The man dropped his hands from her arms and a little part of her was sorry about that.
‘In the nicest possible way,’ he said.
Clare made a small embarrassed laugh and stepped shyly past him. She didn’t expect the stranger to catch her up.
‘You’re staying at my brother’s place, I hear,’ he said, holding out his hand to be shaken. ‘I’m Val. The younger, good-looking brother. Don’t tell Gene you met me or he’ll charge you double.’
Clare shook his hand out of courtesy. His fingers were long and cool and soft. They weren’t the hands of a man who worked hard with them.
‘You’re Val? We thought you were three sisters,’ said Clare, scrabbling around for something to say. ‘Frances, Jean and Val.’
‘Blame my mother – she was a great fan of the movies,’ said Val. ‘Gene Kelly, Francis Sinatra – and Rudolph Valentino. Plus, I was born on the fourteenth of February. It was destiny I would be called Valentino. All the best lovers are born then.’
‘I see,’ said Clare. ‘Well, have a nice day,’ and she carried on walking.
‘Where are you off to?’ He fell into step with her.
She contemplated telling him that she was exploring the village, but feared this latest addition to the Hathersage clan might tag along. The people in Ren Dullem were unreadable.
‘I’m going to meet a . . . a friend.’ That seemed to be the easiest explanation.
‘And does this friend live in Ren Dullem?’
She turned to him to see him smiling again and felt a shameless shiver of pleasure at the way he was looking at her: like an eagle might view a mouse. It disturbed her and yet strangely thrilled her at the same time. Val Hathersage was super handsome and she suspected he knew that. And he’d reminded her of how flattering it was to make someone’s pupils dilate, as Val Hathersage’s had.
‘Yes, she does,’ replied Clare.
‘You’re very secretive,’ laughed Val. ‘I’d like to know more about you.’
Clare felt a tremble of excitement trip down her spine. Was he coming on to her? She couldn’t remember the last time a stranger had made a move on her.
‘Oh, there’s not that much to know,’ replied Clare, realizing how out of practice she was at being chatted up.
‘Your eyes are amazing,’ said Val. ‘Magical.’
‘Weird, you mean.’
Val’s hand touched her arm and she stopped walking.
‘Not used to compliments, are you?’ he said.
No, I’m not, replied Clare in her head. Ludwig used to compliment her all the time. Somehow along the way he’d started presuming that she knew how he felt about her and stopped saying the actual words that her hair looked nice or she smelt beautiful.
‘Okay, I have to leave you now,’ said Val. ‘I know you’ll be heartbroken but I don’t particularly want to risk running into my brother.’
They were almost at the woods. Clare pointed beyond them in the general direction of the house on the cliff.
‘I’m going up there.’
‘Ah, that’s where you’re heading,’ said Val Hathersage. There was a passing resemblance to his older brothers in the shape of the face and the generously curved lips, but this Hathersage had a much slighter frame and lighter eyes, and those eyes were twinkling with mischief. ‘That makes sense. You’ve been summoned.’
Clare didn’t ask him what that meant. She had the feeling that Val might be the sort of person who said things just to get a reaction. Or gave cryptic teasing answers which inspired even more questions.
‘Well, I’ll leave you to see your friend,’ he said. ‘Nice speaking to you, witch lady.’
‘Nice—’ But that was as far as Clare got, for Val Hathersage encircled her waist with his hands and spun her into the woods, pressing her against the wide trunk of the nearest tree.
‘I want to kiss you,’ he said softly, gazing into her eyes. ‘But I won’t. We’ve only just met and I’m a gentleman. But beware, beautiful eyes, this place isn’t for the faint-hearted. Even witches aren’t safe here.’ And as suddenly as he had grabbed her, he released her and she found that all sorts of fireworks started pinging off in her head. ‘We’ll have a picnic lunch in these woods tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Meet me here at twelve. That’s noon, not the witching hour.’
And with that Val Hathersage turned and casually strolled off, leaving Clare with cheeks as flushed as an Aunt Sally’s. He looked behind him once, grinned, saw that he’d had the desired effect on her, and then carried on up the hill, his hands in his pockets, taking a right before his brother’s cottage.
