Her eyes began to dance. ‘You’re supposed to relax.’
‘Right,’ through gritted teeth. Another fish whisked along his sole and began munching between his toes. He fought the urge to kick clear. He had to do this. It was teambuilding. Bonding. And his sweating discomfort was at least amusing Liza out of the remote place she’d inhabited recently.
‘Just chill,’ she cooed. ‘Put back your head, close your eyes. Listen to the music and the rhythm of the bubbles.’
He tried, and the tickling grew marginally more tolerable. At least there was no possibility of his falling asleep. He tried to distract himself from the nibbling that was progressing with excruciating thoroughness across the sensitive centre of his arch. ‘So how has your week been?’ Is Adam still a problem?
‘Not very interesting. Except a woman came to The Stables, asking for Kenny.’ Her voice was soft and slow, definitely relaxed, but it said: I’m not ready to talk about Adam.
He opened his eyes. ‘Who was she?’
She shrugged. ‘She didn’t give a name. She sounded a bit surprised that he wasn’t there and that Pippa had no idea who he was.’
‘Odd.’ He shot a glance at his watch. Only five minutes had passed. Hell. His instep twitched. ‘Kenny has been known to be economical in giving his contact details to women. Could she have been Undead Barbie, without undead makeup?’
‘Too tall. Very striking, kind of upmarket.’
He laughed. ‘Kenny does have a weakness for “a posh bird”. Expect he talked about working at The Stables to one of his clubbing adventures and she tracked him down.’ He looked at his watch again. This was torture. Even with Liza in the next seat, blonde hair swishing every time she turned her head to regard him with those pretty blue eyes, he couldn’t wait for the session to end.
An hour after leaving Nibbletastic, they were standing on the breezy bank of a river. Liza gazed at the great white hulk in front of her. ‘It’s a boat.’
‘It’s a Viking 28 fibreglass river cruiser,’ he agreed, as he unpopped the navy blue canopy at one side. ‘I’ve hired her for the day. Jump on.’
She stayed where she was, gazing about at the ranks of boats bobbing in the sunshine where the river widened beside an old mill. ‘Can you drive it?’
‘Yes.’ He swung one leg and a blue coolbox aboard, then held out a hand. ‘Hold on here – no, not to the canopy rib, to the hand hold. Put your foot next to mine and shift your weight forward. There.’ He guided her smoothly into the cockpit. ‘Welcome aboard the Dreaming Desdemona.’
She laughed, sandwiched between him and a tall chair in front of a steering wheel and knobs and dials. He’d forgotten to let go of her hand, but it felt warm and secure as she got used to the sensation of the boat moving beneath her. ‘Dreaming?’
‘Yes, how could I resist her? The clue is probably in “cruiser”. Cruisers cruise, they don’t go very fast. Let’s explore.’ He brought his other leg on board and guided her past the tall seat and down two steps to unlock a low wooden door.
The inside – the cabin, Dominic called it – held sofa things upholstered in pink, facing each other with a table between, and then a little oven, hob and sink, and a cupboard that turned out to house a chemical loo and a wash basin. In the pointy end was a separate space with two converging sofas. ‘These will make up into a bed, and so will those,’ he said, indicating each set of sofas. ‘And, look behind you, there’s a double berth under the cockpit.’
She stooped to look. ‘It’s only about two feet tall!’
‘It’s for lying down in. You make use of all the space, on a boat.’
She was pleased with the compactness and cleanliness of everything and, outside the windows, the lazy sliding of the khaki water. ‘I’ve always thought boats would be bare boards, dampness and oil. But it’s just like a Wendy house.’
He looked pained. ‘I’ll turn the gas on in the cockpit so that you can play house and make the coffee. I’ll get the engine warmed up.’
‘Where are we going?’ she shouted, as the engine huh-huh-huh-chug-chugged into life before steadying to a loud grumble.
