by Laura Kemp
‘G and T for you, Alis. Aperol Spritz for you, Sara.’ The two ladies broke off from high street gossip – mostly centred on who was going as what to the disco – to give thanks before diving back in.
There was lager for Bowen, who was smiling dreamily at his lady, and that left a large glass of white wine for Wanda.
‘Iechyd da!’ they chorused. Cheers indeed!
Their celebration was interrupted by a flash of blue lights going past the pub. They just caught the red of the fire engine as it went down the lane and automatically they scanned the countryside. The mountain wasn’t alight, Wanda saw, relieved, but Bowen made a call and he announced it was a grass fire just outside the village – kids. Again.
Eventually, everyone returned to their conversations and Wanda felt a right lemon. But that was preferable to being a sitting duck as Phil the Pill came at her with love-heart pupils.
‘Mind if I join you?’ he asked, very nicely. Still, she knew it would be half an hour of running talk, personal bests and Strava trophies.
‘’Course not!’ she said, brightly, feeling bad about her snottiness. ‘How are you?’
‘Good, good. Very good. Although sore hamstrings, groin strain—’
‘Jogger’s nipple?’
‘No. I … uh … tape them up.’ His Adam’s apple rose and fell as he tried to swallow the tension. It must take guts for him to approach her time after time. If only she could feel something for him. Yet he was as ginger as she was – she didn’t go for that look, she hated her own fiery pubes, let alone having to get to know his. He wasn’t unattractive: he was slim, he looked after himself, he had nice blue eyes, and he was intelligent, kind and … There was just no damn chemistry.
‘So …’ he said and she could feel herself squirming as he rubbed his thigh with his spare hand. The other held a bottle of mineral water. Please don’t ask me out again, she prayed. Because it’s horrible for you and it’s depressing for me. It was the wine inside her and she started to say, ‘It’s fine, really,’ but something shifted in him.
‘Oh! No! I’m not doing that again,’ he laughed. ‘I’m actually with someone now.’
‘Great!’ she said, relieved and then feeling a thud inside. Ashamed, she realised it was her ego, crashing to her pelvic floor.
‘Yeah,’ he said, nodding over at a woman who gave a shy wave from a wholesome crowd. She was gorgeous. Amazonian, a natural beauty with long dark waves. Those love-heart pupils were for her, not Wanda. ‘Third date! We met through the running club. She’s a pharmacist too. But I didn’t come over to tell you that.’
‘No?’ He was well within his rights, frankly.
‘No, just that the extras I didn’t have for your mam’s prescription, they’ve arrived.’ He got up. ‘Shouldn’t mix business with pleasure. Ha! Right, I’d better be—’
‘Yes! Yes. Thanks. Well done!’ she said as he left, cringing at her congratulations for copping off. Who on earth was she to say that to him when she hadn’t in aeons – and he had. Was this what her love life had come to? She knocked back her glass and got up, not knowing where to go. Everyone was high on life here; she felt like a party pooper. ‘Just nipping to the loo,’ she said, picking up her bag, her skin clammy as the heat turned muggy. The feeling came at her from nowhere – one she hadn’t had for a while: claustrophobia and the need to escape. Bugger this weekend off. She’d been all right being occupied, but now …
‘Wanda!’
She looked up and Lew was calling her from a group standing at the garden gate which led out to the lane.
‘Save me,’ he hissed in her ear. She shivered at the near-contact. ‘They’re discussing hiking socks. Moisture wicking and athlete’s foot.’
On closer inspection, they were indeed old-school ramblers, with pints of real ale, beards, poles and backpacks.
‘They’re staying at The Bunkhouse. I need to have a breather!’ His warm fingers grazed hers and her heart hit 100 m.p.h. Then to the crowd he said, ‘Sorry, I have to go, I’m needed.’
He held his palm out for her to go first and they went out into the night.
‘Freedom! Finally!’ he said. ‘There’s only so much rambling talk I can handle.’
