‘Flattery,’ said Matt, ‘will get you nowhere at all.’ He kissed me again, let me go and went up the hall to look in on his aunt.
He was only gone a few moments, and as he came back into the kitchen he pulled the hall door closed behind him. ‘Asleep. Come here.’
I went, putting my arms around him, but when he ran both hands up under my top I protested weakly, ‘It’s not our house.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘but it’s over eight hours since I had sex with you, and I can’t hold out any longer.’ He cupped my breasts in his hands and I very nearly whimpered.
‘Someone might come,’ I whispered.
‘Who? And the dogs would bark.’
‘The griffon’s watching. And Spud. Not to mention the axe murderer.’
‘Don’t you want to, Jose?’
‘Oh, dear Lord, yes,’ I admitted. I pulled his sweatshirt up over his head and threw it neatly over the griffon’s.
‘He was probably quite keen to see,’ Matt remarked.
‘In that case I really don’t want him watching.’
‘Spoilsport.’ He kissed me again. ‘I love you.’
‘Same. Oh – I haven’t got any condoms.’
‘I have,’ he said. ‘I came prepared.’
I looked at him with deep admiration. ‘And you weren’t even a Boy Scout. What a legend.’
Chapter 31
AT TWO TWENTY-NINE on Wednesday afternoon, Cheryl, wearing her blue Waimanu Physiotherapy shirt, manhandled an enormous and lavishly chromed all-terrain mountain buggy through the front door. ‘Afternoon, girls,’ she said.
‘Hi,’ said Amber, coming out from behind her desk to peer at the baby. ‘Hi, Max. Can I get him out?’
‘Absolutely,’ Cheryl said. ‘Just don’t paint his toenails again – Ian’s mother got all worked up about it. Jo, can you have a look at my back before you go? Amber said there was a slot.’ She went ahead of me into the consulting room and began to unbutton her shirt without bothering about the door. ‘T6, I think,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Subluxated the bastard.’
I followed her in and shut the door. ‘You must watch your back when you’re lifting Max in and out of the car,’ I lectured in my best professional voice. ‘Try to use your knees, and make sure you put his capsule in on one side and then the other.’
‘Thank you so much,’ she said. ‘None of those things had occurred to me.’
‘Lucky I reminded you then. Hands on opposite shoulders, please, and rotate to your left.’ Cheryl twisted obediently. ‘That would be your right.’
‘Oh, shut up, or I’ll dock your pay. That’s catching, there.’
‘Right. Other way? Crikey, there’s not a lot of movement.’
‘Which would be why I’m here,’ she said.
‘Be quiet. Bend forward.’
‘How’s Rose today?’ she asked, bending.
‘Not very good. Yesterday was a bit better, but she’s just shrinking to nothing and we can’t do anything to help – now back.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Cheryl to the ceiling. ‘If you need more time off we’ll figure something out.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘You’re wonderful. Okay, lie on your back and we’ll see if we can get this thing to move.’
‘I normally do thoracic manipulations with them on their fronts,’ she demurred.
‘I don’t. Lie down and stop arguing.’
‘I’m not at all sure about your bedside manner,’ she said, lying down and crossing her arms.
I stood at her head and slid one arm under her, holding her across the shoulders with the other. ‘Don’t complain – you’re in a very vulnerable position. Breathe in . . . and all the way out.’ I pressed her back down against the table and there was a most satisfying crunching sound. Customers love satisfying crunching sounds; they really feel they’re getting their money’s worth. Physiotherapists the world over are plagued by people who think that spinal manipulations are an instant cure for chronic injuries and that strengthening exercises and improved posture are for losers.
‘That’s got the little bastard,’ said Cheryl with satisfaction. ‘Right, what do I need to know about this afternoon’s lot?’
‘I think everyone’s files are up to date,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure whether you’ll want to strap Paul Moss’s ankle – he sprained it really badly a few months ago and it was doing well, but he called this morning to say he’d tweaked it again. And if you can manage to put the fear of God into Keith Taylor so he’ll look after his reconstructed shoulder you’ll be doing better than me.’