He shouted something that sounded like, ‘To the pond,’ which made no sense to her, so she set about opening cupboards until she located mugs and coffee for him and jasmine tea, which he’d thoughtfully provided, for her, and waited for the kettle to boil. By the time the drinks were made and drunk and Dominic had turned the bottled gas back off, Liza had found her river legs and adjusted to the sensation of standing on the back of some rolling, ponderous creature, so she joined him in the cockpit, zipping up her ski jacket and sniffing the fresh air.
The day being cold but fine, they folded the boat’s blue canopy back like a giant pram hood. The engine had warmed up and they cast off, Dreaming Desdemona drifting away from the bank as Dominic settled himself behind the steering wheel. ‘Room for a little one up here.’ He patted the space beside him, as if she were Crosswind.
Being up on the seat turned out to be the warmest place in the cockpit because the windshield pushed the breeze above them. And Dominic always seemed to radiate heat. ‘This is really good. I can see over the banks to the fields.’
Pushing a long lever to his left slowly forward to increase the engine note, Dominic turned the chrome steering wheel and eased the boat into the centre of the river. They moved slowly through the scenery, reeds and weeds stirring, cows looking up from their grazing, Canada geese not taking any notice of them at all. Liza breathed in the smells of diesel fumes and nettles. Occasionally, a boat would come from the other direction and they’d move to the right-hand side, slowing so as not to create too much of a wake, waving and calling hello as the other boat thrummed by.
‘Why are we doing this?’ she asked, idly. ‘You can’t put anything this size on the lake at Port Manor.’
He tweaked the steering wheel. ‘No, that would be like keeping a whale in a swimming pool. I’m going to have paddle sports on the lake, but I couldn’t see you taking to kayaking in this weather so I took the gin palace option, which isn’t very adventurous or challenging, but is fun.’
‘And I can just sit and relax.’ A church steeple drifted by, beyond the hedgerows with the final few orange leaves clinging.
‘Except you’re going to learn to drive it. I put my feet in with those bloody fish.’
Excitement shot up her back. Take control of this shining white, benevolent river creature? ‘You’ve got a deal. Swap seats.’
‘So why are you not intimidated by this when the size of my Jag freaked you out?’ Dominic shifted the long lever so that it clicked into a central position and the engine note dropped and, while they slid off the seat and threaded themselves back on in reverse order, Desdemona floated gently.
‘It’s slower and there’s not much traffic.’ But once she was behind the wheel it seemed much bigger than it had a moment ago – she wasn’t going to wimp out now, though.
‘Twenty-eight feet long, but she’s narrow beam.’ As if that was some kind of comfort. ‘This lever’s the throttle. Just push it forward a bit. A bit! Now steer her like a car, but with tiny movements. Think ahead, because she won’t respond straight away – straighten slightly – and she doesn’t have brakes. Though you can give her some reverse thrust and slow up, if you have to.’
Being in charge of Dreaming Desdemona felt unreal. It was like trying to steer a huge marble on a small tray, in slow motion. Except for when she realised they were heading for the bank or, once, for an oncoming boat, and Desdemona proved Dominic right about her response to the wheel – then it felt as if they were moving way too fast. She squeaked and swore and cheered and zigzagged Desdemona down the river, somehow keeping out of trouble, though Dominic, laughing, once had to reach his arm around her and shove the throttle lever into reverse, winding the wheel swiftly in the opposite direction from the way she’d been turning it, until they were straight again.
When they reached the pond, which proved to be a place where the river slowed and
widened into a kind of big round lay-by, he taught her to steer the boat in a figure of eight around two buoys, his voice patient and steady even when she mowed the buoys down instead of pivoting the boat around them. ‘It was too much boat to get through at that angle, anyway,’ was all he said, his leg warm against hers in the confines of the seat. ‘Throttle back. Start turning hard now … good! Straighten, straighten … There you go.’
‘I did one!’
‘But you’re supposed to be doing an eight.’
She laughed, feeling his warmth leaning with her as she made Desdemona turn again. It was companionable. That’s what she told herself, suppressing an urge to melt against him and reach up and nip his ear with her teeth, imagining him making that growl deep in his throat that he had when she’d pleased him in bed, maybe scooping her onto his lap. They turned and leaned the other way, and she left his lap alone.
