‘Probably – but not here. They bring everything with them. They don’t want to mingle with the yokels, you see. And this . . .’ she indicated the Bickeridges’ shop, ‘is actually dead busy, especially on Thursdays when the post office opens.’
‘One day a week? What do they do for the rest of the time?’
‘Wait, of course. At least we’ve got a post office, which is more than can be said for Lesser Fritton or Fritton Magna.’ Posy wanted to laugh at the appalled look on his face. ‘Oh, we’re the height of sophistication here. We’ve got your gran and the rest of her coven to thank for keeping it open. They organized protests at the proposed closure, brought in a few professional grey rabble-rousers, even made the local telly.’
Ellis raised his eyebrows. ‘Fascinating. Thursdays, you said? I’ll mark it in my diary. Wouldn’t want to miss it.’
He was amusing, and gorgeous, and had no trace of a Scottish accent and Posy wanted him to go away. ‘Why don’t you sound like Billy Connolly?’
‘Because I’ve been sent away to schools all over England. Never stayed anywhere for long. Any regional accent got lost years ago. And even though I only arrived last night I’ll probably have your lovely Berkshire burr by the end of the week.’
Posy flushed. ‘I’m not a bumpkin.’
‘I’m sure you’re not, but your accent is dead sexy even if you’re pretty spiky. Where are you going to take me next on the guided tour?’
‘Nowhere at all.’
‘Pity. Although I wasn’t following you, honest. I did catch the “sod off” inflection earlier.’
‘Good.’
‘And I do love the leathers. Are you into kinky stuff?’
‘I ride a motorbike.’
Ellis grinned. ‘Wow, all my fantasies are coming true! So, are you a jilted bride, like Gran said?’
‘No, of course not. But doubtless you’ll hear the whole sad story about a zillion times. My ex-fiancé married someone else here yesterday.’
‘Oh, right. Shit. Christ – I went to the wedding reception with Gran last night. Good piss-up.’ Ellis grinned at her again through the black reflective windows without sympathy. ‘He was a mad bastard to dump you for her, then. She was nowhere near as pretty as you.’
‘Thanks – I think she’s rather gross, too. They deserve one another.’ She was pleased that he hadn’t offered false commiserations. He’d probably change his mind if he knew about the thongs.
‘Why did he? Marry her instead of you?’
‘Because she’s pregnant and I’m not.’
‘Bloody hell. That’s a crap situation. She didn’t look pregnant.’
‘No, I know. But she is.’ Posy really wanted to go now. To get back to Sunny Dene and start planning her new existence. To see her parents and Dom and the dogs. To stop this conversation before it lead to something awful, like tears. ‘Sorry, can’t stay any longer. I, er, hope you’ll enjoy being here and find something to do.’
‘I’ve told you, I’ve already got plans for plenty of somethings to do.’ The smile was of carbon-melting quality. ‘Actually, Gran reckons I’m going to be Steeple Fritton’s answer to Robin of Locksley, but I prefer to think of myself as a highwayman.’
Posy wanted to laugh. Obviously the Blissit madness was inherited. Either way, Ellis had just admitted to criminal leanings, which probably accounted for ‘the bit of trouble’ mentioned earlier. Maybe she shouldn’t have told him about all the big houses standing empty on the green.
‘Lovely. I’m sure there’ll be a lot of call for stand and deliver around here.’
‘More than you’d think, apparently. I hope you soon find something wonderful to do with the rest of your life, too.’
‘Don’t be so damn patronizing.’
‘I wasn’t,’ he looked hurt. ‘I meant it. You deserve to be happy. Everyone deserves that.’
She moved away from the shop front. ‘You sound like a hippie tree-hugger. And I’m sure the rest of my life will be nicely occupied, thank you.’
Not wanting to step backwards, because Ellis was still standing behind her, she shuffled sideways along the row. By the time she’d reached the empty shop again, windows blackened and inches deep in flyposters, she started to walk more normally. Ellis was standing in the same place, watching her.
Oh, go away, Posy thought irritably. Clear off and leave me alone.
‘Ellis! Sweetie! Sorry I’m late!’
Posy jerked her head round at the sudden shrill trill of girlish enthusiasm. She hadn’t heard anyone approach, or seen them cross the green which was reflected in all its lonely glory in the shop fronts. And no wonder.
