by Lucy Diamond
He could tell she was weakening and pounced. ‘Just give it a try while you’re here, yeah? Open your mind to how things could be, and—’
‘Hello-o? Anyone home?’ The door handle turned and Alicia appeared. ‘Laundry delivery,’ she announced, rolling her eyes. ‘Oh, Emma! Hello, I didn’t know you’d be here.’ She hauled two heavy-looking bin liners in behind her. ‘How are you?’
Emma got up to kiss her on the cheek. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘God, are you still doing all the laundry for this place?’ She arched an eyebrow at David. ‘Staff. That would be my first rule.’
He looked delighted that she was even entertaining the idea. ‘Done,’ he said at once.
Alicia looked puzzled. ‘What’s all this? Staff? And where’s Lilian anyway?’
‘Bournemouth,’ David told her. ‘Can I get you a drink? Emma and I are holding the fort while they’re away.’
Alicia’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Oooh! Does this mean … ? Has he actually talked you round?’ she asked.
‘No,’ Emma said, just as David said, ‘Not yet.’
Alicia beamed. ‘I thought you were dead set against it,’ she said to Emma, ‘but it would be great if you two moved down here. And you could make this place look amazing, I know it.’ She checked her watch. ‘Damn. I wish I could stay for a drink so you could fill me in, but I’ve got my dance class tonight. I’d better push off. Can’t wait to tell Hugh!’
‘There’s nothing to tell!’ Emma called after her, feeling ganged up on. She put her head in her hands as David went to see Alicia out, and glared at the laundry bags. Oh God. What was she getting herself into?
Chapter Thirteen
The evening progressed into drunkenness – well, on Emma’s part at least. After Alicia had vanished, she and David ordered in a Chinese, then started on a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. While they waited for the food to arrive he showed her around the place, wine glasses in hand. She had to admit, the house had come on in leaps and bounds. David and his dad had painted two of the bedrooms so that they gleamed fresh and light, some of the old carpets had been ripped up and the floors sanded and waxed, and there was even progress on one of the outbuildings – or the holiday chalet, as he optimistically called it. (You’d have to be some kind of freak to want to holiday in that draughty, cobwebby old wreck, Emma thought, but David assured her it was going to be brilliant once they’d finished.)
‘Just imagine us living here,’ he said as they walked back to the house. ‘Kids playing on the lawn, the Christmases we could have together.’
She stopped walking in surprise. ‘You still want that? Kids, I mean?’
He stopped too. ‘Of course I do! Did you think—?’
‘You seemed to have gone off the idea, that’s all.’ She put her arms around herself. It was almost dark now and the warmth had melted from the air.
‘I’ve always wanted a family, Em. I thought you knew that?’
‘I did, but …’ But you’ve been so distant, she wanted to wail. You shut me out for so long, I didn’t know what you wanted.
Suddenly the garden seemed too public a place to be having this conversation. She began walking again, feeling the need to top up her glass.
He kept pace with her. ‘I know things have been difficult lately. I know I’ve been a miserable bastard. I felt as if I was in a sort of … tunnel. I couldn’t see how I was going to get through it.’
They went through the back door, past the box of badminton rackets and the croquet set that Lilian kept for the more athletic guests. He paused beside a row of old coats and gardening shoes. ‘Being here, it’s made me realize what I do want. I want you, and a family … and I’d like it to happen here. I can see us here.’
Oh God. This was almost exactly what she’d been dying for him to say for weeks and weeks – all apart from the ‘living here’ part anyway. She took his hand and squeezed it. ‘I’m glad you want me and a family,’ she said simply. ‘I’m really glad.’
The food arrived, more wine was drunk, and David’s words seemed to settle deep into the marrow of Emma’s bones as the evening went on. The main thing was: he wanted a future with her. It was only hearing him say this that made her realize just how unhappy she’d felt, how estranged they’d become until now. Would it be so awful moving to the countryside, if he wanted it so badly?
