Damage (5 page)

She started to walk, and Tommy fell into step beside her.

“You ever wonder what we missed out on?” he said. “By, you know, not being
us
any more?”

Almost every day. That kind of
what if
never quite goes away.

“Sometimes. You’re always going to wonder, aren’t you? We were together for a long time. One of us would probably be in prison on a murder charge by now, though.”

They laughed.

“Manslaughter and a sympathetic judge and you’d probably be out on bail by now,” said Tommy. “Can’t say I wouldn’t have deserved it.”

“We were kids, weren’t we?”

Sixteen and in love. The only important thing in your life at the time. You’d never believe anyone that you might look back on it all and laugh. Not just laugh, though: you would never lose those memories, those moments.

Right now, Holly had to fight the urge to take his hand. It was a nostalgia thing, she knew. She never wanted those memories to fade, even though they were both different people now. She liked that those memories were of a good guy like Tommy and not regrets over bad choices.

“You’re quiet.”

“Sorry. Miles away.”

“That guy. At the Hall. He didn’t do anything, did he?”

The kiss... the feeling of his body against hers, his hard hands encaging her head.

“No. Nothing. It just didn’t work out.”

The cottage was at the end of a small terrace of laborers’ homes that belonged to the Estate. Golden Cotswold stone, window boxes spilling over with lobelia and pelargoniums, thickly thatched roofs; their lives were wrapped up in chocolate-box imagery.

Holly paused, and glanced at Tommy, suddenly awkward. His smile set her at ease. “It’s okay,” he said. “I know your awkward-silence face when I see it. No big deal, okay? Maybe we could meet up for a drink sometime and catch up. It’s been far too long.”

Then he leaned in, gave her a quick, strong hug, and backed away.

She felt stupid for allowing that moment of awkwardness to surface.

“Yes, let’s do that, Tommy. I like this. I like having you as a friend.”

Saturday was changeover day at Bank Cottages, and even this late in the season one of the lets had holidaymakers leaving this morning and a fresh set arriving in the afternoon. Holly set to with gusto, and finished in good time. Cleaning holiday lets wasn’t exactly a career-choice of hers, but she’d done enough of clearing up after other people that it never really fazed her any more.

When she was done, she headed for home, walking briskly. It was another of those brittle autumn days, a pale blue sky with wispy veils of white, a breeze with a bite to it and a crisp freshness in the air.

Heading back through the village, she was just about to cut across the green when she saw the familiar lone figure, leaning on a walking stick as he stooped to pick something up from the ground. A tennis ball. He straightened, threw it, and Alfie the red setter burst out of the bushes and charged off in pursuit.

Holly cast her mind back, but she couldn’t recall ever seeing Nicholas Blunt out here on the village green before.

He spotted her and dipped his head, as if he was about to doff a cap.

“I thought I might see you here,” he said.

What an odd thing to say. She had no reason to be here at this particular time, other than that she was walking home after one of her casual jobs.

“You’ve been waiting for me?” She felt grimy, sweaty; she needed a good wash.

“That’s not what I said.”

Great. Off to a prickly, defensive start. Why did he have to react to everything as if it was some kind of challenge?

Just then, Alfie burst across the space between the two of them and Holly flashed back to their last encounter in the grounds of the Hall.

“Why me?” she said now. “You don’t even know me. Why mess with my head like that and then run away?”

He raised a leg and tapped at it with his stick. “I could hardly run anywhere, me.”

A smile, a joke at his own expense.

Those eyes never left her. Even when he dipped his head, or turned away, those pale gray eyes kept flitting back towards her like a moth to a flame.

She let the silence stretch so that eventually he spoke into it. Instead of answering her question, he said, “I figure you’re owed an apology.”

Even when he apologized he did so defensively, distancing himself from the words.
You’re owed
rather than, simply,
I’m sorry
.

“I am?”

“Look, I must owe you some money, or something. I don’t know how these things work.”

