‘Routine, what routine?’
‘The pole-dancing one she’d devised as your birthday present,’ said Linda. ‘She used to come to lessons with me, don’t tell me she never told you?’
‘Er, actually, Saffron and I aren’t together any more,’ said Pete.
‘Bloody hell,’ Linda replied. ‘Me and my big mouth. I’ve really put my foot in it now, haven’t I?’
‘What else am I going to find out about my wife?’ Pete said plaintively to the world. ‘She’s been having an affair with her ex-husband, she’s been taking pole-dancing lessons. Next thing I know she’ll turn out to be the town tart.’
‘Don’t you think you’re exaggerating a tad?’ asked Ben.
‘No, I bloody don’t,’ said Pete. ‘Sod this health lark, I’m off down the pub.’
‘Bugger,’ Ben muttered to himself. ‘That was just where I didn’t want us to end up tonight.’
Ben thought about Pete and Saffron as he was out on his allotment tidying things up for the winter, and making sure nothing too drastic needed doing in his absence. After discovering the pole-dancing lessons, Pete seemed more adamant than ever that he didn’t want to get back with Saffron. As far as he was concerned, she’d been lying to him for months, and he couldn’t trust her any more. Ben was still sure there was a reasonable explanation for everything. It all seemed so unlike Saffron, but Pete wasn’t hearing any of it. There was nothing Ben could do to make him change his mind. He just hoped that eventually Pete would see sense.
When Ben finished his own allotment, he went over to Harry’s plot. It looked lonely and neglected. He felt guilty. He should have come out here and sorted things out for Harry’s sake. But with one thing and another he had hardly been here in weeks. And now he was leaving.
He had his radio tuned in to Radio 2 for old time’s sake. Jeremy Vine was on talking about Christmas, and a famous chef was wittering on about roast potatoes. Ben thought fleetingly to last Christmas Day – the first time he had kissed Amy. He was going to spend Christmas this year with his family, for the first time in a long time. He felt he owed it to them. Telling Amy about Sarah had made him realise how little he did for his own family, and for how long he had been running away from his own pain. His parents deserved a bit more from him than he usually gave. It was his guilt about Sarah that prevented him going back. Perhaps it was time he faced up to it and told them what he’d done.
Several days after Christmas he was jetting off to the Far East. He had heard about a medical charity that was helping people still affected by the tsunami, and offered his services for three months. There was nothing for him here, he might as well go and do some good somewhere else.
But all it would take for him to drop everything was for Amy to come out onto the allotments looking for him. All he needed to hear was that she had changed her mind, and he would let go of his plans in an instant.
While he was digging on Harry’s allotment he had carefully been looking for the engagement ring that he had so carelessly thrown away in his rage. But however hard he looked, he simply couldn’t find it. It was gone. Lost forever. It seemed like a horrible, gloomy sign that Amy was lost to him also. He stared towards her house, willing her to come down the path. Willing her to come and find him. Willing her to change her mind.
But she didn’t come. Ben finished what he was doing. He tidied up his tools and put them back in his barrow, turned off Jeremy Vine, who was in mid-chat with Terry about frost improving the flavour of your parsnips and sprouts, and wandered sadly up the path back to his house.
He wouldn’t be back again. Not for a long time.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
‘Babe, I’m so sorry,’ Linda said to Saffron having confessed her faux pas at the gym the minute Saffron and Amy had pitched up to work on her garden. ‘I haven’t seen you for such a long time, and I had no idea you hadn’t told Pete about the classes.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ said Saffron. ‘We’d cocked things up pretty well on our own.’
‘I wish there was something I could do to help,’ Linda said.
‘Well, I do have a plan,’ said Amy, ‘but Saffron thinks it won’t work.’
‘It’s not that exactly,’ protested Saffron, ‘it’s just that –’
‘You think it won’t work,’ Amy repeated.
‘So what did you have in mind?’
Amy outlined her idea and Linda burst out laughing. ‘It’s worth a shot,’ she said. ‘And I have another idea, that I guarantee won’t fail even if Amy’s does.’
‘What’s that then?’