Evening became night, the sky deepening to an inky black, and Emma found herself looking for positives as they staggered up to bed. Of course there would be plenty of good things about living here. The dense quietness of the nights, for instance, the spaciousness of the house. The slower pace of life, the fresh sea air …
Could she actually live here, though, rather than visit? she agonized, getting ready for bed. Was she ready for a quiet, slow existence? She still loved all the things Bristol had to offer: wine bars, theatres, restaurants and shops, not to mention their friends. More to the point, for all David’s talk of settling down with a family, neither of them had mentioned the fact that they didn’t actually have a family yet. They didn’t even know whether or not such a thing was possible. She couldn’t just snap her fingers and pluck a couple of kids out of thin air, much as she’d like to.
As she pulled the curtains, her eyes lingered on the luminous crescent moon and a sprinkling of stars, like spilt silver glitter. If they did have children here, they would grow up falling asleep to the soft hootings of owls, she thought with a wrench of yearning; they’d wake to the high screech of gulls. They’d scramble up trees and splash through the woods in wellies and macs. It would be a different kind of childhood from the one she’d had in Coventry; a different sort of life from the one she’d envisaged in Bishopstone, but idyllic nonetheless. And a move here didn’t have to be forever, she reminded herself. They could always try it for size, see what happened. Bristol would still be there if they wanted to go back.
She brushed her teeth, thinking hard and staring at herself in the mirror. She could feel herself slipping across to David’s side of the debate and felt slightly sick at the thought. I won’t say anything yet, she resolved. Just in case I’ve changed my mind by the morning.
Whatever the future held, it was certainly liberating being able to have sex in Mulberry House without Lilian and Eddie down the hallway. Once in bed, she pulled her T-shirt over her head and flung it to the floor, kissing David wantonly with a sudden rush of lust, pressing her hips hard against him. Lady of the Manor, he’d said. She could get used to that. ‘Oh yes,’ she moaned when he thrust into her. ‘Oh yessss …’
‘Excuse me – are you there?’
She became dimly aware of an officious voice somewhere below, as well as the bell ringing in reception downstairs. ‘Mr Jones? Are you there?’ Oh Christ. It was Fatty bloody Miller again.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ David grumbled.
‘Ignore him,’ Emma urged, grabbing his bottom. ‘Don’t listen.’
The bell jangled insistently. ‘MR JONES?’ Mr Miller called in an even louder voice.
‘I can’t ignore him,’ David groaned. ‘He’s going to wake the Whartons.’ He rolled off her and pulled on his dressing gown. ‘Hold that thought,’ he muttered and left the room.
Emma heard the old stairs creak as he padded down them, followed by Mr Miller’s voice again. ‘Ah, there you are. We seem to have run out of loo roll. Would you mind … ?’
Having originally anticipated a lazy lie-in the next morning, Emma found herself in for a rude shock when the alarm shrilled at six-thirty. David rolled over and slammed his hand on it to stop it ringing, and they both lay there for a few moments feeling hungover and tired. She’d assumed the alarm was a mistake, but then before she knew it David was hauling himself out of bed.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked groggily.
‘I need to make breakfast for the Millers. They wanted an early start,’ he replied.
‘Fuck the Millers – it’s the middle of the night,’ she groaned.
‘Shhh! Don’t say that, they’re paying good money
to stay here.’
Emma pulled the duvet over her head. ‘Do you want me to help?’ she asked in possibly the most grudging voice ever. Short of tattooing ‘Do not answer yes’ on her forehead, surely nobody with half a brain could fail to pick up on her reluctance.
‘Please,’ he said, stuffing his feet into slippers. The door shut behind him and Emma let out an exasperated sigh. At the end of the day, David could blah on about love and children until he was blue in the face. But there was no way on earth she’d ever willingly choose to get up early to cook other people’s breakfasts, and that was that.
Mr Miller, unsurprisingly, was a hearty eater. He polished off eggs, bacon, sausages, fried bread, tomatoes, black pudding and baked beans. He was disappointed to hear that kippers were off the menu and asked for a second round of toast instead. (It was a lie about the kippers. Lilian kept the fridge well stocked at all times, but Emma thought that if she so much as sniffed a kipper at this hour of the morning she might very well throw up.) Mrs Miller, by contrast, merely nibbled on a slice of wholemeal toast and a scrape of Flora as she perched on her chair, tremulous and weedy in a drab brown dress and thick glasses.