“Surely you’ve sacked a cleaner before?” Then, softer: “It’s okay. I get paid by Karen. If you owe any money it’s between you and her. She’ll make sure you know about it if you owe anything. And I’ll tell you this much: I wouldn’t cross her, if I were you.”

“I’ve sacked all kinds of people before. But I’ve never...” He stopped, shaking his head as if trying to dislodge something from his skull. “I knew this was a mistake.”

He had planned this encounter then. He
had
been waiting here for her, either on the off-chance she would pass or because he somehow knew her schedule for the day.

“I’ve got to go,” she said. “I’ve got another job.”

Lunchtime at The Bull, and she still had to shower and change.

She made as if to step past him, but he moved sideways, blocking the way. “I came here to apologize,” he said. “Why does it have to be so hard?”

“Listen, Mr Blunt. I don’t know what’s going on here, but I think we should draw a line under it, okay? You go your way and I’ll go mine and we’ll forget all about it. Okay?”

Then: a finger, touching lightly under her chin so that she tilted her face up towards him.

She thought he was going to kiss her again, and in that instant she didn’t know whether her anger would melt away or if she would slap him, hard, across the cheek.

And then the moment had passed and he was stepping backwards, turning away, calling to Alfie as he went.

Standing there in the middle of the village green, her heart thumping, she watched him go.

She didn’t know whether she should feel flattered or stalked. Didn’t know whether that was genuine arousal she felt, or a fear thing, a fight or flight thing.

She realized then that she already knew the answer to her question:
Why me?
Sure, he didn’t know her, but then she didn’t know him and still she could respond like this. She didn’t understand it, she didn’t know what these feelings were or what they might signify, but the response itself was powerful, undeniable, almost overwhelming. If he even felt half as much, that answered the whole
Why me?
thing.

§

“So what happened? Did he try anything? I saw the way the two of you were flirting. I haven’t seen you like that for years, Holls.”

It was after midnight. Holly had stayed late at The Bull, and now she was curled up in her bed, the duvet pulled around her like a second skin and her phone pressed to her jaw.

For a moment Holly was thrown by Ruby’s question. Did
who
try anything?

“Oh
Tommy
,” she said. “No, not at all. He was very sweet, actually. We haven’t chatted like that in ages. I’ve hardly seen him for the longest time.”

“You think you two might, you know, give it another go?”

There had been moments on the Friday evening when it would have been so easy to just slip back into how things had been. When she’d briefly put her hand on his wrist to interrupt him. When she’d realized they’d been talking forever and the evening was flying by. When he’d walked her home and been so understanding, everything so easy with him.

And that just confirmed that they must never do that. If you can think of a relationship in terms of a favorite old jumper, or a pair of comfortable slippers, then that’s really not a good thing.

“It’s not all about sex, Rube.”

“No? Well that’s not my experience. If a guy ever says that to you, next thing you know he’ll have his hand up your top.”

§

The next day was Sunday and she was serving at The Bull, and she could so do without this. She could do without Tommy going all intense and possessive on her. She’d thought he was past all that.

“I saw you,” he said. “With him. The guy from the Hall.” Tommy leaned at the bar, pint in one hand. There was something in his manner all of a sudden, something different and on edge.

“What?” said Holly. “When?” Then: “So what? He’s just a client. You don’t need to be so protective, okay?”

He had that look in his eye again. She hadn’t seen it for years, but now it took her right back. This was more like the old Tommy, the bottled up, brooding Tommy. It had been too much back then, back when everything had seemed so much more real, more
important
. A world of exaggerated Technicolor emotions. It had been a part of the complex set of reasons why they’d broken up.

But now his features shifted, relaxed, and he smiled, the moment past. It had only been a hint of the old him, no more.

He really had changed. Grown up.

“You just didn’t look too pleased,” he said. “I wanted to be sure you’re okay.”

Holly smiled back at him, and felt a tightness in her chest easing, as if someone had undone a belt around her rib-cage. “Thanks, Tommy. It’s all okay, though. The guy fired me and then felt a bit bad about it, that’s all.”

“Okay,” he said. “But if you ever need to turn to someone for help, I’m here.”

