by Ann Granger
‘Ridiculous!’ he muttered. ‘If you show you can get there unaided, they’ll assume you’re okay, no matter how much you croak! You are an obstinate woman!’
‘Yes, can’t help it.’
‘It means a lot to you, your job, doesn’t it?’ he asked after a pause.
‘Yes. Doesn’t yours to you?’.
‘Yes, all right. I’ll phone tomorrow evening.’ He dragged on the weatherproof, put his hand in the pocket for his car keys and his fingers touched the sharp corners of Fran’s card.
Meredith accompanied him to the door despite his objections and watched him drive off.
He’d gone. He’d be back, but he’d gone for now. Perhaps one day he’d drive off and not come back again. Get fed up and go for good. Some people seem to have no trouble at all with relationships. She just couldn’t seem to make them work. Harriet had problems too, she reflected. Perhaps that was what drew her to her. Meredith wondered how on earth people saw her. The men in Harriet’s life saw her quite differently, each of them. Green saw her as a mistress to be ditched if she got troublesome. Jack Pringle wanted to marry her and would probably have done anything for her. Tom was her loyal friend, come what may. Deanes saw her as a vengeful harpy bent on his destruction, as she probably was. Four different women in one. Meredith really didn’t know Harriet very well. Tom was right about that. None of them did.
She glanced along the row of cottages. Normal life had returned in some measure to Pook’s Common. Mrs Sowerby had come back from her Christmas with relatives to live next door. She had called round to express concern and sympathy.
‘Your poor throat! It makes one quite nervous of living out here, doesn’t it? Who would have thought . . . My daughter wants me to go into a sheltered flat in Bamford, but I really don’t fancy it. But I depend on my daughter. She brings me my shopping once a week out here. If she puts her foot down now, after all this, I’ll have to go. I hope you feel better soon. Would you like me to make you a rice pudding?’
Mrs Fenniwick had also been across. ‘Call me Sonia. What a turn-up! You could have knocked me down with a feather when Joe told me! Just shows you. You never can tell. Poor old Harriet. Mind you, I always thought she played with fire. You can’t trust men, none of them. Let me know if you need anything. I’ve got a food blender if you haven’t got one. It liquidises everything up into a sort of mush. Looks horrible but you can swallow it.’
Meredith shivered in the breeze and turned to retreat into the warmth of Rose Cottage. As she did so, a clip-clop of hooves became audible. She waited.
Tom Fearon, looking handsome and untrustworthy in equal measure and mounted today on Blazer, came riding up and drew rein outside. ‘Hullo there!’
‘Hullo.’
He grinned. Blazer was immaculate, gleaming like a burnished copper kettle, and even Tom was looking reasonably tidy today. He’d shaved, his black topboots were polished up and his breeches clean. Only the old cap was the same and the battered Harris tweed jacket stretched across his shoulders over the pullover underneath hadn’t changed either. Nor had its owner, she suspected. She thought about Deanes, peering fearfully from his isolated house at Blazer carrying the vengeful Harriet, hating and fearing the sight of the horse as much as that of the rider.
Tom patted Blazer’s neck. ‘The old boy is looking all right, don’t you think? I wanted to buy him off Frances but she insisted on giving him to me on the understanding I never sold him.’ He cast her an appraising glance. ‘I rode up to see how you were today.’
‘Thanks, not too bad,’ she husked at him.
Blazer, growing impatient, tossed his head up and down, champing at the bit. He blew noisily through his nostrils and pawed at the ground. Tom leaned forward and crossed his forearms on the pommel of the saddle, reins lying loosely in his well-made but scarred hands. His white teeth flashed in his swarthy face and his dark eyes gleamed beneath the brim of his disreputable cap. ‘Anything I can do for you?’
Meredith met his questioning stare firmly and managed to articulate a clear, ‘No, thanks!’
‘Nasty experience,’ said Tom with sympathy. ‘I’m sorry now I didn’t ride straight over the creep. Still I suppose it was better I left him for Alan to deal with.’
Meredith nodded vigorously.
‘I hope,’ said Tom, probably intending to sound polite but sounding slightly aggressive, ‘that our previous disagreements won’t cloud our future relationship? Small place, Pook’s Common. If we’re to be neighbours – ’
‘If!’ croaked Meredith vigorously.
Tom raised a black eyebrow and Blazer stamped crossly. ‘Moving on already, then?’
‘Perhaps,’ she said hoarsely. ‘Thinking about it.’
For a dreadful moment she thought he was going to ask about Alan. He had a funny sort of look in his eye as if he could read her mind. ‘Fair enough,’ he said at last. He grimaced and picked up the reins.
Blazer twitched his ears as Tom clicked his tongue, rolling his large lustrous eyes in an expression which plainly said, ‘About time, too! All this human gossiping!’
‘Keep out of trouble!’ said Tom with an indescribably lecherous grin. He saluted her with his whip and clattered away briskly down the lane.
