It's Raining Men (26 page)

‘You stay away from my Francis, you pair of sluts,’ screamed Daisy. ‘And you can tell the witch to stay away as well. Fuck off, the lot of you, back where you came
from.’

‘Calm yourself, Daisy,’ Pauline said, as firmly as her thin voice could manage. ‘Come on, deep breaths.’

‘I’m not well,’ Daisy barked, a furious tremor in her voice as she breathed in and out deeply. Enough was enough. Lara wasn’t feeling the fun any more. She didn’t
want to goad Daisy into an asthma attack. She put twenty-five pounds in notes on the counter in front of Jenny, telling her to keep the change. As she and May left the café she heard
Daisy’s dulcet tones behind her: ‘And good riddance. She puts me off eating with the scar on her face.’

Incensed, Lara turned on her heel to go back in but May caught her arm.

‘Leave it, Lara.’

‘How dare she . . .’

‘Don’t rise to it. She wants us to react.’

‘Ooh, I want to slap her so hard,’ growled Lara. How dare the bitch say that about May. It was cruel and unnecessary. Even more so coming from a woman in a chair who must know what
it was like to have a stigma.

‘Poor Frank. I think he’s going to end up more unhappy than his future wife,’ said Lara, letting May lead her away from Jenny’s café.

May didn’t answer. She merely followed Lara through the village and up the hill, wishing she were worthy enough to deserve someone as gorgeous as Frank Hathersage.

‘Guess where the second set of steps downstairs leads to?’ said Clare, as soon as May and Lara walked into the cottage. ‘I’ve been dying for you to get
back so I could tell you. Only Raine’s cottage on the headland.’ Clare couldn’t wait for them to answer.

‘How did you find that out?’ asked Lara, kicking off her shoes. ‘Don’t tell me you climbed up the second set of steps and there was a door at the top?’

‘I did indeed. And there was,’ Clare replied, with a proud nod of the head. ‘I tell you, there’s something really strange about this village. I mean, really strange. If
you heard the conversation I heard through the door to Raine’s cottage, you’d feel the same.’

May crossed the room to put on the kettle. ‘Go on, then, Sherlock. Intrigue us.’

‘Well,’ began Clare, making herself comfortable at the dining table. ‘I overheard the old lady – Raine – talking to someone. Raine was saying she was a curse on the
village and the other person was saying that she was a blessing actually and that she wouldn’t have been born if Raine hadn’t done what she’d done.’

‘Which was what?’ asked Lara.

‘I don’t know. Raine went on to say that the other woman might have had sisters had it not been for Raine, instead of brothers.’

May and Lara exchanged blatantly amused glances.

‘Are you sure they weren’t reading out a play script?’ suggested May.

‘Don’t be daft. Of course they weren’t.’

‘Well, you go and enjoy deciphering all that creepy stuff,’ Lara said jokingly. ‘Meanwhile, I’ll have a life.’

‘And talking of creepy . . .’ said May. ‘We bumped into mad Daisy in Jenny’s café.’

‘She was foul,’ shuddered Lara. She didn’t repeat what she had said about May’s scar as she knew it would embarrass her but it was still really annoying her. ‘We
all have to stay away from Frank, she said.’

‘Oh, okay. I’ll try very hard to resist his advances.’ Clare laughed, but there wouldn’t be any danger there. She had her eye on the Hathersage brother who was capable of
shaking up her staid existence and exorcizing the ghost of nice, safe Lud.

Lara took a can of Diet Coke from the fridge and went outside to the terrace. In the distance, where there were none of those ridiculous clouds overhead, the sea was dappled
with sunlight. There was a light and warm breeze that made her shiver with delight as it touched her skin. Her parents had a lovely south-facing terrace at the back of their house. Her dad had
built it because he and her mum liked to sit outside whenever there was a hint of sun. They’d all had many a happy tea sitting at the iron table on the terrace, a fire-pit warming them as the
night grew chilly.

Was it really eight months ago when I last visited my parents?
Lara retraced the year – but no, she hadn’t been up to Yorkshire since Christmas. And even then she had shot
off on Boxing Day to get some prep done before she returned to work the following day. She felt a huge wave of shame wash over her. She was an only child and hadn’t seen her mum and dad in
all that time. Where the hell had the year gone? In fact, where had the last few years gone? Had she done anything except rush from appointment to meeting to appointment? Even her relationship with
James was shoehorned into their mad working lives. And when she did free up some rare couple time in the evenings he was still working. Well, she’d thought he had been working. He obviously
had enough time to squeeze in Tianne frigging Lee. Literally.