‘Glad I could be of some use,’ she said. ‘I was going anyway.’
‘Home?’ he asked.
‘No. I thought Las Vegas for a quick bit of blackjack before bed. Of course I’m going home!’
Lew hooted. ‘Mind if I walk with you?’
‘Go ahead.’
The chatter of the pub was soon behind them but the evening didn’t feel over. It was one of those nights which could go on and on. Wanda felt heady with it, wanting now to make the most of her weekend off.
‘I’m going to have a nightcap if you fancy one?’ she said as they approached the campsite turning.
‘Here? Or Las Vegas? Because I need to be up in the morning.’
Wanda giggled in the quiet of the dark and it set him off too, the moon making his eyes and teeth sparkle and the humidity shining on his skin. She put a finger over her lips and told him to wait outside the farmhouse while she made up two whiskies on the rocks. The hush was all around them and they tiptoed through the campsite. The firepits were out, a few people were murmuring as they packed up chairs, sleeping bags were being zipped up and torches flashed under canvas.
By the lake, it was as if they had the world to themselves. Utterly bewitched and before she’d known that she was going to do it, she had opened the bell tent and drawn back its curtains.
Silently, they pulled the double mattress to the edge so the lake, the mountain and the Milky Way were framed like a photograph. Lew sat, then lay down and put his arms behind his head so he could gaze in wonder. Magnetised to him, rooted to this land, she joined him, their bodies just inches apart, and she sighed at such beauty: ripples on the silvery water, the distant crack of twigs, of the night breathing, the majesty of the hillside, the ridge leading to the peak and the never-ending heavens pricked with millions of dots of lights.
‘A shooting star!’ she gasped, watching it trailing through the velvet like a comet, dazzling before it disappeared into nothing.
‘Wow!’ Lew said. ‘I haven’t seen one for years. I haven’t been watching. Too busy, I s’pose.’
Wanda felt the sultriness of the night press on her chest. The banter had gone; in its place was something else. Intimacy and space to talk.
‘It was all laid out for me,’ Lew said quietly, as if he too sensed the moment. ‘My ex, she wanted to settle down and have kids.’
Her heart curled up into a ball – he had virtually admitted he wanted to remain a bachelor.
‘Not with Kirstine, anyway. I was stupid, I let it all happen; too much of a coward to leave. I didn’t want to hurt her, but of course I did. Never again. Next time, if there is one, I’d make sure …’ He exhaled heavily, clearly still feeling guilty.
‘You saved her from worse in the long run,’ Wanda said. ‘I, however, do the total opposite. Leg it before the engine has even started running.’
‘Never had a big relationship, then?’ he asked her.
‘Nope, not like you. Nowhere near that. The usual lasted three, six months or so, I made it to nine months once. I always thought that one would be enough to stop me wanting to leave, like that would be the test. No one ever did.’
‘Where would you be now if you had left? If your Mam hadn’t had her accident?’
She hadn’t thought about it recently but the itinerary of colour, spices, smells, heat and discovery was burned into her brain.
‘On a South Pacific beach, snorkelling above a coral reef. I’d have left South America a champion tango dancer, fluent in Spanish, with a halo from some kind of voluntary project. I’d be chilling out before I went to Indonesia to become a yogi surf chick, then India to make proper curry, last stop Morocco for sou
venir shopping.’
‘Bring me back something, won’t you?’
‘Yes, don’t worry, I do intend to go still. I’ll be out of your hair eventually.’ She side-eyed him and elbowed him for emphasis.
‘Oi! About that …’ He cleared his throat. ‘I just want you to do what you want to do. That’s what I was going to say to you when Carys came over about the website booking, that time. I wanted to say I was glad we were friends again.’
It meant so much to Wanda to hear that. But there was a part of her that felt hollow that it was just friends he was talking about. It blew Annie’s theory out of the water – he could obviously cope with being around her if he felt comfortable enough to say this now.