Eventually, they took the cut out of the pond, back into the river, moored, and lit the little oven to heat ready-meals he produced from the coolbox. Eating pasta together was companionable, too, although she couldn’t help pointing out, ‘You could have bought wholemeal because the energy is more slow release.’
After lunch, he rolled himself into the double berth to ‘catch zeds’ while she washed up the few things they’d used and heated the kettle again for when he woke.
In the silence, she had time to think, to sink into the hollow horribleness that kept sucking out her insides whenever Adam appeared. As well as lurking outside her house, he’d turned up in the stable yard several times. Seeming to know exactly when to catch her leaving or arriving, he was scarred in so many ways and his big, soulful, accusing, pleading eyes pierced her heart and enraged her in almost equal measures. She hadn’t told anyone about how he was making her life a misery because it was her problem, and everyone would say tell the police and what if that pushed him over the edge to some new act of self-harm? Adam was turning her days as sad and grey as he was, the personification of her guilty conscience. At least a hundred times a week she wished that she’d handled things differently a year ago, had realised earlier that loved-up and settled was so not her. That relationships seemed to be for other people.
And, fervently, she wished that she hadn’t got drunk at Adam’s birthday party, because she might have been able to handle things more kindly and not humiliated him so brutally, if she’d been sober.
She was tempted to crawl in beside Dominic to catch a few zeds of her own because he was big and solid and comforting and being haunted by the Spirit of Bad Stuff Past had left her short of sleep.
But going to bed together wasn’t what Liza and Dominic were about any more and once she was beside him desire for sleep would vanish and desire alone remain, hot and pulsing. It was biological, she told herself. Women were programmed to react to good-looking men. There were chemicals in her body; chemicals with a function.
But it was something else when a man could hook you with his gaze and make your breath catch. It was dangerous.
So she just watched the lazy khaki water, and the coots bobbing by.
When she heard Dominic’s phone alert, she listened to him move, wait, move, yawn. Then he rolled out of the berth and sat up on the floor. Putting the kettle back on to boil gave him another half-minute to bring himself around before she glanced his way. He must have been pretty deep. His cheek held a pink sleep crease, his eyes were bleary.
Her impulse was to ask if he was OK, but she was pretty sure he wouldn’t appreciate it. So she said, ‘You were really tense about those fish. They weren’t piranhas, you know.’ The kettle whistled and she created a cloud of steam pouring the water into two mugs.
Pulling himself up, he dropped down onto the other sofa, half-smiling, half-yawning. ‘OK, I might as well admit it. It was torture. I’m ticklish.’ He looked sheepish at the admission.
She beamed. ‘Yeah. I know. Miranda told me, after your first treatment.’
Later, when they were taking the boat back in the last of the daylight, Dominic driving and Liza watching yellow pinpricks of light decorating the villages in the misty dusk, he took her hand from where it lay on the seat between them. ‘Are you still cool about running the treatment centre?’
A moment passed. ‘I think so. I told Fen and Immi our plans and they were enthusiastic. It’s probably the best of all worlds for them – getting rid of Nicolas but not having to run the place themselves, and freedom to be a bit more inventive with what they offer clients.’
He sounded pleased. ‘On the principle that keeping people informed keeps them happy, I suggest the four of us have a meeting, soon.’
She stared out of the window. ‘I suppose we could.’
Gently, his hand squeezed hers. ‘Why the doubt? Adam?’
‘He’s … making me uneasy.’ Understatement. He was making her feel as if she were tiptoeing in stilettos on ice, expecting any moment to crash on her face. Despite the comforting warmth of Dominic’s hand, her throat suddenly felt tight.
The boat chugged on. Dominic pulled her close, companionably, comfortingly. ‘You’re not responsible for him.’
Despite his warmth, she shivered. ‘That’s irrelevant if he does something stupid because of me.’
He sighed. ‘It’s difficult,’ he acknowledged. ‘But you can’t give up your life to his problems.’
The hollow horribleness came creeping back. She slid herself out of the circle of his arm. ‘I’m cold. I’m going inside.’
