Nothing to Lose (46 page)

Mind you, she thought drowsily, snuggling into the seat and being hypnotised by the swish-swoosh motion of the windscreen wipers, it was going to be almost impossible to keep Cair Paravel a secret for much longer. The Frobisher finalists would be announced in the national press in the morning, which would mean that if his ownership was revealed, Martina would fire her by lunch time, and Seb would evict her before tea.

The following evening, Martina drummed her talons on the top of the bar and looked furtive. ‘A whole week off? Middle of Feb? It’s very short notice. Why?’

April, who was still rather shaky, shrugged. ‘I haven’t been feeling very well lately. I could just do with the break. ’

‘You’re not pregnant, are you? I can’t have bar staff who are pregnant.’

April laughed. That was one thing she was sure of. ‘I’m definitely not pregnant. But you do still owe me some time off in lieu for New Year’s Eve.’ She held her breath here. So far, Martina had said nothing about the fact that she hadn’t finished her night’s work at the Frobishers’. April was pretty sure it had gone unnoticed. One waitress looked pretty much like another to Martina. ‘And I know you don’t like any of us taking time off in the middle of the busy season, with the build-up to the Greyhound Derby and all that.’

Martina tisked her tongue against her teeth. ‘Well, yes, all right. I’ll juggle the rosters. If I allow for two of the days being your rest days anyway, I’ll give you three days paid leave and two unpaid. Take it or leave it.’

‘Taken.’

Martina obviously felt she’d won that round. ‘Good. Now go and do some work.’

And April, her spirits soaring, wobbled off on another pair of shoes borrowed from Sofia, and started happily stocking the sparklers, twizzle sticks and umbrellas in their containers. Sofia and Antonio had already agreed to give her as much paid leave as she needed, and the thought of a few days beside the sea at Ampney Crucis, was just what she could do with. The Frobisher Platinum Trophy, and Cairey’s involvement, was something she’d think about later. The holiday was a definite – Cair Paravel’s victory wasn’t. And April had decided that she wasn’t going to bet on uncertainties ever again.

The finalists for the Platinum Trophy had been trumpeted in the
Racing Post
and all the sports pages of the dailies that morning. April and Jix had beamed at each other with parental pride at the inclusion of Cair Paravel’s name. As well as Bee being registered as his owner, they’d also used an anagram of their own first names as a trainer. So the identity of Cair Paravel, owned by Beatrice-Eugenie Padgett and trained by L. X. Piriaj, would hopefully stay a secret for a while longer.

‘April! A word!’

Martina, looking frazzled, was motioning from behind the plastic palm tree. April, pausing in slicing limes, slid her feet back into her shoes and tottered towards her. Please God don’t let her have changed her mind about the holiday. ‘Is it about my week off?’

‘Indirectly . . .’ Martina’s eyelashes were aquamarine tonight to match her body studs, and they flapped in agitation like the fronds of something more usually found in an Amazonian rain forest. ‘I’ve just pencilled you in on the leave chart, and Oliver informs me that he has given Jix the same week off.’

So? April thought. So?

‘Are you going away together?’

‘Yes, sort of. Well, not together as in a couple, but yes, we’re going to the same place . . . with Daff. You know, Jix’s mum? She doesn’t get out much and we thought – ’

‘It is company policy that the staff do not have relationships. Well, I mean, not with each other, so to speak.’

‘Oh, we’re not. We’re just friends.’ April floundered a bit, then went for the throat. ‘Did you say that Oliver was doing the leave chart? Isn’t that Sebastian’s job usually?

‘Not any more.’ Martina’s lips pursed themselves together in an angry pucker. ‘You might as well know that since New Year’s Eve, and the failure of Gillespies to secure the Platinum Trophy – not that we really wanted it, you understand – Sebastian has relinquished his seat on the board.’

So the rumours were true, then. ‘Oh dear – does that make things difficult?’

‘Not really. To be honest, his heart hasn’t been in it for some time. He’s having a rather late attack of adolescent itchy feet as far as I can gather. He just decided to up sticks, move out of his apartment, leave his job here and –’

‘Backpack around India? Work in Tesco? Tread grapes in Tuscany? Be a beach bum in Thailand?’

‘Christ!’ Martina’s eyelashes snapped fiercely up and down. ‘Nothing as irresponsible as that! He’s merely decided to go out on his own for a while, and gain some independence.’