She loved her parents and loved her friends and yet how much real time did she spend with them? She’d seen more of Keely and Garth than she had people she liked. Her priorities were all to
cock. A tear dropped on her jeans and she dabbed at her eye to poke back any others with intentions of following. She didn’t want May or Clare to see that she had things on her mind.

Her mum and dad would love it here, she thought, listening to the silence broken now and again with the shrill squawk of the seagulls – it sounded as if they were laughing at the
offcumdens as they flew overhead. Her parents had never had a lot of money but they had saved to put her through university and were so proud of her every achievement. They’d be gutted to
find out that inside their successful, power-suit-wearing daughter was a lonely, unloved woman with nothing in her life but a job that she really didn’t want to do any more.

Clare joined her. ‘Wotcher,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve just heard a van outside so I’ve come out here to leave May alone in the house to answer the door. I think she has
a bit of a soft spot for Frank and, from the way he looks at her, I think it’s mutual.’

‘Witch,’ said Lara, smiling, glad of her company.

‘Oh, don’t you start. I heard a bit of gossip from . . . from the old lady, Raine.’ She lied about the source.

‘Go on,’ said Lara, shifting round in her seat to face Clare.

‘It appears that Frank caused the accident that crippled Daisy. A car accident. They hadn’t been going out that long and, well, he’s obviously so guilt-ridden that he’s
decided to do his duty and look after her.’

‘Poor Frank,’ said Lara. He appeared like an honest, decent man. Maybe if he hadn’t been so much of a good man, he could have cut and run from Daisy and been happy. Sometimes,
Lara thought, having a conscience could be a right old bummer.

They heard a knock on the outside door and Clare giggled. ‘He’s here, with his big meaty package.’

‘Shhh,’ said Lara, giggling too.

‘Can you get the door, May?’ Clare called. ‘We’re a bit busy.’

‘Er . . . can you get it? I’m busy too.’

‘No, we’re busier. Sorry.’ Lara clamped her hands over her mouth to stop the laughter exploding out.

May started flapping. She shot to the long mirror on the wall to check her face and brush her hair forward on the left over the silvery line of scar. Then, after arranging herself, she took a
steadying breath and opened the door to Frank, looking the picture of calm.

‘Hi, Frank, come in.’

Frank had to bend to come through the door and even when he was inside, his head wasn’t that far off the ceiling beams. He looked like a giant visiting a child’s Wendy house. May
tried not to think about those big arms closing around her.

He was holding a couple of bags. ‘There’s some bacon in here for you, some fillet steaks and chicken breasts. I’ve also put in a couple of my pies – I’m told they
would be award-winning if I ever entered any of the butchery competitions.’ He put it all down on the table next to the teapot.

‘Oh, that’s wonderful, Frank, thank you,’ said May, aware that she was wiping her hands on her dress, something she always did when she was nervous. ‘How much do we owe
you?’

He waved away the suggestion that he wanted any money. ‘Call it an apology after Daisy’s behaviour. Wouldn’t mind a cup of tea, though. Haven’t had a chance to stop for
one all day.’

‘No, we can’t let you—’

‘I insist. My charge is a cup of tea. And that’s the end to it.’

‘Thank you, then. That’s awfully kind of you. Please sit down.’ May turned the kettle on, hoping that he wasn’t looking at her bum. The kettle seemed to take hours to
boil.

‘I think it’s on a go-slow,’ she said, turning to Frank.

‘I’m in no rush now. I’ve nearly finished for the day,’ he said.

‘There’re some biscuits in the cupboard.’

Clare’s voice drifted in from outside. ‘Hi, Frank.’

‘Hello, there,’ he replied.

Why are you two sods staying out there?
‘Do you want a drink?’ May called to them.

‘No, we’re okay, thanks,’ replied Lara.

May was going to slap them both later.

‘So . . .’ she said eventually, putting the fresh pot of tea on the table and then taking the packet of biscuits and a small plate out of the cupboard. She hadn’t a clue what
she was going to say next. Being in the presence of Frank made her tongue tie itself in knots.

‘So, are you enjoying yourself here, in Ren Dullem?’ asked Frank, rescuing her as he spooned one sugar and a small splash of milk into his cup.

‘Yes,’ said May, sitting down at the table. God, this man and his lovely heavily lashed eyes absorbed all her conscious thought and struck her silent. She forced herself to get a
grip and make an effort at conversation. ‘We don’t have much time off work and we decided on a whim to book a holiday and spend some time with each other. We should have been at the spa
at Wellem but there was a coc— an error in the reservation.’

