by JL Merrow
“Cheers, love.” Sean raised his glass. I took a fortifying sip of wine. “Is it good?” I asked, as he set his glass down again.
“Not bad. Yours okay?”
“Very passable. Um. You were saying?”
“What was I saying? Oh, yeah, books. I did A-Level English, but I’d had enough of it by then, so I didn’t bother with uni. Wanted to get out in the real world.” He shrugged. “Fancied earning a bit of money, not getting into debt.”
“So what do you do? For a living, I mean,” I added quickly, just in case he thought I was asking something prying and inappropriate.
“Me? I’m a pest-control technician.”
I almost dropped my glass. He didn’t mean… Did he? “That’s, a, er…?”
Sean grinned. “Rat-catcher. But I deal with loads of other pests too.”
“That must be, um, interesting.” It could be worse, I told myself firmly, resisting the urge to draw back in my seat. He could have been a sewage worker. A hospital cleaner. An undertaker. And he’d almost certainly washed his hands before coming out tonight.
“You’d be surprised. There’s plenty of variety in my line of work.”
I tried not to grimace at the images of humming rubbish dumps that were dancing noisomely in my head. “So how did you get into it? Did you always know you wanted to be a, er, pest-control engineer?”
“Technician. Nah, I don’t think anybody ever just wakes up one morning and decides, Right, I fancy catching rats and clearing wasps’ nests for a living. I had a mate who was doing it, and he said there was an opening, so I went for it. Haven’t regretted it.”
“Really? I mean, that’s wonderful.” God knew I had enough regrets over my own career.
Sean leaned forward, and my stomach performed a strange somersault as his gaze met mine. “How many jobs do you get to work somewhere different every day? I’ve seen places the public never gets to see.”
“Not wishing to be rude, but would they want to?”
“Hey, I’m not just talking about the sewers. What about the roped-off areas in Westminster Abbey and the British Library? Plus some other places I’m not allowed to mention ’cause of the nondisclosure agreements, but trust me, if you’ve ever read OK! magazine, you’ll know the owners. Know of ’em, anyway.”
“I stand corrected. Well, sit corrected. So all these places have had, um, problems?”
Sean shrugged. “Not all of ’em. You see, a lot of these places—’specially where they’ve got historical relics—they can’t afford to have an infestation. So we do the preventative stuff, lay out the insect monitors or the traps, depending on the type of place it is, and check ’em up several times a year. It’s the bread-and-butter work. Contract stuff. Then there’s the call-outs on top of that.”
“Isn’t it a bit, well, cruel? I mean, exterminating poor defenceless things for a living?”
“So you’d rather we let the cockroaches roam free?” Sean cast a glance around the bar. I followed his gaze nervously, half expecting to see a seething mass of black carapaces carpeting the parquet floor.
“Well, no.”
“Let the wasps take over your loft?”
“If they weren’t doing any harm, maybe…”
“Wasps are vicious bastards. And they damage your ceiling.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, the plaster underneath the nest gets damp. Weakens it.” He half smiled. “Had a technician on my team fall foul of that, not so long ago. It was his own fault, really. Daft bastard tried to take out the nest from inside the bedroom. It was in the loft, see, but they were coming in the house through a sunken light fitting. Kevin, that was his name, he’s a bit of a lazy sod. Can’t be arsed to go up in the loft and do it properly. So he tells the customer, ‘Trust me, love, I’m a professional,’ and shoos her out of the bedroom. Shuts the door, gets out his duster, shoves the lance through the hole in the ceiling and puffs out the dust.”
I winced. “I think I can see where this is going.”
“Yep. Down comes a chunk of ceiling, right on top of his head. With it comes the light fitting, half the wasps’ nest and oh, about two hundred pissed-off wasps. They get all over his head, inside his suit… You get the picture. Stung all over, poor sod. And I mean all over. You think a wasp sting on your arm is bad? Try one on your bollocks.”
I shuddered. “Ouch.”
