Motherlove (18 page)

He held out his hand to shake. ‘Hello, Kelly. I'm Ben. Can I buy you a drink?'

She had nothing else planned for the evening.

‘How about a cocktail? A Margarita? Bloody Mary? Hairy Virgin, Angel's Tit, Hanky Panky…'

She was laughing with him. ‘Are they all for real?'

‘So the list says. Can't say I've tried many of them.'

‘You choose. I'll try anything once.'

‘All right. Let's think.' A barman was hovering, waiting. He knew a good customer when he saw one. ‘A Satan's Whiskers for my friend here, and a Hanky Panky.'

‘Yes, sir! Coming right up.'

‘So is this your local?' asked Kelly, watching the barman go to work, wondering if she could pick up tips for the Mill and Tuppence. She wasn't sure cocktails would really work there.

Ben was looking round the bar. ‘Not exactly. Used to come here a lot when I visited Lyford. That was with the old owner, Richard. He set it up, straight out of Casablanca. With a piano. Had us all singing the Marseillaise once. Even looked a bit like Bogart. Great entertainer but a lousy businessman. Went bust. Now, it's…' He shrugged despair. ‘Gone horribly uphill. Lost all its charm. But it's close. I stay at the Linley.'

‘That a hotel?'

‘Yes. Just round the corner.' He pushed his stool back so he could see her from head to foot. ‘You wouldn't know it if you're not from round here, and I'm taking a wild guess that you're not from round here.'

‘Na. How could you tell?'

‘Not many like you in Lyford. Where do you come from then?'

‘Wales. Pembrokeshire.'

‘You don't have a Welsh accent.'

‘I could have, if I wanted,' she said, lapsing into west Welsh. ‘Could talk all night like this if you want.'

‘That's not proper Welsh. You have to say, “Indeed to goodness, look you, boyo.”'

‘That's Hollywood Valleys. So where do you come from?'

‘I work in London, live out near Heathrow.'

‘And you come here on business?'

‘No, thank God. My mother lives here. I try to visit reasonably often.'

‘Oh yes, of course.'

‘How's your Satan's Whiskers?'

She considered. ‘Interesting. How's your Hanky Panky?'

‘Vile. Maybe I should have gone for the Painkiller.'

‘Why? Are you in pain?'

He glanced at his drink, debating whether to laugh it off, then back at her. That little shrug again. ‘Should be. My girlfriend's just dumped me. By text. That was why I came out tonight. Thought I'd need to drown my sorrows. But now, I'm not so sure they need drowning. I think I feel relieved. We were preparing to be getting engaged…'

Kelly shook her head in disbelief. ‘This place!'

‘What?'

‘First I meet a girl who's taking eighteen months to plan a wedding, and now I've met a man who was
preparing
to get engaged. How do you prepare? Don't you just say yes, no, whatever?'

He laughed, quite pain-free. ‘According to Natasha, no. It's a big thing. Anyway, I'm just glad she got cold feet before I bought the ring.'

‘Oh the ring. A diamond of course.'

‘Almost certainly.' He met her eyes. ‘I told you, most of us spend our lives trying to be just like everyone else. Glad there's someone who doesn't.'

‘Are you really not upset?'

He took a deep breath. ‘No. Which probably makes me a very shallow personality.'

‘Or an honest one, snatched from drifting.'

‘That I prefer. What about you? Married? Engaged? Significant other? Boyfriend in the wings?'

‘Boyfriend, yes. Sort of. Joe. Yes, sort of.'

‘But not the love of your life.'

She thought about it. No, of course Joe wasn't the love of her life. There had been other men who had aroused some vague emotional turmoil, but not Joe. ‘He's a friend really. I think. Looking after my sheep for me while I'm away.'

‘Sheep! Wales. Is it true what they—'

‘No.'

He smiled, finishing his cocktail. ‘So if Joe is just a friend, sort of, do you feel unattached enough to have dinner with me? Unless you've already eaten. I haven't and I'm starving, and I don't really fancy tapas.'

‘I've had a bag of crisps.'

‘Not enough.'

‘Not nearly enough.'

What was she doing, she wondered, strolling the night streets of Lyford with a man who drank cocktails and wore suits? They should have nothing in common. And yet, she liked him. She really liked him. Kelly generally liked everyone until they gave her good reason not to. But this was liking with a difference. Something visceral. A warmth. She felt she understood now what magnetic attraction meant.

He wasn't bad looking, but not a Hollywood pin-up. Pleasant. It was the smile, she decided. Or maybe just the willingness to smile. People in Lyford tended not to smile at strangers. They preferred to avert their eyes. Ben smiled and met her eyes, that must be why she liked him so much.

They finished up at an Indian restaurant, because it offered vegetarian options other than goat's cheese and rocket or glutinous vegetable lasagne.

‘You would be a vegetarian,' he laughed at her.

‘And you would choose the Taj Special lamb.'

‘I would?'

‘Hot enough to be seriously masculine but not pointlessly macho like a vindaloo.'

‘I see, you think I'm not macho?'

‘No, I think you're real.'

‘Thank you.' He sat looking at her for a whole minute. ‘Are you? Real?'

‘Very. Feel.' She held out her hand. He laid his over it. Their fingers entwined.

‘Is everything all right, sir, madam?' asked their waiter.

‘Yes, great,' they both replied.

Comfortable. That was how she felt with him. Not as if she were being picked up. Nothing sleazy.

‘So tell me about Wales.'

She told him about Carregwen and the sheep and her mother's yoga classes, about the Mill and Tuppence, and her job with the National Park, and how she was going to help her friend Mike run boat trips for the tourists in the summer. How her mother was ill and she was looking for relatives in Lyford, with no success. Leave it at that. While she was with him, she didn't want to dwell on the failure of her primary mission. Talk about him instead.

