Lovers and Newcomers Page 3

  ‘I’m really, really sorry,’ the girl muttered. ‘He wanted to take my dog, you know?’

  ‘Watch out,’ the barman said, arriving with a cloth and a dustpan. The girl mopped up the puddle as he swept the debris away. Colin ruefully examined his wet ankle, shaking off the tinkly remnants of broken glass.

  ‘Shall I, like, mop you up as well?’ She made some flapping movements with the dingy cloth. Colin took a folded white handkerchief out of his pocket and did the job for himself.

  ‘It’s all right. No permanent damage,’ he said, sounding pompous in his own ears.

  ‘Really? You’d better let me buy you another drink, though, since the last one went in your shoe.’

  Colin sat upright and looked at her. She was no more than eighteen, with a pretty, monkeyish face. Her open top showed the upper tendrils of a tattoo extending above her right breast. She smiled suddenly at him, and Colin smiled back.

  ‘Just a half,’ he said.

  ‘Right. What was it?’

  ‘That one,’ he pointed. The dog watched with its ears pricked as she bought two halves and carried them back to the table.

  ‘There you go. Can I join you? Just split with my bloke, haven’t I? Mind you, that’s no great loss. He’s a disaster. This is Rafferty, by the way.’ The dog’s tongue fell out of its mouth. ‘And I’m Jessie.’

  ‘Colin,’ Colin said. ‘Sorry about the boyfriend.’

  ‘Uh, well. There’s not a lot of choice round here, that’s the thing. It’s make the best of what there is or DIY, if you get me.’

  Colin laughed.

  ‘So, you on holiday?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Colin said.

  Jessie took a packet of Golden Virginia and some Rizlas out of her pocket and began to construct a roll-up. ‘It’s all right,’ she pre-empted the barman’s protest. ‘There’s no law against making a fag, is there? I’m not going to smoke it in here.’

  She turned her attention back to Colin. ‘So?’

  ‘I have a friend, some friends, who live near here. I’m just visiting. For a few days, maybe longer.’

  ‘Where’s that, then?’

  ‘Mead House. Do you know it?’

  Jessie turned down the corners of her expressive mouth and wagged her head from side to side.

  ‘La-di-dah.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s posh for this part of the world.’ She gave a quick cough of laughter, and at the same time checked out Colin’s shoes and watch. ‘Dead posh. You should see the places that aren’t. Open your eyes a bit, that would.’

  ‘Do you live in, uh, Meddlett?’

  ‘Yup. Born and bred. And Damon.’

  ‘Damon?’

  ‘Him.’ She jerked her head to the door.

  ‘Why was he trying to take your dog?’

  ‘He did belong to both of us. Me and Damon’re living together, right? Rented a place off this bloke who was going abroad, and we got the dog as well, the same time, from a dogs’ home. Made us seem like a family. But the bottom line is he’s mine. Raff knows it, Damon knows it. He was trying it on, just now, that’s all.’

  Jessie raised her chin, but Colin could see that she was on the verge of tears. Rafferty pulled himself forward almost to throttling point in order to rest his jaw on the corner of her knee. He rolled his eyes upwards and Jessie stroked his head.

  ‘Can’t stay with us, Raff, can he? He’ll have to find himself somewhere else to live. Fucking loser,’ she muttered.

  ‘What do you do, Jessie? Have you got a job?’

  She sniffed. ‘Yeah. Course. I’m not one of those scroungers. I’ve been on the casual all summer, since I left sixth-form college. Cleaning. You know, holiday lets and that. End of the season, now, though. I could go on the agricultural, but that’s mostly for the foreigners. Have to think about uni, won’t I, next year? Now me and Damon are finished.’

  ‘That sounds to me like a good idea.’

  He was becoming quite the embodiment of pomposity, Colin thought. He glanced at his watch. Somehow it was now twenty minutes to nine. They had finished their drinks while they were talking.

  ‘Yeah, I gotta go too,’ Jessie said at once. She stood up abruptly and detached Rafferty’s lead. ‘Night all,’ she called loudly to the other customers. Four pairs of eyes watched them as they filed out.