‘I’ll try,’ said Cheryl, ‘but I’ve got a horrible feeling that since the baby I’ve forgotten everything I ever knew.’ She pushed herself up to sit and shrugged her shoulders experimentally. ‘Oh, well, we’ll see. Off you go.’
THAT EVENING MATT picked up Pirate’s Lady from his aunt’s bedside table and examined the front cover. ‘That dress defies the law of physics.’
I looked over his shoulder at the picture of the impossibly buxom girl draped across a man who, judging by his white blouse and the parrot on his shoulder, was supposed to be the pirate. ‘The dress is the least of her problems. Look at her breasts.’
‘I am,’ he said. ‘They look pretty good to me. Very perky.’
‘But they’re in the wrong place,’ I pointed out. ‘Does it mention in the story that she’s deformed, Aunty Rose?’
‘Oddly enough, no.’ She shifted her head on the pillows.
‘Pills?’ I asked. The top-up pain pills, which she took when her morphine wasn’t cutting the mustard, made her very sleepy and she avoided them if she could.
She sighed. ‘I think I’d better. I can’t seem to get comfortable this evening.’ Which meant that the pain was all but unbearable. This fucking disease.
I lifted her so she could swallow her tablets, and Matt shook up her pillows before she lay back. ‘Should I read something?’ he asked. ‘Or would you rather I didn’t?’ He pulled The Oxford Book of English Verse towards him across the bedclothes.
The corner of Aunty Rose’s mouth twitched. ‘How about a bit of that pirate book?’ she suggested. ‘I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.’
Matt picked it up and held it at arm’s length, as if it smelt bad. ‘Really?’ he asked plaintively.
Aunty Rose looked severe. ‘Consider it penance.’ She had already told me at some length what she thought of presumptuous youngsters who took time off work and reorganised nursing arrangements without even bothering to consult the patient.
I curled up in the armchair at the end of the bed and listened with enjoyment to the gurgle of the oil heater and Matt’s slow-voiced rendition of Pirate’s Lady. (Calling the woman a lady, considering she seemed to have the morals of an alley cat and the sex drive of a teenage bull, seemed a bit of a stretch, but then Pirate’s Strumpet just didn’t have quite the same ring.)
‘“Eyes hot with desire,” ’ Matt read with increasing misery, ‘“MacAdam cleared the table with one thrust of his powerful right arm. Grasping the girl’s slender wrist he drew her towards him. Her breath caught on a little sob, half of fear and half of desire, as he lowered his head to graze one exposed nipple with his teeth . . .” ’ He put down the book and looked at his aunt pleadingly. ‘Don’t make me keep going. I’m not old enough.’
I ceased sniggering into a cushion and looked up. ‘But we’ve got to find out what happens next,’ I complained. ‘You can’t stop now.’
‘Oh yes I can,’ he said.
I laughed. ‘Wimp.’
‘I think you’ve suffered enough,’ said Aunty Rose sleepily. ‘You may stop.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, putting the book face down beside her on the bedclothes. ‘Reading this kind of carryon to your aunt is just wrong.’
‘Like watching porn with your grandparents?’ I suggested.
‘Why is it,’ Aunty Rose murmured, ‘that every generation believes that they were the ones to invent sex? Go away and let me sleep.’
>
I lingered behind Matt to rearrange the water glass and hand bell at her elbow. ‘You will ring, won’t you?’
‘’Course,’ she whispered. ‘Go away, Josephine – the boy needs his sleep and he won’t leave until you’ve kissed him goodnight.’
He was lying on the chaise longue when I entered the kitchen, looking up at the griffon with his arms folded behind his head. ‘Hey,’ he said, and smiled at me sleepily.
I went and sat beside him, bending to kiss him. ‘You should go home to bed.’
‘It’s only eight-thirty. I’ll go and check the cows at nine.’ He turned onto his side and hooked the index finger of his free hand over the waistband of my jeans, pulling it down an inch.
‘What are you doing?’ I enquired.
‘Just wondering if you’re wearing the pink lacy knickers.’ He peered down. ‘Nope. Bugger.’
‘I was wearing them yesterday.’
