Reversing Over Liberace (9 page)

“The moon's up already.”

“Is it? The tablets must be working. Right, here's the laptop. I've checked it and it's running fine, but any problems—you know where to find me, don't you?”

I found myself hustled out of the door and went out onto the street with a feeling that something rather odd had happened, but not sure what it was.

Chapter Ten

The week continued to give the illusion of spring, and after he picked me up on Wednesday evening, Luke suggested that we should go for a drive to the coast. This we did, and ended up sitting on a beach in a secluded cove.

“Are you all right? You've been a bit quiet this evening.” I nestled myself closer to Luke against the chill of the incipient night.

“Yeah, I'm fine. It's just, oh, work, money, stuff like that. You wouldn't be interested.”

“Try me.” I pulled his jacket around the pair of us, leaning into the smell of Aramis and snuggling into his shirt. His body was very warm.

“It, ah, it's stupid stuff. You know how it goes. All the cash is tied up in Boston with James.
I
want to start looking at houses here in York but there's nothing available to buy with until I start the business up and running, and I can't do
that
without cars, which there isn't any cash to buy because it's all tied up in Boston. D'you see?” Luke looked down at me and curled his arm around me to pull us closer together. “Stupid stuff, as I said.”

“How much cash do you need?” My mouth was slightly dry.

“Oh, I dunno. 'Bout ten grand I think. Nothing amazing, only a bit more than the bank is prepared to lend, on top of the business loan we've already got. They're saying maybe we should relocate where the stock might shift a bit faster. D'you know, yesterday my bank manager suggested that I'd be better off setting up the showroom down south, somewhere-on-Thames? Bloody cheek. I promised I'd think about it, but I reckon it's a stupid idea. There's plenty of classic car salesmen down there already. Still, if that's what it takes to get the extra, maybe I
should
think about it. Always room for another Lamborghini in London.”

All right, I admit it. I panicked. He was thinking about
leaving
, for God's sake. I'd only just got him, and he was thinking about moving on. What was I
supposed
to do? “I could let you have the money,” I said.

Luke smiled and kissed the top of my head. “Ah, sweetie, I know you would if you could, but it doesn't matter. Things will turn out for the best eventually.”

“But I
have
got it.”

I explained, fairly briefly and without reference to allotments, spaniels, books or boots. Luke's mouth fell open and his eyes went very round. “I don't
believe
it.”

“So if we're only talking about ten thousand pounds, then I could get it for you tomorrow.” I paused. “Or, at least, as soon as the bank can transfer it.”

“No.” Luke shook his head. “I can't let you, Willow. It's not fair. James and I already owe our dad fifteen thousand for money he's put in. We've got round that by making him a silent partner in the business, which means he gets a share of the profits, when we make any, but…”

“Then make me one,” I said quickly. “A sleeping partner, or whatever. Then I know I'll get my money back eventually. It'll be like investing it. Oh, go on, Luke. Please.”

“Well.” Luke ran a hand through his hair. “I don't know, Will. It's a lot to ask and you realise you've got no guarantee of getting the money back if the whole thing goes under?”

“It's only money.” I grinned. “I didn't have any before. If I haven't got any afterwards, then at least I will have had fun in the meantime.”

“You”—Luke kissed the side of my neck—“are a very special woman, do you know that?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And I know we've only been together a few weeks but I'm very afraid…” his lips trailed down and his fingers released buttons on the way, “that I'm going to have…” my groan nearly drowned out his final words, “…to marry you.”

I pretended not to have heard. I didn't react. Not to his words, anyway. My body I couldn't control so well and we slid together on the sand under the cover of his jacket. Cold, salty skin, lips tasting of the sea and pounding pleasure like the waves on the rocks. I was given the added edge, of course, the reassurance that Luke wanted more than this. He was thinking of the future, a future which included me.

 

 

 

“And we had sex on the beach and I've never done that before.”

Jazz rolled his eyes and Katie gave me an arch look. “Next you'll be telling us that you've never had sex on the backseat of an Austin Allegro, and I know for a
fact
that you did with Darren Simmonds, after Heather's party when we were in the sixth form.”

