‘Disappointing for the meat wagon; they don’t like going home empty-handed.’ Rory put a warm hand on Lottie’s thigh and did an experimental squeeze.
‘Do that many people really fall off?’ Tom shot a swift, concerned look in his daughter’s direction. ‘I mean, is it really that dangerous?’
‘It’s a good breaking ground.’ Rory laughed at his own humour and drained the rest of his pint. ‘Thirsty work.’
‘I’ll get them in, shall I? Same again?’
Lottie watched Tom push his way through the crowd at the bar before jabbing Rory in the ribs with her elbow. ‘He’s up to something.’ She hissed through her teeth in his direction, trying her best to maintain a smile for Tab’s benefit, but the girl just gave her a putdown, disinterested stare, then surprised them all by speaking.
‘He likes it here.’ Then spoiled it. ‘God knows why. Everything is so old.’
Which Lottie took to include her, as well as all the other people, buildings, and well, everything. She had a point; it wasn’t exactly a raver’s paradise, but from what Lottie could remember, horses were as good as it got at her age. ‘And even if the woman in that picture is Amanda, it’s not a picture of her and Dad, is it?’ Only a teenager could look that disparaging and disinterested at the same time. Lottie waited for enlightenment. ‘They’ve probably cut off Mum and a whole load of other people. They do that all the time with famous people. And he was so out of his head he probably doesn’t even remember it. Right,’ she pushed the barely touched drink to the middle of the table, ‘you can tell him I’ve had enough and gone home.’
‘You can tell me yourself.’ Tom carefully put the drinks on the table. ‘Too much excitement for you, poppet?’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘Well that’s telling us, isn’t it?’ Lottie reached for her drink and tried to get another peek at the picture, without being too obvious.
‘Telling you, more like. Oh the innocence of youth, everything so clear and uncomplicated.’ Rory raised his pint to Tom. ‘Cheers mate.’ Took a gulp. ‘Well, come on, dish the dirt, have you been shagging old Amanda, then?’
***
As Tom weaved his way slowly back up the lane, trying to avoid the high hedges, which were jumping out at him, he’d have liked to have thought over what Rory had said. But his brain wouldn’t let him. It kept taking a detour, visiting old haunts and memories, rather than working in a straight line like it normally did. Something he also wished his feet would do right now.
‘God, I feel pissed.’ He fumbled his way through the gate and let it clang shut behind him. Then found, when he got to the door, that he couldn’t find the keyhole. The name of the house came briefly into focus if he stared hard enough, before it blurred again. Blake House – definitely the right house. ‘Fuck it.’ He sank down on the step, stretched his legs out and looked up the unearthly darkness of the lane. ‘I could do with a fag.’
‘Here, help yourself.’ A packet of cigarettes landed in his lap. ‘I presume that’s the type of fag you mean? Not the male-model type?’ And, for some reason, it didn’t seem strange to find Pip hanging over the wooden gate. ‘Going to invite me in?’
‘I might, if you’ve got a lighter.’
She laughed. ‘I’m always prepared: dib, dib, dib.’
He must have had a blank look on his face.
‘You know, boy scouts and all that.’
‘Ah, yes. But you’re a girl. Don’t they have something different for girls? They did in my day.’
‘They did in mine too. But the scouts were more fun. I used to climb over the fence and join them round their camp fire. The girls didn’t do fires, just sewing.’ She closed the gate a bit more carefully than he had, and joined him on the step. ‘You’re pissed.’
‘I am. Are you?’
‘Pleasantly tipsy. I’ve been drinking with Amanda.’
‘Ah.’ For some reason, he thought the mention of Amanda should have been significant, but he couldn’t remember why. ‘I’ve been drinking with Lottie, Rory and Mick.’ He tried to remember exactly how long, and what, he’d been drinking, and failed spectacularly. ‘It seems to have affected my reasoning power, as well as my balance.’
‘Whiskey chasers or vodka shots?’
‘Fuck knows.’ He grinned at her and took a long drag on the cigarette, which seemed to help. ‘I know, yeah, I do. Vodka, yeah vodka. We had beer, then vodka, then both.’
