‘Well, no. But he – I mean, why would he want me to meet you?’

  Cal shook his head slightly. ‘You’ve done it too, haven’t you? Pigeonholed your brother? Gay men can have straight friends too, you know, Willow. You really thought I was gay?’ He didn’t wait for me to reply, maybe my answer was written all over my face. ‘Look.’ His fingers cupped my chin and curled up onto my cheek. ‘If I was gay, then I wouldn’t want to do this, would I?’ The gentlest kiss fell on the side of my mouth. Instinctively, like a baby searching out food, I turned towards it and felt his lips fasten onto mine for one brief, thunderclap moment.

  In the next second he was flat on the grass again, arm blocking the sun, leaving me half-crouched and breathless, wondering whether the whole thing had been an alcohol illusion. ‘You’re not gay,’ I said wonderingly.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No, I meant …’ And before I had time to move, I was voluminously, copiously, dramatically sick all over his shirt, his jeans. I think I even managed to fill his pocket and get it in his hair. It was truly the most impressive of vomits. To his credit he didn’t pull away or act shocked. He simply waited for the retching to stop, then sat up and offered me a handkerchief.

  ‘Here. Do you want a drink of water or something?’

  ‘Please.’ The tiny voice was all I could manage, forced over the broken glass of embarrassment.

  ‘Ash did tell me that you had a bit of a problem with your stomach.’ Cal handed me a chilled bottle of mineral water and I used it to rinse my mouth, although I really wanted to pour it over him and eliminate the chunks of recycled picnic which clung to his clothes. ‘Have you ever tried getting help?’

  ‘The doctors told me it was just stress and I’d grow out of it. They couldn’t explain why it only happens when I meet a man I …’ Oops.

  ‘A man you …?’

  ‘I quite like.’ I busied myself blowing my nose and sluicing my face with water from the stream. Anything but meet his eye. ‘It was fine while you were gay.’

  ‘Again, I wasn’t actually gay, it’s not like a hobby, you know.’

  ‘Do you think there’s any chance the water will be hot yet?’ I felt a complete idiot. And yes, Cal was right, I had pigeonholed Ash, but then, experience had had a hand in that. He’d never introduced me to any straight, good-looking men before.

  Cal glanced down at himself, dripping regurgitation. ‘Oh, I hope so,’ he said fervently. ‘If not, I’m prepared to get in the river. Hey.’ I’d turned away, horrified and ashamed of myself, hiding the tears of mortification in the handkerchief. ‘It’s not your fault. Don’t worry. I’m not soluble, you know.’

  My voice was muffled. ‘I just hate it, that’s all. Why can’t I be normal?’

  Cal gave his lame leg the briefest glance. ‘Normal isn’t everything. Anyway if you were normal, I wouldn’t like you. Come on. I’ll let you have first dibs on the bath, but don’t piss in the water, okay?’

  I gave a coughing laugh. ‘Okay.’ We’d got to the house before I summoned enough courage to ask the pressing question. ‘Cal, back there, why did you kiss me?’

  ‘Felt like it. Problem?’

  ‘No, I … but you know I’m engaged.’

  ‘Yeah. So? It was only a kiss, not full penetration. You looked a bit sad, that was all, very fragile. I wanted to cheer you up. Sorry if it didn’t work.’

  The weird thing was, I thought later as I lay back in the hot, rusty-coloured water, that it had worked. In a kind of sideways, roundabout way. Y’see, despite my undeniably pert chest and my winning way with a bon mot, I failed to believe that I had anything much going for me. All right, I was pretty enough in a Miss Average, wouldn’t-kick-it-out-of-bed kind of way. But Luke must meet a thousand girls like me in the course of the working day. Cal’s kiss had reassured me that there was something about me that men found appealing. I grinned to myself and submerged. The enormous freestanding, cast-iron bath was large enough to allow all of me under.

  A tap at the door. ‘You all right?’

  ‘Yes, thanks.’

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea in there?’

  A pause. ‘But I’m in the bath. Naked.’

  ‘Can’t you judiciously pile up some bubbles? I promise not to let my passion be inflamed.’

  ‘Oh, go on then.’

