Pastures New (29 page)

So, heart pounding away, and feeling sick as a parrot, she made her way to Ben’s house. She knew he’d be in as he didn’t have a surgery on Wednesday mornings.

As Amy approached his house, she saw two things. A taxi was waiting, engine running, and two people
were standing outside talking to one another. Ben and Caroline.

Her heart leapt. Was Caroline leaving? She hurried down the road determined to find out more. She was about to call out gladly to Ben, who hadn’t seen her, when Caroline threw her arms around Ben and kissed him full on the lips.

‘Thanks for everything, Ben,’ she gushed. ‘I love you.’

She got in the cab and blew kisses at him as she drove away.

Ben turned to see Amy standing behind him.

Amy couldn’t believe the barefaced cheek of him.

‘It’s all right,’ she managed to say, ‘I’m not going to make a scene. I had given you the benefit of the doubt, but I saw everything, Ben. Dave was right, you are a love rat.’

‘You’ve got it all wrong –’ Ben began.

‘Don’t try to deny it,’ said Amy bitterly. ‘I’m not an idiot. Finally, I’ve got it right. I was wrong to trust you. And I was wrong to let myself fall in love with you. I should have stayed with my memories of Jamie, they can’t hurt me any more than you have.’

‘But Amy –’

‘I don’t want to hear it,’ she said. ‘In fact, I never want to see you, ever again.’

She turned and fled, leaving Ben open-mouthed behind her.

‘Amy, my dear, how would you and Josh fancy a little holiday?’

Amy sat at the kitchen table, phone in one hand, fiddling awkwardly with her hair as she stared out of the window. Mary sounded horribly cheerful. It was a glorious summer day, but she had never felt less sunny in her life. She hadn’t seen Ben for weeks, and it felt like all the light had gone out of her heart.

‘That would be lovely,’ Amy said, with more enthusiasm than she felt. She couldn’t care less about a holiday, not now. But Josh could do with getting away. And he would be happy to see Mary again. Besides, he kept complaining that they hadn’t seen Ben for ages, and she was finding it difficult to come up with any more excuses. Telling him they were going on holiday with Granny would be a welcome distraction.

‘Wonderful,’ said Mary. ‘Menorca is meant to be good for young families, how does that sound?’

Thinking that anywhere would be better than staying
in Nevermorewell for the summer, Amy said, ‘Menorca sounds great. I’ll look forward to it.’

‘When does Josh break up from school?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Amy, ‘I’ll just check.’

She stood up and walked to her noticeboard, flicking through bits of paper about swimming, football, Beavers. Crikey! How did one child generate so much paperwork? As she did so, a leaflet dropped to the floor. It was for Framlingham Castle. Ben had given it to her weeks ago; knowing she liked visiting castles, he had promised to take her and Josh for the day. Amy’s heart contracted a little. That would never happen now. Damn Ben for making her feel like this. And Caroline for ruining everything. She picked up the leaflet and stared hard at it before turning back to searching for Josh’s holiday dates. Aah, there they were.

‘He finishes on the twenty-third of July,’ said Amy. ‘I wouldn’t want to go the minute school ends, but any time from the following week will be fine.’

‘Brilliant,’ said Mary, ‘I’ll book something and ring you back with the dates.’

‘I’ll look forward to it,’ Amy told her. She put the phone down and sighed. Then she picked up the leaflet for the castle again, scrumpled it up and put it in the bin.

‘I think our intruder’s back,’ said Saffron.

‘Why?’ Pete looked up distracted from his laptop as Saffron came marching in from the garden. She was
grimy, soaking wet, and covered in mud – a result of a sudden and unexpected summer shower.

‘Just the usual – there were chip papers in the shed again, and it looks as though somebody has been making a bed out of our potato sacks.’

‘Well, whoever it is, they haven’t done us any harm, have they?’

‘No, I suppose not,’ said Saffron. ‘It just makes me feel uneasy, that’s all.’

They hadn’t seen hide nor hair of their intruder for weeks, and Saffron had convinced herself that it had been a tramp who’d gone on to pastures new, but now she wasn’t so sure. She had also discounted Scary Slug Man in the end, as he had apparently been spotted in his local with a new woman whom he had shacked up with. It had seemed unlikely at first, but several people had told her it was true, so she had reluctantly crossed him off her list of suspects.

‘I wish you weren’t going away next week,’ she moaned.

‘Me too,’ said Pete, ‘but we both knew it would be like this with my promotion. And you have to admit, the extra money is nice.’

Saffron wandered off upstairs to clean herself up. She hoped Pete was right about their intruder. As she pulled the curtains in their bedroom, she looked out across the allotments. Usually they felt like a haven to her, and the thought of anyone doing anything to harm her was almost laughable. But since their mysterious visitor had been on the scene, she hadn’t felt quite so sanguine.

She wished that at least they had uncovered the identity of their unwelcome guest by now. Maybe she should get Amy to come and crash out while Pete wasn’t there. Amy was still moping about after Ben, maybe she could use the break from her usual routine.

‘What are you, woman or mouse?’ she chided herself, drawing the curtains firmly together. The intruder on the allotments was probably nobody, and certainly shouldn’t be causing her sleepless nights. Pete was right, whoever it was hadn’t hurt them so far, so why should that change now?

Ben pushed his barrow, replete with plastic cans full of water, onto the allotments, sweating profusely. It was only ten o’clock but already it was baking hot, heralding more sun to come. With a hosepipe ban already in force, the allotmenteers were having to become more and more resourceful about how they collected their rainwater. Ben had several waterbutts on his allotment, and a couple in the garden. He was thinking of copying Harry’s intricate system, which involved pitching several waterbutts at different levels, flowing on one from the other. Ben laughed at himself. If this water shortage went on any longer he was going to become completely obsessed. As it was, he had a couple of empty plastic petrol cans, which held several litres, and had taken to filling them up and staggering out onto the allotments with them. But it was hard work. He stopped and wiped his head for a minute.