Despite the height and breadth of his older brothers – and Gene’s rudeness – this brother, with his line of patter and self-confidence, might be the most dangerous of the three, thought Clare, as she willed her racing heartbeat to calm down and behave before heading into Spice Wood.
Chapter 27
May woke up and had a coffee by herself as Lara was still sleeping, despite it getting on for lunchtime. She decided to head into the village and look for Clare after finding her note on the table.
There was no sign of Clare in the shops. May bought a newspaper and then wished she hadn’t. The front-page article was about the stabbing of a teenage boy in Birmingham and featured his heartbroken parents. May dropped the paper in the bin outside Ward’s Chemist, which was wearing a covering of honeysuckle as thick as a winter jacket. Real life wasn’t something she wanted to be part of at the moment. The world outside Ren Dullem had her idiot of a boss in it and an unmarried-married man who had smashed up her heart. She didn’t know how many other lies were waiting for her in that particular story but she was sure there were more. One part of her was telling her to cover her ears and not listen to any more; the other part wanted to hear every single detail. The trouble was that men like Michael were always hoping to get away with damage limitation and told the truth on a need-to-know basis. May had been there before. Liars were always the worst. They were so good at saying what you wanted to hear when they’d been uncovered. That was the problem – May knew that she had been weakened by heartbreak and was scared of how seductive Michael could be. She was lonely and vulnerable – perfect prey for a manipulator. Being in a place where he couldn’t find her was the best thing that could have happened. She wished she could have confided in Lara and Clare but she felt ashamed. She didn’t want them to think of her as the slut she felt she had been.
She zoned out, thinking about Michael, and was staring at a display of gifts in a shop window, but seeing none of them, when she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder. She turned round to see the big figure of Frank Hathersage, with his gentle eyes, and the dark hair that she wanted to drag her fingers through.
Stop that, May Earnshaw.
‘Hi,’ said Frank, a nervous smile playing on his lips. ‘I’m so glad I’ve seen you again. I wanted to apologize for yesterday. Daisy was out of order . . . I . . .’
‘It’s fine,’ said May, her voice coming out in a tremor. God, this man really was handsome. He had an effect on her knees that was positively illegal. ‘It must be very frustrating for her being in a chair.’
‘Nevertheless,’ said Frank, his pupils as dilated as hers, ‘rude is rude and that was . . . she was . . .’ He was having an equal amount of trouble in articulating himself as May was.
‘She . . . er . . . the wheelchair . . . must be awful sat, I mean sitting . . . in a chair . . .’
‘No, yes, I mean . . .’
Frank broke eye contact and pinched the top of his nose with a finger and thumb.
‘I’m really sorry,’ he said and laughed softly to himself. ‘We don’t see many new people in this village. We get a bit tongue-tied with strangers.’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ said May, feeling her cheeks getting warmer with every passing nanosecond. She was hardly Miss Coherent herself. She needed to get a grip. Was her brain so desperate to eject Michael that it was seizing on the first available man to act as a lever? That was dangerous
. A potential frying pan and fire situation.
‘Anyway, like I say, I apologize. For Daisy, and for not stepping in at the time. I didn’t know what to say for the best. She’s very easily inflamed.’
‘It’s fine. Really.’
He touched her arm and it was as if someone somewhere had pressed a button and released twelve million volts of electricity. May’s eyes sprang open to their widest and she knew he had felt it too.
‘Static,’ he said with a laugh. They both knew it wasn’t.
Chapter 28
Clare walked through the woods with her basket – or rather she stumbled because the terrain was as unfriendly as the rest of the village – with the possible exceptions of Shirley in the Crab and Bucket and cocky Val Hathersage. There were potholes and mounds and sharp stones jutting out of the ground. In fact it felt more like an assault course than a walk.
She had just nearly gone arse over tit for the third time when she leaned against a gnarled old tree and asked herself what the bloody hell she was doing, heading up to a total stranger’s house when she was supposed to be on holiday. Still, this morning had been a weird one: swimming in a lagoon in the cellar, and being pinned to a tree by a man who said he wanted to kiss her . . . It was in keeping that she now tried not to break her neck in order to visit someone she didn’t know or care about.