  In the car park, Colin took a deep breath and gave thanks for the fact that he hadn’t tried to buy them both another drink. It was a long time since he had consumed even two pints of beer.

  ‘Nice talking to you,’ Jessie muttered.

  He noticed that there was a full moon behind the tall trees that lined the car park wall, a pale disc floating behind branches and stirring up memories.

  ‘Can I give you a lift anywhere?’

  Jessie was grinning as she considered him. ‘We-ell. Don’t suppose you’re going to jump on me, are you?’

  ‘No.’ Not you, or anyone else.

  ‘All right. It’s the same way you’re going, anyway.’

  Jessie sat beside him with the dog pressed between her knees. They drove in silence, down an empty road turned pewter by the moonlight.

  ‘Just in here,’ she said abruptly, after a mile. The car nosed into a break in the hedgerow barred by a lopsided gate.

  ‘Know your way from here, do you? It’s another mile, then stone gateposts on the right.’

  ‘Yes. I’ve been there before.’

  ‘See you around, Col.’

  The dog bounded out, followed by the girl. Jessie vaulted the gate, the dog squeezed between the lower bars, and they both vanished into the darkness.

  When he turned the corner in the drive, Mead was a blazing patchwork of light that dimmed the moon. Colin sat for a few minutes and stared at the yellow windows, watching as figures passed back and forth inside. It had turned cold under the crackling stars and he shivered.

  Miranda was standing outside the dining-room door as he slipped into the house. She wore her hair in a neat silvery bob but now there were strands sticking out all over her head, and she had the look of just having recovered from laughing very hard.

  ‘Here you are at last,’ she exclaimed to him. ‘Thank goodness. Why’s your phone turned off? We were about to send out a search party.’

  ‘I guessed you might,’ Colin said.

  She kissed him, her mouth rubbing against his, her hands cupping his face.

  ‘Darling, you’re freezing. Come on, come and get warm. Have you eaten? Amos wanted us all to play Sardines. For a moment it looked as though we might have to, but things have moved on.’

  ‘I was held up, sorry I’m late. What’s going on?’

  ‘Fun.’ Miranda tilted her head back so that she could look squarely at him. Her eyes were brilliant. ‘It is, you know. Remember? I didn’t expect getting together to be quite so lively.’

  ‘Good,’ he said simply. ‘That’s a really good start.’

  She took his hand, lacing her fingers through his, and drew him into the dining room.

  ‘He’s finally arrived.’

  Four faces turned at once. Colin had the momentary, disconcerting sense of having slipped back into another time.

  These people were not the same age as he felt; they were not medically ravaged or disappointed in love or grown cynical in the wake of too much compromise. They were students, sprawled and giggly and careless. He blinked. The difference was that the empty bottles on the table had held champagne, the crumbs scattered between the place settings were Stilton and oatcakes and the smoke was from Amos’s cigar. But there was a glitter in the air that was even more startling, a mineral sparkle that was nothing to do with the candlelight or Katherine’s earrings. Dust was not settling; currents of anticipation set the motes whirling. The room felt charged, as if a single spark might ignite a blaze.

  Selwyn leaped up and spread his arms out wide.

  ‘Never trust anyone over seventy, Col.’

  Polly left her seat and came to Colin’s side,
wrapping an arm around him and dropping her head on his shoulder.

  ‘Don’t listen to him. We were just talking about the old days. How are you feeling? Are you well?’

  Polly always emanated warmth and ease, not just because of her rounded haunches and broad, well-fleshed back, or her apparent happy security within the solid defences of her body. Unusually, and unlike Amos, her cleverness didn’t make her impatient. She listened and remembered and so her sympathy could be depended on, but she was also clear-sighted and wasn’t afraid to be brisk, or even truthful. She was the member of the group with whom Colin felt most comfortable. If he loved anyone, in the objective and unspoken and theoretical manner that was all that was left to him nowadays, it was Polly Ettridge.

  ‘I feel fine.’

  Looking from Polly down the length of the table, to the faces and the backdrop of old furniture and folded dim curtains, he realized that he really did feel fine. Now that he had actually arrived at Mead.

