“Sitting out there in the sun, just like a Christian who has nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Eve’s taken little Irene back to her parents, I hear,” said Sybil.
“Yes, and now he be trying for custody, but they won’t take no nonsense from him, not knowing what they knows.”
“I’m glad that’s sorted out,” said Sybil. “Have you got another packet of the dark brown sugar? Thank you, and two boxes of matches, please.”
They dumped the shopping on the kitchen table and Sybil headed for the kettle.
“Pool?” said Gina, who could see the large box through the window. She didn’t sound very enthusiastic.
“We’ll have to have a go at it,” said Sybil, also without enthusiasm. “Still, it should be easier now we’ve got on to the assembly. Bless Byron for doing that levelling for us.”
“Surprisingly practical for a professional man,” said Gina.
“Coffee, first,” said Sybil. “Then, if you like, you can give me a hand getting things ready next door. Arriving at about three, she said.”
“Sure I’ll help,” said Gina. “Does it need cleaning, or what?”
“No, Mrs Slubs does the cleaning, but I need to make up the beds, check the fridge, make it look welcoming.”
“I’m not sure how many are coming,” said Sybil, as she took an armful of sheets and towels from the linen cupboard in Kingfisher Cottage, as the next-door cottage was called.
“Why does it have a name and yours not?” asked Gina, as she followed Sybil up the stairs with a biscuit box and clean muslin curtains.
“I can’t be doing with all that for myself,” said Sybil. “The cottages didn’t have names when we bought them, and I don’t need a name for mine. 1, The Cottages is a perfectly adequate address. But you need a pretty, countrified name to attract people when you’re letting out. There are a lot of kingfishers about if you know where to look for them, so it’s Kingfisher Cottage.”
“I saw a kingfisher by the river a day or so ago.”
“Beautiful birds,” said Sybil, as she led the way into a bedroom. “I think the best thing to do is to make up the three beds. That’s one double and the two singles in the other room.”
The beds were made, towels hung on racks and the newly washed curtains up at the windows in no time. Sybil and Gina retreated downstairs to arrange flowers from Sybil’s garden in various pots and vases.
“Pretty nice for them,” said Gina, standing back to admire her arrangement. “Flowers everywhere, and a tray laid for tea; milk and eggs in the fridge. Even cookies, I mean biscuits, by the beds.”
“That’s that,” said Sybil, having a last look round before shutting the door behind them. “Now for that dratted pool.”
Prim was looking after the wine sales that morning, while Don walked the vines, checking progress, recording comments of work needed, making sure that the rabbits hadn’t chomped their way through the plastic tubes which protected the bases of young vines.
Gareth and Lori were put out that Don wasn’t available. Tara was amused at the thought of anyone wasting their time on English wine; she looked at the selection of bottles with an expression on her face as of one humouring children.
“I did want to have a word with Don,” said Gareth, slightly huffy. He was a dark, rather jowly man given to wearing pink shirts. His hair was slightly too long, his ties too vigorous, his teeth white and gleaming. Beauty and the beast, thought Lori for one disloyal moment as she looked at Prim’s golden hair and skin and her deep blue eyes.
“I can ask him to ring you,” said Prim. “Meanwhile, did you want some wine?”
“Yes, a case of Special Reserve, please.”
Prim pushed open the big sliding door and called out into the courtyard. “Esme! A case of the Special Reserve, please, in the shop.”
She made out a bill, and stood, still, graceful and completely at ease as Gareth wrote a cheque. She was wearing cotton trousers and a polo shirt and made Lori feel uncomfortable.
Tara didn’t like the look of this local hick at all; in some strange way, she made her, Tara, seem provincial and unfinished. Tara wasn’t one to keep her uneasiness to herself, so she hit back with rudeness as Esme came in, carrying the box of wine as though it weighed nothing.
“Gareth, you aren’t seriously expecting me to drink English sparkling wine, are you?” She gave a tinkly laugh. “Supporting local crafts is one thing, but you might as well expect me to drink Australian.”