‘Some error,’ said Frank. ‘Though I’m a great believer in things happening for a reason.’ He looked straight into her brown eyes with an intensity that had her
bones vibrating. She knew he felt the connection between them too, because of the way he quickly turned his head away and scanned the kitchen.

‘Gene’s done it up well,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t lived in for a lot of years. It was our grandmother’s cottage. In fact, it’s been in the family for
generations. Gene bought our shares, mine and our younger brother’s.’

‘There’s a lagoon downstairs,’ blurted May, ‘though you’ll know about that.’

‘You found it?’ He looked surprised.

‘Clare found it.’

‘Your friend with the . . .’ He pointed to his eyes, one then the other.

‘Clare with the witch eyes,’ May said loud enough for her friend outside to hear. ‘Yep. That’s her.’

Frank smiled as if a private joke was going on in his head. ‘Yes, of course.’ Then he shook himself out of his reverie. ‘How long are you staying?’

‘We leave next Friday. We’ve got a full week left,’ said May, tipping the biscuits onto a plate and offering them to Frank. Both of them noticed how much her hand was shaking.
He took the plate from her and put it back down on the table.

‘I think they were too heavy; you were going to drop them,’ he said.

‘Thank you.’ Her eyes locked onto his again. And they wouldn’t unlock.

‘I should go,’ said Frank, standing up and only just clearing the ceiling. He hadn’t even taken a sip of tea.

‘Of course,’ said May, totally flustered now. She hadn’t a clue what chemical reactions were making her insides fizz. ‘You’ll have things to do.’

‘I haven’t got anything to do,’ said Frank, so quietly that no one else could overhear, ‘but if I stay for that tea I’ll end up kissing you and that would be wrong.
See you later, May.’

‘Urggghhh,’ was May’s strange, unintelligible noise in response to that. She didn’t get up to show him out. She wasn’t sure her legs would support her.

Clare wasn’t certain she had made the right call when she and Lara casually walked back in after hearing Frank’s van leave. May looked as if someone had taken out her brain and
replaced it with a Bird’s Trifle.

‘You okay?’ said Lara. ‘May, talk to me.’

‘I’m fine,’ May replied. ‘I’m just a bit astounded by his generosity. He left us loads of meat and wouldn’t take any money for it. Wasn’t that
nice?’

‘Yes, it was,’ Clare and Lara chorused, not believing a word of May’s explanation as to why she was a whiter shade of white.

At seven o’clock precisely Lord Carlton knocked on Joan’s cottage door. She opened it wearing the dress she had ‘borrowed’ from Mary’s wardrobe.
Navy-blue with a white trim, it was fitted around the bust and waist and had a flared skirt. It was far too frumpy for Joan’s taste but perfect for the purpose for which she needed it. She
had sprayed herself – and the room – liberally with the bottle of perfume that she had found in Mary’s dressing-table drawer. It had gone off a bit after all those years, but when
Carlton crossed the threshold she saw his nose lift in the air and she watched the effect of the perfume snake to his brain. His face softened and his eyes twinkled as the memories sparkled behind
them. Even his snow-white toupee seemed to sigh with delight.

‘Come right in and sit down,’ said Joan, smiling at him with her red-lipsticked mouth. ‘It’s nearly ready.’

The lounge, dining room and kitchen were all one room in the
bijou
dwelling place. She had scrubbed at it this afternoon, making it shine. Joan didn’t like housework. Upstairs her
bedroom was a mess of clothes not hung up and general undusted, uncleaned grime that had built up over the months she had been here. She hadn’t bothered to clean it because Edwin would not be
going in there. At least not tonight. After old Stanley Hawk she’d had enough of old men fumbling her. She’d let Stanley paw her, fall in love with her and marry her because he had a
fortune. He hadn’t told her it was tied up in trust funds for his children. Luckily he had died not too long after she learned that. In his will he had left her ten thousand pounds for every
completed year they had been married, but his family let her have twelve on the proviso that she buggered off immediately, carrying only the things she came with. She agreed, although the bags she
came with ended up being stuffed with treasures from around the house; disappointingly they turned out to be mostly reproductions and nigh-on worthless. At least Edwin Carlton had no children
– and he had a title. She quite fancied herself as Lady Joan – or would she be Lady Anne or Lady Jo or Lady Joanna? Maybe she would double-barrel Carlton with her maiden name: Lady
Joanna MacLean-Carlton – it had a wonderfully genteel ring to it.