Midsummer Magic (22 page)

Mike looked as if all his Christmases had come at once.

‘Right, erm, okay,’ he began, voice squeaking (perhaps he wasn’t as confident as he appeared), ‘I thought we could start with …’

Josie wondered what she should do. She still hadn’t sorted out the mess in her head about Harry and the wedding yet, and wasn’t quite ready to find him. She sat down instead. This could be fun, she thought. May as well stay and watch.

Ant felt very strange, sitting here with Di. Something about the intimacy of putting the dock leaf on her leg had sparked something. Regret? Maybe … Why had he let her go all those years ago? Till their split, he’d thought her the best thing that had ever happened to him. Yes, he knew the reasons she’d given him later, but why had he never told her how he’d felt about it?
Because she never gave you a chance
. The thought came unbidden, and he realised it was true. Suddenly he wanted her to hear him out, as she hadn’t all those years ago.

‘So go on, now we’re alone, answer the question I asked you last night,’ he said.

‘What question was that?’ said Diana, looking uncomfortable.

‘Why you hate me so much,’ he said. ‘You do realise you never actually told me.’

Diana rolled her eyes.

‘You’re bringing that up now?’

‘Why not?’ he said. ‘It’s the first time we’ve had a chance to properly talk all weekend. You never gave me the chance before.’

‘Maybe I don’t want to talk,’ said Diana.

‘And maybe I do,’ said Ant.

‘Why? What good will it do? It’s a long time ago. We were in love. You were a bastard. End of story.’

‘Because it was good, wasn’t it?’ he said softly. ‘I’m not making that up. At one point I thought …’

A memory sprang unbidden into his head, of having brunch with Di and looking across the table at her and realising how very lucky he was. It hadn’t just been good; it had been amazing.

‘Well, you thought wrong,’ said Diana, savagely ripping out his memory. ‘Look, what is this? Do you want to make amends for what you did? You had your chance. It’s too late.’

‘That’s the thing, though,’ said Ant. ‘I’ve never known what it was that I did wrong. As far as I knew everything was fine, and then you ditched me in front of everyone. It was humiliating.’

‘Humiliating? Humiliating?’ Diana practically screamed. ‘I’ll give you humiliating. Ant, I lost our baby all alone in a foreign hospital and you weren’t there. It wasn’t just humiliating, it damn near broke my heart.’

Ant felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. Despite what Diana may have thought of him, he still felt the pain of that loss, though over the years he’d buried it deep.

‘But at the time I didn’t even know you were pregnant,’ he protested. ‘And it was my baby too.’

‘And when I came out looking for you, there you were, cosied up with Sian. All those messages I left. And you never came.’

He heard the catch in her throat, and instinctively leaned over to touch her. But she shook him off and got up.

‘You broke my heart, Ant,’ she said, getting up. ‘And I don’t think I can ever forgive you.’

‘What messages?’ said Ant, puzzled, to her departing back. ‘I never got any.’

‘Okay,’ said Harry, after they’d gone round in circles for the tenth time. ‘Admit it, you’re just as lost as I am. Have you any idea where Freddie is?’

‘Can’t get a signal on this damned phone,’ admitted Bron sheepishly. ‘The only thing it’s good for at the moment is as a torch.’

‘You won’t get one up here,’ said Harry. ‘I think there are only about three places in Tresgothen that you can get a signal. I swear one of them is on my in-laws’ roof.’

Possible
ex
-in-laws, Harry corrected himself. Auberon was putting a lot of faith in Freddie’s skills, and what if he got it wrong again?

‘I think we should try going downhill,’ said Harry. ‘We keep heading upwards, and I really don’t fancy tumbling off a cliff in the fog.’

‘Good idea,’ said Auberon.

They found a path that Harry didn’t think they’d taken before, and wandered down it before it gave way and opened up towards a clearing, at the edge of which a gate attached to a stone wall lurched out of the fog.

‘Aha!’ said Harry. ‘I do believe that’s the theatre. Isn’t that where Freddie was headed? Josie seemed determined to go there.’

‘With any luck,’ said Auberon.

‘With any luck, what?’ said Freddie, who was leaning against the wall looking nonchalant. ‘Shh, I’ve got Will in there, secretly recording Tati and that Slowbotham fellow. It’s hilarious.’

‘Sorry?’ Harry was confused.