“No. 'S true. Never on the beach.”

Jazz grunted. “Might as well rub your knob with glasspaper,” he said getting up to buy another round. “How about you, Kate? You ever done the sand 'n' shag?”

“Two words, Jazz, Blackpool and twins. It's not an experience I'm in any hurry to repeat. But yours sounds absolutely
incredible
, Will! Did he really propose?”

I lowered my voice. “I'm not sure. I mean, he never mentioned it again, so maybe it was just something that slipped out.”

Jazz gave a smutty guffaw.

“In the heat of the moment. Don't get me another, Jazz. I'd better go.”

Katie made a face. “Oh, why? I thought we were going to sit here and analyse your sadly unexperimental sex life.”

“Fascinating as the topic is, I've got a brother at home having a nervous breakdown in the attic, another one that's gone missing completely, a sister who spends hours on the phone every evening trying to persuade me to bring Luke for dinner again, no doubt so that she can recount the cute story of how I poohed in the bath when I was three. And if that isn't enough, I've got Ash's boyfriend ringing me up and being professionally weird.”

“And a boyfriend of your own who might want to marry you. You think. Unless you misheard.”

I wondered, on my way home, what Luke could have said that I might have misinterpreted. I'm going to have to—carry you? Bury you? In any event, I wouldn't have been human if I hadn't popped in to WH Smith and picked up, quite casually you understand, the latest copy of
Brides
magazine. Oh, and
Your Wedding
. And a marriage special from one of the glossy monthlies and, to my consternation,
Horse and Hound
, because there was an article in it about hiring carriages. Cut me some slack here, please. I'm thirty-two and this is the nearest I've ever got to a wedding. Oh, apart from when Katie and Dan got married and I was the hideous bridesmaid. So leave me alone for a bit with my fantasies of Vera Wang silk sheath dresses and the veil-versus-tiara debate, all right?

I read all the magazines, carefully, and then put them in a heap under my bed where they wouldn't be found by any rogue brothers. Although, come to think of it, Clay hadn't come down from the attic for a couple of days, and all I'd heard from Ash was a postcard from Prague where he was, even now, roaming the streets “conducting an in-depth body-piercing survey”. I bet. I wonder if Cal knew?

 

 

 

It took a few days but I arranged for ten thousand pounds to be paid into Luke's account, at which he was grateful, but not pathetically so. “When I get the rest of the money from Ganda's invention, I can always put some more into the company, if you want,” I said as we left the bank.

“Well, only if
you
want to.” Luke took my hand. “I don't want it to be said that I'm trying to part you from your cash. I hope you've told everyone that you're doing this of your own free will.”

“Of course.” I smiled pertly.

Chapter Eleven

Katie had raised eyebrows. “Are you sure he's not just after your money, Will?”

“How could he be? We've been going out together since way before I had any, since before I even knew I was
going
to have any.”

“Oh. Yes.”

“And stop sounding like Jazz. Luke wants me for me. It's nothing to do with the money. He's not a gigolo, you know.”

“What's a gigolo?” asked Clive, looming into sight over the top of the filing cabinet.

“Musical instrument, innit?” Neil replied.

“Don't you two ever do anything independently?” Katie looked up from her typing. “Wills, phone call for you.”

I waited until the boys had gone before I took the receiver from her. “Is there really, or did you just want to get shot of them?”

“No, there really is. A man. Not Luke either, before you ask.”

“Hey there.”

“Hello, Cal.” I sensed Katie pricking up her ears, so I mouthed “Ash's boyfriend” at her and she shrugged and went back to typing. “What's up?”

“Ah, nothing. Just got the megrims, that's all. I had to perform a tracheotomy on a Powerbook and things aren't good, although I have to admit that I do look
sensational
in scrubs. How are you?”

“I'm good.”

“Right. Deep breath here, Cal, and try not to dribble, the lady doesn't want to hear the sound of your bodily fluids trickling down the line. Thing is, Will, I wondered if you'd come down to the old house with me at the weekend.”

