[Churchminster #3] Wild Things

by Jo Carnegie

  ‘There you are. You’re not an easy woman to track down.’

  Calypso’s stomach did a slow flip at the sound of the familiar voice. She turned to see Rafe in his sports car, smiling up at her. Under the baseball cap he was wearing she could see he was sporting a black eye. It looked swollen and painful, as if it had happened recently.

  ‘Daphne hit you with one of her chicken fillets?’ she asked acidly. Rafe looked a bit uncomfortable and ignored the question.

  ‘Why haven’t you responded to any of my texts or calls?’

  She looked at him, mouth gaping at the audacity.

  ‘Because you’ve got a fiancée, dumbass!’

  Rafe looked pained, as if it was a minor detail. His bright blue eyes fixed on her searchingly.

  ‘Calypso darling, please. I’ve driven all the way out from London to see you …’

  He looked so gorgeous that Calypso felt that funny, butterfly feeling in her stomach again. Oh God, why was he so frigging sexy …

  ‘Is everything all right?’ As if in a mirage, Granny Clem appeared, Errol Flynn at her side. She ignored Rafe, but Errol Flynn growled at the film star, as if mirroring his mistress’s silent thoughts.

  ‘I saw you out of the window and was wondering if you’d like to accompany me on a walk,’ she said firmly. She shot a look at Rafe.

  ‘Just the two of us.’

  Rafe gave Calypso another meaningful look.

  ‘You know where to find me.’ With that he sped off in a cloud of dust.

  Calypso turned to her grandmother. ‘Thanks for saving me.’ Her lower lip wobbled. ‘Oh Granny Clem!’

  Clementine put her arm round her granddaughter.

  ‘There, there my darling.’

  The night before the ceremony Camilla was in the bedroom trying on outfits. Not that she was in the mood to go out and socialize she thought, as she held yet another dress against her. A movement at the door made her look up. Jed was standing watching her. ‘Oh, hello! Aren’t you meant to be at work?’

  Jed didn’t seem to hear her question. ‘Camilla, we need to talk. Can you come down to the kitchen?’

  An icy feeling started to creep up from the pit of her stomach. She dropped the dress on the bed, aware her hands were shaking. ‘OK.’

  Numbly she followed him downstairs into the kitchen. Jed stood on the other side of the table as if to put space between them. His face was paler than she’d ever seen it, making his green eyes appear almost iridescent.

  ‘What is it you want to talk about?’ she asked uncertainly.

  Jed stared at the floor. When he looked up again his eyes were as hard. ‘I think it’s best if I move out for a bit.’

  For a moment she stood still, not quite understanding what he was saying. ‘Move out?’ she eventually repeated.

  Jed wouldn’t meet her eyes. ‘I need some space, Cam, I’m not sure this is working.’

  Camilla felt sick to her stomach. ‘You mean us? Are you trying to finish it?’

  Something like physical pain registered in Jed’s eyes, but as quick as a flash it was gone again. ‘I’m not saying that.’

  ‘What are you saying then?’

  ‘I just need to be by myself, all right? I feel like I can’t breathe at the moment!’ The words were almost shouted.

  Camilla sank down on to the floor, as if her world had literally crumbled. ‘Jed, what’s happened to us? What’s happened to you?’

  He started to back towards the door. ‘I’m staying at Ma’s for a while. I’ll come back and get some stuff tomorrow.’

  She looked up, shocked. ‘You’re going? Just like this?’

  ‘Don’t make it any more difficult,’ he muttered.

  Camilla’s pain turned into anger. ‘Sorry if I want an explanation from my boyfriend on why he’s suddenly decided to move out!’

  ‘You want an explanation?’ he shot back angrily.

  ‘Yes!’

  As Camilla’s eyes filled with tears, Jed took a step towards her. He stopped as if he’d walked into an invisible wall. ‘You deserve better than me, Cam.’ He turned and walked out. ‘That’s my explanation.’

  Left alone in the kitchen, Camilla put her head in her hands and started sobbing.

  ‘Oh, darling, I really don’t know what to say.’