You know why you’re going, said a voice in her head. It’s the same reason you will turn up tomorrow for a picnic with Valentino Hathersage. You’ve been moaning about a life devoid of excitement and now you have corners to peep around, the unknown to encounter. This is the adventure your spirit has been crying out for.
Whether the conscious Clare agreed with that or not, her feet carried on picking their way through the sticky-out roots and rabbit holes until the trees cleared and she was facing the one-storey cliff-top cottage that she had seen from the bay.
Approaching the dwelling with her basket in her hand, Clare was all too aware that from a low-flying helicopter, with her crimson top on and carrying the basket, she would look a dead ringer for Red Riding Hood. She paused by the door and wondered again why on earth she was here.
‘Ah, well, in for a penny,’ she said to herself and rapped on the weather-worn wooden door.
‘Come in,’ said a quiet but gravelly voice.
Clare lifted the handle and pushed, half-wondering if she was going to walk in on a wolf dressed in granny clothes. Then she stepped into the dark interior of a beamed cottage. It had a scent that she couldn’t quite pin down: sea air, salty, fresh, old, musky. It wasn’t unpleasant but she doubted she’d find it in Boots.
Wheeling towards her was a very old lady, her lower half wrapped in a blanket made up of crocheted squares, which had seen better days. As had the old lady, if Clare were honest. She was squat, with wrinkled leathery skin as if she had enjoyed too much sun over the years, and fine white hair that was not quite all tamed into the long plait which hung over one shoulder. The old lady arrived at her side and smiled with full pale lips that were cracked and looked sore. Her teeth weren’t in the best state but she appeared to have most of them. But what caught Clare’s attention and drove all those other features into obscurity were the woman’s eyes: the left one was a faded blue, the right bright green. The old lady’s hands stilled on her wheels as she looked into Clare’s face and a gasp caught in her throat.
‘Please sit down,’ she said, grasping Clare’s hands greedily with her own. Clare noticed she had strange short fingers, the joints swollen with knots. And they were so chilled that she had to fight the urge to rub them vigorously for her until they were warm.
The weird thing was that Clare didn’t feel in the slightest bit awkward in the midst of this strange situation. There was the faintest buzz inside her as if something were being transmitted down her nerve endings. Thinking rationally, it must have been the fact that the wheelchair-bound lady was gripping her so tightly that it was cutting the circulation off and giving her pins and needles. What other explanation could there be – really?
The lady’s smile appeared to be draining slowly from her lips as she released her grip on Clare’s hand.
‘You’re not from . . . from around here, are you?’
‘Er, no,’ said Clare. ‘From North Yorkshire though. York to be exact.’
‘Land-born?’
What else? But Clare answered with a polite, ‘Yes.’
The lady’s head dropped wearily. ‘It would have been too much to hope.’
Clare was unsure what to do now. Obviously this poor old dear had mistaken her for someone else. Awk-ward. She stood to go.
‘Please don’t. I thought I might know you. But it isn’t to be, I see.’
Clare made a stab in the dark. ‘You’ve heard about my eyes. You thought I might be a long-lost relation?’
‘Something like that.’ The poor old dear looked quite distressed. Clare could see her hands shaking.
‘Can I get you a drink?’ asked Clare. ‘Cup of tea? To warm you up?’
‘Thank you, that’s kind. Just water, please.’
Clare got up and walked towards where she supposed the kitchen was. It was a mess, by her standards. The lacy white curtains could have done with a soak and the grout between the tiles would have benefited from a scrub with a toothbrush. She found a cup in the stone sink and washed it. Then filled it with water from the tap and brought it back into the sitting room, setting it on a small square table in front of the old lady. ‘There you go.’
‘Thank you.’ She lifted the cup and sipped at it. ‘I heard that you arrived at full moon.’
‘Was it? I didn’t know that.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Clare, isn’t it?’
