Slightly Foxed (30 page)

antiseptic cream, two Harry Potter plasters and a bandage,

which I suspected had once belonged to Dylan-the-horse.

"I'm going to go down. I think Leo and I need to talk."

Slowly, trying to be gentle I tipped my finger with white

antiseptic and moved his hair away so that I could see the

wound. His hair was silken and there was something very

intimate about the whole scene.

"Yeah? That doesn't sound like you're loved-up with the

guy. What you going to talk about? Ow. That bloody hurts."

"I need to tell him things. All the stuff about reading his

poetry and about Florrie and Alasdair, and yes, maybe even

the stuff about Flick." Piers tilted his head back and met my

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eye. "I owe it to him, Piers. I can't build another relationship

on deceit. I won't."

"Well, they say confession is good for the soul." Piers

wouldn't let me look away. "Did you feel good when you

confessed to me, Ally? Did it make you feel clean and shiny

and like it was the right time to start something?"

"Talking to you, it made me realise what I did wasn't so

bad. I was only a bit older than Florence is now. He'll

understand." I tried not to notice the pleading tone in my

voice. "Yes. He'll understand," I said it again, injecting a bit

more confidence this time.

I was about to screw the top back on the tube when Piers

grabbed my hand and made me jump.

"Do you love him?" His grip was tight, his rings dug into

my skin. He stood up and faced me, and for a moment I was

slightly afraid. "Well, Alys? Do you?" He was so pale that I

wondered if the bash on the head had concussed him. His

breathing was rapid and shallow, his eyes dark.

"Are you trying to make me cry again?" I tried to check the

catch in my voice. "If you are, please don't."

"
I
don't make you cry, Alys, the
situation
does. I'm just

trying to make you see the bigger picture here. Do you love

this guy? Honest now, truth or dare."

"Dare, then." I was almost whispering.

"I dare you." Now Piers had lowered his voice too. "I dare

you to tell me you love this Leo. Cos, y'see, I don't think you

can. I think you're looking at spending the rest of your life

with a guy you don't even fucking
like
."

"That's not true."

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"Reckon?" He was moving closer. This was no longer my

almost-stepson. It was some shadowy stranger, his face

virtually touching mine, his hands cupping my shoulders, and

I couldn't pull away. "Ally, I don't think you know what love

is
."

"Does it matter?" My voice came out breathy.

"Yeah." His tone matched mine. "I think it does."

I could feel his breath on my lips, his hair drifting against

the side of my neck. Couldn't look away, couldn't move.

Didn't know what was coming, and a part of me didn't care.

Suddenly a sound came from behind me. A choking,

gasping noise that turned out to be the sound of Caspar

sicking up a furball down the back of the stereo. The intensity

lifted and Piers stepped away.

"Shit, look at the time. I'd better go. Supposed to be tying

up with Ma and Alasdair for some kinda family powwow, and

I'll have to be back for Flo." Was it my imagination, or was

Piers avoiding looking at me? It was rather hard to tell,

because I was
definitely
avoiding looking at
him
.

"What happened to going to the cinema with Sarah?" I had

a perfect excuse for having my back to him. I was trying to

scrape cat sick off my favourite CDs.

"Er, we—we split up today, so."

A warm flood of relief suffused me. He'd split up with

Sarah, obviously feeling low. It hadn't been
me
causing all

the touchy-feely stuff we'd narrowly avoided, it had been
him
.

"Oh, that's a shame."

"Look, umm, gotta go. Catch you later?"

"I'm sure. Oh, and Piers—"

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"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

A pause. "Alys." I looked up now, met his gaze. Held it.

"Nah. See ya."

I watched him from the window as he strode down the

pavement towards the untidily parked Porsche, those red

boots making him look like something out of
The Wizard of

Oz
. Only someone with a huge amount of style could carry off

boots like those, and Piers certainly had a huge amount of

style. Huge amount of lots of things evidently.

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I found a taxi driver willing to concede the existence of

Charlton Hawsell Stud and arrived just as darkness was

beginning to fall. Devon was still baked in the ongoing heat

wave, a light toast-brown coloured the whole countryside and

the house rose from its seared surroundings in a glorious

honey-coloured mound, like a souffle served on burnt chips.

The encroaching night gave the whole place a slightly

sinister air. Walking from the heat outside into the insulated

coolness, I felt as though I were walking into a ghost story. I

didn't call out but moved through the house in a kind of daze

until I came to the kitchen. Leo was in there. I could hear his

voice filtered through the solid oak of the panelled door,

deep, insistent, but I couldn't hear the words. Slowly I turned

the handle and eased the door open, cautious in case his

misogynistic terriers were still on the premises. I pushed my

face through the opening and looked inside.

There stood the predictable scene of domestic squalor,

unwashed plates on the table, a newspaper spread across the

worktop, and, at the far side of the room, Leo. He had his

back to me, telephone pressed against his ear and was

writing furiously on a notepad. I put my overnight bag on the

floor out in the passageway and tiptoed across the room. As I

got closer to him, my heart began to beat faster. He looked

fantastically dishevelled in his navy blue jodhpurs and white

shirt, hair awry as though he'd hurried in from the yard. Just

as I got close enough to touch him, he gave a final "mmm,

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call you tomorrow" down the phone and laid it back on the

side, turning round to find me pressed almost full length

against him.

"Buggering hell." Leo staggered back a step, dislodging a

mug half full of tea which had been resting precariously on

the top of a chair back, which fell and smashed at our feet.

