The Mysterious Miss Mayhew (17 page)

He was trying not to engage with that smile. ‘So. Do you want to say a few words over him?’

‘Good Lord,’ she said, her eyes widening, ‘even I’m not that strange.’

He wasn’t inclined to correct her because he was feeling very strange himself. At first he thought it was the exertion of pushing the car off the squirrel. Later, that it was a reaction to having bits of squirrel on his hands. Now he didn’t know what it was, not with that smile blazing away at him. Or that look that suggested he’d done something monumentally wonderful for her.

It was like sea-sickness without the nausea. Then again, his head felt as if it was packed with wadding, so perhaps he was getting an ear infection and it was affecting his balance.

He walked towards his car, his thoughts sluggish but his senses in overdrive. The bright light was hurting his eyes and every rustle of a leaf and snap of a twig sounded too loud.

Perhaps he was dehydrated. He turned to Fran to ask her for a drink, and glugged down the water she got from her car, hoping it would cure everything. As he lowered the bottle, he heard the noise of something heavy approaching along the road.

‘That will be the truck,’ Fran said. ‘I’ll be fine from here on in, but before you go, Tom …’ She put her hand on his arm and he looked down at it, wondering why he wanted to simultaneously draw away from her
and
roll up the sleeve of his shirt to reveal his skin. He felt her press down on his arm and knew that she would also be pushing herself up on her tiptoes and leaning in to him. In places their bodies touched and he knew how this dance, which was hard-wired into everyone, would end. He would first feel the heat of her, then her breath and then her lips on his face, and he would need to turn his head right now if he was going to ensure he felt all that on his cheek and not, more intimately, on his mouth.

He wasn’t turning his head. He still wasn’t. No, not even now. And then, at the last possible moment, he did and felt relief before disappointment came surging after it.

He heard her whispered ‘I’m really touched that you put yourself out so much for me.’

He was in the car after that. Had he said goodbye? All he knew was that he was driving and then stopping again in a lay-by.

It wasn’t an ear infection or the sight of squashed squirrel or even dehydration that was making him feel strange. It was the fact that he’d started the day knowing irrefutably that someone was not and never could be his type, never mind how hot they looked in a black dress. And then, somewhere between her irritating the hell out of him and burying a dead squirrel, he had discovered that her face, the way she looked into the sun, her determination to do the ‘decent’ thing, had all become lovely and sexy and the kind of fascinating that you just wanted to spend more time with because without it you felt you were simply sitting in a dusty room waiting for life to begin.

‘Oh God. Oh God,’ he said to the windscreen. ‘Oh God. I have lost my bloody mind. I am a sad, middle-aged git who has lost his mind.’

But what if it’s not your mind you’ve lost? What if it’s your heart?

‘Shut up,’ he said, also to the windscreen. ‘Shut the hell up.’

CHAPTER 25

Friday 23 May

1) It is possible to start the day in an office and end it in a breakdown truck.

2) The only sound more distressing than that of red squirrel meeting tyre, is red car meeting tree.

3) Tom’s irritation comes with personal comments and cruel humour. His anger comes with shouting and a way of putting his hands on his hips that looks very camp.

4) A lot of men would have given up trying to dig a shallow grave in a forest. It takes a certain kind of man who would elicit the help of a stationery product to complete the task.

5) I have just reread point number 4 and feel I should make it clear that the grave was for a squirrel. I would hate anyone to arrest Tom on suspicion of burying his wife.

6) I have just reread point number 5 and feel Freud would have a fine old time with it. ‘Vy, Miss Mayhew, did your mind immediately go to Tom’s wife and the getting rid of the same?’ Hmmm.

7) Tom is squeamish. He looked particularly queasy after burying the squirrel and me kissing him did not help. The only way he could have looked more uncomfortable was if I’d been wearing a barbed-wire hat. Perhaps it is not the custom to kiss people as a sign of friendship and gratitude in Northumberland? The poor man was completely rigid (not in that way, you dirty devil, Freud). He could barely move his neck to offer me his cheek.