  Clementine felt dreadful that she could do nothing to ease her granddaughter’s pain. They were sitting round the kitchen table at Fairoaks, drinking steaming cups of tea. When Camilla had appeared, face streaked with tears, at the door, Clementine had ushered her in. Through sobs Camilla had eventually told her what had happened. Clementine was shocked and upset. Camilla had told her about the cancer scare but Clementine had thought things had been better since then. Clementine had been relieved that her suspicions about Sophia Highforth had been put to rest.

  ‘I thought that was the reason he’d been acting so strangely. But if anything, he’s been even worse since. Oh, Granny Clem! He was so cold when he left. That thing about him not being good enough for me, what did it mean?’ Errol Flynn stuck a comforting snout into her hand. He seemed to know something was up. Camilla stared into space, eyes stretched huge with misery.

  ‘I think he’s got cold feet about us, Granny Clem. I think he wants out of the relationship.’

  Clementine squeezed her granddaughter’s hand. ‘Perhaps he doesn’t know how to tell you,’ she said gently. ‘Maybe he simply isn’t capable of having long-term relationships. He has always been a loner. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, darling, but maybe that’s what suits him.’

  Camilla sniffed. ‘Maybe the cancer scare has made Jed reassess things. About what he wants from life.’ She made herself say the words. ‘Maybe he’s decided he doesn’t want me.’

  ‘He hasn’t ended the relationship,’ her grandmother pointed out. ‘If he does want to make this work, it might be that in his own funny way Jed thinks it will make things better by moving out.’

  Camilla looked at her. ‘You don’t really believe that, do you, Granny Clem?’

  Clementine sighed. ‘Oh darling, who knows the workings of young men’s minds?’ She paused. ‘What are you going to do? You need to sort this out with him.’

  ‘I don’t know if I can handle another argument at the moment,’ Camilla said wearily. Maybe I’m just putting off the inevitable, she thought. Maybe I just don’t want to hear him say the words ‘it’s over’. ‘You know, Granny Clem, we were going to start trying for a baby. Jed seemed so excited about it all.’ Camilla’s bottom lip wobbled. ‘How can it have gone so wrong?’

  Clementine squeezed her granddaughter’s hand again. First Calypso and now Camilla. ‘Oh, my darling. I just wish there was something I could do, to make you feel better.’

  ‘Me too,’ Camilla whispered through her tears. ‘Me too.’

  The next morning Camilla woke early. The first thing she did was check her phone. Jed hadn’t texted in the night. The bed that they’d slept in, made love in and laughed in was now horribly empty. Calypso had offered to sleep next to her so Camilla wouldn’t feel alone in the night, but she had turned down the offer. If this was the way it was going to be from now on, she might as well get used to it. Camilla felt numb, as if her once familiar, cosy surroundings were being viewed by a different person. She couldn’t even remember what normal life felt like.

  The front door bell had jangled a number of times before Camilla registered it. Had Calypso forgotten her keys again? Hair tousled with sleep, she made her way downstairs in her pyjamas. Everywhere seemed still, quiet and cold. But when she pulled the front door open, it wasn’t her sister standing there but Mrs Bantry. The older woman looked awkward out of her natural habitat at Clanfield Hall.

  ‘Nora, hello,’ Camilla said wearily. Surely Jed hadn’t sent his mother round to pick up his belongings? Then again, she could believe anything of him now.

  Mrs Bantry’s hands twisted round her handbag. ‘May I come in?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Camilla. She showed her through
to the living room. ‘Please take a seat.’

  As Mrs Bantry sat down, she looked at Camilla’s pyjamas. ‘Sorry, I’ve only just got up …’ Camilla’s voice faded away into the silence. Mrs Bantry’s hands were twisting in her lap now.

  ‘Camilla, I really don’t want you to think I’m interfering, but I had to come over and say something.’

  ‘I take it this is about Jed,’ she said flatly.

  ‘You’ve got to go and talk to him. He’s in a dreadful state.’

  ‘Mrs B, I don’t know what Jed has told you, but he’s the one who decided to move out,’ said Camilla. Her voice was shaking but she was too tired to hide her emotions anymore. ‘And you know what, maybe it is a good idea he’s gone. I can’t cope with his mood swings any more.’

  Mrs Bantry looked pained. ‘Just go and talk to him, you owe it to yourselves. There’s something you don’t know about Jed. He needs to tell you …’

  Camilla frowned. ‘Tell me about what?’