‘So does that mean I’ll have a new landlord, then? With Sebby off the scene?’

Martina winced, as always, at the use of the diminutive. ‘Sebastian’s duties will be shared out among the other directors, yes. We’ll not be electing anyone new to the board – just in case he decides to come back. In this instance, the property side of things will revert back to Oliver. ’

Oh bugger, thought April.

‘He’s going to be checking up on all tenancy agreements, inspecting properties, you know . . .’

Double bugger. ‘So what’s Sebastian going to be doing, then?’

Martina preened. ‘Brittany, who will no doubt one day be our daughter-in-law, so it’s keeping it more or less in the family, has offered him a little job with Frobishers.’

Thank God, April thought. ‘Oh well, it’s always good to have a change, isn’t it? Will he be making beer or something?’

Martina frowned, looking as though she’d probably already been a bit too chummy with a subordinate. ‘No, it’s no secret that he won’t actually be working for the brewery. He’s down in bloody Ampney Crucis, masterminding the staging of the Platinum Trophy.’

Oh, double double bugger, thought April.

‘This is it, then. You can open your eyes now.’ Jix, who had insisted that April shut her eyes the minute they drove into Ampney Crucis, had switched off the van’s engine. ‘What do you think?’

April, expecting to be parked outside one of the villas along the main road, blinked.

The sea, rushing and crashing below them, looked like molten silver beneath the heavy sky. The wind whistled through the frost-bleached grass on the cliff top, and the strangely shaped trees, all leaning away from the sea, spread skeletal arms across the crisscrossed sandy paths. The Crumpled Horn and the Crow’s Nest Caff were just visible round a bend in the twisting shingle road, and several other cottages nestled in a rather higgledy-piggledy row on either side.

‘It’s a cottage . . .’ April stared at the little stone-built house, with its sloping tiled roof, and a holly bush hedge, and a tangle of gorse and heather and ferns in the garden. It was straight out of her dreams. ‘A cottage by the sea. Oh, it’s beautiful . . . Will there be enough room for us all to stay here?’

‘Three bedrooms, according to the brochure,’ Jix said, watching her face. ‘Two receptions, a kitchen and a bathroom. Loads of room.’

Bee and Daff and Cair Paravel were staring at it too. Cair Paravel had decided that as long as Daff wasn’t wearing floral polyester he didn’t want to savage her. Daff now spent most of her time in tweed.

April unbuckled her seat belt. ‘And the landlady knows about Cairey, does she? There’s not a problem with dogs? Or children?’

‘Not a problem at all. And there’s no landlady. We’re self-catering. ’

April wanted to laugh and cry with delight. ‘You mean we can pretend to really live here for a whole week? All of us? In a cottage by the sea? Oh, wow!’

They all tried to scramble out of the van at the same time, and eventually, with Bee clutching April’s hand, and Jix leading Daff, and Cair Paravel leaping between them, they negotiated the overgrown path and pushed open the cottage door.

‘It’s furnished like a proper home!’ April stood in the hall, gazing in complete rapture at the cosiness, it’s got a fireplace! And big armchairs – oh, and look at the kitchen! Oh, Bee, look – you can see the sea from the windows!’

She dashed away the tears. It was all far too much. This was the place she’d always dreamed of. Tomorrow, Cair Paravel may or may not win the Frobisher Platinum Trophy, but for the next seven days and nights she would be living in paradise.

Daff was busily unpacking things, bustling round the cottage as if she’d lived there for ever. ‘April, sweet – you look very pale. Leave Bee here to help me feed Cairey and get things shipshape, and you go and get a few lungfuls of that sea air.’

‘I ought to help you – ’

‘You’ll be more help to me when you’re feeling stronger. Now run along.’

April ran.

Once outside, she felt that she could run for ever. There were a few hardy souls striding along the shoreline, accompanied by dogs and children, all muffled against the wind. The Crumpled Horn was filled to the seams if the car park was anything to go by, and there were a couple of people visible down by the beach huts. Apart from that, Ampney Crucis seemed deserted. There was no noise except the rushing of the wind and the sea. It was invigorating and savagely beautiful.

April leaned against the railings, staring down at the slope of the cliffs and the wide white spread of the beach below.

‘Happy?’ Jix, wearing the leather jacket and the Doctor Who scarf with his velvet flares, leaned beside her. He was still carrying his rucksack. ‘Is this what you wanted?’

She nodded, unable to speak. All the anxiety and the humiliation and the worries seemed to be swept away in the vastness.

