I need to be.’
‘That’s sad,’ he said honestly. She was grateful to him for not holding back with his thoughts; it was refreshing having someone talk about her feelings.
‘It is, I guess, but I can’t change how things are.’
‘Don’t you have any brothers or sisters?’ he asked, letting go of her hand to manoeuvre the car through a particularly tight bend in the road.
‘No, you?’
‘I’m an only child too,’ he said. ‘I always wanted a brother or sister, but I think my parents were so stunned by my unexpected appearance into their fun-filled world and having to make time in their workload to bring me up that they didn’t dare have a second child.’
Daisy couldn’t imagine making a child of hers feel like an inconvenient intruder. ‘I’m sure they were thrilled to have you once they got over the shock of being parents?’
‘I’m not so sure it was that easy for them,’ he laughed. ‘I was very inquisitive and always running off and climbing cliffs when we went to the beach, or jumping off rocks. I was the first one to tombstone off the harbour wall at Bouley Bay with my friends and my mother nearly went mad with fright each time I was carted off in an ambulance, or the police had to inform her that I’d had yet another accident. I don’t think they were at all surprised when I told them I wanted to be a marine explorer.’
‘Poor people.’ She couldn’t help feeling sorry for them now, though picturing someone as dramatic as Francesca trying to cope with such an adventurous child was also amusing. ‘No wonder they kept going away to work; they probably needed the break.’
‘Hey!’ he reached over and tickled her side with his free hand. ‘You’re probably right though.’
They slowed down as the car reached a small village and Gabe turned left down a long road. ‘The locals call this Hydrangea Avenue,’ he said.
Daisy opened her mouth to speak but was silenced by the avenue of pink and blue hydrangea bushes in full bloom on either side of the long road, a row of equally magnificent chestnut trees standing proudly behind them. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she gasped, making a note to come here and paint the route towards the bay.
He slowed down half way along the road and turned into a smaller road which meandered for a few minutes until they came to a packed car park where Gabriel finally managed to find a small space.
‘We have to walk from here,’ he said getting out of the car and walking around to the passenger side to open Daisy’s door for her.
She stepped out and watched as he went to the back of the car and opening the boot took out a hamper and rolled-up blanket. ‘We’re going on a picnic?’
‘Of sorts,’ he said, locking the car. ‘Come on, it’s this way.’
She walked with him across a couple of fields, careful to avoid any sheep poo. ‘What’s that?’ she asked looking at a strange arrangement of large granite stones.
‘That’s a dolmen,’ he said. ‘It was used as a burial chamber.’
Daisy hadn’t expected that answer. ‘Are there bodies buried in there?’
He shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. I seem to recall my dad talking about it once when he brought me here for a walk when we first came back to live here. I think it’s about four thousand years old and they used to believe that it had been built by fairies, or that’s what he said anyway. It’s owned by the Société Jersiaise now. They look after a lot of interesting places on the island, as do Jersey Heritage. I’ll have to take you to some of the other sites here on the island.’
‘I’d love that,’ she said peering at the ancient monument. She stared at it for a moment then hearing the chords of a beautiful tune coming from behind a high row of pine trees, hurried to catch up with him.
In her rush, she tripped over a stone in the soil and Gabriel grabbed hold of her arm before she fell. Regaining her balance she groaned. ‘Mum always used to moan about how clumsy I am.’
He took her hand in his. ‘Come on, we’d better get moving otherwise there won’t be anywhere to sit.’
Intrigued by the sounds of voices emanating up from behind the trees and the beautiful music, she walked a little faster to keep up with him. Daisy watched where she was placing her feet so that she didn’t trip again. Excitement bubbled inside her: something was going on and she couldn’t wait to discover what exactly it could be. A sparrowhawk hovered in the field nearby and the music got louder.
They strode through the trees and Daisy gasped. In front of them sat groups of people on rugs and coats, watching a band serenading them as the sun, turning the surrounding sky golden orange, was getting ready to set in the channel ahead of them.
‘Oh Gabe,’ she murmured. ‘This is enchanting.’
He looked down at her and smiled. ‘I’m glad you like it,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t until we were on our way here that it dawned on me that you m
ight think we were going to watch bands playing contemporary music. I wasn’t sure if you’d want to stay.’
She couldn’t imagine anything more romantic as sitting on the grass listening to the harmonic sounds being played by the instruments with the spectacular setting of the beach and sea behind them.
‘It’s glorious,’ she said.
‘Now we just need to find a space where we can sit down,’ he said.
She looked around the couple of hundred people who’d had the sense to arrive earlier than them. Small children played with toys next to their parents and dogs, some sitting, guarding their owners, others snoozing on the rugs while their owners relaxed with glasses of wine as they enjoyed the atmosphere.
Daisy spotted someone waving at them and tugged gently on Gabe’s hand. ‘That guy over there is trying to get your attention,’ she said quietly, not wishing to disturb the audience.
Gabriel looked over. ‘It’s Ed,’ he said. ‘He works at a manor house not too far from here, in the gardens. Shall we go and see if they’ve got space near them?’
Desperate to sit down and take in the atmosphere of the evening, Daisy nodded. ‘Yes. I think we’re starting to annoy the people behind us.’
‘Sorry,’ Gabriel said turning to apologise to the couple leaning sideways trying to see past his legs.
They stepped carefully over feet and glasses that were in their way, reaching Ed and his friends a short while later.
‘Good to see you,’ Ed said taking the hamper from Gabe and indicating a space next to him. ‘Make yourself at home.’
Gabriel unrolled the blanket and placed it down on the grass, giving Daisy room to get comfortable next to Ed before sitting down on her other side.
‘Hi, I’m Ed,’ said the man who looked rugged and outdoorsy yet somehow still refined. ‘This is Izzy, my girlfriend, and her friend, Jess, and Alex, Izzy’s brother.’
The Jersey Scene series box set Page 94