‘Depth charge.’ Pip shook her head. ‘A Rory special. All I had was Chablis.’
‘Poor thing.’ He put an arm around her shoulder. He took in the scent of shampoo and wasn’t quite sure whether it was a wave of lust sweeping over him or a dizzy spell. He decided it was the first when other parts of his body stirred at the close proximity of a woman.
‘Have you seen the papers, Tom?’
‘Papers? Oh yes, papers, everybody has seen the papers.’ The Amanda-link clunked back into the puzzle of life.
‘Thought they might have.’ She settled back on her elbows and stared up at the blue-black canopy above, watching the wisp of smoke swirl and blend its way into the nothingness as she breathed out and passed the cigarette back to Tom. ‘She says it’s a set-up.’
‘A figment of a journalist’s imagination. Smokescreen.’
‘And magic mirrors?’
‘Magic editing more like: the joys of Photoshop.’ Tom leaned against the side of the porch, hoping it would help keep things still, the earth spinning was one thing, but not at this speed. ‘I’ve not been this pissed for years.’
‘You’ve not been boozing with the hunting crowd; they’re good at things like drinking.’
‘And risking their necks?’
‘On the field and in the sack.’
‘And what about you?’
‘I like things slightly more civilised.’
‘Have you been here long then? You seem pretty settled in.’
She smiled, a dreamy vision, all soft and hazy, which was probably more down to his pissed state, he reckoned, than actual reality. From his vague recollection of previous meetings, dreamy wasn’t a tag he’d attach to Philippa.
‘Not long.’
‘You’re not a Cheshire girl, are you?’ He was talking nonsense, just to keep some semblance of a conversation going, to keep her there. And he wasn’t sure why. Comfort? Adult companionship that wasn’t as competitive and intense as the type these adrenalin junkies carried with them?
‘From the Valley.’
‘Ballet?’ That left him even more confused, if that was possible. She was slim, but imagining her in a tutu was a step too far.
‘Valley, you dork, not ballet. As in Wales, you know, Welsh Valleys.’
‘You don’t sound Welsh.’
She laughed, a light, pleasant sound that snaked its way into his addled brain then headed southwards and made him feel like he should be holding her tight. ‘I worked in London for a long time.’
‘Ah, yes, the journalist.’
‘Then I met Lottie in Spain and she somehow persuaded me to come here.’
‘It’s darker here, isn’t it?’ He looked up at the inky sky, lit with tiny pinpricks of stars.
‘Very dark.’
They both stared up silently and then he stubbed the cigarette out slowly, and Pip watched as he ground it round and round, smaller and smaller. ‘Do you think you’ll stay here, Tom?’
‘I hope so. This has to be better for Tabatha than what she had before.’
‘And what about for you?’
‘It feels like I belong.’ Even drunk, he instantly regretted the impulsive words. ‘Will you stay?’
‘Okay.’ One simple word. She stood up, held out a hand, smiling as he straightened up cautiously.
And as Tom slowly stripped her in the small cottage bedroom, chintzy curtains open so that the moonlight could slip into the room and caress her slim body with its silvery hue, he stared almost mesmerised at the round, perfect breasts, at her unashamed naked stance. And as her
nipples hardened under his gaze, his cock stirred in response. He reached out, rubbed one rosy bud gently with his thumb. God, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d needed someone this badly. She slowly unbuttoned his shirt, slipped it from his shoulders and ran the point of her nail down over his chest until it slipped into the waistband of his trousers. Tom felt the ragged breath leave his body. It was a bloody good job he was half-cut or this would be over the second he was inside her. And he so didn’t want that, for either of them.
A shiver ran over his body, a need, a want. It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman; much, much longer since he’d been with one who wanted nothing in return. Simple, straightforward pleasure, mutual need. And as he pushed Pip gently backwards so that she toppled onto the bed, he was sure that it was exactly what he was about to get.
Chapter 9
‘You,’ Tabatha banged the mug down with unnecessary force and Tom flinched, ‘were totally wasted last night.’ She sounded like her mother. Or his.
‘And how would you know?’
‘I heard you when you got back. You were sat outside rambling on to that woman. And,’ she paused, a disgusted look of self-righteousness on her face, ‘you were smoking.’ She wrinkled her nose, which he translated as ‘you stink’.