“Just a bit. Now Kevin, not being the sort to suffer in silence, makes a bit of a fuss. Which you can take to mean screams his bloody head off. So the customer opens the door, takes one look at Kevin, trapped in there with the wasps, and what do you reckon she does? She shuts the door on him and leaves him to it. Well, like she said, he’d told her he was a professional.”
“Oh God.” I tried not to laugh and failed. “Um. I’m sorry. He was all right? Eventually, I mean?”
Sean nodded, grinning. “He got out of the pest-control business after that. We all thought it’d be best. Works in insurance now. But going back to what you said, it’s usually pretty humane. There’s the Countryside and Wildlife Act 1981 that lays down all sorts of rules for how you can get rid of pests. And there’s people keeping an eye on us too. You know how we get a lot of roadkill round here? How many times have you seen an owl or a red kite by the side of the road?”
I’d never really thought about it before, but now he came to mention it, they did seem rather conspicuous by their absence. After all, I’d seen more badgers, bunnies and foxes lying in sad furry heaps by the roadside than you could shake a bloodstained stick at. “Um, none?”
“That’s because Natural England scoop ’em all up so they can test them for secondary poisoning. Make sure we’ve been clearing up all the dead rats and not letting ’em get into the food chain.” He smiled and took a gulp of beer.
I found myself smiling back, a warm glow suffusing my insides that I suspected had very little to do with my sauvignon blanc. This was all rather unexpected. I mean, obviously I’d admired his looks, his smile, and his capability in a crisis, but I’d never thought I’d be drawn to him quite so personally.
A lump of ice seemed to settle in my stomach. I wasn’t here to be drawn to him, was I? I was here to help him get drawn to Rose. Which was for the best, wasn’t it? I didn’t want another relationship. Not now. Maybe not ever.
The thought was confusingly depressing. I picked up the cocktail menu, hoping to distract myself by speculating what might be in a Broken Brock. From the look of the ingredients list, everything.
Sean put his glass down. “So what was it like for you? Did you always know you wanted to work with kids?”
“Oh yes. Education gets a bad press, but it’s so important.” I roused myself to give him a twisted smile. “And I’m going to apologise in advance in case I start ranting on at you about tuition fees and student loans.”
“Not a fan?”
“God, no. So many bright young people from poorer backgrounds are being put off going to university, while the places are taken by better-off students who don’t really want to study; they just want to have fun for three years. It’s criminal, the way it’s stifling social mobility to the detriment of those worst off.” I realised I’d crumpled up the cocktail menu in my hand and, horrified, tried to straighten it out. “Oops. Um. Sorry about the rant.” I shoved the menu in my pocket, hoping no one would notice.
Sean was smiling at me. “Hey, no worries. You already apologised, remember? And it’s great that you care. Especially seeing as it’s something you’ve obviously never had to worry about personally.”
“That’s what everyone assumes.” I looked down at the table. “Actually, I was a scholarship boy at Loriners’. You see, when Father died, he left Mother and me in a bit of a state. He’d been—well, nobody actually said the word fraud, but he’d made a few unwise decisions on behalf of his firm. Very unwise. And he hadn’t wanted people to know, s
o he tried to make up for it by mortgaging the house, among other things…” I drew an abstract pattern in the condensation on the side of my wineglass, then smudged it out. “Anyway, for five years we were, well, not well off. At all. The scholarship covered my tuition at Loriners’, but Mother still had to pay for my uniform and all the other things. If she hadn’t had her job at the school, which meant they let me off the boarding fees, well…” I trailed off. I honestly didn’t know why I’d told him so much.
“What about now?”
“Oh, Mother’s fine now.” I smiled, relieved to be off the subject of our stint as paupers. “She met Peter, who is now my stepfather, and he’s taken tremendously good care of her ever since.”
“That’s great. You get on with him okay?”
“Oh yes.” I shrugged, a little self-conscious. “He’s been very kind. You’ve probably gathered I shouldn’t be able to manage the rent on the Old Hatter’s Cottage out of my teacher’s salary. Most of the other staff can’t afford anywhere in the village.” I was reminded once more what I was actually here for. “Rose has a flat here, though. It’s just up the road.”