The Whartons came down at eight-thirty. They were a young couple, in their twenties at a guess, lithe and sporty-looking in matching tracksuits, with large white teeth and glossy hair. They seemed much more demure than Emma had envisaged, after all the noisy shagging-rumpus she’d heard from their room in the middle of the night. They too had healthy appetites this morning, although Emma wished they could hold back from canoodling over the scrambled egg. Good God. To think Lilian started every working day like this, pandering to the freaks staying in her house. No wonder she was always so foul-tempered. No wonder she’d leapt at the chance to escape for a few days.
It was a gorgeous spring morning and Emma would have liked nothing more than to sit out in the sunshine with a newspaper after breakfast, or even slope off back to bed with another coffee and her as-yet-unopened book. But then Charlie arrived and he and David took a toolbox down to the ‘holiday let’, and somehow or other it was left to Emma to hoover the breakfast room and wash the saucepans. And then the phone was ringing with people wanting to book themselves in, and the Millers requested a map of the South West Coast Path, and the Whartons appeared to be having bondage sex or at the very least killing something noisily in their room – oh, and she still hadn’t actually phoned in sick again at her real job yet.
Deep breaths, Emma. You can do this. You’re a competent, practical woman, you can handle these problems. Just deal with them, then the rest of the day will be yours.
She booked in the new guests in her best phone voice. She printed out a map for the infuriating Millers, who were now clad in hideous Lycra walking gear, complete with Nordic sticks. She hoovered and scrubbed, knowing damn well that Lilian would check up on her work when she deigned to return. She answered another call from a prospective guest wanting to know which sort of pillows they had, because her husband could only sleep with a hypoallergenic pillow (‘The sort with anti-microbial polyester fibrefill,’ the woman said, like she was a talking catalogue.) Emma said she’d have to get back to her.
At last the house seemed quiet, so she picked up the bucket of cleaning cloths and sprays and set off to give the bedrooms and bathrooms a once-over. She put her ear to the door of the Whartons’ room. There was nothing to be heard, but she was still scared to investigate. She’d start with the Millers’, now that they’d gone on their ramble, she decided. With a bit of luck they’d ramble right off a cliff and she’d never have to see that moustache again.
Humming under her breath, she let herself into their room, wrinkling her nose at the pong of masculine deodorant spray. Ugh. Her nostrils were burning. Then she pushed open the bathroom door – only to let out a scream of horror. There was Mr Miller, trousers around his ankles, sitting on the toilet with the Daily Telegraph, less than a metre away from her.
His eyes boggled in shock. ‘I say!’ he shouted.
‘Oh God!’ she cried, stepping back so quickly she almost fell over the Hoover.
‘Get out!’ he yelled, just as there came an unmistakable plopping sound.
She bolted from the room, feeling hysterical. Oh shit. So to speak.
‘I don’t understand how it could have happened,’ David said afterwards, when she sneaked down to the holiday chalet to fess up. Charlie, of course, roared with laughter, but David looked ashen. ‘Didn’t you check the room was empty? Why did you just burst in like that?’
‘I didn’t burst in – I thought they’d gone out! I was sure I heard their car!’ Emma’s poor traumatized brain could still hardly process the image of Fatty Miller sitting there on the bog; she kept visualizing it again and again, much to her revulsion. ‘Oh God, it was so awful. Your mum’s going to kill me when she finds out. How can I ever look him in the eye again?’
Charlie was still laughing. ‘You’ve got to admit it’s quite funny,’ he sniggered. ‘We could hear your scream all the way down the garden.’
‘Funny? I’m scarred for life, mate,’ she moaned. ‘My retinas are permanently damaged from the sight. There are some things in life you just aren’t meant to witness. Or hear.’ She shuddered and pulled a face, trying to blot out the sound of that plop.
‘We’d better buy them a nice bottle of wine as an apology,’ David said. ‘Maybe put some flowers in the room.’
‘Nice bottle of Penis Grigio,’ Charlie suggested, chuckling at his own wit. ‘Or … what’s it called? Pooey Fumey?’
Emma giggled helplessly. ‘Stop it. And it’s Pouilly-Fumé, you div.’ She groaned. ‘What a nightmare.’