‘Another little unexpected bonus of the project,’ said Freddie with a mischievous grin. ‘Bron has a long-running feud with Tati which goes back into the mists of time. We thought we’d have a little fun with her while she’s here.’

Bron looked a tad uncomfortable when Freddie said this. ‘You won’t be too unkind, will you, Freddie?’

In the dim recesses of his mind Harry seemed to remember his mum going on about how Bron and Tati were like the Taylor and Burton of light entertainment. He could even vaguely remember how distraught she’d been when their relationship had ended for good. ‘It’s so tragic,’ she’d said, ‘those two are star-crossed lovers if ever I saw them.’

‘Do you know if Josie is in there?’ said Harry. ‘I have to see her.’

‘Hold your horses, mate,’ said Freddie. ‘This requires very careful handling. I think the best way to do this is if we go back to basics. I put you under again, and we’ll start from scratch.’

‘And Josie won’t be angry with me anymore?’ said Harry. He wondered if this actually was the best way to resolve their differences; there was the small matter of him wanting to go travelling to sort out.

‘Can guarantee it,’ said Freddie, ‘don’t you worry about a thing.’ Harry just had to hope he wasn’t crossing his fingers behind his back.

Diana strode away from Ant in a blind fury. She was shaken, rocked to the core. Why had Ant had to go and bring that all up again? She’d just about coped with seeing him this weekend by blanking out all the really bad stuff, but having him bring it up again had really shocked her. She’d worked so hard at forgetting, hardening herself up, never letting herself get too close to anyone, and now … With a few words he’d ripped away those barriers. She felt pathetic, but the gentle way Ant had touched her leg had awoken something in her, brought her back to the time when they had been into each other.

Back then, she remembered now, she’d woken every day to a fuzzy world of blissful imaginings. A world where every day she’d known she would meet Ant, that Ant (or Tony as she’d known him then) was in her life and all was right with the world. It hadn’t even been all about the sex either – though that had been fantastic, which was a new experience for Diana at the time. But there had been something more. Every time she saw him, she’d felt dizzy with delight that he was hers and that she was his. Every hour spent away from him had been an agony; every reunion sweeter than the last. And then, like the greenest girl in the world, she’d fallen pregnant and her world had collapsed.

She’d tried to tell Ant, the night they’d been tobogganing together, but the moment had passed and then she hadn’t known how. A further two weeks had elapsed, when she and Ant had been so busy working separate shifts there’d barely seen each other. Thinking about it now, Sian had been in charge of the rotas. She wondered if?– no, surely Sian hadn’t been that devious?

And then on the evening she’d planned to tell Ant, she’d started bleeding. No one else knew about the pregnancy, Diana had hugged her secret to herself, not wanting anyone to know till he did. Frantically she’d tried to get hold of Ant, but he wasn’t at his chalet, and she remembered too late that he’d agreed to do a late shift. She told Sian, sure that she would pass the message on, and then gone alone in a taxi to the hospital, where they’d confirmed she was losing her baby. Sian had offered to come with her, but at the time, Di had been so desperate for her to find Ant, she’d begged her to stay and look for him.

She’d stayed overnight, waiting and waiting for Ant, certain he would have got away, and come to find her in her hour of need. But he hadn’t come, and she’d sat in her wretched hospital bed, sobbing and alone. It was the greatest betrayal of her life, and part of her had never got over it.

And when she’d been discharged and got back, there was a text saying
You OK Babe? Missed you earlier. Bar later?
She’d left her phone at home in her hurry to get away.

So she’d gone to the bar, and he’d been with Sian. The full force of that betrayal and the sense of loss she’d had that evening hit her again. She’d marched straight up to him, tipped beer over his head and vowed to never let another man hurt her like that again.

Ant had tried to get in touch, but she refused to see him. She’d assumed that he’d got her messages, and couldn’t be bothered to come. And that knowledge had kept her hatred of him burning long. But tonight for the first time she had doubts. ‘What messages?’ he’d said. Maybe he hadn’t received them after all.