Esme put the box down with a thump. She towered over Tara, and gave her a look full of contempt. “You don’t want it, you don’t have to drink it. You’re the loser, mate, because this is good stuff.”
“Are you an expert?” said Tara with an insincere smile.
“On wine, yes. My dad owns vineyards back home - that’s Australia, in case you want to know - and some in France, too. I know one hell of a lot about it, a lot more than you do, I’d bet. And I don’t ever say a wine’s no good until I’ve tried it. Same as everything else in life.”
Lori tried to smooth everyone down. “Esme, isn’t it? I thought you worked up at the Hall.”
“Yeah, but I come and give a hand here when I can. Makes me feel at home to be among the vines, and I keep fit moving a few boxes around.” She flexed her biceps, cast a final look of scorn at Tara and went back to her heaving.
Prim, completely unmoved, handed Gareth his receipt. “Can you manage that?” she asked. “I can take it to the car for you.”
His masculinity challenged, Gareth staggered out to the Discovery, and heaved the box into the back.
They drove silently back to Heartwell House.
“Peasants,” said Tara, as they got out of the car.
“I don’t know who that lovely woman was, but she didn’t look like a peasant to me,” said Gareth warmly.
Lori gave him a look. “That’s Prim, Victor’s sister. She’s worth millions, in her own right.”
“Oh,” said Gareth.
They went inside.
“Have you got any brothers?” Sybil asked.
“No,” said Gina, fuming as she tried to push one aluminium curved piece into another. “Why?”
“Because I was thinking how much this reminds me of building electric train layouts. My son had a lot of track and not much patience.”
“Hell,” said Gina, as the pieces finally slid together, leaving her with an inside piece about eight inches shorter than it should be.
“There’s the doorbell,” said Sybil. “It’ll be the people for Kingfisher Cottage. I’ll just give them the key and show them where things are, and then I’ll be back.”
“Fine,” said Gina, not looking up from her next pair of curved bits.
She’d got the hang of it, finally, and the pieces slotted together on the ground in an approximation of a circle.
Strange, thought Gina, as she moved slowly round on her hands and knees to adjust the joins. Three weeks ago, if I’d looked ahead to now, I’d have thought I might just be in Oxford. More likely, I would be in New York. I could never have imagined that I would be in a cottage garden in Heartsbane, staying with a pornographic novelist, putting up a swimming pool. It just goes to show, she told herself, that you can’t even begin to think about what twists and turns your life might take.
Gina came back to the matter in hand, and looked at the instructions again. Support the metal wall once erected with stout wooden pegs. Stout wooden pegs indeed! Where were these people living? Where could you get pegs like that these days? It didn’t look as though they were important, you took them away as soon as the wall was up and the liner filled with water. It wasn’t as though there was any danger of wind, either. The only wind they’d had for days was this tiny, fretful breeze which hardly stirred the leaves.
Upstairs in Kingfisher Cottage, Zoe tested the mattress on the double bed. Perfect. She looked at her suitcase and sundry bags and decided unpacking could wait until later.
Fergus stood at the bottom of the stair
s, huge against the low ceilings and beams of the downstairs room. “I’ve made tea,” he announced.
“I didn’t bring any milk,” said Zoe. “And where did you find tea?”
“All laid on,” said Fergus.
“That’s kind of them,” said Zoe, coming carefully down the steep stairs. “Fergus, I’m going to love it here. Glorious countryside, and you can smell it’s not far to the sea. Wonderful. Wish you could stay.”
“I’ve got work to do,” said Fergus. “And Charlotte mightn’t like it.”
“Charlotte doesn’t like anything,” Zoe said under her breath. “No, I didn’t say anything, Fergus. Are those biscuits? I’m famished. We’ll have to find out where the nearest supermarket is - do you suppose we have to go all the way to Heartsbury?”
“I do not,” said Fergus. “Don’t worry for tonight. There’ll be a local shop for necessities, and we passed a farm selling meat and vegetables.”
“What an effort,” said Zoe, very much a Chicken Kiev from Waitrose woman.