  The door opened cautiously and Cal, pretending to screw his eyes shut, advanced across the floor with a cup held out vaguely in my direction. Since absolutely none of me was visible under the brown water, I chuckled.

  ‘For God’s sake open your eyes, man. I know you’re peeping anyway, because you avoided that ripped bit of carpet.’

  ‘Bugger.’ He handed me the cup and perched himself on the window seat looking down onto the garden, leg bent up under his chin. ‘I’m going to have to sell.’ His voice was almost inaudible under the sloshing of the bathwater. ‘I’ve decided. I nearly fell down those bloody stairs, and with the uneven floors, it’s just not possible. I mean, it’s not the money, but what’s the point in keeping it?’

  ‘You could let it out. For holidays?’

  ‘Couldn’t bear owning it, but not living in it. This is home. I mean I spent a lot of time here, when I was younger, I … growing up, I …’ The words vanished into a shake of the head and he concentrated on looking out of the window very hard for a few moments. When he spoke again his voice was gruff with something he wouldn’t let me see. ‘Better off with a clean break.’

  I swished water around with my hand, thinking. ‘I could buy it.’

  ‘Nah. You couldn’t.’

  ‘How much are you going to ask for it?’

  ‘Dunno. State it’s in, it’s not worth much, but there’s the land. Some clever developer could probably get permission to convert the barns, do up the house, three hundred K, probably.’

  ‘I could buy it.’ In my excitement, I nearly stood up.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I could. Oh, not quite yet, but …’ And then the story of my grandfather’s legacy came tumbling out, mixed-up words and confused sentence structure, but he got the point.

  ‘Wow. Four hundred and fifty thou. You could buy this place, do it up and still have change.’

  ‘And I want to. Honestly, Cal, not as a favour to you or anything, but I love it here. The atmosphere and the space, the fields. I can grow my herbs and maybe keep the goat. No, I’ll get a house cow, plenty of stabling for the kids’ ponies. Best of all, you can keep visiting. You needn’t feel that you’ve lost the place forever.’

  ‘You’d do that?’ There was that bright intensity in his eyes again, that tight, concentrated look I’d seen outside.

  ‘Yes, of course. You could even keep your equipment out there in the barn if you wanted.’

  A sharp glance. ‘Willow, it would be better if you forget you saw any of that, all right?’

  I made a hurt face. ‘Why? What were you doing, calling the mothership?’

  Cal shook his head again slowly, but all he said was, ‘Are you done in that bath yet? I’m beginning to disintegrate here,’ and left the room, leaving me with the similarly coloured cooling tea and bathwater.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I didn’t tell Luke about the kiss. Hell, I didn’t even tell Katie. Although I did give Katie and Jazz a highly comically embellished version of events regarding the goat and a hush-hush outline of my plan to buy the white house once my money came through. The kiss was too casual to mention and might have given rise to some awkward questioning, so I simply pretended it hadn’t happened and everything carried on as before. Luke and I continued to date, Flint continued to plague me with wafting around the house and laying maps on every flat surface and Ash continued not to return from Europe.

  Eventually the lack of forward motion got to me.

  ‘Do you think we should set a date for the wedding?’ I asked Luke.

  ‘If you like. I thought we were going to wait until the flat was all okay first. But, no, if you want to get the date sorted, that’s cool.’

  We were sitting beside a moorland stream. I was dabbling my feet in the water while Luke watched. He’d taken his shirt off and the sun outlined his muscles, giving his skin a tawny glow. He looked like a young lion with a decidedly predatory gleam in his eye.

  ‘It’s not that I’m bothered, as such, just, people are asking. And the sooner we have a target date the easier it will be to organise.’ That’s what it said in the latest edition of Bride anyway. It was advice of the month.

  Luke shrugged. ‘You do know that I need to get the business up and running properly, don’t you? Before we kick off the married thing?’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘And that the flat is taking time.’

  I knew that, too. Luke was dealing with all the paperwork and there were, apparently, glitches in the purchase because it was a new building. I wasn’t too worried, still hugging the potential of Cal’s house to myself. The flat would be an ideal base for us in town, but the white house was where I wanted to live.