‘Could have been worse,’ David said, relenting at last. ‘You could have walked in on the shaggers.’
‘Please – don’t,’ Emma said, holding up a hand. ‘I know it’s going to happen. Only a matter of time. I should probably stock up on a whole case of apology bottles of wine while I’m there.’ She eyed David on her way out. ‘And it’s your turn to do the cleaning tomorrow, by the way. I’ll be helping Charlie down here and keeping away from the guests from now on.’
Both cars had vanished by the time Emma went back to the main house, thank goodness. She seized the chance to quickly clean the Whartons’ bedroom – braced to discover a sex dungeon with dodgy leather harnesses attached to the bed frame and empty baby-oil bottles littering the floor – but thankfully there was only a discarded pair of pants to show for their shenanigans and she was able to hoover safely around those.
Still, it was a gigantic relief to flee the premises and drive into Lyme. Some romantic mini-break this was turning out to be.
She parked outside the library on Silver Street and wandered down to the florist and off-licence. There. One bunch of gladioli and a bottle of mid-price Shiraz – that ought to go some way to making amends. She added a second bottle of the Shiraz (personal; medicinal) and a box of Celebrations (personal; ironic) on impulse at the till. Then she hesitated, not exactly in a tearing hurry to return straight to the house and more chores. Sod it, this was a day off work, she reminded herself, striding into the nearest tea shop. She more than deserved a breather, after the horror of a morning she’d endured so far.
The tea rooms were chintzy and dated, with laminated menus and gingham-lined baskets of fudge at the till. The clientele consisted largely of white-haired pensioners accompanied by tartan shopping trolleys and small dogs.
‘Hi, what can I get you?’ asked the waitress, notepad in hand.
Emma glanced at the menu. ‘Just a tea, please and—’ She broke off as she looked up at the woman. The long, dark hair and cat-like eyes were familiar for some reason. ‘Have we met?’
The waitress had recognized her too. ‘Er … yes,’ she said. Her accent was northern. ‘You’re married to Charlie’s brother, aren’t you?’
‘That’s it! And you’re his girlfriend. Izzy, was it? Nice to see you again.’
Her mouth twisted. ‘Not his girlfriend, actually
. Never was. And certainly not after that fiasco,’ she said.
‘Oh God, it was awful, wasn’t it? I really felt for you,’ Emma said, remembering just how excruciating Lilian’s behaviour had been that day. She gestured impulsively at the empty seat opposite her. ‘Do you want to join me?’
Izzy glanced at her watch. ‘Go on, then,’ she said. ‘I’m due a break, and my boss is at the cash-and-carry. I’ll just get your tea.’
Emma couldn’t help thinking what a shame it was that Izzy and Charlie were no longer together as they sat and chatted over tea and chewy flapjacks. She was a cut above all his other ex-girlfriends – she had a brain for starters, and there was a sparkiness about her that Emma really liked.
‘How come you’re down here then?’ she asked, adding sugar to her tea. ‘Can’t keep away from those lovely in-laws of yours?’
Emma explained the situation. ‘David – that’s my husband – he seems all fired up for us to move down and run the B&B, but I’m not so sure. I’ve never lived in the countryside before and …’ She shrugged. ‘After this morning I’m starting to think I’m not very good at looking after people, either. I’m totally channelling Basil Fawlty right now.’
Izzy laughed. ‘It’s all right here really,’ she said. ‘I’m a city girl too but I love Lyme now. Yeah, so there’s no big Primark or T. K. Maxx, and the nightlife isn’t exactly rocking, but it’s friendly and feels safe. Loads going on, if you look for it. And there’s the sea too!’
Emma nodded. ‘I do love the sea,’ she agreed, ‘but after the morning I’ve just had, I think I’d need the Mediterranean on my doorstep, not the English Channel.’ She told her about walking in on Mr Miller on the toilet, making a proper horror story of it, and as they sat and laughed about the utter dreadfulness, she started to feel a bit better. ‘What happened with Charlie then – is it definitely all off with him?’ she blurted out before she could stop herself.
Izzy stopped laughing and Emma felt she’d just crossed a line. Whoops.