  He found his way to a place at the table end. Miranda placed a dish of blackberry tart with ivory clots of thick cream in front of him, with a wineglass of champagne. Colin had a sweet tooth. He attacked the pudding and then took a swig of champagne. He brandished the glass.

  ‘Here’s to the big Mead adventure.’

  ‘Jake would have enjoyed this, wouldn’t he?’ Miranda said.

  In their different ways, in the small pool of silence that followed, each of them acknowledged his absence. The scale of it, the absolute way that Jake had left them, had gone and died, was made harder to contemplate because they were so alive tonight.

  After a moment Colin asked deliberately, ‘What stage are the plans at now? Fill me in.’

  Amos sat back in his chair. He described how the new house would rise on a sloping plot of land hidden by a belt of trees to the south-west of the house. It was to be uncompromisingly modern with impeccable green credentials. The last adjustments to the plans, to meet the requirements of the local authority planning committee, were now in progress. Building work, Amos announced, would soon be starting. In the meantime, once the move up here was completed, he and Katherine were going to make a temporary home in the one-time holiday wing at the back of Mead.

  ‘We need to be right here. Keep an eye on the contractors,’ Amos said.

  There was a collective shifting in seats, another change in the glittering currents of air as no one mentioned the real reason why Amos was leaving London and his chambers.

  Katherine thoughtfully broke off a piece of oatcake and bit it in half. She was the only one who had changed before dinner, into an amethyst silk shift dress. Anything that plain and unadorned, Miranda reckoned, must have cost well into four figures.

  ‘We’re looking forward to it. Living in a holiday cottage will be like being on holiday,’ Katherine laughed.

  Selwyn nodded. ‘Maybe it will.’

  Miranda listened to his deep voice rather than the actual words. She knew what Selwyn’s plans were. From now on Polly and he would be living here too. They were going to do most of the work on the derelict wing themselves. She didn’t doubt Selwyn’s ability to tackle the job, or Polly’s willingness to assist him.

  Selwyn had read medicine at university, but he had never completed his clinical practice. He had moved to Somerset instead, to a ramshackle cottage, where he set up a business buying, restoring and reselling antique furniture. Over the years, as the supply of undervalued old gems in need of a French polish seemed to dwindle, he had gone into buying timber and making furniture himself, and once Polly had given up academia and joined him they had run the business together. Polly wrote historical biographies in the short hours that were left to her between the furniture business and bringing up three children.

  Miranda never knew precisely how successful or otherwise their enterprises had been, but it was no secret that they had never had any money to spare. The Somerset house and the workshops had finally been sold, and they had bought their piece of Mead from her.

  Selwyn flexed his chisel-scarred fingers and grinned. ‘I’m busting to get started.’

  That was obvious enough. The undischarged electricity that flickered in the room seemed to crackle about him, just as it had done when they were young.

  Miranda looked across at Colin, inviting him to take his turn.

  ‘I’ll monitor progress and supply strong drink when required. When I’m not working I’ll stay if and when Miranda lets me.’

  Colin was a theatre set designer. Mostly he worked in London, but sometimes a job took him to Italy or New York. Unlike the others he was not planning to move to Mead for good. Miranda leaned over and covered his hand with hers.

  ‘There are nine bedrooms in this house. Be here with us as much as you can,’ she implored.

  Colin needed to be with somebody, after everything he had been through. They all thought that, not just Miranda. And if not with them, then whom?

  ‘Thanks, Miranda. Here I am.’

  Selwyn had fidgeted and twitched through all the talking. Now he tipped back half a glass of red wine and jumped to his feet.

  ‘Sitting for hours makes my back ache. Where’s the music, Mirry?’

  ‘Next door.’

  He bounded through a set of double doors, dragging the white loops of earphones and a black iPod out of his pocket. Ten seconds later music crashed out of the speakers.

  ‘C’mon, let’s dance,’ Selwyn hollered.

  They groaned, but left their seats. It was ‘Baba O’Reilly’.