‘How have we never met anyone, either of us?’ She spoke her thoughts out loud, not caring because it was obvious – there was no one hanging off her now, was there? She heard his head move and felt his eyes on her. Unable to resist, she faced him and her stomach looped the loop. The wind had picked up and the tent was flapping.
‘There was someone …’ Lew’s eyes flicked back to the mountain.
Wanda’s breathing went shallow. Was he referring to her? And then she let it go. Did it even matter if he was? This was all history. They both knew she would be leaving and maybe the drinks had loosened his tongue. Nostalgia was intoxicating. But it didn’t hold up when you asked it to be something real and workable, when you had crow’s feet and utility bills. They might have a connection, but now Wanda wondered if it was simply because they’d had a past. And she wasn’t looking backwards any more.
‘Annie said to me to look up, not down; it made me change how I saw what was happening here, to feel the feelings and process them and act. I think you’ve got to be brave.’
He blinked slowly, his eyelashes fluttering. ‘What if you’re afraid?’
Drops of rain were starting to fall and the air had turned fresh.
‘Well, then you either try or you don’t, I guess.’
Lew swallowed and he raised a hand to her face, his fingertips tracing her cheek. He was talking about them, that was clear now, and her brain was struggling to piece together what was happening while her body was responding with desire.
‘What if …’ he said. But he shut his eyes and pulled his hand away.
The ghost of his touch remained. Something was holding him back. But what? She saw a tear and her heart began to ache. Until she saw another and another – they weren’t tears but droplets of rain. At the same time, they realised the tent was leaking. A gush of water began to run down the central pole that was holding it up. The plastic seal at the top had gone, Wanda saw as the sound of a deluge hammered down.
They jumped up as a gust of wind made the walls shake and suddenly the pole was swaying and just in time, they grabbed at one another and made it out as the tent keeled to the left and collapsed like a half-hearted erection.
How lucky no one had been in there! Damage, injuries … it didn’t bear thinking about, and to be honest there was no time to do so anyway because sheets of rain were drenching them both. They were already soaked through, their clothes stuck to their goose pimples. Her hair was instantly coiling drips of cold water and her feet were icy from rivers of water flooding from the field.
They began to run; there was no point trying to rescue the tent now, and Wanda thanked God everyone else’s were holding up against the weather.
‘Do you want to come in?’ she shouted over the downpour as they reached the farmhouse.
‘I’d better not,’ he said, his face now blank. Just like the what ifs of tonight, his emotion had been washed away. The moment was lost. In turmoil, she watched him stalk off, asking herself if tonight had really happened. What was the point of that, though? Only the here and now mattered. And he had gone. All that was left was the knowledge that she’d have no lie-in tomorrow – this place was going to be an absolute mudbath by morning.
25
The opening bars of Madonna’s ‘Crazy For You’ boomed out and Annie’s heart exploded at Spike’s strong arm around her waist.
How much she wanted his body against hers. He’d lit a flame inside of her. Desire, my God, she’d never known anything like this before: it was grown-up and elemental, not some little fleeting crush, nor jumbled up with poor self-esteem or duty. There was hope too that she was worthy. In another first, he inspired her confidence and his respect made her feel a queen at best and an equal at worst. Spike’s touch signalled their friendship was tipping into something more; it had done ever since he’d asked her to come with him to tonight’s midsummer Blast from the Past disco.
Yet she didn’t want it played out in the community hall where there were eyes on them.
‘Can we go outside?’ she said, laying her hand on his chest, her pulse reacting urgently to his solid bank of muscle. Annie wanted to be alone with him: to cherish the happiness, to get it right, in what she hoped would be a film she’d play on repeat in her head.
‘You okay?’ he said, pulling his Axl Rose bandana off his head, concerned for her rather than bristling with rejection.
‘Yes, I just fancy some air.’ She removed her top hat and shook out her corkscrewed hair. Being Slash from Guns N’ Roses was hot work. In matching black faux-leather drainpipes, they slipped along the side of the dance floor packed with friendly faces in fancy dress of Tom Jones medallions and Madonnas in lacy gloves.
