Lots of Love (40 page)

‘And line people up against them to shoot them if they wind me up.’

‘Come in out of the rain.’ He stood back, laughing now, delighted by his unexpected visitor. ‘You’re soaked through.’

‘I’m fine out here.’ Ellen felt safer in the garden. She hopped back a few paces and balanced herself with her bare toes. ‘This won’t take long. I’d have brought your friend badger back, but he has a sore throat.’

‘You what?’ He creased his forehead, stepping out into the rain.

‘I can’t believe you could do something so foul,’ she raged. ‘Why, Spurs? What have I done to offend you?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘The sodding great badger carcass that I’ve just hauled off my car bonnet, that’s what. And the gift-tag. Nice touch.’

The rain was easing off again, jewelling Spurs’ black curls and speckling his grey T-shirt to match his freckled face. The silver eyes watched Ellen as she hopped around the grass like a furious fairy who’d burned her toe with her magic wand.

‘And you think I have something to do with it?’ he asked eventually.

‘Of course you bloody did – Pheely told me all about the crow milk-round you once made, just as she told me about the horseshoe. You really should vary your routine.’

‘Interfering
bitch
!’ he exploded.

Ellen gasped, taking a few stumbling hops back. ‘What did you say?’

‘Interfering bitch,’ he snarled again, eyes darting furiously. ‘You can’t deny it. You should keep away from her. You should keep away from me, come to that. You should never have fucking well come here, turning me inside out and giving Pheely an excuse to get her cauldron out.’

Ellen couldn’t speak. She seemed to have forgotten how to breathe too.

‘What?’
he snapped, taking in her white face.

‘I didn’t believe it was you,’ she breathed eventually. ‘Even coming here to “confront” you I was fooling myself because I just wanted to prove it
wasn’t
you. And it was. Oh, God, it was.’ She clasped a shaking hand to her mouth.

‘It
wasn’t
me!’ He charged up to her, so livid that the veins leaped from his skin like cobwebs as he spoke. ‘How many times? It wasn’t me! I’ve changed. I don’t do things like that any more.’

Looking at that beautiful, corrupt face, Ellen was reminded of the parable of the boy who cried, ‘Wolf!’, only in Spurs’ case it was ‘I’ve changed’.

And she so wanted to believe him that it hurt like a body-blow. She cast her eyes to his hand, remembering how she had taken it in hers and almost lost consciousness because of the force that had exploded through her. She had never been so attracted to anyone in her life. Even now, certain that he would wilfully terrorise her because she had let him down, she was shot through with longing. But he was a stranger, she reminded herself. Their few hours together meant nothing compared to her thirteen years with Richard, and the chemical combustion between them was far too life-threatening to analyse. To look into the flames would blind her. Self-preservation took hold.

‘I just want you to leave me alone,’ she said.

‘My pleasure!’ He held up his arms and took a step back.

Ellen stumbled back too, looking up at his molten eyes.

‘What do you think I’ve been doing all week?’ he yelled, backing away still further. ‘You’re the one who’s come here to crawl under my skin again. Believe me, you are so much better not knowing me. Go play with your Ken-doll boyfriend.’

‘He’s not my boyfriend!’

‘Sorry. My mistake. Call me old-fashioned. You’re fucking him, therefore I assume he’s a boyfriend. What would you prefer? Lover? Playmate? Re-bounder?’

Ellen couldn’t stop the punch of recognition that winded her, bringing pleasure with its pain. He was jealous. He was jealous!

‘What bloody business is it of yours who I sleep with?’ she breathed.

He didn’t answer, eyes gleaming furiously.

‘I haven’t fucked Lloyd.’ She squared up to him. ‘But that doesn’t mean you can lob dead wildlife on my bonnet just because some jumped-up estate agent happens to offend your precious pride by calling you a gypsy.’

‘Jesus! Read – my – lips. It wasn’t me!’

‘And read mine.’ She turned away and pointed defiantly at her bottom. ‘I don’t believe you.’

But before she could walk away, he grabbed her shoulders, twisted her round and glared down at her. ‘I am so – SO – glad that Touchy Pheely popped by last weekend to ask all about your sordid night with Ken-doll. To think I almost mistook you for someone I could trust. Someone who could have fallen from the sky, she was so different.’