“I shall cook it,” said Fergus grandly. “Your landlady, whose face looks somehow familiar, will tell us when the farm shop closes. Have some more tea, and then you can get your bearings in the village.”
“No hurry,” said Zoe, opening the door from the kitchen into the garden at the rear. “I’ve got weeks to explore.”
Fergus joined her outside. “Apples,” he said knowledgeably, looking at the trees. “And pears.”
Zoe’s attention was caught by strange thumps and bangs from the next door garden.
“I hope I’m not going to have noisy neighbours,” she said. “Fergus, can you see what’s going on?”
Fergus wandered along to a place where the hedge was lower and looked over into Sybil’s garden. “No need to worry,” he reported. “They seem to be erecting a pool. I daresay your landlady has grandchildren.”
“I don’t mind children,” said Zoe, who had found a swinging sofa and had settled herself in. “They can’t be worse than my brother’s brats. Pull up that seat, Fergus, and relax.”
Crash!
Gina sat up in bed, her heart thumping, as the sound of tin roofs collapsing filled her bedroom. Thunder?
She flew to the window and looked out. The slight breeze of earlier had blown itself into a gale. Trees rustled and branches whipped dramatically backwards and forwards.
Then that noise again. Dustbins blowing about? A shed roof come off?
Her door opened and Sybil stood in the doorway, clad in a pair of nifty silk pyjamas and a handsome man’s brocade dressing-gown in dazzling colours. “It’s that bloody pool,” she said dispassionately. “That metal wall is bowling about the garden as though it were a piece of paper.”
Gina pulled on a pair of jeans, found her deckshoes and followed Sybil at speed down the stairs.
The wall of the pool, so carefully placed into its base that afternoon, had lifted clean away. They had done a good job bolting the two ends together, so there was this circle of metal, forty-seven feet round and three feet high, swirling round the garden like a hoop, crashing and rattling as it went.
“What on earth can we do about it?” yelled Gina into the wind. As though it had heard her, it came hurtling towards her and she hastily jumped out of the way.
“We’ve got to get hold of it, pin it down,” shouted Sybil.
In a momentary lull, they could hear a voice in the next-door garden.
“Of course, woken them up, wonderful start to a holiday,” said Sybil crossly.
It was a powerful voice. “Can I help?”
“Yes,” screamed Sybil as die wind rose again. “There’s a gate at the bottom of your garden.”
“If he’s awake, he might as well come and help,” Sybil bellowed at her. “He’s big.”
“Good,” cried Gina.
Then, two minutes later, a tall, familiar figure came up the path, clearly visible in the light from the shed lamp.
Fergus, thought Gina. Oh, no, it couldn’t be Fergus. How could he be here? Why? Was she dreaming?
It was Fergus. No mistaking him at all, as he gave a powerful tug at the wall, subduing it into a mere grumbling, thumping piece of metal.
“Zoe, go round that side,” he called.
Zoe? She had to be dreaming. Why would Fergus and Zoe be staying in the cottage next door? And from what Sybil had said, the people renting were planning a stay of several weeks. Why hadn’t Zoe said anything about coming here?
Gina’s only instinct was to get away from the cottage, where Sybil would undoubtedly drag her down to meet the new neighbours. Without thinking, she fled through the gate and started to run down the road.
She had to acquit Zoe of secretiveness. Zoe had no way of getting in touch with her; she had forbidden her to write or to ring the Hall. “Popplewell probably has agents in the post office, scrutinizing your mail,” she had told her.
Gina was by now thoroughly scared. Not by the imaginary footsteps coming after her, because there were none, but simply by being out in the open in the full force of what felt like a hurricane. A branch gave a dramatic crack and crashed down on to the road beside her.
Gina increased her pace, running past the sign that said ’Heartwell’, determined to find shelter away from this terrifying, elemental wind. She had to slow down as she came in sight of the row of cottages, her sides heaving. I’m not very fit, she told herself.
