by Jenny Colgan
‘Excuse me, ma’am, but I’m here for Miss Polly Waterford?’
‘Huckle, stop it. It’s me,’ said Polly, whacking him with the box of Jamaican bread she’d brought along.
‘Yeah, she normally looks like kind of a drudge, so you, Cinders, cannot possibly be her.’
Polly found herself blushing and looked around before she climbed into the sidecar. Sure enough, some of the fishermen were gathering in advance of that night’s fishing expedition. She was going to get the most terrible reputation. Well, there wasn’t much she could do about that. She felt like sticking her tongue out at them all.
‘Okay, Cinders,’ said Huckle when she had put on her helmet and goggles. ‘Chocks away!’
It was the most beautiful evening. Insects hummed and danced in the meadows, the headlights catching them as the bike swung round corners. The sky was violet, huge, the stars popping out. Dusk released the heavy scent of hedgerows and wild poppies, rambling wild roses and the comforting scent of freshly tilled soil, waiting for the new seeds. Polly breathed in deeply. The fragrance was intoxicating. She looked up at Huckle, concentrating on the road, his powerful thighs driving the machine forward. He caught her watching him and smiled, and she instantly indicated that he should concentrate again on the road, smiling to herself and settling back to enjoy the bird calls and the perfumes and the vastness of the sky.
They turned up the rutted track. Huckle had obviously been pretty certain she would come; all round the beautiful little garden outside the cottage were dotted candles in glass holders. In the trees were fairy lights.
‘Fairy lights?’ said Polly.
‘I know, they were here when I got here,’ said Huckle. ‘I figured I’d keep using them until we have a major electrical fire.’
But Polly couldn’t stay sarcastic for long. The little cottage looked absolutely beautiful. The night was still warm, but Huckle moved ahead, poked a little brazier with a Zippo lighter and it flared into life.
Polly looked at him with narrowed eyes.
‘This is all very… seductive-looking,’ she said.
‘I know,’ said Huckle, taking her seriously. ‘I’m really sorry about that. I only realised just now. I didn’t mean it to be; it’s just Reuben’s out of town. Do you want to go home?’
‘I didn’t say that,’ said Polly. ‘Seriously, I’m your second choice after Reuben?’
‘No,’ said Huckle. ‘I was just making it nice for him, otherwise he gets sniffy. I apologise.’
Polly smiled. The night was warm, but she moved closer to the fire anyway; there it was even better.
‘Go on then. Show me your great amazing thing. And if this is a motorbike with two sidecars, I’m going to be spectacularly unimpressed.’
‘Nooo,’ said Huckle, disappearing into the house. He reappeared with two flagons and a large corked jug.
‘I am already interested,’ said Polly.
Huckle placed the jug on the table between them and uncorked the top. Polly leaned forward to smell it, then sat back quickly.
‘WHOA,’ she said.
‘I know,’ said Huckle.
‘That is… what is it?’
‘It’s mead,’ said Huckle proudly. ‘Brewed it myself out in the back. People aren’t getting through my honey fast enough. It’s peeing off my bees. Now congratulate me on my mastery of English idiom.’
‘I dislike a peed-off bee,’ said Polly, peering into her flagon as Huckle poured them both generous measures.
‘Is this right?’ she said. ‘Are you meant to drink it in beer containers? Isn’t it more like wine?’
Huckle gave her a look. ‘Have you never seen any Viking films? You drink it by the pint whilst going AHA!’
‘AHA!’ they said, clinking flagons.
Polly took a mouthful. It was strong, yes, but it tasted delicious too: warm, sweet, full of honey but with a darker flavour.
‘Wow,’ she said. She looked at Huckle. ‘You know, this is pretty good.’
‘Thank you,’ said Huckle, beaming. ‘It took a lot of… plastic canisters.’
‘I think you could sell this too.’
‘I like the way you’re thinking,’ said Huckle.
They chinked again, then Polly remembered to give him the money from the honey sales, which he also liked, and they chatted easily in the darkening air.