‘I did fall from the sky,’ she howled, wriggling frantically. ‘You happily dared me to do it. I could have been killed.’

‘I was trying to mend that sodding great hole in your heart.’ His fingers dug into her skin.

‘You weren’t interested in mending holes; just accessing them.’

‘You were the one who wanted to jump. You wanted to fly away, with your fairy wings on your back.’

‘I guess I flew too close to the son of a bitch.’

‘And I had no idea you were after another sort of jump entirely.’

‘Bastard!’ She fixed her eyes on his.

‘Bitch!’ He locked back on target.

But they were no longer arguing. Their mouths moved closer together, not caring what words were being uttered through them.

‘I love—’

‘I hate—’

‘I love—’

‘I love—’

‘I hate—’

‘You . . . you . . . you . . . you . . .’

Lip slammed lip, body slammed body, bones clashed, muscles played washboard friction and fingernails dug hard into leaping skin. Mutual mistrust, desire and adoration conspired as they kissed, freefalling from their ivory towers.

When Ellen felt the blow against the back of her skull, she thought at first that Spurs had coshed her. She was vaguely aware, as she slumped forward under the impact, that whatever had hit her smelt bizarrely of oranges, before also realising that she wasn’t falling over as expected.

Woozily, she sagged in mid-air, head throbbing, held up by Spurs’ tight grip on her shoulders, wondering how he was planning to finish her off. That’s when it occurred to her that he couldn’t have hit her at all – both of his hands were stapled to her shoulders. They had been all along.

Pressing her face into the crook of his neck and moaning because it smelt like home, she passed out.

When she opened her eyes again, she was lying on a very wet bench on her own in the manor garden. She groaned and felt around her pounding head, exploring carefully for open wounds and splintered skull but, apart from a disappointingly small bump, there was no evidence that she had been crowned by an evil manor burglar streaking away after looting Hell’s Bells’ remaining silver.

Moments later, Spurs appeared from behind the yew-tree curtain.

‘They’ve scarpered.’ He was clutching a Hooch bottle, catching his breath from running. ‘Thank God you’re all right.’ He crouched down beside her, taking her hand. ‘Does your head ache? Is your vision okay?’

‘Did you go for a takeout?’ she asked blearily, as she tried to focus on his bottle. ‘Nice of you to hang around and make sure I was still alive.’

He watched her face with concern. ‘Are you feeling groggy? I’ll drive you to Cheltenham General – ambulances take hours round here.’

He was rubbing her hand now, his fingers against her knuckles, sliding up to her wrist and stroking his thumb against the soft skin beneath it. Ellen watched for a moment, mesmerised by his sudden gentleness.

‘God, I’m so sorry.’ He pressed his forehead to her hand. ‘It shouldn’t have happened.’

‘You weren’t the one who hit me over the head.’

‘I wasn’t talking about that,’ he breathed into her fingers, wet hair tickling her arm.

Still dazed, she wondered what he was talking about. Instinctively, she reached out her other hand and stroked his damp curls. For a moment his whole body seemed to relax, yielding into the caress. Then he jerked back his head. ‘We’d better get you checked over by a doctor.’

‘I’m fine – I don’t need to go to hospital,’ she insisted, standing up and battling not to sway, noticing as she did so that Spurs was still holding the bottle. ‘I’m not a big Hooch fan, thanks all the same. I thought one was supposed to have hot sweet tea at times like this.’

‘This is what hit you. It came over the wall.’

She went cross-eyed as she studied at it, watching the bottles multiply. ‘Makes a change from ten green ones.’

‘Or talking to a brick one.’ He sighed, put the bottle on the bench and straightened up.

‘Eh?’ She blinked a few times.

‘I didn’t leave the dead badger.’ He pulled his hair back from his face. ‘I swear on my life.’

‘Of course. The badger. Shit.’ Ellen started to feel nausea grip her belly, her head throbbing painfully. ‘I’m going home.’

Spurs moved closer, watching her face worriedly. ‘You look bloody pale. You have to come inside and sit down for a bit, at least.’

‘No, I don’t.’ She held her head with one hand and the back of the bench with the other, waiting for the garden to turn the right way up again. ‘I take it that was intended for you?’ She nodded at the spinning bottle.

