by Freya North
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Japanese couple said no to everything Stella showed them at Longbridge but nodded so much and smiled so politely all the while, that she wondered whether no meant yes. However, it was clear they didn’t like Longbridge for exactly the same reasons as the Tompkins – they expected modern fittings, dressing rooms and a degree of luxury that Longbridge, currently, could not offer. Lydia was growing impatient, Stella increasingly anxious that if the property didn’t sell soon, they’d be faced with the lull over the summer months before trade picked up again in the autumn.
‘I just want it sold,’ Lydia said. ‘I told you that. And you told me it would go like hot cakes.’
‘I can’t force people to buy,’ said Stella. They were standing by the tennis court which, in the clean light of a summer’s mid-morning, looked mossy and unkempt, the surface scuffed, raised here and there by a tree root, the net in need of repair, the lines wanting a fresh lick of paint. It was the same with the swimming pool. Leaves on the surface and debris on the base, and when the breeze rippled the water green tidemarks on the tiles slugged into view.
‘So we’re on eleven. With two offers?’
‘That’s right,’ said Stella.
‘Well – play them off against each other!’ Lydia barked as if Stella was an idiot for not having done so already. Stella watched her walk away, arm still in a sling, the precise reason for it still concealed. Taking a seat on the low wall by the rose bushes, Stella phoned both potential buyers, compromising her integrity in service to her client’s instructions. Then she headed back to her car, waving apologetically at Art as she went. She enjoyed their little chats but today she didn’t feel like talking. In the five minutes it took to drive through the village, Mr Murdley had called her back. The consortium would up their offer to twelve. But it was on the table for twenty-four hours only. Stella drove back to Longbridge. By the time she parked, the Hakshimis’ representative had called her back with a final offer of eleven and a half. Progress and potential felt like the sword of Damocles poised over Stella’s shoulders. But she had a job to do. She ignored the scent of early honeysuckle and she looked the other way from the clamber of wisteria adorning the side of the house, marching up the stone steps and telling the lions not to look at her so reproachfully.
Mrs Biggins opened the door with a theatrical shh! to her lips – Lydia was listening to the afternoon play and was not to be disturbed. Though, at the volume she had it at, Stella and Mrs Biggins could easily have sung ‘Rule Britannia’ at the tops of their voices and Lydia wouldn’t have heard them.
‘May I wait?’
‘Come into the kitchen – kettle’s just boiled,’ said Mrs Biggins. She made Stella tea and brought to the table two trays laden with individual pastry cases just out of the oven. ‘Get dolloping,’ she said, handing Stella a teaspoon and a jar of home-made damson jam. ‘Nothing like a jam tart.’
Stella was glad of the task and the company. She had sensed for a long time that there was something wily about Mrs Biggins, an all-seeing eye, ears always peeled. She liked her loyalty to Lydia – but also the growing camaraderie she now extended to Stella. Always at her ladyship’s behest – and yet never not her own woman too.
‘Hear you met Verity,’ Mrs Biggins said, casually.
‘I did,’ said Stella, adding a little more jam to her first two tarts, estimating that a spoon and a half was the right amount. ‘She’s extraordinary.’
‘Bless her,’ said Mrs Biggins. And then Stella thought, crafty old thing – that was an opening, not a closed statement. It reminded her of the way her mother saw to splinters during Stella’s childhood – diverting her attention while she quietly and deftly drew it out. ‘Shame Verity didn’t get to see Xander.’ Mrs Biggins let that lie long enough for Stella to fill another two tarts. ‘He was out, Saturday, when she called him.’
Stella filled another case, then licked the spoon thoughtfully. ‘He was with me,’ she said evenly. ‘But I think you know that.’ Certainly the smile that Mrs Biggins bit into attested to it.
‘You’ll need to use a fresh spoon, love – can’t be poisoning the WI with your germs.’ Mrs Biggins passed Stella a clean spoon. It was the same as the one at Xander’s. She turned it over and over between her fingers, dipped it into the jam and, absent-mindedly, put it directly into her mouth. Mrs Biggins chuckled.
‘Sorry,’ said Stella. ‘I was miles away.’
‘Cavorting with Mr Fletcher, no doubt.’