‘I didn’t notice.’
‘That’s nice,’ I said. Then, ‘My darling, how about not doing that?’
He grinned and opened the second button on my jeans. ‘You love it.’
‘I would so much rather not have your baby sister find you taking off my jeans,’ I said.
‘Oh, alright.’ He did the buttons up again and lay down, pulling me comfortably back against him.
I squirmed round within the circle of his arm to lie down too, using his bottom arm as a pillow. ‘Stu said you looked interested when he mentioned the pink knickers,’ I remarked, ‘but I didn’t believe him.’
‘He was right,’ said Matt, running his free hand lightly up and down my arm.
‘He refers to you in his emails as “the delectable Matthew”.’
‘I’m not quite sure how I feel about that.’
‘You should be flattered. Stu is only attracted to good-looking men; he’s very shallow.’
A sleepy sort of silence fell, and I lay in his arms and felt perfectly content. Falling embers hissed in the stove and Spud’s tail thumped once or twice against the floor as he stirred and then settled back to sleep. I could feel the slow rise and fall of Matt’s chest as he breathed and his hand was warm against my stomach.
‘Do they all call you JD in Australia?’ he asked suddenly.
‘Mostly just Stu,’ I said. ‘Graeme did sometimes, when he particularly approved of me. Which wasn’t very often, come to think of it.’
‘Why not?’
I sighed. ‘Childish sense of humour, using the bread knife to cut cheese, biting my nails, wearing jeans with jandals, being too scared to get my ears pierced – that kind of stuff.’
‘Life with him must have been a barrel of laughs.’
‘I’m exaggerating,’ I admitted. ‘But the last few months weren’t much fun.’ In a way it had been a relief to walk in on Graeme and Chrissie. It’s unspeakably horrible to know you’re irritating the person who is supposed to love you and not know why things have changed or how to make them right again. At least that had explained it.
Matt didn’t say anything, but his arm tightened around my waist.
I was going to tell him it didn’t matter – that even at our best Graeme and I hardly had the kind of love the poets dream of, that apart from Stu and shoe shops Melbourne contained not one thing I missed. But he breathed out on a long sigh and his grip slackened as he slid into sleep. If you want conversation with a dairy farmer in August it pays not to leave silences of over thirty seconds. He knew all those things anyway; I threaded my fingers down between his and closed my eyes too.
‘MATTHEW PATRICK!’ HAZEL shrilled.
I went instantly from deeply asleep to more awake than I had ever been in my life, and leapt to my feet. This was a mistake; blackness boiled in front of my eyes at the sudden shift from horizontal to vertical and I had to lean against the table and clutch my head in both hands.
Matt has far better nerves than I do, and was considerably more sleep-deprived – he didn’t leap anywhere. He merely frowned, opened one eye a fraction and said, ‘What?’
‘What are you doing?’ his mother cried.
‘Sleeping,’ he murmured, and prised the other eyelid open. ‘Hi.’
‘And what would Cilla think if she saw this?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Matt wearily. He sat up and ran both hands backwards through his hair, which gave him the same coiffeur as the eccentric professor in Back to the Future. ‘I haven’t seen Cilla for weeks.’
‘Oh, Matthew,’ his mother lamented. ‘That delightful girl.’ And putting her smart black clutch down on the table beside me the woman actually wrung her hands.
I was struck by a most inappropriate urge to giggle, and caught my bottom lip firmly between my teeth. Matt met my eye above his mother’s head and said, carefully grave, ‘Never mind, Mother, this one’s delightful too.’
‘Well, yes, of course she is,’ said Hazel mechanically. But she sank into a chair as if the effort of remaining on her feet, under the weight of this heavy blow, was too much to bear. ‘Oh, Matthew, I do wish you’d settle down instead of flitting from girl to girl.’
‘Like a butterfly?’ I suggested helpfully.
‘Watch it,’ ordered the love of my life, scowling at me in an only half-successful attempt not to laugh. ‘Don’t worry, Mum, my flitting days are over.’