“Right.” Sean nodded. “So are you planning on getting involved in village stuff? There’s a cricket team, if you’re interested. Wrong time of year for that, though, I s’pose.”
“At least it’ll give me time to get in training for the start of the season. After fumbling that catch in the church, I’m not sure they’ll want me if I don’t pull my socks up.”
“Hey, I just got there first, that was all. You’d have made it if I hadn’t been there.”
“No, I’d have been lying on the church floor covered in tomato sauce and reeking of garlic.”
He grinned. “Okay, so now I wish I had just let the jar fall.”
Was he flirting with me? It sounded like he was flirting. And the way his eyes crinkled up at the corners was awfully suspicious… “David Tennant,” I said quickly. “Why wouldn’t you take him home to your mum? Because you’d be worried she’d be all over him?”
“Well, that too. Nah, I don’t know. He still had a bit of that darkness, I reckon. No second chances, remember?”
I swallowed. Yes, I remembered. “Some people would say an uncompromising nature is a good thing,” I said cautiously.
“Nah, everyone deserves a second chance.”
I smiled and picked up my glass, only to realise it was empty.
“Oh, sorry—fancy another, Rob?” I looked up, startled. Apparently I was an open book to Sean. “Don’t mind me calling you that, do you?”
“No, no. It’s just, I’ve never been a Rob before. I’ve always been Robert to my family.”
“Yeah? What did your mates at school call you?”
“Emeny, mostly.”
“Bloody hell. They still do that?” Sean leaned back in his seat and signalled to the waitress, who was busy with a table of fortysomethings—thankfully, none that I recognised as parents—but acknowledged him with a nod.
I waited until he turned back to me. “At Loriners’, yes. It’s a bit old-fashioned like that. I think that was why Mother chose it.” Well, that was one of the reasons.
“Didn’t you have a nickname or something?”
“Well, there was Fordy, who was completely obsessed with Blackadder for a while. He used to call me Bob.” I emphasized the Bs as Fordy had used to. I decided not to mention the rather large number who’d called me Emsy. Some people seemed to think it was a bit girly, which was not at all the impression I wanted to make. “And some of the others called me Eminem.”
Sean laughed. “Sorry, mate, can’t see the resemblance.”
“Good. I watched one of his videos once. Revolting. Does the man have to be so coarse?”
The waitress returned to us at this point, with a chirpy smile and a “What can I get you?”
“I’ll have another Wormold’s Woe, please,” Sean told her, leaning back in his seat. It struck me that for a not-really-a-wine-bar person, he seemed remarkably at ease here. “How about you, Rob? Same again?”
“Oh—yes, please.” I waited until she’d gone. “Are you sure you’re going to be all right on your bike?”
“I’ll be fine—this stuff’s not that strong. Two’s my limit, though. Course, if you’re worried, I could always leave the bike at yours and…walk back home.”
There was the barest suspicion of a wink, and for a moment I had a strong feeling he was suggesting something else entirely. I looked down, my unsettled gaze falling on my watch. Where on earth was Rose? She hadn’t forgotten, had she? I shot a glance at the door. Rose resolutely failed to materialise.
“You expecting someone?” Sean asked.
“No! I mean, of course not. I was just looking for the, um, little boys’ room?”
“The gents’? I think it’s out the back. Past that sign that says Toilets, with the big arrow.” He gestured, not without a teasing smile, to a sign that couldn’t have been more obvious if it had been flashing neon.
“Oh yes. Of course,” I said, as if I could have possibly missed it. Bother. Having asked, I’d now have to actually go. Then again, this could be the perfect opportunity to call Rose and find out just what the hell was going on. “Be right back,” I said breezily, stood up and walked over in the direction Sean and the arrow had indicated.
Halfway there I remembered my phone was in my jacket and my jacket, uncharacteristically, was on my seat. Damn it. I strode back again. “Might be cold in the gents’,” I said, avoiding Sean’s eye as I grabbed the jacket and got out of there as swiftly as I could.