“Can we talk?”

“Later, Dad? Okay? I’ve got to dash.”

He knew today was mad for her. A full day at uni, a rush for the bus, quick change at home and then out for the evening looking after Karen’s kids. She’d got it down to a fine art, off the bus and into the shower inside a minute, except on those days when her father was standing there in the hallway, a bunch of envelopes in his hand and an expression on his face like...

“What is it, Dad? What’s up?”

She hadn’t seen him looking like that since the worst days after they’d lost her mother.

“I... Can we talk?”

§

He made a pot of tea, found biscuits, fussed over the tea-cups, and all the time his eyes never met Holly’s.

Finally, he sat opposite her at the kitchen table, the tea poured, the biscuits arranged on a small plate.

“What’s up, Dad?”

He still wouldn’t meet her look. Instead, he reached for the pile of letters and pushed the top one towards her. A plain white envelope, the address printed on the front, a local post mark.

“The Estate?”

“Says something about a review of assets,” her father said, finally.

She picked up the envelope and peered inside.

“An
eviction notice
? They can’t just do that. We’ve been here years. They can’t just kick us out. Where do they think we’ll go?”

Then she looked more closely at the letter.

“How many months...?”

Unpaid arrears.

It had become an untenable situation.

No alternative.  

Phrases kept leaping out at her.

Thirty days from the date of this notice.

“Dad. Oh,
Dad
. Why didn’t you say something?”

It was his only thing. The one responsibility he clung onto. He would always put a roof over their heads. It was the man thing, the father thing.

Holly worked all hours, paid most of the bills, bought and cooked the food, but it had always been her father who had used his investments from the days he had been a successful businessman to at least pay. The. Damned.
Rent
.

“Oh, Dad.”

She glanced down at the letter again, and that was when she saw the signature.

The Estate. Half the village was owned by the Estate, and it was all part of the Hall.

That name.

Nicholas Blunt.

§

“What is it, hun? What’s the matter?”

She’d put a brave face on it, tried to get on with things. She’d left her father with his pot of tea, and now she stood at her cousin Karen’s door, trying desperately not to cry.

“What’s happened?”

It was no good. It just burst out. One moment she was standing there, and then she was in Karen’s arms, sobbing her heart out. All of it in one big flood. Everything that had built up over the last few days.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, into her cousin’s shoulder. “I...”

Karen shushed her and held her, and eventually the heaving sobs began to ease.

“It’s him,” Holly said, finally able to talk. “Blunt. Up at the Hall.”

“He shouldn’t have fired you,” said Karen. “I told him that, and I charged him your hours for the rest of the week.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s... he’s kicking us out. Dad hasn’t been paying the rent and Blunt’s kicking us out, Karen.”

§

“So what do you want to do about it?”

Karen had skipped her evening class, refusing to leave Holly when she was so upset. Harry and Beth were in the front room with a DVD and freshly popped corn, and Karen and Holly were at the kitchen table with big mugs of tea.

“What
can
we do? They’re kicking us out. Dad hasn’t been paying the rent. The letter said we’re seven months in arrears.”

“They can’t just kick you out like that,” said Karen. She was a small woman, easily overlooked, but she had more fight in her than an angry bulldog when she got set off the wrong way. “There are laws about eviction. You need to call Citizens’ Advice, talk to one of their lawyers. You’ve lived in the village all your life, you’ve been in that cottage over four years – you have rights.”

Holly couldn’t focus. Her mind kept leaping from thought to thought. Karen had already offered them one of the holiday lets for as long as they wanted. “It’s off season,” she had said. “There’s always room outside the summer.”

“He tried to kiss me,” Holly said now, mug raised in two hands, as if she could hide behind it.
Tried to
. He’d more than tried to.

Karen’s eyes narrowed. “Is that all he did?” she said. “Or did he do anything more? We’ll have the bastard.”

“No, just that,” said Holly, hurriedly. “I stopped him.”

“You think that’s why he’s evicting you? Just because you gave him the brush off?”