‘You need to remember, Matthew, that you’re the only male role model your sister h-has, now.’ Her voice gave an affecting little hitch at this reference to her dead husband. ‘It’s not good for her to see you picking up and discarding girls as if they were . . .’ She paused in search of a suitable simile, and I managed to fight down the urge to suggest one. Avocados, perhaps; you have to palpate them individually to find one at the perfect stage of ripeness. Or jeans – buying the right pair is a solemn undertaking and the experienced shopper expects to have to try on quite a number before finding a good fit.
‘Settle down, Mum,’ Matt said. ‘Anyone would think I’d spent the last ten years working my way through every woman in the district.’
‘Have you?’ I asked with interest.
He shot me a withering look.
‘Of course you’ve only been home for four,’ I murmured.
‘True,’ said Matt. He stood up and stretched. ‘Right, I’d better go and check my cows. Goodnight.’
‘You don’t need to run away, Matthew,’ said Hazel.
‘I’m not,’ he said shortly. ‘I’m checking the cows and going to bed.’ He kissed his mother’s cheek and then my mouth, a brief hard kiss that was really just to make a point. ‘See you tomorrow.’
‘Goodnight,’ I said as he opened the kitchen door.
‘’Night,’ he said to me. ‘’Night, Mum.’
‘Goodnight, love.’ She watched him pull the door closed behind him, then turned to me with a small sad smile. ‘Let’s go and see how Rosie is, shall we?’
‘It’s only been a day or two,’ I said impulsively. ‘We haven’t been sneaking around behind your back.’
Her smile became even sadder. ‘Thank you, dear,’ she said, and I felt like a complete worm. That’s the remarkable thing about Hazel: you might consider her the silliest woman of your acquaintance, but she can still play you like a virtuoso. It’s quite a gift.
Chapter 32
AFTER SENDING MY eleven o’clock appointment on her way, handbag swinging precariously from the handle of her right crutch, I wandered out of the consulting room to find that Amber had vanished. She had been replaced by a tall, greying man in his fifties with a snub nose and very blue eyes. His glasses, without which he can only see about three feet, were balanced on top of his head.
‘Afternoon, young Jo,’ he said, graciously inclining his head. His glasses fell forward onto Amber’s computer keyboard.
‘Dad!’ I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him, and he patted my shoulder in a sheepish sort of way. ‘Where’s Amber?’
‘She said something about a cup of tea,’ he said, picking up his glasses and repl
acing them carefully on top of his head. Why he doesn’t keep the things on his face and look through them I have no idea.
‘And Mum?’
‘Supermarket.’
‘The house is full of food,’ I said.
Dad shrugged. ‘The woman is fundamentally unable to visit anyone without taking groceries. You know that.’
I did indeed know that – on her last visit to see me in Melbourne she had brought toilet paper and washing-up liquid with her as well as enough food for a large hungry family. Graeme had looked at these offerings for a while and then enquired just what sort of a household she had thought she was coming to.
‘I thought you were going to stay at home and look after the goats,’ I said.
‘Bloody animals,’ said Dad morosely. ‘No, I’ve left Maurice from next door a list of instructions as long as your arm. It sounded as if I’d better not put it off if I want to see Rose?’ He made the last sentence into a question.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t think it’ll be very long. And I hope it won't.’
Dad grimaced, and turned in his seat as Amber came back down the hall bearing a mug of tea. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘Chocolate biscuit?’ Amber offered, sniffing as she handed over the mug.
‘No, thanks,’ said Dad. ‘Jo treating you right, is she?’
Amber pondered this. ‘She’s grumpy sometimes,’ she said at last. ‘But not as grumpy as Cheryl.’
‘Thank you,’ I said doubtfully.
‘And sometimes she’s really funny.’
‘Funny peculiar or funny amusing?’ Dad wanted to know.
‘Both,’ said Amber. ‘She sings along with the radio, even though she can’t sing at all – and yesterday she did cartwheels all across the car park.’
Dad raised an eyebrow. ‘Sounds to me as if she’s mentally unstable.’
‘Oh, no,’ Amber assured him. ‘She’s a really good physio. She’s really strong – she cracks people’s backs just like that.’ She attempted to snap her fingers and failed.
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