Tatty Spry, an early Cher-like mass of raven ringlets and ankle-length layers of velvet and lace, had undulated silkily out of her shop door, leaving the multicoloured glass bead curtain jangling behind her like a noisy rainbow.
‘It’s okay, darling.’ Ellis’s reply was muffled as he had immediately buried his face in the ringlets. ‘You know I’d wait forever for you.’
With a derisive snort, Posy stomped away. Neither Ellis nor the ringlets-and-lace Tatty took the slightest notice of her leaving.
When the hell had that happened? Ellis had only arrived in the village the day before? When had he and Tatty got it together? Oh, yes of course . . . last night at Ritchie and Sonia’s wedding reception.
Why this should make her even more angry, Posy had no idea, but she stalked furiously round the rest of the village, hating all men with a vengeance, and rehearsing her ‘I’ve come home because I wanted to, not because I was homesick and I know exactly what I’m going to do with the rest of my life’ speech in her head, and trying to make it sound convincing.
After half an hour, it was cold and dark and striding round Steeple Fritton being angry seemed a pretty daft thing to be doing, so Posy decided to collect the abandoned BMW and face her parents at Sunny Dene. As she passed Glad Blissit’s cottage, the upstairs window was still slightly open and shared chuckles of throaty, smoky laughter rolled out and floated teasingly on the spiky-cold January air. Obviously Ellis hadn’t wasted any time at all in finding something to do with the rest of his life.
Well, then, neither would she.
Posy unlatched Sunny Dene’s front door, feeling strangely nervous. Trevor and Kenneth, claws clicking in perfect time, leapt towards her across the flags. Deciding that they recognized her scent and approved, they licked her in rapturous welcome, then bounded away towards the dining room, the ecstatically lolling tongues and wagging tails indicating that she should follow them.
‘Boys! Boys!’ Dilys admonished lovingly from the kitchen doorway. ‘Hold your horses – Oh, hello, Posy dear. You’re just in time.’
‘Am I? Good. Er, what for?’
‘High tea, dear.’ Dilys wobbled towards the dining room carrying a loaded cake stand and a packet of doilies. ‘Your dad’s through here with some new guests, they’ve been told all about you. Come along in and say hello.’
‘Yes, okay, but Mum . . .’
‘What dear?’
‘I’m back.’
‘Yes, I know. We knew you would be. Five people phoned and said your motorbike was parked up by the war memorial. We’d expected you sooner.’
Posy, shaking her head and trying to be rational – after all, she’d only left that morning, so it was hardly cause for the Prodigal’s Return type of reception, was it? – followed her mother’s ample and vividly-coloured rear across the hall.
In the dining room, Sunny Dene’s two new visitors were tucking into the sort of spread only ever seen in 1950s films. Posy, who was still stuffed from Persephone’s owners’ lunch, hoped she wasn’t supposed to join in.
Mr Dale and Mr Burridge, as they were introduced to her by Norrie, shook her hand gravely and called her a pretty little thing. Neither of them looked like they would see seventy-five again, and after extolling the virtues of Sunny Dene, explained to Posy that they were ‘travellers in ladies wear’.
Trying hard to d
ismiss the mental picture of geriatric hippie transvestites, Posy smiled nicely at both of them, accepted a cup of tea and an iced fancy from Norrie, and settled down in a corner of the dining room.
Trevor and Kenneth, having sniffed Posy again and discovered that she wasn’t eating anything exciting, immediately turned unfaithful and were being fed titbits of anchovies on toast by Mr Dale and Mr Burridge, while doing the out-of-sync tail-wagging routine.
‘Lovely to see you’ve come to your senses,’ Norrie hugged her as he passed. ‘Running away wasn’t going to be the answer, but you had to find that out for yourself. We’ll have a chat about it later, shall we?’
Posy nodded and hugged him back, feeling ridiculously emotional. ‘Thanks, Dad, that’d be great. So, where did these two come from?’
‘Turned up at lunch time. Discovered Colworth Manor, their usual watering hole, had been taken over by a lot of very loud middle managers on a bonding exercise or something. They found it not to their taste.’ Norrie lowered his voice as if imparting classified information. ‘Mr D and Mr B are a bit of an anachronism. Of the old school.’