‘I know you’d planned to do this with Noah,’ Jix said quietly, ‘but it’s the best I could do . . . No, listen. April what have you always wanted? Truly?’

She stared out at the ocean. ‘You know very well. A family, a proper family, a proper home, to live in a place like this and feel that I belong to something, someone . . .’

‘You’ve got all that.’

‘What?’ She turned to look at him.

‘All of that. You’ve had most of it for ages. Me and Bee and Mum and Cairey – we’ve been your family. And now you’ve got the cottage by the sea.’

She smiled. ‘Yeah. It’s brilliant, but it’s not for ever, is it?’

‘It could be. If it’s what you want.’ Jix scuffed at the stubbly grass. ‘The cottage is a holiday home, available on a yearly lease. I’ve – um – made enquiries. If you’re happy with the rest of it, we could stay here and find work. We can both turn our hand to anything – and in a holiday place there’s bound to be loads of opportunities. And you left something out just now.’

‘Did I? I don’t think so.’ April was just allowing the rest of it to sink in. She’d wake up in a minute, she knew she would, and find none of this was real. ‘Jix – you mean, really mean, we could live here – all of us? No more Bixford or Copacabana or debt-collecting or Gillespies or –’

‘None of it. I told you, I’ve been saving for my dream too. I’ve got the van, and this is the rest of it.’

Biting her lip, she looked at him. The wind had whipped his hair across his face so she couldn’t see his eyes. ‘You said I’d forgotten something – what was it?’

He didn’t answer immediately. When he did, he wasn’t looking at her. ‘Love. You always said you wanted to spend the rest of your life loving someone who loved you in return. And no, don’t say anything – there’s this first . . .’ He swung the rucksack off his shoulder, undid the buckle, then handed her a parcel wrapped in holly-and-mistletoe paper, it’s my Christmas present to you. Because things were so shitty on Christmas Day, and because you and Noah were together, I didn’t – couldn’t – give it to you then.’

Tearing at the paper with icy fingers, April gazed at the purple box inside. She lifted the lid and was stunned into silence.

Nestling in billows of the softest tissue paper was a pair of shoes. The most beautiful shoes she’d ever seen. Designer shoes, hand-crafted, pale blue and pink entwined strips of leather, with high, slender glass heels with pale blue and pink rosebuds caught inside like jewels in aspic.

She kicked off her boots and slid her feet into the sensational softness. The shoes looked slightly out of place with jeans, but she sighed with happiness. Her feet felt as though they were cushioned in thistledown.

‘Probably the first pair of shoes you’ve ever had that fit you . . .’ Jix’s voice was husky. ‘Um – I thought that as a declaration of love, they’d – um – ’

‘Oh, thank you so much!’ April threw her arms round his neck, crying properly now. ‘Thank you . . . Oh God, Jix! They’re absolutely incredible! They are just wonderful! Oh, I can’t believe it . . .’ She stopped. ‘What did you say?’

‘I love you.’ He pulled her back against him. ‘I’ve loved you from the minute you moved in with Noah all those years ago. I know you don’t love me – ’

She smiled through her tears. ‘I never got the chance, did I? Every other woman in Bixford was there before me.’

‘Had to do something to pass the time . . .’ Jix lifted her, face up. ‘Anyway, if you’re happy with the idea of the cottage on a long-term basis, I thought you might just get used to having me around too.’

He kissed her gently, properly, for the first time. April felt her whole body melt. Shivering, she kissed him back, softly at first, and then not so softly, and then not softly at all.

‘Jesus . . .’ she whispered into his hair. Her legs were shaking. ‘Can we go home now, please?’

‘You want to go home to Bixford?’ Jix kissed her again.

April held his face between her hands, smiling. ‘Never. I want to go home with you. To our family. Our cottage. And I need time to get my head round this love thing, don’t I? After all, falling in love with your best friend is a pretty major step.’ She looked down at her feet. ‘But at least now I’ve got the right shoes to take it in . . .’

The Benny Clegg Stadium was ablaze with lights. The normal floods and spots had been joined by thousands and thousands of tiny pink bulbs, rosy pinpricks suspended in ropes like dowagers’ pearls in the darkness. Huge red helium Valentine hearts floated in their hundreds against the night sky, and the lasers, in a constantly moving rainbow, spelling out ‘Frobisher Platinum Trophy here tonight!’ were visible for miles.