Me and Mr Jones (20 page)
She closed that thought quickly, as if slamming a door shut.
Not going there
, she told herself firmly.
Don’t even think about it.
She got back into her car and then, feeling like a mug, drove slowly all the way down the road, eyeballing each and every house. Then she stopped and parked again, staring closely at one with a copper-beech tree in front of it and a dusty Volvo on the drive. This was it – the Larssons’ house. Yes, she was certain of it.
For reasons she wasn’t altogether sure about, she found herself jotting down the number, her fingers shaking. And then, at last, she pulled away and went to solve the terrible problem that had arisen with Jennifer Salisbury’s curtain tie-backs. The trivial nature of the task was oddly comforting.
‘Anyone home? Hello-o?’
It was early evening and Emma had just stepped into Mulberry House, bags in hand. She could smell fresh paint and glanced around appreciatively. Wow. Busy, busy. In the two weeks since she’d been here the shabby old reception area had been cleaned up and decorated, and now appeared infinitely less like a cave of gloom.
David appeared in the doorway. ‘Hey!’ he said warmly. That smile of his was enough to dissipate some of the tension she’d felt on the journey. It had been a strange day.
‘Hiya,’ she said, hugging him tightly and breathing in his lovely familiar smell, in the hope it would see off the memories of Nicholas still lingering around her subconscious. ‘How’s it going? Looks great in here.’
He kissed the top of her head. ‘It’s going really well. We’ve got so much done! The chalet is actually going to be habitable soon.’ He let go of her and kissed her properly, tenderly. ‘It’s good to see you again. I’m sorry about last time.’
‘Me too,’ she said. Her knees turned liquid as he kissed her again, long and slow. This was what she’d been missing.
‘Oh! Emma, it’s you. I didn’t hear the bell,’ came a familiar voice. Was it Emma’s imagination, or were Lilian’s lips actually puckering in disapproval at the sight of her precious son with his arms around another woman?
I’m his wife
, Emma found herself thinking, hackles rising. Then she took a deep breath. ‘I didn’t ring, the door was open, so I . . .’ Her spirits were sinking with every word. ‘So I just came in,’ she finished.
‘Oh,’ Lilian said, evidently unimpressed by this display of bad manners. Anyone would think Emma was a member of the family or something. ‘Got to get on anyway,’ she added, before busying off again towards the kitchen.
Rude, rude, rude.
Not even a
hello
, or a
come in
, or
would you like a drink
, or
how was your journey?
Not even a
Thanks for sparing your husband for the last four weeks, I’m sorry if this has inconvenienced you at all
. That would be the day.
She tried to return to the happy place she and David had been in just moments before the interruption: the kissing, the holding, the smile in his eyes . . . but it was too late, her mood had curdled.
‘Let’s take this upstairs,’ David said, heaving up her weekend bag. ‘We’re in number six this weekend – the other rooms are either being decorated or booked out.’
Oh, great. Bedroom number six was right next to Lilian and Eddie’s bedroom. If oodles of baby-making sex was to be on the agenda this weekend, they’d have to be extremely discreet.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way
, Emma thought grimly, following her husband up the stairs. And visions of Lilian, or indeed Nicholas Larsson, would not distract her for a single second.
She quickened her pace as she remembered that there was, at least, an en suite in the bedroom. ‘I wouldn’t mind a shower,’ she said, in what she hoped was a seductive purr. ‘I feel kind of . . . dirty after the drive.’
She had an eyebrow arched suggestively, but David was fiddling with the key in the door and, for a moment, she wasn’t sure he’d heard. But then he grinned. ‘Dirty, eh?’ he said, pushing the door half-open, so that she had to press against him to enter the room. ‘Come to think of it, I’m feeling dirty too. Mind if I join you?’
Mind? She’d practically stripped naked by the time it took him to shut the door. ‘Be my guest,’ she murmured, setting the water running.