Mr D and Mr B, Norrie continued sotto voce, if they liked it, had said they would be stopping at Sunny Dene on a regular basis, and wouldn’t that be lovely?
Swallowing a piece of angelica, Posy nodded. Her parents needed all the business they could get.
Norrie swept some sparse strands of hair across his shining pate. They hovered in place for a moment before sliding sideways. He tucked them behind his ears, making him look like Ermintrude. ‘Are you really all right now, love?’
‘Well, all right might be a bit optimistic. But at least I’ve come to a decision. I’m going to –’
There was a clatter as Mr D dropped his scone jam side down and Trevor hoovered it up before anyone else could reach it. Kenneth and Mr B both looked a bit miffed.
As Norrie disappeared to fetch a damp cloth and refill the teapot, and Mr D and Mr B, ignoring the mess on the carpet, were otherwise occupied swapping obviously hilarious road-stories with one another, Posy sidled up to her mother.
‘I went for a walk round the village just now, to clear my head, and I was talking to Glad Blissit and her, um, grandson.’
Dilys’s orange curls leapt about of their own accord. ‘That turn-coating old witch went to the bloody wedding reception just because she was getting Babycham at someone else’s expense. And from what I’ve heard, young Ellis is a havoc-maker.’
Posy’s ears pricked up almost as much as Trevor’s and Kenneth’s. ‘That’s what Glad said. She also said he’s been sent here to keep him out of trouble but –’
‘You don’t want to take no notice of Glad Blissit, you know she’s as mad as a coot. Should have been drowned at birth. And apparently Ellis should have been castrated at puberty, as poor dim Tatty Spry will soon discover.’ Dilys turned her attention to Mr D and Mr B with a broad smile. ‘Now, boys, anything more you’d like?’ The boys, Mr D and Mr B and Trevor and Kenneth, all nodded appreciatively.
It took ages for Dilys to restock their plates, and refresh their napkins and straighten their doilies. Posy watched all the fussing with growing impatience. Tatty Spry? What did her mother know about Ellis and Tatty Spry? The village bush telegraph must have had smoke coming out of its ears.
‘Yes, well,’ Posy said, as Dilys was about to whisk off into the kitchen again, ‘I met Ellis again by the shops and Tatty came out to meet him and they went back to Glad’s cottage.’
‘Confirms what Rose Lusty told me on the phone just now.’ There was a vigorous nodding of the orange curls. ‘Tatty and young Ellis were superglued together all night at Colworth Manor, apparently. Daft bat. Can’t imagine what she thinks she’s playing at setting her cap at him, but Rose Lusty says that –’ she paused to flick crumbs into a napkin.
Posy felt as though she’d missed a vital episode of her favourite soap opera – and she’d only been away from Steeple Fritton for a day. ‘Go on, then, what did Rose say?’
‘That Tatty wants a playmate for Zebedee.’
The soap turned into The Times Cryptic. ‘Zebedee?’
‘Tatty’s youngest. Do try to keep up, love. You know what she’s like for kiddies, wants another before it’s too late. Rose reckons Tatty has singled Ellis out as good breeding stock.’
‘Surely not?’
‘Stands to reason. Although what good it’ll do her, God knows. None of her other men have stuck around have they? All them fatherless kiddies and now she wants to add to the brood.’
Is that what Tatty Spry and Ellis had been doing in Glad’s upstairs bedroom just now then? Creating a playmate for Zebedee? Posy managed not to laugh. Just. She reached towards the cake stand. Poor little thing. Knowing Tatty it’d probably get called Horatio. Horatio Blissit! Or Horatio Spry – not much to choose there, really.
Posy was munching her way through a cream horn without realizing it. ‘Ellis is much younger than Tatty, though.’
‘According to Rose, who got it from Glad last night after seven or eight Babychams, Ellis prefers older women. He’s had a bit of trouble in that area before. One of the reasons he’s here. To keep him out of harm’s way. Fat chance with Tatty Spry on the prowl. Tatty must be heading towards forty and this is probably her last chance of batting on that particular wicket. Now, anyone for another iced fancy?’