  ‘So, you want to settle on a date. That’s fine with me. It just might have to be a fairly long engagement, until things are definite.’ Luke took an apple from the basket of food I’d brought and bit into it firmly. I pretended not to notice the lascivious way he licked the juice from his fingers while looking at me.

  ‘Twenty-first of October,’ I said spontaneously.

  ‘Aw, are you sure you wouldn’t rather have a summer wedding? All outdoorsy, you like that sort of thing, don’t you? We could have it on the lawn somewhere.’

  ‘It’s nearly June now. There isn’t really time.’

  ‘I meant next summer.’

  ‘Oh.’ Now, why on earth should that disappoint me? I wanted the whole shebang, the big dress, the big party, hopefully a hen weekend somewhere insalubrious. It was traditional, wasn’t it? When he’d said a long engagement, I’d been thinking three months. A year would be much better, give me ages to plan, to go through all the brochures, to pick just the right dress and slim into it. I knew he wanted to marry me, so why did I need to hurry things? ‘All right, next summer. Twenty-first of June. We can have a solstice wedding.’

  ‘Very New-Agey.’ Luke threw the apple core into the stream. ‘Now, come over here and show me what other New Age tricks you’ve got.’

  As we made love, I found my mind wandering. The twenty-first of June. Well, by then I’d have enough cash to make sure things went with a bang. I shivered underneath Luke, who mistook my anticipation of money for sexual frenzy and redoubled his efforts to drive me deeper into the soft peat beneath us.

  Afterwards he sat up, panting, and flicked his hair from his eyes. ‘Bloody hellfire, woman, you are fantastic in the sack, do you know that?’

  Gosh. ‘Am I?’

  ‘Oh, wow, yeah. It’s so great to have someone who throws herself into it, not always fussing and nagging. Sorry. Don’t mean to compare you with past girlfriends, but …’ He gave a whistle. ‘Yeah. You’re hot.’

  ‘I’m hot,’ I announced to Katie and Jazz when we met up the following evening. ‘It’s official.’

  ‘Thought I could smell something,’ Jazz said into his pint.

  ‘Of course you are.’ Katie handed me my drink. ‘Never doubted it for a second.’

  ‘And I’ve got something to show you. Got it today.’

  ‘Syphilis?’

  ‘Jazz! No, look.’ Slowly, tauntingly, from my pocket I withdrew the shiny silver object that Luke had driven over to give me that afternoon. ‘It’s the key to our new flat. And anyway, can you show someone syphilis? Isn’t it sort of invisible?’

  ‘Until your face falls off.’ Jazz took the key and turned it over on his hand, like an insect. ‘So. When are you moving in? You and Wonder Boy?’

  ‘Not for a bit. I’m really hoping that this money from Ganda’s invention will turn up soon, so that I can get the finances sorted out for the other house and then spend the rest on the flat and the wedding.’

  ‘Is Luke not paying for any of this?’ Katie asked carefully. I was a bit sensitive to suggestions that Luke’s and my financial situation might be a little lopsided.

  ‘Well, yes, obviously. He’s put the deposit down on the flat and he’ll be contributing to the wedding. The house of Cal’s, that’s private, that’s mine.’

  ‘I thought you already gave him some more money for the deposit on the flat.’ Jazz was still turning the key over and over. ‘And for his business.’

  ‘Yes, I did. It was only another sixteen thousand, we had to get the deposit down before someone else did. But, come on, what is this? Luke and I will sort it all out between us. At the moment I’m the one with the big cash income and he’s still setting up the business, but in the future’ – like when I’ve stopped work to have babies and to wander through orchards in flowery dresses – ‘then he’ll be the one with the money. Things work out, Jazz, in relationships. Not that you’d know, of course.’

  There was a communal in-suck of breath. ‘Bit near the mark there, Wills,’ Katie said.

  ‘How come my love life is fair game for the two of you and yet I’m not even allowed to mention Jazz’s total lack of success with anything female. Hell, even the cat left him after a week.’ I rounded on Jazz, jumping to my feet and catching my knees on the underside of the table so that drinks slopped about all over the surface.

  ‘We worry about you. Jazz is quite capable of looking after himself.’

  ‘And by implication I’m not?’

  ‘The difference between us is that I know what I want.’ Jazz mopped at his spilt beer with the sleeve of his jacket.