‘I’m going to help you work out a routine that can’t fail to seduce Pete,’ said Linda.
‘What, now?’
‘Yes, now,’ Linda insisted. ‘Come on. I’ve got a studio in the basement.’
‘You are joking,’ said Saffron, aware that as usual she was covered in mud.
‘Nope,’ Linda replied. ‘There’s no time like the present. Come on. I’ll devise you the hottest routine you can ever imagine, and have that husband of yours gagging for more.’
‘Go on, Saffron,’ urged Amy. ‘What have you got to lose?’
Amy checked her map for the hundredth time to check she was at the right place. According to Saffron, Gerry was still living out of a bag in a motel far enough out of town that he wouldn’t be spotted by the sales reps he bought from.
‘He apparently has standards to maintain.’ Saffron had rolled her eyes when she said this. She had still been doubtful that Amy’s plan would work, and Amy, carried along with sheer bravado, had pooh-poohed her. But now she was here, Amy wasn’t quite sure either. Figuring out a way of bringing Saffron and Pete back together had given her something to think about, something else to focus on other than the big gaping hole left by Ben’s departure.
He hadn’t even come to say goodbye. That had hurt, much more than Amy thought possible. Amy knew she had no right to feel bad about that – after all, she was the one who had rejected his proposal – but she did. Christmas had passed in a hazy blur of misery. Ben hadn’t even sent her a card, and she couldn’t send him one. She didn’t even know where he was – Saffron wasn’t communicating sufficiently with Pete to find out details.
Every night she went to bed and listened to Mark Radcliffe, wondering if Ben was listening too. It was the only connection they had left. And every night she cried her eyes out. And all of a sudden all her nonsense about not wanting to get hurt again seemed just that – nonsense. She had given Ben up to save herself from pain and yet she was hurting – and badly. And now there was no way she could get Ben back.
At least if she could see Gerry, she might be able to sort out Saffron’s love life. Then one of them had a chance of being happy.
Amy went up to the reception desk feeling ever so slightly nervous.
‘Do you have a Gerry Handford staying here?’ she asked.
‘Oh yes, room seven,’ said the receptionist.
‘Great,’ said Amy. ‘Can I leave a message?’
‘He’s in the hotel now,’ smiled the receptionist. ‘I’ve just sent another friend of his up. Do you want to join them?’
‘Er, not particularly,’ Amy was about to say, when she suddenly thought, the sly old dog. He’s at it again. He presumably had a woman with him. Perfect evidence to produce for Pete that Saffron wasn’t seeing Gerry.
Feeling slightly bolder, Amy went down the corridor to room seven. She fingered the tape recorder in her pocket. She felt slightly stupid carrying it, but figured if she could get Gerry to confess all on tape then maybe Pete could be persuaded to believe Saffron was telling the truth.
When she came to room seven the door was slightly ajar. A sound of muffled giggling came from within. She knocked and nothing happened. The giggling continued. Oh lord, was she about to catch Gerry in flagrante? Not a pleasant prospect.
Eventually she heard a female voice say, ‘I think there was a knock at the door.’
‘Excellent, that will be the champagn
e,’ Gerry’s voice pronounced sonorously. ‘Enter!’
Amy entered, and immediately wished she hadn’t. Gerry and Maddy were entangled in a lustful embrace, the thin sheets of the hotel bed barely covering the parts that no one else would want to reach.
‘Bloody hell!’ said Gerry.
‘Oh my God!’ shrieked Maddy, covering herself up. ‘What’s she doing here?’
‘Sorry,’ said Amy, backing off, ‘but the door was open.’
‘Only because we were expecting room service!’ said Gerry.
Dismissing the thought that she would never in a million years indulge in an afternoon of passion with the door ajar, and invite the hotel staff into her room, Amy got down to business.
‘Look, I’ll keep this brief. I’m here for one reason and one reason only. Because of Gerry being a total dipstick, Saffron and Pete have separated. Pete doesn’t believe that you and Saffron aren’t having an affair, so I want you to put the record straight.’
Maddy shot Gerry a furious look. ‘You bloody idiot! You said nothing happened.’