  Selwyn kicked back a rug to expose dusty oak floorboards. They launched into the dance, laughing and kicking out their arms and legs and swinging their buttocks, without the embarrassed scorn of the Knight boys or Selwyn and Polly’s son and twin daughters to inhibit them. The Who were succeeded by Pink Floyd.

  ‘Haven’t you heard of the Arctic Monkeys, Selwyn?’ Amos shouted.

  ‘No, and neither have you.’

  Katherine, flushed and beaming, was jiving with Colin. As always Amos missed every beat but made up for it with general enthusiasm.

  Watching the dancing, her nervous anticipation melted into delight at the success of the first evening, Miranda noticed that there was no wine left on the table. She thought of the remaining bottles of Bollinger in the fridge in the pantry and slipped out into the hall to collect one or two of them. A narrow passage behind the stairs, lined with coats and cluttered with wellingtons, provided a short cut directly to the pantry. She didn’t need to switch on the lights, she knew every creak underfoot and every draught on her cheek, so she swore softly when her ankle connected sharply with a suitcase that Amos had brought in and left there. As she stopped to let the pain subside there was a rustle and a darker shape moved against the darkness.

  It was Selwyn. She knew the scent of him before he reached for her, before his lips touched her ear.

  ‘You are beautiful, Barb. You’re so fucking gorgeous tonight, I don’t know where to put myself.’

  ‘And you’re pissed, Sel.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  Even though it was pitch dark Miranda could see the lines of his profile. Through the muffle of waxed jackets and tweed caps she could hear pairs of feet thudding to the beat.

  ‘You didn’t always think I was gorgeous.’

  There was a ripple of amusement in her voice.

  ‘Oceans of water have flowed under more bridges than there are in Venice, since those days,’ he protested.

  He kissed her and she responded with a sharp intake of breath that seemed to catch in his throat.

  ‘Stop it,’ Miranda breathed, but they still hung together. He ran his fingers over her throat, down to the open buttons of her top.

  She did move then, forcing herself to duck under his arm and skip away to the kitchen. He followed her, into the bright lights and the debris of cooking.

  ‘Take a couple of those bottles through for me?’

  ‘Amos has had quite enough already.’

  ‘So have you,’ sh
e countered.

  In the drawing room they were still dancing. Miranda was relieved that no one had missed them, even though all that had happened was a kiss exchanged by friends at the end of a long evening.

  Everyone is asleep.

  I could just hear the low rumble of Amos talking to Katherine as they undressed, but that stopped a while ago. Selwyn and Polly will be under the bedcovers, oblivious too. I imagine them spooned together, breathing in unison, Selwyn’s dark face crumpled up against her dimpled shoulder.

  Amos will be wearing pyjamas, Katherine a nightie, but Polly and Sel will sleep naked. I remember what that felt like, the safety of interlocked bodies, the balm of skin against skin.

  None of my business.

  I hope Colin is sleeping too. He looks brittle with illness and exhaustion. Maybe Mead will soothe him, if he will allow it to.

  These thoughts dance a gavotte around the other. How long since I was kissed, like Selwyn kissed me tonight?

  A long, long time.

  The lingering heat of that kiss makes me restless.

  I cross the room, lean on the windowsill and gaze out. The moon has gone but over the crowns of oak and beech I can see stars. Tomorrow will be another warm day.

  The house settles around me. No – around us.

  As my mother encouraged me to do, I reckon up my blessings. This is what I have.

  Mead, my husband’s house, now mine. I love it as if it were a living thing, even its dilapidation, multiplying outbreaks of decay, creeping damp and splintering bones.

  Now friends have arrived bringing our cargo of history, jokes, secrets. Beyond price. A future will unfold here on these acres of Jake’s, shared by people he loved. We have different, complicated reasons, each of us, for investing ourselves and our hopes in Mead for this new beginning, but I believe the outcome will be shared happiness, and security, for all of us. Why not? Age at least brings the benefits of wisdom, mutual tolerance, which we did not possess when we were nineteen, for all our beauty and optimism.

  But I’m getting sentimental.

  That’s new, as is the realization that I can’t drink the way I used to.

  The two things are, of course, quite closely connected.