‘Sounds like you got out of the bed the wrong side.’
‘There is only one side to get out in that cell you call a bedroom.’ She gave the button of the toaster an angry jab and a slice of barely toasted bread popped out, to be liberally spread with a suffocating amount of butter and honey. Tom watched as his daughter licked her sticky fingers, and gave silent thanks that she had never let her mother’s nasty jibes stop her enjoying her food. Tamara had taken eating seriously. She ate just enough to live, and popped enough pills and applied enough lotions and potions to ensure that she had the healthy glow of a well-nourished human being.
He took another sip of his scalding hot coffee and regretted that he couldn’t remember more of the night before. That woman, as Tabby described her, had been an unexpected but very rewarding visitor. Or so he thought from the bits he could remember. And the peck on his cheek this morning had been good-humoured enough; the cheery wave and smile suggesting that the evening hadn’t been a complete disaster.
What had he been thinking? Well, he hadn’t. He’d just gone ahead and done what seemed like a good idea at the time, which was something he hadn’t done for years. And he wasn’t quite sure if he regretted it or not yet. He’d never been cut out to be celibate, but of all the women to shag in this gossipy place, the local journalist probably wasn’t the smartest of choices.
In fact, heading out to one of the nearby villages would have been a better idea. Somewhere off Pip’s, and Elizabeth’s, radar. At the hunt he’d been well and truly interrogated by the blunt and slightly eccentric grande dame, and he was pretty sure she had some alternative motive. And he and Pip ending up in bed wasn’t it.
‘Dad, Dad, are you listening? You didn’t hear a word of that, did you?’
‘Sorry?’
Tabby rolled her eyes and looked heavenwards for inspiration. ‘I said, you’ve got to take me down to the yard. Merlin’s arriving today, isn’t he? This morning? Duh.’
‘Christ, I’d forgotten.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Shit, is it that time already?’ It wasn’t just a rhetorical, doesn’t-time-fly type of question, he was having trouble focusing. Whatever happened to those digital watches with big, glaring faces?
‘You aren’t supposed to swear in front of me. You said if you did then I could as well.’
‘Just let me drink this, then we’ll go. Promise. Don’t you need to get changed or something?’
‘No.’ She sat down opposite him. ‘And why would I want to do that?’
‘To, er, ride?’
‘You can be so out of touch at times.’ The chair scraped back with a headache-inducing screech. ‘Just tell me when you’re ready, then. And don’t be too long, I have got stuff to do, you know.’
‘Like messing about on social networks?’
‘God, you sound so old and stuffy sometimes.’
‘Okay, like Facebook? Poking people.’
‘Like homework. And it isn’t messing, and I don’t poke, if you must know. It’s staying in touch with my friends, you know, the friends you dragged me away from so that we could come to the sticks and stagnate.’
Tom groaned silently into his coffee. The fact that she’d strung that many words together, to him, meant she was upset. Very upset. The horse, the riding, was supposed to be a conciliatory gesture, and he was cocking that up big style. It was one thing being the firm, ‘I know what’s best for you’ parent, but bloody hard when you knew your wilful daughter had a good point. He poured the rest of the coffee down the sink, hanging onto the counter top and staring out of the window at the picture-perfect scene. This had to work. He did know what was best for Tabatha, for both of them. It would work, just like his head would stop thumping, eventually.
***
Billy stared at the slightly podgy figure of his sometime groom and wondered, not for the first time, why she didn’t brush her hair occasionally. She always looked like she’d just fallen out of bed, grabbed the first clothes she could find and headed straight for the door without even giving the mirror a glance. Not that he was exactly a picture, he didn’t need anyone to tell him that, but at least he didn’t look like an accumulation of a year’s worth of jumble-sale visits.