‘Mrs Biggins!’ Stella remonstrated. ‘Actually, I was thinking of the two raised offers that have come in for Longbridge.’
‘Of course you were,’ said Mrs Biggins. ‘Well, the play’ll be done with in ten minutes. Then you can see Lady Lydia. And the first batch’ll be ready,’ she added, placing a tray of jam tarts in the oven.
‘Will you still bake – when Longbridge is gone?’
‘Longbridge’ll never be gone – it’s just that I won’t be here. But I can bake anywhere. It’s what I am,’ said Mrs Biggins. And just then, Stella really worried about her. ‘I’ll be fine,’ said Mrs Biggins, as if reading her mind. ‘I have plans.’
‘Can I keep the spoon?’
‘If it happens to find its way into your bag, I won’t know about it,’ said Mrs Biggins.
‘It’s just EPNS,’ said Stella. She paused. ‘Like the one Xander has.’
Mrs Biggins cast her eye over Stella’s jam tarts. ‘You been into his drawers already?’
And just then, Stella was reminded of her late grandma, who always referred to knickers as drawers. She screwed the lid back down onto the jam and regarded Mrs Biggins levelly. ‘Well – Xander’s certainly been into mine.’
Like a waft of fine sauce, Stella’s words rose into the air.
Sauce indeed. Mrs Biggins threw back her head and laughed until the tears were squeezed from her eyes and she was patting her chest furiously. And that was when Lydia appeared, to see what all the fuss was about.
‘Please go with the Hakshimis.’
‘And forego half a million pounds?’
‘But Longbridge will stay as a family home.’
‘Don’t whine. I don’t care what happens to Longbridge, I only care about the money.’
‘Do I phone Mr Murdley?’
‘Do you really need me to tell you how to do your job, Stella?’
‘Say I can get more out of the Hakshimis – say they offer the same – will you go with them?’
‘That’s conjecture,’ said Lydia, ‘and it won’t pay the bills. Just sell the damned place, will you. Now take some jam tarts and go, would you. I have a headache.’
Chapter Thirty
‘I’m afraid you are to be put on display,’ Stella told Xander apologetically, when she phoned him to extend Robbie and Sara’s invitation to the BBQ that coming Sunday. ‘My brothers will interrogate you, my sisters-in-law will stare at you and their offspring might very well poke you.’
‘And your mother?’
Stella thought about it. ‘My mum will be nervous.’
‘And you?’
‘I’ll be nervous too.’
‘I’ll behave myself.’
Stella liked his response. ‘If you promise to behave yourself – I’ll let you be naughty later on.’
‘How naughty?’
‘Very naughty.’ She giggled. Though they’d slept together the night through only twice, that wasn’t to say that the lusty fumbles they snuck once Will was asleep on the weekday evenings Xander visited, hadn’t left them furiously tantalized.
‘You do know,’ said Xander, ‘that this will pave the way for me to parade you in front of my friends and family?’
‘The Spanish Inquisition comes to Long Dansbury?’
‘It’ll be a Geordie interrogation, if I know Caroline.’
‘And your folks?’
Xander thought about his parents. His mother would love Stella – relieved at how different she was from Laura. And his dad – his dad might w
ell give up dominoes to meet her. Whatever Xander brought to their house – a bag of shopping from M&S, messages from Lydia – were always gratefully received. He knew Stella would be no different. They’d be simply thrilled.
Out in the open. A relationship. A couple.
But that left just one person.
‘Stella,’ Xander fell quiet. Stella didn’t prompt – at the other end of the phone line, she was double-checking Will’s school bag for the next day. ‘Will.’
‘Will I what?’
‘No – your Will. Are you going to tell him?’
‘Will’s sold on you already,’ Stella laughed. ‘You’re his buddy.’
‘I know,’ said Xander quietly, ‘but I mean – as delighted as I am that he thinks of me as his buddy – how will he be about sharing his mum?’ There was no response from Stella. ‘That his bud can also be his mum’s boyf? Will he be OK with that? It’ll save skulking around. It’ll mean more sleepovers.’ He liked Stella’s terminology. He liked being her boyf. He wanted more sleepovers. ‘Stella?’