There was Blod Stewart, with spiked-up hair sprayed yellow, wearing wet-look leggings and a Scotland scarf round her shoulders, swaying with Lyn, who’d come as Scary Old Spice in leopardskin pyjamas. Elvis Alis was slow dancing with Pastor Pete, aka Adam Ant, and Bowen and Sara were smooching as David Bowie and Debbie Harry. There at the side, laughing their heads off were Lew and Wanda. She had straightened her hair and become the redhead from Abba, Anni-Frid, in a T-shirt dress cut to the thigh with wedges while he was Freddie Mercury with a stick-on tache, white vest, chest wig and a stuffed sock tied on to a broom handle for a microphone.
Released into the outdoors, Annie waited for the relief of the cool breeze. It did nothing but fan the fire inside her. This wonderful man didn’t make her feel like a teenager – he made her feel like a woman and it came at her in waves. His warm hand slipped into hers, his hungry eyes reflected her own longing and without a word she led him away from the light towards the safety of a huge oak tree. Anticipation spilled over and they found one another gently in the darkness. His tender lips on hers, their chests and hips and legs sealed, their tongues tasting one another, losing themselves in the beauty of their perfect chemistry.
Annie instantly felt complete: as if Spike was who she’d been waiting for, as if everything that had gone before had been about monochrome survival on a hostile planet and this was the world righting itself, turning it into a burst of colour. Yes, she was leaping ahead of herself, yes, she was breathless with lust, but this abandonment of caution was like shedding a skin, of having the courage to demand that life be better. They were dragged back into consciousness by a wolf-whistle which made them both smile shyly. Their foreheads still touching, their eyes locked in, they were drunk on each other – and they obviously looked like they were to whoever had caught them. She looked over her shoulder to see who it might be but there were only shadows. Annie stared back up at Spike and he was drinking her in, his palms cradling her face as if she – she! – was heaven-sent. I completely adore you, she said to him in her head, you’ve given me faith and this moment, I swear, is the most blissful of my entire life and nothing will ever sully it …
‘Didn’t take you long, Annie.’
Her blood turned to ice. She knew that harsh, mocking voice. Having felt her tense up, Spike instinctively pulled her closer. ‘Who’s that?’ he said, as she whipped her head round, searching for Dean Pincher’s sickening presence.
‘My ex,’ she whispered, her stomach clamping up, her shoulders hunched, all desire
replaced by fear and then a surge of anger that he had chosen this moment to crawl out from under his rock. How long had he been watching? Her skin crawled at his Peeping Tom act – and then she recoiled as he emerged from the road.
‘What are you doing here?’ Annie seethed, quaking, but knowing she had to hide it. ‘How did you know I was here?’
He smirked and then ignored her, speaking to Spike, trying to goad him. ‘I wouldn’t bother, mate, she’s damaged goods. Bad fucking news.’
Annie froze. Spike would resist, she knew he would, that’s why she felt so much for him, but still she had to wait a few beats to trust her instinct. It meant that Dean would try again, though.
‘Poor dog, all alone in the house. She’s nervous, isn’t she? Doesn’t like noise. No one next door to keep an eye out for intruders.’
‘You’ve been up there?’ she cried, nauseous that he must have been tailing her to know where Teg was.
‘And the boy, well, he wouldn’t put up much of a fight, would he?’
That meant Dean had been lurking more that once. Arthur wasn’t there tonight – he had made a friend at last, Nathan from the gardening club, and was over his on a sleepover.
Spike stiffened at the mention of his son. This was too much. Teg was one thing but now, because Dean had cased Spike’s joint, a child was involved. Arthur was absolutely not to come close to this.
‘You are a nasty piece of work,’ Annie said. ‘Don’t you ever go up there again. I’ll call the police.’
Dean laughed. ‘Dog’ll be dead and rotted by the time the cops get there.’