Posy, from force of habit, started collecting the tea things on to a tray. Mr Dale and Mr Burridge watched her with open approbation. Probably, Posy thought, because it was the first time they’d been waited on by someone dressed as a whiplash queen.
Backing into the kitchen with her loaded tray, Posy pondered on her parents’ laissez faire attitude. Had they known she’d come back of her own accord? Had they realized with some God-given parental insight that if they’d made a huge fuss they might have driven her away from Steeple Fritton forever? Whatever it was, she was really, really glad to be home.
She looked at her father sitting at the kitchen table, a double-entry account ledger and a calculator beside him. ‘I didn’t realize you were doing the books. Isn’t that Dom’s job usually?’
Norrie nodded. ‘Yes, but he’ll be going back to college soon so I thought I ought to get to grips with it. Anyway, not even someone with Dom’s miracle mathematical brain could make good business sense of this.’
Posy clattered the tray on to the draining board. ‘Are things really bad, then?’
Norrie heaved a huge sigh. ‘About as bad as they can get, love. About as bad as they can get. Especially since that Daisy MacClean’s made such a success of Colworth Manor. To be honest, if business doesn’t improve soon, I’m not even sure if we’re going to survive.’
Chapter Four
On that same Sunday, in the small Sussex town of Swansbury, Lola Wentworth stared miserably at the pale and lovely loneliness of her almost-sea-view apartment.
There really wasn’t much to show for twenty-eight years of being a faithful mistress, she thought. Her lifetime of devotion and discretion had brought her this luxury flat full of hand-crafted furniture, a wardrobe of classic Jacques Vert outfits, a hatchback updated each year, savings of a little over five thousand pounds in her building society account, and yesterday an unexpected letter from Nigel’s solicitor making an appointment for the following afternoon.
She leaned her back against the white railings of her first-floor balcony and lifted her face to the winter sun. It failed to warm her skin, just as the mug of black coffee cradled in her hands failed to warm her body. Her life was perpetually, chillingly, cold.
Below, she could hear the Sunday morning noises: children playing along the estuary path, couples calling to each other as they cracked ice on the seemingly obligatory water features in the tiny communal gardens, a radio softly playing snatches of Strauss. Ordinary, everyday noises which hurt beyond bearing. Other people living and loving with no thought that it would one day end. The human tragedy ignored.
The day stretched ahead in bleak no
thingness. How she hated these sterile Sundays when everyone in the world seemed to have someone with whom to share their time; when being without Nigel hurt almost beyond bearing.
Tomorrow, at work, it would be better, and yesterday had been almost fun.
Yesterday she’d filled the day with shopping for things she didn’t need in Brighton, lunching with married girlfriends, going to the cinema in the evening with the young couple in the apartment downstairs who were determined that she shouldn’t spend every evening alone. Tomorrow she’d go to work at Marionette Biscuits, and be surrounded by people, and have busy familiar things occupying her mind.
Without Nigel, today and every Sunday for the rest of her life she’d know only aching desolation.
At the age of twenty, Lola had joined Marionette Biscuits as a typist. By her twenty-first birthday she was PA and Other Woman to Nigel Marion, the Managing Director. Nigel, tall, classically handsome, distinguished, and awe-inspiringly brilliant, had swept her off her feet. It had always been love. For both of them. Nigel, nineteen years her senior, had been everything she’d ever wanted in a man – apart from being married of course.
For twenty-eight years they’d worked together, managed to escape together during sales conferences and trade fairs, and spent all night, one precious night a week when Nigel was allegedly working away, at this flat on Swansbury Water.
Nigel had never promised to leave his wife, but Lola had always hoped that one day he would. Now, he had left both of them forever.
Lola blinked as the low January sun reflected from the white quarry tiles of the balcony. It had been nearly a year since Nigel’s death and the tears still appeared unexpectedly. Dashing them away, she knew she had to find something to do to pass the hours until she could return to bed. Anything to take away the endless emptiness. There were only so many times she could tidy the flat, or rearrange the flowers, or walk the solitary walk along the estuary path and look at the sea and think of Nigel and cry.
Wearily, she unpeeled herself from the balcony railings, drifted listlessly into the kitchen and placed her coffee mug in the dishwasher. It was the only thing in there, and looked small, lost and alone. She slammed the door shut and picked up the telephone.
Tickled Pink Page 4