  Mrs Bantry stood up, signalling the conversation was over. ‘There, I’ve said too much now.’ She looked at Camilla, the same arresting green eyes as her son’s. ‘Just go and talk to him. Please.’

  And without really knowing why, Camilla agreed.

  Chapter 50

  ‘YOU LOOK AS bad as I feel.’ She surveyed Jed from the front door step.

  He smiled tiredly. ‘I haven’t slept a wink.’

  ‘Me neither,’ she admitted.

  Jed gestured. ‘Come in.’

  She followed him down the narrow little corridor of Mrs Bantry’s cottage to the bright and cosy front room.

  ‘Can I get you something? Tea, coffee?’ he asked.

  Camilla shot him a quizzical smile. ‘I don’t drink coffee.’

  ‘Shit, I know that.’ Jed shook his head. ‘I’m really nervous.’

  She stared at him, trying to work out what could be going on. Compared to yesterday, their roles seemed to have been reversed. Trying to quell the sickness in her stomach, she sat down. ‘Your mother said I had to see you.’

  He sat down next to her, and then stood up again. ‘This is really difficult.’

  Every nerve and muscle in his body seemed to have clenched up. Despite all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, she felt for him. Camilla stood up and put a placating hand on his arm. This time he didn’t cast it off. ‘Hey, it’s OK.’

  To her absolute horror, Jed’s eyes filled up. She had never seen him shed so much as a tear in his life. ‘No, it isn’t,’ he whispered.

  Camilla stepped closer to him, so close she could smell his familiar scent, feel the warmth coming off his body. ‘Jed, what on earth’s wrong?’

  He took a deep shuddering breath, trying to find the words. ‘When I said I was moving out, it wasn’t because I didn’t want to be with you. It was because you wouldn’t want to be with me.’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t understand.’

  He said it so quietly she had to ask him to repeat it. He looked at her, face anguished. ‘I’m infertile, Camilla.’

  Camilla felt the blood rushing through her ears. She couldn’t take it in. ‘When did you find out?’ she whispered.

  ‘The doctor has been running tests ever since I found the lump. You know, just in case.’ Jed shook his head. The result came back two days ago. Zero sperm count. Zilch.’ He spat the words out. ‘If you want the correct medical term, it’s called “azoospermia”. Apparently it’s caused by “certain hormone disorders”. The doc said it’s very rare, affects two per cent of men.’ Jed gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Guess it was my lucky day.’

  ‘Oh my God, Jed,’ Camilla whispered.

  He looked down at her, mouth twisted. ‘So that’s it, I’m fucking useless, redundant. You don’t want to waste any more time on me. What kind of man can’t even father his own children?’ The tears were falling freely now, rivulets running down his face. Camilla’s heart literally broke in two at the disintegration of a man she still loved. Jed took a deep shuddering breath. ‘It’s all I ever wanted, you know, to have a family of my own to look after. I was going to make such a bloody good dad, Cam, I wanted to prove to myself and to him …’ He stopped abruptly. ‘You know what my earliest memory of my old man is?’

  Camilla shook her head wordlessly.

  ‘Shutting me in the cellar while another one of his “friends” came round. I can still remember the utter dark, the cold brick wall against my back, the scrapings of the rats. And all the time my ma was at work, working her fingers to the bone to keep that bastard in beer.’

  ‘Oh Jed,’ Camilla whispered. His jaw was so tight it was like granite. ‘Did you tell your mum?’ she ventured.

  He shook his head. ‘I didn’t want to add to her burden, she was having a shit enough time as it was. The only good thing Dad ever did for her was leaving us.’ A vein throbbed in his forehead. ‘Even though he went when I was so young, he left his legacy. You learn to toughen up quick with that kind of start in life, put up defences. And I thought that was it, that was how things were going to be, until I met you. You made me realize I could let someone in, let them love me the way I loved them. And I thought if I could do that with you, then what could I do for our children …’ He trailed off, shoulders heaving. ‘I had so much to give.’

  Camilla threw her arms round him, holding him so tightly her arms ached. ‘You’ve still got so much to give! I don’t care if you can’t have children! I love you, Jed, and that’s all that matters.’

