by Jenny Oliver
‘Well I’m glad I gave them something to talk about.’ This won’t be for ever, she said to herself as she gathered some of the plastic bags crammed with stuff out from the back seat. You can do it, I promise.
‘Gave?’ Jeff laughed as he hauled another case out of the boot.
‘Oh mind that—’ She ran round and rescued the dress-bag that was being crumpled under the stack of suitcases he was piling up in the street.
‘No past tense about it, Anna. Still giving, sweetheart. Still giving.’ He laughed.
She folded the Vera Wang bag over her arm and took a deep breath. That was it, that was the smell that mingled with the rest. The unmistakable scent of small-town gossip. I bet they loved it, she thought. The great Anna Whitehall fallen from her perch. Rubbing their hands together gleefully, hoping she landed with a painful bump.
Well, she’d made it through worse. She may have promised Seb a year, but she was here for as short a time as she could manage. All she had to do was get a decent new job and, she stroked the velvety skin of the dress-bag, get married. The wedding may no longer be at the exclusive, lavish Waldegrave, and it may not have tiny Swarovski crystals scattered over the tables, a champagne reception, forty-four bedrooms for guests and a Georgian townhouse across the street for the bride and groom, a six-tier Patisserie Gerard chocolate frilled cake and bridesmaids in the palest-grey slub silk, but there was still this bloody gorgeous dress and, she looked up at the cottage, a bare bulb hanging from the kitchen window that Seb had clicked on, and took a shaky breath in, well, no, not much else.
They hauled in bag after bag like cart horses as the dusk dipped to darkness. When Seb handed over the cash for rent, Anna couldn’t watch and, instead, peered into each room, flicking on lights and opening windows to try and get rid of the stifling heat. The air, though, was still like the surface of stagnant water, mosquitos skating over it like ice, buzzing in every room. She swatted one and instantly regretted it, the little squashed body oozing blood on the paisley Laura Ashley wallpaper. It was the same paper her granny had had. The memory made Anna’s breath catch in her throat – of warm, cosy fires and freshly baked bread. Of her hair being stroked as she relished the sound of Coronation Street – half an hour of peace before her mum would come and drag her back. If her granny were still alive, still here, keeping the village in check, then none of this would be so bad. But she wasn’t, and it was.
Looking out from the upstairs bedroom window, she could see Seb talking with Jeff in the street, their shadows as they laughed. She leant forward, the palms of her hands on the cracked, flaking windowsill, and watched as Jeff waved, clambered into his van and cranked the engine and imagined him pootling off to the King’s Head, his pint in his own silver tankard waiting for him on the bar and a million eager ears ready for his lowdown.
‘So what do you think?’ A minute later she heard Seb walk across the creaking floorboards as he came to stand behind her, his hands snaking round her waist, the heat of him engulfing her like a duvet.
‘It’s fine,’ she said, leaning her head back on his shoulder and feeling the rumble in his chest as he laughed.
‘Damned with faint praise.’
‘No, it’s really nice. Very cute.’ She turned and almost muffled it into his T-shirt so he might miss the lack of conviction.
‘Yeah, I think it’ll do. It could be much worse, Anna. I think we’ll be OK here. Get a dog, plant some vegetables.’
She bit her lip as her cheek pressed into the cotton of his top, swallowed over the lump in her throat and nodded.
He stroked her hair. ‘We’ll be OK, Anna. Change is never a bad thing. And you never know, you might love it.’
‘I might,’ she lied with as much enthusiasm as she could manage. Pulling away from him and going over to the big seventies dressing table she unclipped her earrings and put them down on the veneer surface. The reflection in the big circular mirror showed Seb’s profile – wide eyes gazing out across the fields of wheat that she knew from her quick glance earlier was accented with red as the moonlight picked out the poppies. She couldn’t miss the wistful look on his face, the softening of his lips.
She wanted to say, ‘One year, Seb. Don’t get any dreamy ideas.’ But she couldn’t bear the idea of wiping that boyish smile off his face. And anyway, she wasn’t in any position to lay down the rules. The fact that they currently had nothing was her fault. The dream she had been pushing had broken, now it was Seb’s turn to try his. The feeling was like having her hands cuffed behind her back and her smile painted on her face like a clown.
He turned to look at her. ‘Think of it like a holiday,’ he said, his eyes dancing with teasing laughter.
She thought of her vacations, two glorious weeks somewhere with an infinity pool, cocktails on the beach, restaurants overlooking the sea, basking in blazing sunshine. But then again, there had been schlepping round Skegness with her dad in the rain as a teenager. Anything was better than that.
‘I’m going to have to shower, I’m too hot,’ she said, peeling off her silk tank-top, wondering whether if she just hung it by the window, the little dots of sweat would dry and not stain.
The bathroom was tiny, the grouting brown, the ceiling cracked where the steam had bubbled the paint. She pulled back the mildewed shower curtain and found herself perplexed.
‘Seb!’ she called.
‘What is it?’
‘There’s no shower.’
‘No shower?’
‘No shower.’
He stood in the doorway and laughed. ‘You’re going to have to learn to bathe.’
‘Who doesn’t have a shower?’ she whispered, biting the tip of her finger, feeling suddenly like a pebble rolling in a wake, her façade teetering.
‘Primrose Cottage, honeybun.’
Oh she knew it was going to be called something dreadful like that.
‘Home sweet home.’
CARINA™
ISBN: 978-1-474-04522-3
THE SUNSHINE AND BISCOTTI CLUB
© 2016 Jenny Oliver
by Carina, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
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