A dark figure emerged from the shadows at the side of the road, giving Gina a nasty shock. As the figure loped off, she shrank into the hedge and watched whoever it was pause by the shop to be joined by someone else.
Intrigued now, Gina moved slowly after them, keeping to the shadows, hoping that any noise she made would be drowned by the rackety wind and rain. She was soaked to the skin, and water trickled down her face from her wet hair. Since I can’t get any wetter, she thought, there’s no point in trying to shelter.
The two figures reached the three terraced cottages and slipped inside the end one. Not so interesting, thought Gina, and then her ears caught the sound of a vehicle coming from the other direction.
A truck drew up outside the cottages and gave a quick toot on its horn. The windscreen wipers lashed backwards and forwards with an audible squeak, then subsided into silence as the driver turned his engine off and swung himself down on to the road. He went round to the rear of the truck and rolled up the back with a loud rattle.
The door of the end cottage opened and light spilled out for a second before it was switched off. Gina could see the feeble light of a half-powered torch wavering about. The men - or women, how could you tell in the darkness and rain? - had a whispered conversation, and then two of them disappeared round the back of the truck. They staggered back with a large box each, which was taken smartly into the cottage.
This was repeated for several loads, and then the driver got back into his truck, started the engine and drove off into the darkness. The other two locked the cottage door, and left, one heading across the green and the other back towards where Gina was lurking.
Phil the shopkeeper, Gina said to herself as she recognized the burly figure. He hadn’t noticed her skulking in the shadows as, whistling through his teeth, he opened the shop door. Gina heard the ping of the shop bell and heaved a sigh of relief. Not that Phil had struck her as the dangerous type, but she had a feeling that, whatever Phil and his friends had been up to at such an unlikely hour of the night, they wouldn’t appreciate an audience.
The shopkeeper shut the door behind him; there was a clunk as a bolt was pushed to. Gina was alone once more in the dark, wet, windy summer’s night.
Smugglers, she said to herself. That’s what they were.
So much for the peaceful rural scene.
CHAPTER 14
The journey back, undertaken at a more seemly pace, took Gina longer than when she had come. Especially since she had to scramble over the huge fallen branch which had blown down and now lay across the road. The lashing rain beat against her face as
she headed into the gale. By the time Gina pressed Sybil’s doorbell she was drenched, exhausted and longing to be out of the wild weather. Sybil opened the door, making pleased noises, and Gina fell into the cottage.
“Why did you hare off like that?” asked Zoe, balancing the tray as she pushed the door shut with her foot.
“Because of Fergus, of course. Walking up the path, large as life; what a shock. It’s a bit much, Zoe, your turning up here, no warning, and bringing Fergus.”
Zoe put the tray down on Gina’s bedside table, and flopped on to the bed. “Poof, it’s hot up here.”
“That’s why I’m sitting here by the window, trying to get some air,” said Gina peevishly. “You’d think that the storm last night would have cooled things down, but it’s hotter than ever. Pass me that glass of water, I’m parched.” She took a long drink. “I suppose Fergus is still downstairs?”
“Mmm,” said Zoe, flicking idly through the books on the shelf by the bed. “Talking about last night’s storm. Apparently, a big tree came down in the village in the early hours, on the green. Didn’t squash anyone, but none the less, great local excitement, I gather.” She pulled out a book. “Actually, what Fergus is doing is flirting like mad with your Sybil.”
“Flirting? With Sybil?” Gina was incredulous.
“Flirting. Mutual admiration society. One look at Fergus’s manly legs - he’s wearing shorts, you see - and a bit of the McEttrick charm, and you could see she was quite won over. He, on the other hand, thinks she’s funny and interesting and clever; I feel like the fourth leg of a stool down there.”
“Shorts,” said Gina in disgust. “He obviously feels he’s on holiday.”
“It’s only for the weekend,” said Zoe. “Then he’ll have to get his beaky Wellington nose back to the grindstone. I’m sorry, Gina, I had it all planned, village near Heartsease, but not so near that I’d be obtrusive, on hand when you needed a break from your adopted family, no hassle.”
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