Though the recent rain had filled the waterbutts up again, the ground was so damned dry that as soon as some sunshine got on it all the water evaporated. But he couldn’t risk leaving his precious water there without using it, because people were becoming very sneaky, and it had been known for the less scrupulous allotmenteers to do water raids. The situation was getting ridiculous. Added to which, according to Harry, who was there most days, there were people who were defying the ban, and coming along in the middle of the day to use their sprinklers. Harry had nearly come to blows with Scary Slug Man, who kept filling water-butts up with his hose in order to drown a family of slugs who had attacked his cabbages.

Harry. Ben frowned. The last couple of times Ben had seen him, Harry had seemed a little forgetful, and he was certainly getting shorter of breath of late. And Ben was certain he was getting TIAs. But Harry refused point blank to get himself checked out again, and short of dragging him into the surgery Ben didn’t know quite what else to do. Besides, as Harry had put it to him frequently, ‘What are you going to tell me that I don’t already know?’ Which, Ben had to admit, was probably true.

He half-hoped that Harry wasn’t out on the allotments. It would give Ben the excuse of checking he was all right, and maybe, just maybe, he would run into Amy. There was no sign of her here, although the stuff they had planted together was looking well-tended, so she must be coming out at times she knew he wouldn’t be there.

Ben hadn’t spoken to Amy in weeks. He had tried at the beginning, but Amy had rebuffed him at every turn. So he had given up in despair. There was no point persisting in knocking at a door that was permanently shut. Damn, bloody Caroline. If she hadn’t come back when she had, he and Amy might have been together by now.

‘Penny for them?’ Harry wandered over from his allotment with a bag of produce. ‘I seem to have had a run on courgettes, do you fancy some?’

‘I’ll swap you them for my lettuce. It’s about to go to seed at any minute. Seems a shame to waste it.’

‘Fancy a drink?’

‘A bit early, isn’t it, Harry? Even for you?’ Ben laughed.

‘I meant a brew,’ said Harry. ‘It’s a bit hot for me out here today, so I got here early and was about to pack up.’

‘Oh, go on then,’ said Ben, grateful to have an opportunity to rest for moment.

Harry had flung the doors of his hut open, and his two easy chairs were sitting outside it. He made the tea and brought it out to Ben.

‘This is the life,’ said Ben. ‘I shouldn’t have sat down. I probably won’t be able to get up again.’

‘What, at your age? You should be raring to go,’ Harry told him. ‘Leave it to us old boys to sit in the sun.’

‘You’re not so old,’ said Ben.

‘You know I am,’ Harry replied. ‘And, to be honest, I’m getting pretty tired of all this.’

Ben shifted uneasily in his seat. He sometimes had
these kinds of conversations with his patients, but it didn’t feel right having it with Harry.

‘Don’t be daft,’ he said. ‘You’ve got years left on the clock.’

‘Ben, you and I both know that’s not true. As Terry Wogan likes to put it, I’ve only got so many beats left in this old ticker, and I can’t go on forever. But the thing is – well, to put it bluntly, old boy, I haven’t got anyone much to leave what little worldly wealth I have. But I’d really like you to take over my allotment, if they’ll let you. I know you’d look after it. Keep it nice in memory of me and Mavis.’

‘But –’

‘But nothing.’

‘Harry, I wasn’t expecting –’

‘I know you weren’t. But can you promise me something?’

‘Of course,’ said Ben, ‘anything.’

‘You will look after her, won’t you?’ Harry nodded towards Amy’s house. ‘She needs you more than she realises. And she shouldn’t be alone.’

‘I would if she’d let me,’ said Ben.

‘She’ll come round, my boy,’ said Harry, ‘you see if she doesn’t. You two are meant to be together. In fact I would stake my life on it.’

‘You don’t want to go doing that,’ joked Ben, ‘you don’t know where it will lead. Thanks for the tea, but I really had better get on.’

He made his way back to his own allotment. Life here without Harry didn’t bear thinking about. He glanced over at Amy’s house again. He wondered if she
had any idea how little time Harry might have left. It was going to break her heart if Harry died. He just hoped that when it happened she’d let him pick up the pieces.

Saffron settled down with a well-deserved glass of wine. The children were in bed, thankfully – as usual when Pete was away, they were playing up more than normal. This hadn’t been helped by the fact that they had seen even less of Gerry of late. Since the debacle with Maddy, Saffron had found Gerry to be incredibly elusive. He would turn up intermittently to take the children out, very often at times they hadn’t agreed, or, worse still, forget all about arrangements he had made, and letting them down. She had tried to confront him with this on one or two occasions, but he wasn’t to be pinned down and she had given up. Reluctant to tell the children that their dad was a useless waste of space (there was plenty of time for them to work that out when they were older) she had simply stopped bothering to ring him. Had it been anyone but Gerry, she might have been worried about him – on the few occasions she had seen him recently he’d had a wild, slightly unkempt look, most un-Gerry-like. If she had cared she might have concluded that since the Caroline debacle, he and the bimbo were on the way out. But she didn’t care, not really. Not now she had Pete. She would be so glad when he got home.

Suddenly her peace was disturbed by a loud crash outside.

‘Shit!’ Saffron spluttered. ‘What was that?’

She ran to the back door, leaving the lights off, and stared down the garden, where the security light was beaming brightly onto a figure who lay groaning on the floor underneath one of her patio pots.

Grabbing the shillelagh again, Saffron flung open the back door. ‘Stay right where you are!’ she said. ‘I’m calling the police.’

‘Don’t, please don’t,’ the figure replied.