Ant was also lost in the past. He had been so shocked that night when Di had poured beer over his head. He’d had no idea what had happened. That poisonous cow Sian had been whispering sweet nothings in his ear – not that he’d been in the remotest bit interested in her. But Sian seemed to have been always there, drip-feeding him stuff for weeks about how Di was changing shifts to avoid him; feeding his insecurities about why a girl like Di would be with someone like him. And when Di had ditched him, Ant had assumed it was true, she’d never loved him. Like an idiot, rather than sorting it out with Di straight away, hurt pride meant he’d fallen straight into Sian’s arms, as no doubt Sian had always intended. By the time he’d found about the miscarriage from a message Diana later left on his answerphone (Sian had never once mentioned it) it was too late. Diana wasn’t answering his calls and refused to see him. She’d left soon afterwards to go back to the UK, and so had he, and he’d put her out of his thoughts ever since.

And the baby. He’d tried not to think about the baby. If it had lived it would have been seven or eight by now. Instead of the self-indulgent life he’d lived up until now, he’d have been a dad – been responsible. Normally the thought terrified him, but tonight it made him feel sad. It was a long time ago, but the thought of what might have been was heartbreaking. This evening, something inside him had changed. Despite insisting that Freddie de-programme him, Ant suddenly felt he was taking the easy way out. He’d ruined Di’s life all those years ago, albeit unintentionally. Till tonight, he’d had no idea she’d tried to contact him before she went to hospital, believing instead she hadn’t wanted to have anything to do with him. No wonder she hated him.

And thanks to his idiocy in pushing this hypnotism thing, his best friends had fallen out. He needed to go and make sure that Freddie was really making things better. And he needed to make his peace with Di. After all this time, he owed her.

‘I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again:

Mine ear is much enamoured of thy note …’

Tatiana was really getting into character, and to her surprise, Josie was enjoying the performance. She was very good. A shame she’d never had the chance to prove it. Josie found herself hoping that this could actually be her comeback to the theatre world. She only prayed if Mike managed to put on the play he didn’t elect to play Bottom himself. He was dreadful. As Tatiana lay languidly back, he pawed over her, and was blurting out ‘Methinksmistressyoushouldhavelittlereasonforthat. Andyettosaythetruth –’ before Tatiana stopped him and said, ‘Maybe we should run that through one more time, a little slower, perhaps, with pause for feeling.’

Mike’s response to pausing for feeling was to take such long pauses between words that Josie was liable to nod off waiting for the next sentence. She was giggling to herself about this when there was a tap on her shoulder.

It was Freddie Puck.

‘I feel responsible,’ he said.

‘What for?’ said Josie.

‘For everything that’s happened tonight,’ he said. ‘It’s my fault that you and Harry have had a row.’

‘It’s okay,’ said Josie. ‘I think I might just need some space away from him. Maybe we rushed this marriage thing.’

‘Oh, bugger, much worse than I thought,’ said Freddie, ‘Time for you to find your safe place again. I’m going to snap my fingers and you’ll fall asleep, and when you wake up the first person you meet will be the one you love.’

Josie stretched sleepily, and lay against the seat in the theatre, feeling cosy and warm. Over her head, she could hear Auberon saying anxiously, ‘Isn’t that a bit risky? Suppose she doesn’t see Harry straight away?’

‘Shh, I know what I’m doing,’ said Freddie. ‘Now let’s leave her and go back to Harry, just to make sure he is the first person she sees when she wakes up …’

Josie stretched herself languorously on her seat. It was turning out to be a strangely entertaining evening. She dozed off, and was soon dreaming. She and Harry were in the woods dancing. It was lovely, she felt all happy and floaty. Then she turned, and there was Diana, coming towards her. Oh, good, she’d had a feeling they’d fallen out, but here she was smiling. ‘Oh, Diana,’ said Josie, giving her a hug. ‘I’m so glad we’re friends again …’

Slowly, she became aware of someone shaking her.

‘Oh, Josie,’ Diana was saying, tears pouring down her cheeks. ‘I’ve been such an idiot. I’m so sorry. I’ve let you down so much. You’re my best friend in the world.’

Josie sat up, feeling bewildered.

‘Di, it’s okay, sweetie. You’ve got nothing to be sorry about. You know I love you.’

‘And I love you too, Josie,’ said Diana. ‘Are we still mates?’

‘Of course,’ said Josie. And leant forward and planted a smacker on Diana’s lips. ‘I’ll love you for ever. You’re my one and only.’

‘You what?’ Diana was stunned. Had she heard what she thought she’d just heard? As Josie leant forward to grab her, she realised she had.

‘Gerroff me, what are you doing?’