Stella thought about it. ‘Soon enough,’ she said at length. ‘If that’s OK with you.’
‘Of course,’ said Xander. ‘When you think he’s ready.’
And Stella just said yes. Thanks. But she thought how actually her reticence wasn’t really for Will. It was all about her. As she’d often said to Jo, the world had to be a very safe place for her finally to come out of hiding.
* * *
Though the Stickies stuck to Xander, he ably conducted conversations with Robbie and Alistair, Sara, Juliet and Sandie while the toddlers clung to his legs and tugged at his clothing and left paw-prints of goop as if marking him as approved. Initially, the teenage twins, Pauly and Tom, weren’t that interested, giving him a casual nod before shuffling to the sofa with their iPods on. That changed when it transpired that Xander was an alumnus of St Alban’s Boys School – where Pauly and Tom attended – and the twins then went through the entire staff hoping to find relics from Xander’s days. He’d been in the rugby and hockey first teams – cool! All the while, Sandie Hutton quietly watched – noting how Xander reacted to her family, the details they drew out of him, the way he glanced over to her daughter, his ease and his unease, his natural good manners and his occasional shyness. It wasn’t so much a devil in the details, but a nice man heading for forty whom Sandie reckoned suited her daughter pretty well.
Everyone sought out a private moment with Stella.
‘Bloody hell – he’s not ugly is he!’ Juliet whispered approvingly when giving Stella a bowl of peas to take through.
‘He’s a keeper,’ Sara said, sotto voce, swapping peas for baby wipes, for Stella to mop Ruby’s face which was a ketchup battleground.
‘So,’ Alistair said to Stella. ‘Xander’s the reason poor Rupert didn’t get a look-in.’ His sister shrugged and waited, her eyes travelling fast over Alistair’s face for a hint of his opinion. He offered her an After Eight. ‘He’s a nice guy,’ he told her soberly. ‘You can tell.’
Stella nodded; relieved, heartened. ‘He is.’ She paused. ‘I really like him – I mean, really.’ Alistair nodded. Stella’s face dropped. ‘I’m late with the rent, Al,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. Can it wait a week?’
Alistair brushed the subject away as if it was a bad smell.
‘I think I’ve sold Longbridge,’ she said.
‘So I heard.’
‘It’s with the lawyers now.’
‘Why do you look so glum?’
‘It didn’t go to the right people.’
‘I’d say anyone with fifteen million quid can’t be wrong.’
‘It was twelve.’
‘Oh. I heard fifteen.’
‘Where?’
‘I don’t know – some grapevine or other.’
‘No. Twelve. Anyway – when the commission is through I want to pay you the proper rent. A year in advance. I’ve done my sums. It adds up.’
‘Oh shut up, Stella.’
‘Please. It’s important to me.’
‘We’ll talk about it, as and when. Now, does your bloke take milk and sugar?’
Sandie and Xander were sitting next to each other on the sofa, companionably watching the Stickies attempting to eat their toys.
‘Do you have children, Xander?’ Sandie asked.
‘No,’ he said, openly.
‘Do you like them?’
And Xander thought, shall I say, oh yes, with clotted cream and jam? ‘I couldn’t eat a whole one.’
Sandie looked at him sharply then looked away, smiling.
‘I do like them.’
‘But you don’t have any?’ She’d turned to him again.
‘No.’ He paused. ‘No children.’ He paused again. ‘And no skeletons in my closet.’ He shrugged. ‘There was a time when I hoped to have them – children, that is, not skeletons. Not that I’d keep a child in a closet, obviously. But yes, I did want them.’
‘You talk decisively in the past tense?’
‘Sort of.’ He saw from her aghast expression that he needed to clarify this. ‘What I mean is – the time of which I spoke, yes – that’s firmly in the past. But yes, I’d like kids, some day.’ He paused again. ‘My mother would make an excellent grandma.’ He shrugged at Sandie. ‘Family is important to me.’
Sandie looked at him. Can’t be easy, being thrown into a melee of three generations of Huttons when all the poor man probably wanted to do was to have a quiet Sunday with just the one family member. Two, possibly. Sandie thought about it and the more she thought about it, the clearer and more plausible the image became. Xander simply and quietly sharing the Sunday papers with Stella, being happily distracted by Will every now and then, with some Lego conundrum or other. And Sandie thought, enough with the third degree. She thought, we need to assist these two. We need to let this chap know that.