8) It is possible to be both disappointed by a man’s reaction to a kiss and relieved. Disappointed? It’s always gutting to know that a man thinks you have all the allure of a used pan scourer. Relieved? Because the only man I should be concentrating on having a relationship with is Jamie. (Trying to have a relationship with his brother may be tricky bearing in mind our differing views on dead wildlife.)

9) It is impossible to look at Jamie without thinking:

A. You are very, very attractive.

B. You are very sweet.

C. You should have paid more attention in English lessons.

10) Crying over a squirrel is all very well, but soggy paper is impossible to cut.

CHAPTER 26

‘It’s a bottle. But it’s made of chocolate. It’s made of chocolate, but it’s a bottle.’ The clear window of the large cardboard box Hattie was holding was steaming up under her enthusiasm.

‘Think we got the idea, Hats,’ he said, ‘but haven’t you forgotten something?’

He gave her his special stare, accompanied by a subtle jerk of the head towards Natalie.

Hattie finally twigged. ‘Thank you, thank YOU, THANK YOU, NAT-LEE.’ Two seconds later, she was pressing her nose to the see-through window again.

‘Well that looks like a hit,’ Natalie said, shrugging off her jacket and throwing it on to the kitchen table next to the folder and text books. ‘I thought, seeing as that tree house will spend so much time being a ship, it needs to get launched. You got time to hang around, see us do it?’

‘Yes, if we’re quick. And you, Natalie, are a genius.’

Natalie gave him a look which suggested that was self-evident,
before sniffing the air. ‘What was it for tea then, Hattie, curry? Save any for me?’ The questions were accompanied by a lunge and some enthusiastic tickling during which Hattie tried to defend herself while still clinging on to the box.

Perhaps it was a day for good things: this impromptu launch, Grietje later; she would sort out whatever kinks in his libido had made him go weird up in that forest, kinks he’d been trying to ignore despite Fran appearing regularly in the office and insisting on looking gorgeous. And, just before he’d got the curry out of the oven, there had been a phone call from Caroline and Geoffrey. They’d been out for lunch, a long and fairly liquid one he guessed. They’d said all the right things to him and Hattie about the photographs and, unprompted, had also told him they’d forwarded the envelope for Steph.

‘Can I take the chocolate bottle out of the box?’ Hattie asked when the game had run out of steam.

‘Not yet,’ Natalie said. ‘Take it out too soon and the heat of those hot little paws of yours will start to melt it. We’ll get the box unsealed and ready though. Fran’s getting your other present out of the boot.’

Tom hadn’t really tuned into the conversation until he heard ‘Fran’ and suddenly went from happy anticipation of the evening ahead to a state of pins-and-needles anxiety.

‘Fran?’ he asked, just before the door opened.

‘Uh-huh.’ Natalie was helping Hattie get the Sellotape off the end of the box. ‘She wanted a break from making that ginger rat with a tail. Going to keep me company and test me on some employment law. You know Fran, don’t you, Hattie?’

‘Yes. She let me wee in her garden.’

‘Ri-ight.’ Fran’s entrance stopped Natalie from asking any more.

Tom knew he had to do the best impression of normal that he could. ‘Hello there,’ he said cheerfully, and set about putting his shoes on and tying the laces while surreptitiously checking out what Fran was wearing.

For once it wasn’t a dress, but a blue-and-white striped T-shirt and those trousers that stopped at the calf. Capri pants. Bloody figure-skimming Capri pants.

‘Hello there,’ she said, enthusiastically, ‘I’ve come dressed as a pirate. You don’t mind me crashing your launch party, do you, Hattie?’

Tom saw Hattie glance towards the large carrier bag Fran was holding. ‘You
can
stay,’ she said, seriously, ‘but I don’t know about the crashing. I know you crashed into that other tree … but mine’s got a house in it.’