My luck was in, and there was no one else using the facilities. I dialled Rose’s number and paced the tiles until she picked up.
“Hello?”
“Where are you?” I demanded, as quietly as I could.
“What?”
“Where are you?”
“Robert, is that you? I can’t hear you. You’ve got to speak up.”
Could I risk speaking more loudly? How far would it carry? The question became academic as a middle-aged man walked into the gents’ and cast me a deeply suspicious look. Damn it, damn it, damn it. “I’ll call you back.”
I heard the faint strains of another “What?” as I took the phone from my ear and thumbed the call off. What to do now?
The way back to the vestibule involved skirting one edge of the main bar, but apparently I was, as they say, on a roll as Sean’s head was bent over his mobile. I made it to the vestibule unseen, only to find it occupied by a raucous gaggle of short-skirted, precipitously heeled young women who gave me a frankly assessing glance, then looked away dismissively.
I was never wearing this tie again, I decided as I made a break for freedom straight through the door and down the steps.
The drizzle had stopped, leaving the air cool, fresh and a blessed relief on my somewhat heated face. I dialled Rose’s number again. “Where are you?” I’d said it so often the words were rapidly losing all meaning for me.
“At home.” Her tone was petulant. “I’ve finished mowing my lady-lawn and now I’m trying to watch a DVD. We don’t all have hot dates tonight.”
“Yes, you do!” The pavement was narrow in front of the door, so I strolled to the corner to allow a man in a mobility scooter to pass by. He raised a hand in acknowledgement and trundled on.
“Sweetheart, the only hot date I’ve got tonight is with my good friend Mr. Shiraz. Although I’ve been thinking of maybe inviting his mate Merlot over for a threesome.” Rose was already slurring her words. This was a disaster—no way could she drop in on us casually now.
“You’re supposed to be turning up unexpectedly at the wine bar to join me and Sean!”
“What, for a threesome?” There was a suspicion of a giggle.
“There will be no threesomes!” I raged. A burst of laughter rang out from a gang of teenag
ers hanging around on the corner by the churchyard. Mortified, I strode a few yards up the street and lowered my voice. “I thought we had a plan. To get you and Sean together.”
“No, we had a plan to get you and Sean together. Ooh, did it work?”
“No! Rose, for God’s sake, I thought I told you I didn’t want to get into a relationship.” My words sounded hollow in my own ears. It must be the phone, I decided.
“Yeah, but that was before you met Sean.”
I bolstered my resolve. “When did I ever give you the impression I wanted to go out with Sean?”
“You ever watch cartoons? You know when Bugs Bunny sees Jessica Rabbit, and the eyes light up and the tongue rolls out? That’s you whenever you see Sean.”
“That’s not true!” Oh God. It wasn’t true, was it? I frowned. Bugs and Jessica? That wasn’t right. “Hang on, he’s from an entirely different world. Rose, listen very carefully—”
“I shall say zees only once?” she interrupted and cackled.
“I do not want to go out with Sean!” Realising I’d raised my voice again, and had probably been gesticulating like a madman too, I looked up to make sure there wasn’t anyone I knew within earshot.
Straight into the eyes of Sean, staring at me through the wine bar’s window—the open window—with an unreadable look on his face.
Chapter Five
For one horrible, shameful moment, I seriously contemplated doing what Rose would probably term “a runner”. But to leave Sean like this—with the unpaid bill, to add insult to injury, or was it the other way round?—would be unconscionably rude.
Also, his motorbike was parked in my entrada. There really was no escape.
I walked back into the wine bar, the speed of my steps inversely proportional to the closeness of our table. “Sorry,” I said as I slid back onto the bench seat, the uncaring ground having utterly failed to open up and swallow me en route. “Phone call.”
Sean stared at me, stony-faced. The waitress had replenished our drinks while I’d been away from the table, but he didn’t appear to have touched his. “Yeah. I saw. And heard. Come to that, so did the rest of the village. Although you might want to Facebook it when you get home. There’s probably one or two people in the next town who didn’t quite get just how much you don’t want to go out with me.”