“The farm?”

“That's the baby. I need to make a few decisions and, well, you seemed to like looking round and, all right, I admit it, I need someone to handle the goat for me. She's out in the orchard and a neighbour is keeping an eye on her, but I'm going to have to shift her over into the big paddock and she scares the shit out of me if you want the truth. The goat. You didn't think I meant the neighbour, did you?”

“Er.”

“She's got an evil temper on her and she's got the hang of knocking me over.”

“This is still the goat.”

“Yeah, right. So, just wondering, you know, if I pick you up? Thought I'd check now in case you were planning to be away again?”

“No. No, I wasn't. Sounds like…I don't suppose ‘fun' is really the word.”

“Well, it's
a
word. But so is ‘cantankerous'. And ‘evil'. And, incidentally, ‘quadrumanous', but that's irrelevant. Oh, and she smells completely vile. That
is
the neighbour. Bye.”

“He is
so weird
,” I said, staring at the phone as though I expected Cal to come bursting out of the mouthpiece at any moment.

“Oho.” Katie turned her chair to face me. “I sense storytime.”

“I told you about him. Ash's boyfriend. Or, probably, ex-boyfriend, if Ash is laying himself down for his country in Slovenia or wherever Prague is these days. Unless they have an open relationship, which I really hope they don't. Cal deserves way,
way
better than Ash.”

Katie merely raised her eyebrows at me and went back to typing.

Later that morning, on the pretext of picking up some milk, I popped over to the Roads department again. Vivienne Parry, Bread Woman, was manning the desk this time and there was no sight of the lachrymose Nadine.

“Hello. I'm—”

“Willow Cayton, yes, I remember.”

“I just wondered if—?”

“No further news yet about your grandfather's patent, sorry.”

Had this woman been casting the runes? “Oh. I thought I'd ask.”

“I hear that testing is still going well. They're into the final stages now before they release for commercial production.” She smiled at me and her cheeks formed perfect burger-bun circles.

“That's wonderful, thank you. Oh, by the way, how's—?”

“Nadine? Taking some time off, at last.” Vivienne shook her head slowly. “Poor girl. Boyfriend trouble, apparently. Put your foot down, I said. Don't let him run rings around you.”

As I left, I wondered if any man had ever had the stamina to attempt running rings around Vivienne Parry. Mind you, with her gift for knowing what I was about to say before I spoke, she'd probably have any man with ill intentions crated up and shipped to Basrah before he opened his mouth.

I sighed and leaned against the parapet of Lendal Bridge, staring upstream to where the railway crossed the river, and beyond the city boundary to the fields. In the hopeful spring sunshine, people were walking beside the river with their dogs and pushing toddlers in buggies. There was also someone waving at me from a bench.

“Hey, Willow.” It was Luke, sitting on a riverside seat with one long leg crossed over the other, wraparound shades keeping the sun from his eyes. “Come down and join me.”

“I should be getting back to work,” I puffed, having jogged down to reach him. “I only came out for some milk. They'll think I'm persuading it out of the cow.” But the relaxed presence of Luke and the glorious sunshine made me linger. Plus I couldn't see the point of hurrying back to a headline which read ‘Local Cat Wins Show'. It wasn't exactly Pulitzer Prize-winning material.

“So, what are you doing with yourself today? Thought you were sorting out that showroom?” I squinted up at the sky.

“Yeah, sorted. No, I was looking across the river there.” Luke pointed at a new development of riverside apartments being sold at extortionate prices. “When, sorry, I mean
if
of course. I realise I haven't done the deed formally, as it were.
If
we get married, then we'll need somewhere to live, won't we?”

“Um” was all I could think of to say. My mind was busy doing a little celebratory dance that I hadn't, after all, wasted fourteen quid on magazines.

“Good a time as any, I suppose.” Without removing his sunglasses, Luke slouched off the bench and crouched down in front of me, balancing on one knee right beside a large dog turd. “Willow, would you do me the great honour of agreeing to be my wife?”