‘Er . . . yes.’ Obviously the village-drum system of communication worked efficiently then.
‘My name is Raine.’
She had the voice of someone who had been smoking fifty cigarettes a day for the same number of years, but her pronunciation was almost genteel, like BBC announcers from long ago.
‘Nice to meet you, Raine,’ said Clare. ‘Do you live alone up here?’ She wondered how long Raine had been cooped up in the house. There was no road to speak of and no way of negotiating those woods in a wheelchair.
‘Since my husband died, yes, I live alone.’ Raine sipped at her water again with surprising delicacy.
‘Do people bring you shopping and things?’
‘Yes, the villagers are very kind. I did have a girl who came to clean for me – Colleen – but she left to go to work in a city. Who can blame her? The ladies who come to help me are nearly as old as I am. And it takes them an age to get here through Spice Wood because the terrain is treacherous. They try to help, bless them, but they can’t do much of the heavy housework.’ She sighed. ‘I’m too old to care much about that, though.’
‘Are you from around here?’ asked Clare, suspecting old Raine might be lonely and in need of a natter, and she could spare five minutes to do that with her, at least.
‘No,’ said Raine. ‘I’m an offcumden too. But my husband was a local man.’
‘It’s a very pretty village,’ said Clare.
‘It is,’ said Raine. ‘So tell me, my dear. What brought you to Ren Dullem?’
‘A mistake,’ said Clare.
‘A mistake?’ repeated Raine.
‘Yes, we should have been at Wren Cottage in Wellem, not Well Cottage in Dullem. A stupid holiday agency mixed it up.’ She had wanted to curse them when they first arrived, but then she had found the lagoon.
‘You found the lagoon,’ said Raine, as if dipping into her thoughts. She smiled.
‘Yes,’ said Clare. ‘I’m going to be in trouble with the landlord. I ripped off quite a bit of wallpaper to open the door. I hope I can slide the wardrobe back to hide it when we leave.’
Raine patted Clare’s hand, and despite the leathery skin and the yellowing teeth and strangely coloured eyes, Clare felt a very sweet vibe coming from her. Poor old thing. She must be very l
onely and a bit batty.
A pure white cat leapt up onto Raine’s lap and scared the living daylights out of Clare. The cat had a green eye and a blue eye, except they weren’t very bright in colour, being clouded with cataracts.
‘Poor old Albert,’ said Raine, giving him a long stroke down his back. ‘He’s been deaf since day one and now he can’t see much either. And he’s as arthritic as they come. It would be a kindness to let him go but the time isn’t quite here yet.’
Clare thought of how she’d never met anyone with eyes like hers, and suddenly there was a room full of them.
‘Where did you find him?’ she asked, leaning over to give him a tickle behind the ear.
‘He found me,’ said Raine. ‘He turned up at the door one day, twenty years ago, miaowing, thin as a reed. No one in the village knew anything about him. They wouldn’t have abandoned a cat like him.’
‘You mean with his eye colour?’
‘People have old ways in Ren Dullem,’ said Raine. ‘Superstitions.’
‘Someone in the village called me a witch today,’ Clare confided. She recalled the crush of Val Hathersage’s body against her own and a naughty thrill tripped down her spine.
Raine threw her head back and laughed. ‘Yes, well, we’re rare and wonderful creatures. Aren’t we, Albert? Us two-colours.’ The old cat was purring like an engine.
Clare glanced at her watch. The message she had left for the others said she was just popping out for some shopping. She ought to get back in case they were waiting for her.
Just as she was about to say that it had been very nice to meet Raine, and that she was going now, a huge wave of sympathy for the old lady with the old blind cat engulfed her. Especially one living in a house that could have done with a really good clean
‘Look, the day after tomorrow,’ she began, hardly even believing herself what she was about to promise, ‘can I come back up and give your house a once-over for you?’
‘Oh, no. That’s very kind of you but—’
‘Really.’ Clare held her palms out as if pushing the denial back. ‘Anyone who knows me knows that, if I’m not swimming, I’m at my happiest with a cloth in my hand. I would really love to do it for you.’
It's Raining Men Page 15