‘Do you watch Downton Abbey?’ Xander asked, imagining that she did.
‘Always a pleasure to babysit,’ Sandie said, tapping his knee and smiling at him.
Robbie asked Alistair and Xander to give him a hand with the flatpack climbing frame that had been delivered the day before.
‘It’s like that scene in that movie Witness – when the Amish gather to build a barn,’ Juliet said dryly, standing alongside Stella and Sara, watching from the window as the men toiled.
‘Has your Jo met him yet, by the way?’ Sandie asked.
‘Not yet,’ said Stella. ‘Hopefully this week.’ She paused; grinning at no one in particular. ‘If I can find a babysitter.’ And as they all observed Xander scoop up Ruby and plonk her in the paddling pool, before whacking his thumb with a hammer and receiving a friendly pat on the back from Alistair, three offers to babysit flooded in.
Ruby came back to Xander for more. Finn too. Xander obliged, now wet as well as sticky and with a thumb that throbbed.
‘Well – if my children give you their seal of approval,’ Robbie said to him, ‘who am I to disagree. You’ve passed the test – welcome to the Hutton fold.’
Xander laughed. They chinked beer bottles.
‘I take it you know about Charlie,’ Robbie said.
‘I know about Charlie,’ Xander said.
‘About what happened?’ Robbie glanced over his shoulder, as if to check Alistair was out of earshot.
‘I’m trusting Stella to tell me on a need-to-know basis,’ Xander said, feeling somewhat off his guard.
Robbie sipped his beer thoughtfully. ‘You do need to know,’ he told Xander. ‘Seriously.’
Will begged Stella to allow him to be dropped back home later – that she was to listen to Grandma and to Aunty Juliet, both of whom had readily offered. When she agreed, he hugged her and told her that she was The Best. The goodbyes were cheery, the come-again-soons were genuine. Xander’s gratitude was sincere – going beyond his full stomach and in spite of his stained, wet clothing.
‘I’m exhausted!’ Stella said. ‘Was that OK? Did you like my family?’
‘It was very OK,’ said Xander, flicking on Stella’s indicator. ‘You’re a great gang. I liked the noise.’
‘Good.’ She glanced at him as she drove off. ‘I didn’t know you went to St Alban’s Boys.’
Xander smiled out of the window. ‘Funny, isn’t it,’ he said. ‘Sleeping with someone gives you this incredible sense of intimacy – like poring over an autobiography in 3D and yet there are still all these unknown mundane details.’ He looked at her bare arms, her profile – her lips parted as she negotiated a roundabout, a slight smudge of mascara.
They were stopped at traffic lights.
‘Trouble is,’ Xander mused, ‘whenever I see you, I’m torn between wanting to talk and talk and discover everything about you – and just simply fucking your brains out. The light’s green. Stella. Green light.’ And Xander raised his hand for the cars behind them, as if asking for pity for the driver.
‘Where am I going?’ Stella asked, having told Xander he was a filthy pig. Filthy.
‘Back to mine,’ said Xander, ‘I’m wet.’
‘That’s my line,’ Stella said.
Later, lying in Xander’s bed, both woozy from lovemaking, him tracing his fingertips along her arms, Stella looked up at him.
‘It’s summer,’ she said, ‘and yet still your bedroom is cold.’
‘Is it?’ He put his arms around her and brought her close. ‘I don’t notice it.’
‘But the whole room – it feels cold and it looks cold.’ She glanced around. ‘It’s like it belongs to a different house.’
‘Take your estate agent’s hat off – it’s Sunday.’
‘No – I don’t mean in an objective way, but subjectively. The rest of your cottage – you’ve done it so nicely. It’s really lovely – homey and bright and everything suits the proportions and the light. The furniture, the colours, the layout. But this room –’ She propped herself up on her arm and looked around again. ‘It’s a bit miz, Xander.’
He sighed and pulled her down again. ‘You girls and your obsession with bloody cushions and throws. Look – I’ll buy a pair of curtains.’