"Alys? What the hell are you doing here?"

"I came to see you," I said, rather downhearted at his

less-than effusive greeting, stirring spilled china with my foot.

"I thought we needed some time to talk."

Leo stared at me, rather blankly for a moment, then a

glorious smile lit his face. "It's wonderful to see you." Back

came the clouded expression. "Oh, but tonight's not really a

good time. I'm shipping a couple of fillies down to Cornwall,

settling them in. We hope one of them's in foal so we don't

want her upset if we can help it. Can you stay?"

"My bag." I pointed at the doorway.

"Well, that's fantastic. I'll be back tomorrow, in time for

dinner. Can we talk then?"

"Wonderful." I mostly meant it. This dark half-light really

suited Leo, carved the planes of his face into sharp angles

against his unruly hair and made his eyes behind his glasses

shine with a meaningful expression. "I can amuse myself here

for a day."

Leo stepped up and enfolded me in an embrace. "No, it's

great that you're here. Does this mean you've reached a

decision?" He held me away to look into my face. "Is it yes or

no, Alys?"

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Gently I disentangled him. "That's partly why I came, to

help me to decide. I've got a life in York. It's not a great one,

but it's mine. I want to make sure that I'm doing all the right

things, making the right decisions, do you understand?"

Leo nodded slowly. "I think so. All I can say is if you do

say yes, I'll do my very best to make you happy. I'd like

everything to be..." He tailed off.

"To be what?" He felt odd against me, somehow foreign,

until I realised that I was comparing this hug to being held

against Piers in a car park. "What, Leo?"

"To be different," he finished, sadly. "Not like it was with

Sabine. None of the lying and avoidance and all that."

"Me too," I said, half under my breath, as Leo collected

papers and bags for his trip. "Me too."

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The next morning I decided to go for a walk through the

fields. Leo had shown me the extent of Charlton Hawsell Stud

fields on the big map in the office. He'd also pointed out the

neighbouring farm belonging to Isabelle and her husband. So,

I put on a white T-shirt and cut-off jeans and set off to

explore.

Down the pea-gravelled driveway and over a gate I went,

catching vague distant glimpses of girls on ponies in a board-

sided school. I walked through a paddock where a bright

chestnut mare and foal stood nose to tail reflecting the

sunlight, and almost fell over the woman crouched beneath

an ash tree.

"Oh!" I clutched at my heart. "I didn't see you down

there." I paused to wonder exactly why she was on her knees

in a clump of tussocky grass. Surely you didn't have to pray

to ponies, did you?

"Look." Her voiced was hushed, wondering. "It's a

dragonfly hatching. Isn't it beautiful?" Stuck to one of the

longer strands of the grass was the zeppelin-like body of an

insect, tugging itself free of a restricting shell and spreading

its wings to the sun. It shimmered. "It's like magic, the way

they go from this ugly, shrunken thing to this beauty. Don't

you think so?" She stood up, shaking her hair back. "You're

Alys, aren't you? I'm Jay. Leo hasn't introduced us properly

but—well, that's Leo, isn't it?"

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"I...hello." I found my hand had been clasped and was

being shaken in a firm grip. "Yes," I finished, feebly. "That's

me."

Close up, Jay was pretty. Properly, make-up-free pretty.

Her cheeks were rounded and blushed by the sun and outdoor

living, her hair glittered a conker-brown and she was

shapelier than she'd appeared from the window. She was

looking me over in a similar way, though I doubt she'd come

to any similar conclusions. Not in this cheap T-shirt, with the

draggy-down hem and the uneven cutoffs.

"Leo really thinks a lot about you." Jay had stopped

examining my face and was back to staring at the dragonfly

emerging from the cocoon. I wondered if there was room in

that shrivelled casing for me to crawl inside. At least then I

could have avoided the lustre of love that bloomed across her

face when she mentioned his name. "He's hoping you're going

to marry him." Dark eyes, with a hint of tear-shine, met

mine. "Are you?"

Marry him? Right now I could have killed him. How could

he not know? How could he not have noticed that this clear-

eyed, unencumbered girl loved him so whole-heartedly? He

spent
how many
hours a day in her company, yet he'd not

picked up on that one?

"I don't know," I answered her honestly. "I just don't

know."

A sideways shrug. Not as bad as she'd been expecting.

"Oh, okay. Only—"

I half cringed at what I imagined might come next. Was

Jay about to confess all to me, her longing and lust for her

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employer, like some historical novel, which she dare not

mention for fear of losing "her position"? What did I say if she

did?

"—only I've been offered another job. In Wales. So if you

move in you might have to help out in the stud. Just for a

while, until Leo can replace me." Her gaze was back on the

dragonfly. "Do you have much experience with ponies?" Now

she looked up, but it wasn't at me, it was at the mare and

foal languidly flicking flies. The expression of love and loss on

her face nearly equalled that when she spoke of Leo. "I

wouldn't ask. It's just that a few of the mares can be a bit

difficult, and handling stallions isn't something you can just

pick up in an afternoon."

"Like I said, Jay, I'm still thinking. There's a lot to

consider."

The half shrug again. "Okay. Sorry, didn't mean to

interfere or anything. Going for a walk? It's lovely down by

the river. If you go through that gate, there's a path." She'd

turned back to her close examination of the insect, now

scaffolded to the grass stem, wings glistening an unnaturally