Tiggy was breathless, her bosom heaving up and down, and for a moment he was distracted. Bosoms had that power over him, as did ample and nicely rounded bottoms. Not that Tigs was very good at displaying her assets in the most appealing way, but they still caught his attention at times. Like now. Not for Tiggy the skin-tight jodhpurs and clinging chaps that most of the grooms wore. No, today her ensemble consisted of red Hunter wellingtons (the only resident of Tippermere that knew they existed in that colour), a pair of baggy khaki trousers that were slung low on her hips and would have looked quite trendy coupled with the right footwear and top, and they did show off the slim waist that nestled between her ample bust and generous hips, and a smocked top more suitable for wandering around the gardens of a stately home than for mucking out horses. But at least the generous, rounded neckline did show off her wonderful pink-tinged, freckled chest to its best advantage.
‘But he won’t go away; he says he’s got the right address.’
Billy glanced over at the big horse transporter, which was effectively blocking all access to the equestrian centre, and decided it might be a blessing in disguise. At least it meant no one else could come and hassle him.
‘Who did he say he was again?’ He eyed the jump pole. ‘That doesn’t look level to me.’
Tiggy squinted at it. ‘It isn’t, the ground goes up there.’ She pointed to one end.
‘I thought you said you’d levelled it this morning.’
‘Did I?’ She looked vaguely at him, then back at the jump. ‘I think I said I meant to do it, but then someone rang and asked if I’d groom their dog for them and I might have forgotten.’
‘Might have? Tiggy you’re fucking hopeless.’
‘I know.’ She grinned. ‘But you love me anyway.’
Victoria Stafford (not that many people in Tippermere knew her actual name was Victoria) was like one of the spaniels that occasionally frequented her grooming salon. Shaggy, lovable, eternally optimistic, and totally unreliable. She could show complete devotion, but was totally uncontrollable due to a scatty brain and a total inability to concentrate on anything for longer than it took for a new distraction to appear on the horizon. Which was never very long, due to her interest in more or less anything that moved, and quite a few things that didn’t.
‘So, who is it again?’ Nice though the thought of being blocked off from civilisation was, if he didn’t get the huge vehicle shifted back out of the gate, the feed merchant wouldn’t be able to deliver, and that would be serious.
�
�He said he’s here for tea.’
‘Tea?’ The woman had lost it this time. ‘Since when did I do tea? Send him up to Stanthorpe, I’m sure he’ll oblige, might even provide cucumber sandwiches.’
‘Let me finish, oh and don’t be nasty, he’s a nice man.’ Billy was emanating an air of tetchiness, which usually meant he was worried.
‘I thought you had.’
‘I’d paused. I was trying to remember. Yes!’ A triumphant smile lit up her features, transforming her face. ‘T. Straw, Mr T. Straw, that’s what he said.’
‘Tea and straw? You’re excelling yourself today, Tigs.’ Billy kicked at the school floor in the hope of knocking some of the rubber out from under the jump stand and getting something that looked vaguely level. ‘Ah, you mean Strachan.’
‘Do I?’
‘Tom bloody Strachan, that gay ponce that just moved in the village.’
‘Gay ponce?’
‘You know, the model, with the stroppy goth daughter. The one,’ he inclined his head in the general direction of Folly Lake Manor, ‘that is screwing her ladyship, according to our local rag.’
‘He’s gorgeous; he’s not gay. Is he? And how can he be if he’s, er, screwing Amanda?’
‘Who knows? And I was talking about screwing financially not physically. Now be a love, go and find Lottie, it’s her bloody problem. And tell her to hurry up, will you? The horse will think it’s on the bloody Titanic with this surface.’ He scuffed at the ground again with his boot, then headed back over to the horse, which was standing, reins dangling, patiently waiting.
Tiggy, realising she’d been summarily dismissed, watched as he sprung lightly into the saddle. He was all man, was Billy. She didn’t care what people said about him, or what they used to say. He had a heart of gold and was so demanding and authoritative it made her go weak at the knees. Literally.
It made her heart ache that Billy wasn’t happy. And she knew he wasn’t. Everyone on the circuit in Tippermere thought of him as a happy-go-lucky type of guy, who liked to play the field, who always had a good joke to tell. He was no different in that way to most of the other riders. They worked hard, in a physically and mentally demanding sport, and at the end of each day they played hard. They were like actors on the stage, all bravado and confidence, but a man like Billy needed more.
The Little Shop of Afternoon Delights Page 107