‘Nothing did really,’ pleaded Gerry. ‘I got a bit carried away. I was missing you, my sweet.’ He put on a sickeningly pathetic puppy-dog look, which would have made Amy want to hit him, but Maddy went all gooey-eyed back.
‘Ah, sweetums, and I missed you too.’ She pecked him on the cheek and turned to Amy. ‘You can tell that pathetic excuse of a former wife that we are not only back together, but we’re getting married –’ she flashed an ostentatious rock at Amy ‘– and going to have babies.’
‘Oh, er, right,’ said Amy. ‘Perhaps, Gerry, you might like to let Pete know this?’
Gerry looked sheepish. ‘You wouldn’t mind telling him, sweetheart, would you? Might sound better coming from you. Whatever happened with Saffron was a ghastly mistake. Don’t know what came over me. Midlife crisis or something. Maddy and I couldn’t be happier, could we, poppet?’
‘Ah, Gewwy, you are so cute,’ said Maddy, and kissed him roundly on the lips.
As Amy had pressed record the moment she walked in, she felt she had more than enough evidence to produce for Pete. So she slid silently out of the room – if nothing else Gerry and Maddy had given her the best laugh she’d had in ages.
‘So you see, it was all Gerry’s fault,’ Amy was saying to Pete. She had made an excuse to leave Josh with Saffron, and then gone round to Ben’s house. It was weird coming here, knowing that Ben wasn’t here. Part of her hadn’t wanted to come at all.
Pete was surprised to see her. ‘If you’re fishing for news about Ben,’ he had warned straight away, ‘I’ve nothing to tell you.’
‘I haven’t come about Ben,’ said Amy, ‘it’s you I need to see.’ And she’d poured out the whole story about going to see Gerry, and played the tape. Pete had listened to it in silence.
‘But what about the pole dancing?’ said Pete. ‘Are you going to tell me that’s not true either?’
‘No,’ said Amy, thinking back to the very steamy routine that Linda had worked out for Saffron. The three of them had laughed their heads off while Saffron had tried to perfect her technique. ‘Saffron did go to pole-dancing lessons. But she only did it for you. She was worried that she was letting you down in, er, the bedroom department, and wanted to surprise you. Then Maddy saw her there one night, so she stopped going. She wanted to tell you, but she didn’t know how.’
Pete sat still for a moment, then he said, ‘I’ve really made a mess of things, haven’t I? Saffron’s right. We need to be able to trust each other, and I didn’t trust her. How can I persuade her to forgive me?’
‘Ooh, I don’t know,’ said Amy, ‘but I should think chocolates, champagne and flowers might help …’
Pete looked so desolate she had to laugh.
‘Pete, you pillock! Saffron’s just waiting for you to say the word. Your trouble is you’re too damned stubborn. You both are. In fact it’s like dealing with a pair of five-year-olds. I could bang your silly heads together.’
‘Unlike you and Ben, of course, who are both being incredibly mature,’ Pete shot back.
‘Yes, well, maybe I was a bit hasty,’ admitted Amy.
‘Why don’t you email him?’ said Pete.
‘It’s a bit tricky to email someone when you don’t have their email address,’ Amy replied. ‘Funnily enough, Ben didn’t give it to me.’
‘I’ve got it somewhere,’ said Pete. He looked round the lounge, which was piled high with paper, ‘but it, er, might take me some time to find it.’
‘You can give it to me later, or, better still, tell Saffron when you see her.’
Pete looked like a terrified rabbit.
‘What? Suppose she doesn’t want to see me?’
‘Take it from me,’ said Amy, ‘she’ll want to see you. So how about I send Saffron round here on some pretext, and you take it from there?’
‘But she might not want to talk to me.’ Pete still looked panicked.
‘Well, knowing Saffron she’ll have the shillelagh on you first, but hey, aren’t rows supposed to be the precursor to great sex?’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Pete.
‘Go on, give it a try,’ urged Amy. ‘After all, what do you have to lose?’