So he told her about his childhood in Coventry, and his time at university, and his blossoming career with an insurance company and his flat and his now ex-girlfriend Natasha.

‘Brothers and sisters?' he asked.

‘No. Just me and Mum. You?'

‘A brother and two sisters. Sarah's just gone to York, the others are still at school. Am I going to see you tomorrow?'

‘I hope so. If you want.'

‘Oh yes, I want.'

He walked her back to her B&B on Colney Road where tight Victorian terraces gave way to houses with high gables and cellars and attics and steps to the front doors. Once upon a time, they must have been quite genteel, but gentility had moved out to the suburbs, and most of Colney Road had been converted into flats and bedsitters for the students of Lyford University, late Technical College. Since most students had disappeared for the summer, there were plenty of vacancies for anyone wanting to stay in Lyford on a budget.

They stopped outside number 47: The Balmoral.

‘You're staying here?' Ben looked up the stuccoed façade with a grimace.

She laughed. ‘It's dirt cheap. I'd ask you in, but Mrs Hanshaw probably has rules about gentleman callers. She has rules about most things.'

‘It looks appalling.'

‘Well, like I said, it's cheap.'

‘Come back with me to the Linley.'

She hesitated. And he too, biting his tongue. As if they both felt this was too important to take casually. ‘No, forget I asked that. But can't I find you somewhere better than this?'

‘No, no. Seriously. I'm fine here.'

‘All right.' He stood, lingering. Then he leaned forward to kiss her. Not a mad grab, not a wildly passionate embrace. A gentle goodnight.

She hugged him. ‘I'll see you tomorrow.'

‘I'll phone.'

‘Yes.'

‘Goodnight.'

They couldn't stand there dragging this out forever. She ran up the steps to the front door. A lace curtain twitched.

Ben raised a hand, then walked away.

Kelly lay on her narrow lumpy mattress, staring at the ceiling. She wasn't going to sleep, so maybe it was daft to lie there in the dark. She should sit up and read. Except that the forty-watt bulb wouldn't be much of an improvement on the glow from the street lamps. And besides, she just wanted to lie there and think.

About Ben.

She wanted to call him. It was three a.m. Maybe not.

Why couldn't she get him out of her head? Why did she feel her pulse racing at the memory of his face, his eyes, the touch of his hand? Why did she want to leap out of bed and run down the road to the Linley Hotel?

Was this falling in love? She'd been in love before, hadn't she? What about Geraint? She'd been quite hooked on him, moping round the house for days when he'd gone to college in Bangor. No, that hadn't been love. Childish affection maybe. Not like this worm inside her.

How could she possibly fall in love, just like that, with a man in a suit, someone she had met just a few hours before? It was mad.

But, no, it wasn't. Kelly believed in Fate. She believed that there were kindred spirits who belonged with each other and destiny would bring them together. Perhaps this was what had really brought her to Lyford. How likely was it that she'd find the missing girl? There'd been another response to the ad, a text from someone whose friend Carrie had been born on March 15
th
, but she'd emigrated to Australia and did Kelly want her address? That was all. That was all there was likely to be. Fate had brought her to Lyford, brought her to Rick's Place, where Ben was sitting at the bar.

Could Fate be malign? She'd come, determined to focus on her mother's cause, and now this, messing with her big time, shaking up all her thoughts and feelings – and she didn't care. Other things should matter but tonight, they didn't. Nothing mattered except that she wanted Ben.

Crazy.

She woke wanting to phone him, just to say hello. Was six o'clock too early? Probably. She would wait a while, but not here, not in this gloomy little room. In this house with its lace curtains keeping the daylight at bay. Breakfast was served from 7.30, but did she want Mrs Hanshaw's breakfast? Reconstituted orange juice, soggy cornflakes, rubbery white toast, burnt sausage and shrivelled bacon. Kelly had said she was a vegetarian but it made no difference. Ahmed, one of the remaining student lodgers, told her that four of her long-stay guests were Muslims and still they were served bacon and sausage.

No. Kelly didn't want to start her day with lukewarm baked beans and tinned tomatoes. She got dressed and stepped out into a sparkling morning that lent even Colney Road a summer charm. Fresh air, that was what she needed. Heading back into town. She had been walking for ten minutes when her phone buzzed. Battery low: she'd need to charge it soon.

‘Hello?'

‘Kelly.' Ben's voice. ‘Just wanted to see if you were awake. Thought, as you were a country girl, you'd be up by now.'

‘Of course I'm up. Already milked the cow.'

‘Had breakfast?'

‘No.'

‘Come and have it with me at the Linley.'

‘Okay.'

‘Shall I come and fetch you?'

‘No need. I'm about a hundred yards from your door.'

He laughed. She had waited all night to hear that laugh.

‘And you don't eat fish either? Scrambled egg with smoked salmon? It's very good.'

‘I do eat fish, but only if I've caught it.' Plain scrambled egg was just fine. She sat back gazing at him, as warm sun poured across the dining room. He'd driven to Lyford the previous evening straight from work, but he was dressed more casually now; T-shirt and jeans. He was looking at her in the same way she looked at him, convincing himself that he hadn't been dreaming it all.

‘Have you got plans for today?'

‘Not really.' She played with her fork to stop herself reaching out to touch him. Not that he would have minded, but Kelly was bashful for the first time in her life. She wanted to be in private.

‘So you can stick around with me. We could drive out onto the downs. Walk through the woods. I know a great pub.'

‘Brill. Sounds as if you didn't have plans either.'