But the cabin didn’t seem so welcoming, now. She turned on the light and the heating – this Wendy house had all mod cons – but still shivered. It was obvious that Dominic had been disappointed with her responses, and she wanted to bounce with enthusiasm, had been trying all week to rekindle the buzz she’d felt at the radio station. But it wasn’t happening.
It was dark by the time Liza and Dominic reached Middledip. They’d bickered not-quite-amicably for most of the forty-minute journey home, because Dominic had the stupid outmoded idea that he ought to see her home, as if she wasn’t capable of dropping him off at his new flat in Bankside and then driving across the village to The Cross. And now he was getting his own way by the simple expedient of refusing to tell her his new address.
‘Then I’ll just drop you somewhere on the Bankside estate,’ she argued.
‘How? By lifting me out of the car?’
‘By kicking you up your awkward, stupid arse,’ she snapped, frustrated into turning down Port Road to The Cross. ‘Control freak.’
‘I prefer “controller”,’ he corrected, with mock dignity.
Liza indicated and began to slow as she reached number 7.
And then saw a thin figure waiting in the halo of a streetlight. Her stomach lurched.
‘Shit!’ She stamped on the accelerator, swerving awkwardly across the triangle of The Cross and swinging up Main Road. Heart thumping, she straightened the car until she was driving on the correct side again.
‘Your neighbour seems to be letting Adam sit on your wall,’ Dominic observed.
‘Yes. Shit. Fuck. Why can’t she come out and be horrible to him and scare him off?’ She slowed to a crawl up Main Road as she steadied her breathing, trying to form a plan of action.
‘I thought he’s not supposed to know where you live.’
‘It won’t have been hard to work out where to look, once he knew where I was working. He knows that Cleo lives in Middledip. He probably just asked at the shop or the pub.’ Liza pulled to the side of the road to wipe her sweating palms down her jeans.
He watched her closely. ‘You don’t seem completely surprised.’
She groaned, letting her head tip forward to bang on the steering wheel. ‘He’s been hanging around outside. I suppose now you feel vindicated in your insistence on seeing me home?’ She twisted round to glare at him, as if it was somehow his fault.
His face was impassive in the light from the dashboard and the streetlight outside. ‘I do, but, don’t worry. I don’t expect a sudden
onset of graciousness, just because I tried to do the right thing. I won’t even mention that your ex is stalking you.’
Her laugh was almost a sob. ‘Sorry. Adam’s freaking me out. It’s not quite so bad when he just skulks around The Stables, but now he’s started hanging around outside my house. I feel as if I ought to just drive up and walk straight past him … but I don’t want to. I don’t want another horrible conversation about getting back together. It’s not that I’m scared of Adam …’ She squeezed her eyes tight shut, hating the feelings of helplessness and fear that were hurting her chest.
‘You’re worried about what he might do – and whether it would be your fault. I’m beginning to see what’s making you so jumpy. His actions aren’t exactly those of a balanced man.’ He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘How about I invite you to my new flat for supper, to give him time to get fed up and go?’
Relief surged through her, and she thrust from her mind the thought that she was letting Dominic rescue her again. Opening her eyes, she wiped her palms on her jeans and put the car in first gear. ‘Thank you,’ she said, as graciously as the Queen. ‘I appreciate your kind invitation and am delighted to accept.’
Dominic enjoyed giving Liza a tour of his flat. Especially the bedroom. He waited for her to go pink and avert her gaze from his bed, and grinned when she did exactly that. ‘Blondes are such fun with their blushes,’ he commented, making her scowl and blush more fiercely. But winding her up at least distracted her from Adam’s stalking.
‘Wow,’ she said, gazing at everything other than the bed. ‘Your room is huge and Kenny’s is—’
‘A cell. But I’m sure he’s slept in worse places.’
Heading back towards the lounge – and, yes, her eyes flickered back to the bed as she left, he was satisfied to note – Liza asked, ‘Kenny not here?’
Dominic let his eyes slide down to his favourite part of her rear aspect as he followed her. ‘Now the rain’s stopped he’s walking or running all the time to stop him going stir crazy while we wait for Nicolas to stop dithering.’
Dream a Little Dream Page 26