Sex in the shower had never been Emma’s favourite place but, hell, a quick one to serve as a starter suited her just fine. Besides, after missing last month’s ovulation opportunity, she needed to make up for lost time. She planned to ravish her husband every single chance she got. The only small snag was that, immediately after he’d come inside her, the tiles cold against her back, water pouring over her gasping face, she just wanted to be on the bed, bottom up, thighs taking the strain as gravity helped guide the plucky sperm on their way to victory. She did not want to be standing upright in a shower, letting all the little fellas drain down her inner thighs.
‘That was great,’ she said, extricating herself carefully from his grasp.
Hang in there, little swimmers, hold tight!
Then she threw a towel on the bed and dived onto it, stark naked and sopping wet, lifting her bum up in the air, as she’d been advised by all the fertility websites. Would a conception-assisting headstand be too much? she wondered. Hell, why not – anything was worth a try, she thought, launching herself into an ungainly upside-down position.
‘What the . . . what’s going on? Don’t you want to wash your hair or . . . ?’ David was leaning out of the cubicle, looking confused. Then he clocked her contortions and his face sagged slightly. ‘Oh, right,’ he said, without a great deal of enthusiasm.
‘Sorry,’ she said with a smile, hoping he’d see the funny side, but he vanished back into the cubicle, and then all she could hear was the sound of running water for a while. She rested her feet against the wall, suddenly feeling cold and exposed and extremely self-conscious. It would be different once she was pregnant, she reminded herself, the blood draining to her head. It would all be worth it.
This weekend they were sharing Mulberry House with a whole new bunch from the odd squad. There was a young couple down for a sailing weekend, who had the poshest accents Emma had ever heard. There were two elderly sisters, Joan and Nora (or Moan and Borer, as David rather meanly christened them), who seemed to lurk around every corner of the garden, waiting for an opportunity to show off their horticultural knowledge. Then there was a family of four – two adults who were down for the True Light Christian Conference in Weymouth, and their decidedly ungodly teenage sons, who had already faced the wrath of Lilian for smoking out of the bedroom window.
After a smoochy early-morning bunk-up (with another sneaky headstand afterwards while David was in the bathroom), breakfast on Saturday morning reminded Emma of a social experiment that had gone badly wrong. Moan and Borer had plonked themselves down at a table with the Hoorays and were earnestly quizzing them about the bedding plants they were planning for the forthcoming summer. ‘Terribly chalky soil in your neck of the woods,’ Moan (or was it Borer?) kept saying authoritatively. ‘You’ll never grow a decent rose in chalky soil, you know. Don’t even think about geraniums!’
‘Scabby potatoes too,’ Borer (or perhaps Moan) added, like the Gardener of Doom.
‘They don’t want potatoes in their
flowerbeds
, dear,’ Moan chided.
‘I was just
saying
, dear!’ said Borer.
‘We were thinking a Zen garden, to be honest,’ Mrs Hooray said. ‘Lovely white gravel, a fountain, a meditation zone . . .’
‘Oh Lord,’ said Moan. ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking, dear?’
‘Yes,’ said Borer. ‘One giant litter tray for all the local moggies. Bad idea, darling. Bad idea.’
Meanwhile, over on the other table, the Christians were saying grace – well, the adults were anyway. Their teenage offspring, dressed from head to toe in black, were rolling their eyes and muttering, ‘For fuck’s sake,’ to each other.
Emma couldn’t help a smile as she walked through to the kitchen. The more awful the guests, the better as far as she was concerned – just extra ammunition in her attempt to bring David back home again.
Unfortunately, despite this latest collection of nutters, David didn’t seem in any hurry to leave Mulberry House, as she soon found out. Emma had brought along details of various houses for sale in Bristol that she was keen to view, as well as two job ads she’d clipped out of the newspaper, but he barely gave them a second glance.