Ben lay on his narrow bed in the Thai hospital, thinking about home. He was using the listen-again facility on his laptop to hear Mark Radcliffe. Despite his unhappiness over Amy, he had really enjoyed his stay out here. It felt good to make a difference to people who really had stuff to worry about. But his contract was up soon, and another doctor was coming to take his place. It was time he moved on. Perhaps it was even time he thought about going home.
Home. His heart lurched at the thought. Home meant Amy, and without her he had nothing to keep him there. Pete had hinted in his last email that Amy seemed to be softening her stance, but Ben still hadn’t dared to contact her, just in case it wasn’t true. But he had to get back at some point. He was an executor for Harry’s will, and one of Harry’s dearest wishes was to have his ashes scattered on the allotments on Mavis’s birthday in March. It was already nearly the end of February. Ben couldn’t dally here forever.
And he should go and see his parents again. Going to see them before Christmas had been one of the best moves he’d made in a long time. Confiding in Amy had made him see how stupid it was not talking to his parents about Sarah. So finally he’d plucked up courage to speak to them. It had been a cathartic if painful experience, and the relief on discovering his parents had never blamed him for Sarah’s death was overwhelming.
‘Why on earth would you think we blamed you?’ his mother had said. ‘You were a child. You weren’t responsible. If anything we blamed ourselves. Oh Ben, all this time and you thought it was your fault! I’m so, so sorry.’
He could have kicked himself for all those wasted years trying to protect them, when they had been trying to protect him. When he got back home, he was going to make sure he saw more of them.
He thought again about Amy. He didn’t have her email address. Perhaps he should get it off Pete. Then he heard Mark Radcliffe mention his Crucial Three – as usual it was a fiendish conundrum linking three songs in a weirdly lateral way. Ben wondered if Amy was still listening to the show. Then he smiled. If she was, he had the perfect way of letting her know he still cared.
Saffron stood nervously outside Ben’s house. It had taken Amy a good hour to persuade her that this was a good idea, but when Amy had played the tape and told her that Pete had heard it, her heart had lifted. Maybe Pete would believe her now. It still didn’t take away the hurt of him not trusting her, but it was a start. And while she had kidded herself over the last couple of months that she was better off without him, she knew in her heart of hearts that it wasn’t true. Christmas had been utterly miserable – her mum had tried her best, but Saffron and the kids had missed Pete horribly and they’d ended up coming home early. And as Christmas had worn away into a cold and grey January, and then on to February, and Pete was st
ill not showing any sign of coming round, Saffron had begun to wonder if this time she’d blown it for good.
But Amy thought not. And that gave her some hope. Having put the kids through the heartbreak of one divorce, Saffron didn’t want them to have to go through another. She turned over the CD in her pocket nervously, wondering if she was going to have the nerve to use it, then took a deep breath and rang the doorbell. It was now or never. Time to see whether there was anything left to salvage from her marriage.
Pete came to the door looking awkward. God, he was so gorgeous. It hit her straight between the eyes. What had she been doing all these months? Sure there were plenty of fish in the sea, but to let this particular one go would be madness.
They stood for a few moments not saying anything.
‘Are you going to invite me in then, or do I have to stay here all night?’
‘Oh, sorry, yes, do come in.’ Pete seemed stiff and formal. Oh dear.
‘I see you tidied up for me,’ said Saffron, trying not to wince as she walked through the lounge. Left to his own devices, Pete had evidently degenerated into the very worst excesses of his youth. Oh dear, oh dear.
‘I thought you’d come to see me, not criticise my housekeeping,’ Pete bristled. Damn. She’d said the wrong thing.
‘J – o – k – e,’ said Saffron, ‘you do remember those?’
‘Yes, you usually make them at my expense.’
‘Woah,’ said Saffron, ‘who rattled your cage?’
‘Nobody rattled my cage, as you put it, I just didn’t find your joke funny.’
‘Oh bloody hell, Pete, where’s your sense of humour?’ Saffron could feel her hackles rising. Bugger, this wasn’t going to plan at all.
‘I clearly don’t have one.’ Pete glared at her, and Saffron glared back.
‘I was coming round here to have a sensible conversation,’ said Saffron, ‘but as you aren’t in the mood, I’ll just go home instead. Ring me when you’re ready to grow up.’
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