Later, they got up and rummaged around for some local cheese to have with the bread Polly had brought, as well as a huge bowl of strawberries Huckle had picked from a nearby farmer’s field in return for a couple of jars of honey (‘I’ve gone almost totally to barter,’ he said). As soon as Polly stood up, she realised that she was squiffed. That stuff was lethal.
‘I think,’ she said with some difficulty, ‘that someone has stolen my legs.’
‘That happens every time I make this,’ said Huckle, slurring his already slurred words. ‘I must try and brew something that leaves you with your own legs. Or someone else’s.’
‘I’d like Elle Macpherson’s,’ agreed Polly, and found herself completely hilarious.
‘Oohh!’ she said suddenly. ‘Look!’
At first she had thought they were sparks from the brazier, now keeping them cosy as the night grew chillier, but as she stared at them they started to take shape, and she saw they were in fact tiny glowing insects.
‘June bugs,’ said Huckle, then glanced at her. ‘Fireflies. I didn’t know you got them too till I moved here. Lots where I come from.’
‘Neither did I!’ said Polly. She stood up, fascinated if a little wobbly. ‘They’re beautiful.’ She watched as the insects traced intricate patterns on the air, leaving behind just a faint impression of their iridescent trajectory. ‘Oh wow. I’d like to keep one in a jar, if it wasn’t really really cruel.’
‘Well, just enjoy them as they are,’ said Huckle expansively, waving his arms around. ‘Live in the moment. Don’t take a photo, don’t try and grab it and freeze it for ever. Let’s just enjoy the fireflies.’
‘And perhaps,’ hiccuped Polly, ‘another glass of this most delicious mead.’
Later, as the fire burned low and they grew quieter and the fireflies had flown away, Polly found herself getting pleasantly cosy and drowsy, wrapped in a blanket Huckle had brought out for her that smelled of woodsmoke.
‘Why did you come here?’ she asked lazily. ‘I mean, you know ALL about me… I’m assuming you know all about me?’ she said.
‘Er, yeah,’ said Huckle apologetically. ‘Things get around. Sorry. Bad guy. Bad bad guy. Bad guy.’
‘You know I had absolutely no idea…’
‘Oh yeah. Bad guy.’
‘I would never, ever do that, you know? How could you do that to someone? Then go home to their bed at night?’
‘Did you really like him?’ asked Huckle gently.
Polly heaved a great sigh and tilted her head all the way back till she was staring at the stars.
‘Well, I wasn’t in love with him or anything like that. But it had just been so long, you know? And things had been so tough. So I thought, well, hey, this will be a bit of fun. I’m such an idiot. I was with my ex for most of my adult life one way or another, and I… I don’t know the rules. I really don’t. They may have totally changed, I have no idea. I’m like one of those rubes who comes to the city for the first time and loses all their money to someone playing three-card monte on a street corner.’
Huckle laughed. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘You are the first and only person ever to make a mistake with that kind of stuff.’
Polly smiled wryly. ‘Yes, but in front of the entire town and everyone I’d only just met.’
‘Whose sympathies, if it helps, lie entirely with you. Jayden is incensed about it. I think he has a Mrs Robinson crush on you.’
‘Oi!’ said Polly, putting her head down. ‘Just “crush” would have been fine, okay?’
‘Okay,’ said Huckle. ‘And Tarnie is miserable.’
‘Good,’ said Polly. ‘Oh Lord, that soun
ds horrible. I just… It was just really embarrassing, that’s all. REALLY embarrassing. I feel like… some daft girlie.’
‘I don’t think you’re like that,’ said Huckle.
‘Oh no?’ said Polly, hopefully.
‘No. I think you’re a daft grown woman.’
Polly hurled a cushion at him and he caught it and laughed.
‘Go on then,’ she said. ‘You know all my grubby little secrets now.’
‘All of them?’
She gave him a look.
‘Your turn. Men don’t just choose to up sticks and move somewhere with no reason. So tell me.’
‘Or what? You’ll do something bad to a firefly?’
‘No. I’ll… I’ll be very cross with you.’
‘I am shaking in fear.’
‘And I will tell everyone you pee in your mead.’
‘You would not do that.’
‘Try me.’