‘Probably just kids – with the pub so close, we’ve always had a lot of empties hurled in. Mother thought about employing a potman at one time, before the money ran out. Are you really okay?’

‘I’ll live.’ She was peering groggily at her bare foot, trying to remember where her shoe had gone. Then, it all flooded back – the badger with the cut throat, tramping across fields in the rain, throwing her shoe, the heated argument, the kiss and then the knock-out. She swayed as she remembered that they had kissed. How could she forget? She couldn’t trust herself. She had to get away and lie down.

‘May I hop you home?’ He offered his arm.

Now unable to look at him, she shook her spinning head. ‘I’d rather have my trainer back.’

‘Then come inside and fetch it.’ Spurs made to take her hand and steer her towards his door.

Ellen took a nervous hop back.

‘Don’t worry, I’ve already gift-wrapped the dead weasels and hedgehogs ready to deliver in the morning,’ he muttered. ‘There’s a fallow-deer carcass on the coffee table, but I can cover it with a tea-towel.’

‘It’s not funny.’

He laughed softly. ‘Ellen, I wouldn’t dream of frightening you like that. Not you, the woman I love.’

‘Cut out the love crap.’ She took a few deep breaths, fighting to find a place where the world would stop spinning.

‘Would you like me to cut my heart out and leave it on your bonnet to prove it?’

‘It’s so small, I’d probably drive off without noticing it.’ She forced herself to look up.

His eyes moved between hers, silver linings to black clouds as his pupils stretched wide in the darkness to take in every feature on her face.

And suddenly Ellen realised that the world wasn’t about to stop spinning. However many bottles hit her on the head, her life would keep revolving while he could make her feel like this just by looking at her.

‘Fuck off back to where you came from, Belling!’

Ellen and Spurs both spun round to see several more bottles sail over the high wall towards them.

‘Get down!’ He pulled her out of the way, tucking her under the crook of his arm and deflecting one with his back.

‘You should have been left to rot in prison, you murdering bastard!’ yelled a voice from the lane, followed by the sound of running feet.

Pressed hard against his body, Ellen could feel Spurs’ angry breaths punch air in and out of his lungs. She glanced nervously up at him. ‘Kids?’

He swallowed, and gazed at the shattered glass where one bottle had crashed on to a stone path.

‘I don’t want you to have anything more to do with me,’ he said suddenly, standing up.

‘What?’ She rubbed her head and struggled to her feet, too.

‘You heard. I want you to keep your distance.’ He stared at her, his face in shadow, his voice hard. ‘Don’t try to see me again before you leave. We agree to forget about the auction lots. You’d be better off if we’d never met.’

‘Why?’

He let out a hollow laugh, turning away from her. ‘I knew coming back here would mean facing a whole new punishment. And now that my life sentence has been passed, I find something I’ve been searching for all my useless life. If there is a God, I hope he’s bloody well cracking up.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ Ellen asked, her arteries flooded with a heartbreaking wave of rushing blood – the biggest tube she’d ever surfed through, sweeping her off her high horse, her board and her wet feet.

‘Just do as I say, Ellen. You need me like a hole in the head.’ He started walking back towards his kennel flat.

‘At least tell me why.’ She stumbled after him. ‘What do you mean by “life sentence”?’

‘Go away, Ellen.’

‘No! Tell me what’s going on.’

‘What do I have to do to make you leave?’ he stormed, turning back to her.

‘Tell me what you were going to say on the night of the storm. Tell me the truth.’

He stared at her for a long time, his eyes unblinking. Then he shouldered the black door open. ‘Don’t glorify this with any great significance, Ellen. You were right all along. I only ever wanted to fuck you. Then I found out that the estate agent had already dropped off a deposit and I withdrew my offer.’

‘You don’t mean that,’ Ellen gasped.

He closed one gleaming eye. ‘Oh, I do.’ As the door opened, spilling light past him, his face disappeared into shadow. ‘You’re not that hot.’ With that, the door closed.

Ellen saw red, not even thinking before she started screaming at the door, ‘Yeah, and I’m going round the world as soon as I leave this dumbass backwater!’ She hopped rabidly on the spot. ‘So you can just fuck off and play with your dead badgers, you twisted bastard!’