  ‘Oh, great. So now I’m incapable of looking after myself and indecisive?’ I gathered my things together. ‘Thanks very much, guys.’

  Katie caught my arm. ‘Will, sit down. We’re not having a go at you, we’re just telling as we see it. From our perspective things seem to have moved incredibly quickly and, yeah, it’s a fantastic coincidence that you met Luke again, and it’s wonderful that you’ve come into this money and everything, but we want you to be sure that you’re doing the right thing.’

  ‘Bullshit. You think he’s after my money. Look, how many times do I have to point out that Luke didn’t know I had any money when we met. Hell, I didn’t know I had any money. Luke isn’t like that anyway. He’s sweet and he loves me and we’re going to get married and we’ve set a date and I was going to tell you, but now I’m not even sure that I’m going to invite either of you because you’re horrible to me and I’m going.’ The three of us eyeballed each other for a moment, or at least Katie and I eyeballed. Jazz raised his eyes ceilingward and mouthed ‘bloody women’, then we all burst out laughing.

  ‘You can’t not invite me,’ Katie said. ‘I have to be the one in the pictures who makes you look all thin and gorgeous.’

  ‘What, you mean like I was at your wedding?’

  ‘Yep. I have to wear something so bright that it strobes, and have a fat face with a horrid headpiece which makes me look like a hamster in a wig. ’S obligatory.’

  Jazz grinned. ‘And I have to look sensationally shaggable so your new husband gets all jealous and punches me.’

  ‘Gosh.’

  ‘Yeah. He has to break my nose or it’s not a proper wedding, apparently.’

  ‘Ooh, ooh!’ Katie bounced and squeaked. ‘And I have to be caught in a compromising position with the best man. So if you could steer Luke to pick someone who’s good-looking, or at least doesn’t smell, I’ll be grateful.’

  ‘I didn’t get caught in a compromising position at your wedding.’

  ‘No, but you did get my grandma stuck in the toilet. That counts.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ I collected my bag and jacket. ‘I’m glad we got that sorted out. Now I really am off home. Luke and I are going to Cornwall this weekend and I want to pack.’

  It was a tiny fib, not even that, more a fibbette. I did want to get home and pack, but first I wanted to go and investigate the new flat. The key shone virgin in the evening sunshine as I fitted it into the lock and pushed the door open. Inside, the late light sliced in over the balcony and fell just so on the spot where I planned to put the intended Italian leather sofa. Mocha, a nice practical colour I could liven up with throws. I wandered around the rooms, much as an artist might walk around a blank canvas – potentially, an iron-framed bedstead just here and some light gauzy curtains over these windows. Then I went out to stand on the balcony to watch the last of the natural light drain from the sky. Luke was right. It was a fantastically central, wonderfully appointed, fabulous investment. It just didn’t feel as though it would ever be my home.

  As I walked back across the river, I felt a familiar sense of potential hanging over my head. This usually meant the return of my twin – I’ve explained to you already, haven’t I, that Ash and I have the twin-unspoken-communication thing, although neither of us wants it – and, sure enough, there was the red Yamaha slouched in the front garden as though it had never been away. Proving, however, that away had very much been the case, was the rucksack left pointedly by the washing machine. One undone strap gave us a view of grey lycra, like an overweight and grubby stripper flashing her underwear. Farther into the house, Ash was sitting on the kitchen table with his feet on a chair, holding forth to Flint on the beauty of Slovakian architecture, smoking a joint and spinning a beer bottle top in a saucer.

  ‘How long have you been back?’

  ‘Nice to see you, too.’

  ‘Sorry. Hello, brother dear. How was your trip and how fucking long have you been back?’

  ‘That’s better. Just since this morning. Flint tells me you’re going away? With a man? God, I can’t leave you alone for a moment, can I? Who is he, then? Anyone I know?’ He looked at me through a cloud of blue smoke, eyes narrowed, doing Lauren Bacall for all he was worth.

  ‘No. His name’s Luke.’ This was as much information as Flint had and I didn’t feel up to giving them any more. ‘Why did you tell me Cal was gay?’

  ‘And who the hell’s he?’ Flint asked.

  ‘Friend of Ash’s. You met him a couple of weeks ago.’

 

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