Huckle squinted at her oddly for a minute. Then he looked into the fire and let out a big sigh, stretching out his long legs in front of him.
‘Oh what the hell,’ he said. ‘Maybe it would make it easier to tell someone.’
Polly smiled encouragingly at him.
‘If it helps, I’m completely pissed,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to remember any of it in the morning.’
Huckle laughed. ‘Ha, yeah, well there is that. But you can’t breathe a word of it to anyone.’
Polly leaned over laboriously and held out her littlest finger.
‘Pinkie promise,’ she said.
Huckle put out his big warm pinkie and they joined them solemnly. ‘Pinkie promise.’
He refilled their glasses.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Once upon a time… I was a management exec in Savannah, which is in Georgia, the state where I grew up. And I liked it. It was full on, no holidays, crazy hours, but I was young and I was good at it and I loved my job, so that was all fine, you know?’
Polly nodded. ‘I remember,’ she said, then she went quiet so he could talk.
‘And I met a girl who worked there – a woman, I should say. Candice. She was… is beautiful, really sharp, really switched on.’
So far this was sounding familiar to Polly. She sipped thoughtfully.
‘And, well, I fell for her. Hook, line and sinker.’
So that’s the kind of woman he likes, Polly found herself thinking, a bit ruefully.
‘And she felt the same way, totally, and we made all these plans about how we’d work hard and build up our cash, then maybe get married one day, downsize – I was already so into the honey – and all that.’
Polly nodded. ‘Sounds like a great idea.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
There was a long pause.
‘And?’
‘Oh. And. Apparently that lifestyle is harder to give up than I realised. Every year it was “next year, next year”, and she’d get promoted again, then I’d get promoted again, then she’d want a cool new Lexus, then a cool penthouse apartment, then we both started travelling a lot for work, then we never saw each other, then it was all expensive restaurants and bars…’
‘This is sounding very familiar,’ said Polly.
‘And it was fun, you know. Doing that yuppie thing. All the cool spots, lots of people around.’
Polly nodded. It was fun.
‘So?’
Huckle shrugged. He looked oddly embarrassed.
‘Well, after all that, and after all we’d said… she met someone who made more money than me. And so it turned out that downsizing to the country wasn’t exactly what she was after at all.’
‘Oh no,’ said Polly.
‘It’s all right,’ said Huckle. ‘It was my fault, I was completely nuts about her. I must have stifled her really. I was so sure I knew which way our lives would go. I had it all planned out.’
He smiled, a little painfully. Polly thought how she had had it all worked out in her mind too, with Chris.
‘So why… how did you end up here?’ she said.
‘Hah. I kind of stormed off in a fit of pique… said I’d do it anyway. Bought the first ticket I could find.’
‘You came here by MISTAKE?’
He shrugged. ‘My dad was English, I have a passport. I knew Reuben was around here somewhere.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘But, yes. Kind of. A bit.’
‘But you like it?’
Huckle shrugged. ‘Yes, some of it.’
His face looked pained.
‘I am a little lonely. God, I can’t believe I just said that out loud.’
‘It’s okay,’ said Polly, reaching out and stroking his leg. He looked at her hand, as if he had no idea what it was doing there, and she snatched it away immediately, mortified.
‘And I miss the penthouse… Savannah’s a great town.’
‘Sounds it,’ said Polly. ‘Surely you can swallow your pride now and go back?’
He smiled. ‘I guess so. I just… it’s hard, you know.’
‘I do know,’ said Polly, looking at him for a long moment. She felt stupid when he got up out of his seat.
‘Now don’t forget to take some painkillers before you go to sleep tonight; this stuff can really settle on your head,’ he said. His voice had changed, as if he was pulling himself out of his memories.
‘Thanks,’ said Polly, immediately forgetting this advice.
‘So yes. Doing something else… it definitely makes me… it makes me feel better,’ said Huckle. ‘Definitely better.’
‘Good,’ said Polly. She poked the dying embers of the fire, then looked at him. Whatever moment had been between them had faded away. But she was glad she knew now, at least; that it was no longer a mystery between them.