  ‘Cam, you want a family and I can’t give you that.’ His voice cracked. ‘Don’t compromise your life because of me.’

  She pulled back, looking into his stricken face. She was crying now, too. ‘Didn’t you hear me? I love you, Jed Bantry! I love you whether we have children together or not. Do you understand me?’

  A slight flicker of hope came alive in his eyes. ‘You don’t have to say that,’ he muttered.

  Camilla took his chin in her hands and made him look at her. ‘I mean it! Just because we can’t have kids together doesn’t mean we can’t have our own family! There’s always adoption.’

  He looked stunned. ‘I thought you’d want your own kids, carry on the family line.’

  ‘What’s more important is that we carry on together,’ she told him.

  He stared at her, shaking his head in wonderment. ‘I don’t deserve you, after all I’ve put you through.’

  ‘You’re lucky I’m a forgiving person,’ she smiled, wiping away his tears.

  Jed pulled her into his arms, lifting her feet off the ground. As she melted in his strong embrace, it felt like she’d come home.

  Chapter 51

  IN THE DAYS that followed they talked and talked, something they hadn’t done properly for months. In a funny way, the news that Jed was infertile had hit him harder than it had Camilla. It was such an affront to his masculinity; strong, handsome, invincible Jed. In the hours that followed, no matter how much she told him it didn’t make him less of a man, she knew he didn’t believe her. All she could do was let time pass and hope it would heal him.

  Of course, the stark fact that she could never bear his children was starting to sink in for her now as well, and it left her with a feeling of regret and despair. But she knew that even in her darkest moments, her love for Jed would override everything. Together they’d get through it and even though it was much too raw to discuss at the moment, Camilla knew they could still have a family of their own one day.

  ‘How’s Calypso doing?’ Jed asked, finally changing the subject. ‘I feel bad that I haven’t really been there for her.’ Mrs Bantry hadn’t returned from work yet and they were snuggled up together on her small sofa.

  ‘Coping,’ sighed Camilla. ‘Rafe turned up again yesterday, can you believe it? Calypso said he had a black eye, too, so at least his fiancée must have cracked him one.’

  Jed looked at her. ‘It wasn’t his fiancée who hit him, Camilla.’

  She sat up. ‘What do you mean?’

&nb
sp; ‘He came round to the cottage looking for Calypso. He made some arrogant comment about talking her round and I told him to back off. It all got a bit heavy, well for him anyway.’ He looked solemn. ‘I’m not proud of it.’

  ‘Well, I’m proud of you, sticking up for Calypso’s honour like that.’ As she snuggled into his chest again, Camilla reflected how they’d had the good and bad guys mixed up all along.

  Chapter 52

  FRIDAY 1ST AUGUST came and with it, the prize-giving ceremony for Britain’s Best Village. The special coach which had been laid on for the Garden Party was leaving Churchminster at midday sharp.

  But before they left, there was something Camilla needed to do. She drove over to Top Drawer Travels and handed her notice in.

  ‘What the hell are you talking about girlie?’ said an astonished Mr Fitzgerald. He’d become a little too reliant on Camilla’s organization skills and contacts to take the news in a positive way.

  ‘I’m leaving, Mr Fitzgerald,’ Camilla said with more confidence than she’d felt in months. ‘I feel that perhaps I’ve reached the end of the line here, so I’m leaving to start up by myself.’

  Behind his desk, Mr Fitzgerald’s eyes boggled. ‘What?’

  ‘I’m starting up my own travel company.’ Camilla couldn’t help a little smile. ‘I do hope we can remain on good terms as we’ll be competitors from now on.’

  ‘You’re mad, girlie!’ he spluttered. ‘As if you’re ever going to be able to compete with Top Drawer Travels.’

  ‘I look forward to the challenge,’ smiled Camilla.

  He looked up at her, furious that someone was actually taking issue with his sense of authority, and leaving him to do all the work. ‘Just go. Don’t bother working your notice, I don’t want you in here stealing all my ideas.’

  ‘Goodbye Mr Fitzgerald,’ Camilla said pleasantly. ‘I’d like to say it was a pleasure, but unfortunately it wasn’t.’

  Within an hour, Camilla Standington-Fulthrope had her first client, and she was smiling as she boarded the coach.