‘Things are going really well here,’ he said, as they headed into Lyme for the afternoon. ‘All the returning guests love the new decor, and we’ve already had some people rebook for next year. We reckon the holiday chalet will be ready to let soon too – Charlie and I are about to start decorating inside now.’
‘You’re taking bookings for
next year
?’ Emma said. ‘Isn’t that a bit . . . ?’ She frowned out of the car window. ‘What if your parents decide to sell up? I mean, they definitely want to move out, right?’
He glanced at her sideways. ‘It’s an ongoing business, though,’ he replied. ‘And if they do end up selling, then any new buyers will be pleased to have bookings in the diary.’
‘I suppose.’ She paused. ‘Anyway, listen, if neither of those job ads I brought grab you, I was wondering: have you considered setting up as a freelance architect? I had to call one in the other day, and it made me think – well,
you
could do that, couldn’t you? You must have loads of contacts, and—’
He parked down by the Cobb and cut the engine. ‘Em . . . Just let me do this for now, yeah? I’ve got my hands full with the B&B.’
She gritted her teeth. ‘Yes, but for how much longer? It’s getting ridiculous. I feel as if we’ve split up, like I’m not married any more. You haven’t been home for weeks!’
He was looking out at the sea, his eyes far-away. ‘I know, but . . .’ He shrugged. ‘It’s complicated. They need me right now. I can’t leave just yet.’
‘They need you?
I
need you, David! I’m your bloody wife, remember!’
He sighed. ‘I know. I’m sorry. It’s not exactly ideal.’
‘You’re telling me!’
‘But that’s just how it is at the moment. Okay?’
It was not okay. It was many miles from okay, and if Emma hadn’t been counting on at least three more shags before the end of the weekend, then she might have pursued the argument and said so. Instead she nodded. ‘Okay,’ she said, putting a hand on his. ‘I just miss you, that’s all.’
He turned his hand over and squeezed her fingers. ‘Me too,’ he said. ‘Enormously. Like you wouldn’t believe.’
They got out of the car and she breathed in lungfuls of briny air. With a bit of luck she’d be pregnant by Sunday and then –
then –
she’d have the best reason of all for forcing him home.
From:
[email protected]
Re: Babies
Hiya,
Hope you don’t mind me emailing. I was just wondering: when you got pregnant with your three, did you feel different very quickly? I’ve got another week before my period’s due, but I’ve just got the strangest feeling that something’s going on. I keep needing the loo, and I haven’t been able to stomach breakfast for the last few days. I don’t want to get my hopes up too high, but. . . !
Love Em x
From:
[email protected]
Re: Babies
OOOH! How exciting. Yes, I did feel different very quickly each time. I swear I even felt the implantation of Raffy and Matilda, both about a week after conception. Can’t explain it – just a strange sort of twingey ache. And yes, I think you do ‘just know’ sometimes. Keep me posted anyway. Crossing my fingers for you.
Lots of love
Alicia
PS Just a week until Paris now. Whoopee!!
Chapter Seventeen
A few days after Hazel spoke to Gary on the phone, Izzy and the girls came home from school to discover that they’d had a visitor. An egg had been thrown at one of the windows and a handful of dead flowers dangled from the letter box. Izzy went cold all over. She actually thought she might faint right there on the doorstep. Violence and peace offerings within seconds of each other – it was Gary all over. Had to be.
Her heart thumping, she rushed the girls through the front door of the building and locked it. Then she hurried them up the stairs and into the flat, sliding the new bolts across and locking the mortice once she was over the threshold. She checked the window locks, then pulled all the curtains across, her breath coming in short, harsh gasps as if she’d been running. Shit. SHIT. She should have known it was too good to last. She’d been expecting something like this ever since the call. It looked like he’d tracked them down at last.
She held on to the kitchen table, trying to breathe deeply. There were brick walls around them now; he couldn’t get in.
Do you understand, Gary? You’re not coming in, however much you huff and puff.