‘Well,’ she said, trying to perk up the mood. ‘That’s not as bad as I’d thought it would be. I really did think you’d shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.’
Huckle half smiled, but no more than that. He was staring into the fire now, as if he’d completely forgotten she was there. Polly wondered about Candice, what she was like – she’d bet she always had her nails done – and how Huckle’s lovely dream of a family in the country had turned so sour. She sighed.
‘Well, I’d better turn in,’ she said.
Huckle had made her up a lovely little single bed, crisp white sheets tucked in with a heavy embroidered patchwork quilt over the top. It was cosy and fragrant in the little thatched cottage, and she could feel sleep creeping up on her very quickly. Just before she gave in to it completely, she sneaked a last peek out of the tiny mullioned window. Huckle was still exactly where she had left him, staring mournfully into the flames, the empty flagon of mead discarded by his feet.
Chapter Nineteen
At first Polly couldn’t figure out where she was. There was a heavy scent of honeysuckle coming through the little window, and a buzzing sound in the air. There was a second wonderful scent too, of coffee brewing, then joined by bacon frying. She sat up happily, then realised, looking at the thoughtfully placed Advil and pint of water beside her bed, that she had forgotten to take her medicine. She did so now. The sun was bright through the curtains.
‘Oww,’ she said, pushing open the little arched wooden door. Huckle was up already, wearing loose farmer’s boy dungarees with no T-shirt. The effect should have been ridiculous but was actually rather lovely; he had a little chest hair, not too much, and it was soft and golden. Polly realised she kind of wanted to stroke it, and promptly put her hands behind her back.
‘Morning.’
Huckle smiled his lazy smile at her.
‘Hey.’
He seemed in much better spirits than the night before, back to his normal laid-back self.
‘How are you?’ she said. ‘Apart from the dungarees.’
He looked at her for a long moment, then said, ‘You know, actually I feel okay. I feel fine. I’m glad I told someone.’
Polly shook her head. ‘Maybe you had a lucky escape. Maybe you just weren’t rig
ht for each other.’
Huckle nodded. ‘Yeah. Yeah. Clearly. That’s what I try to think… well, on good days. Yeah. How are you feeling?’
‘Bad,’ said Polly. ‘I forgot the Advil and the water and stuff last night.’
‘Here,’ said Huckle. He poured her a large glass of apple juice. ‘Drink this.’
‘I thought you Yanks drank orange juice.’
‘Your orange juice is unspeakable,’ he said. ‘It’s got bits in it. Your apple juice, on the other hand, just about passes muster.’
Polly gulped the lot down thankfully.
‘That’s better,’ she said. The door to the cottage was wide open and the sun was pouring in. It was a radiantly beautiful day.
‘Coffee?’
‘Yes!’
‘Bacon?’
‘Yes!’
‘Pancakes?’
‘WOW! I think I’m in love with you!’ said Polly. It was meant to be humorous but came out suddenly all wrong. ‘I mean with pancakes,’ she amended hastily. ‘You wear dungarees. I’m in love with pancakes.’
‘Actually, they’re overalls.’
When the pancakes arrived, they were crisp on the outside, soft and yielding on the inside, served with crackling bacon and a thick swoosh of maple syrup.
‘Okay, this is the best breakfast I’ve ever had,’ said Polly through a mouthful. ‘Seriously, if you ever think you’re getting skint, open a B and B. I’d move in.’
Huckle smiled. ‘Well I don’t think I’m quite there yet. But glad you like ’em.’
After they’d finished, Polly would probably quite happily have crawled back to bed, but Huckle asked if she’d like to come and see the bees, and she agreed that she would, with some trepidation. Huckle had a spare suit and put her in it, then took her down to the hives.
It was fascinating. Huckle set up the smoke machine to calm the bees down when he got in amongst them; he scooped up some of the honeycomb, but not so much that they would get overexcited. He pointed out the great fat queen, unmistakable and so exceptional that Polly goggled at her, feeling fear and fascination in equal measure.
He showed her how to card off the honey from the combs, and let it plop in golden rounds into the jars, with the sticky scent and the buzzing and the wild flowers blooming all around them, and she enjoyed herself hugely.