Fran looked at Tom as if to say, ‘Oh no, you didn’t tell her?’ and he found that he hadn’t quite managed to tie one of his shoes properly and had to start again.

‘Crashing in this case means coming along to something without being invited,’ Natalie explained.

‘Oh, that’s all right then,’ Hattie said. ‘And you let me wee in your garden, so it’s only fair.’

When Tom heard Fran and Natalie laugh, he understood that he should too, but he had gone into a time loop where he was forever untying and re-tying his shoes.

‘I’d better head off,’ he blurted.

‘But you said you’d hang around.’ Natalie’s expression was going to have grown men wetting themselves in court.

‘Are you giving me that present, then?’ Hattie asked and Tom’s scold got lost in Fran’s response. ‘Of course. Here you are …’ She had put her hand in the bag but took it out again, empty. ‘I mean, I know you probably have plenty. And I wasn’t sure about the size, because, well, children’s heads are—’

‘Fran, just get it out,’ Natalie said, ‘before Hattie bursts with anticipation and I have to clean it up.’

Fran pulled a paper hat out of the bag, but it was unlike any paper hat Tom had ever got from a cracker. Navy blue and tri-cornered, it might have belonged to Nelson. It had an ornate silver-coloured star that looked spiky and solid and a great deal of gold piping.

‘Is it all made of paper?’ Hattie asked, poking it tentatively.

‘Yes, I’m not sure it’s historically or militarily accurate, but it is indeed made of paper. And glue.’

‘It’s FANTASTIC!’ Hattie exclaimed, suddenly coming to life. She lifted the hat from Fran’s hand. ‘Look, Dad. A pirate’s hat. All made of paper. And glue. Look!’

He watched as Hattie placed the hat on her head.

‘Ah, Cinderella, you shall go to the ball,’ Fran said. When it was obvious no one knew what she meant, she busied herself folding up the carrier bag. ‘I mean … it fits … like the glass slipper.’

She trailed off and Tom wanted to put his arm around her, but instead reminded Hattie of her manners.

‘I’m never going to take it off,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

Another child might have found a mirror to check what the hat looked like, but Hattie raised a hand and shouted, ‘Full steam ahead,’ before making for the door.

‘Yeah, tally-ho!’ Natalie said. ‘A hat made of paper and a bottle made of chocolate. It’s all kicking off here.’

Both Tom and Fran arrived at the back door at the same time.

‘After you,’ he said, ‘and … um … the tree house is over there.’

Why had he felt the need to point that out; it was a ruddy great house stuck in a ruddy great tree, but Fran’s
face immediately looked like Hattie’s had done when she’d seen the hat.

‘You built this all yourself?’

He felt as if he’d constructed one of the great pyramids at Giza. ‘Well, me and Rob,’ he said, modestly.

Hattie had already climbed the ladder to the tree house and Natalie followed.

‘Dear Natalie,’ Fran said. ‘You can almost see what she had for breakfast, that skirt’s so short. She has
such
confidence.’

He did a pathetic laugh.
Pathetic
.

Standing on that part of the platform not taken up with the house, Hattie was finally being allowed to get the bottle out of the box.

‘Don’t shake it whatever you do,’ he heard Natalie say.

‘So what play are you going to see tonight?’ Fran was saying and he wondered how had he failed to notice during those first meetings how completely and utterly lovely she was. And smelled like … God, what did she smell like? Cut grass. No. Lemons. Scrambled eggs. Possum’s breath. God, he didn’t bloody know. What day was it?

‘The play, Tom?’ Fran said again, as if he were a younger child than Hattie.

Do I know the name of the play? Yes!

‘
The Bricklayer’s Bequest
,’ he said, and had enough confidence
to add, ‘it’s about a workman who wins the Euro lottery—’

‘And spends it to help his friends sort out their lives.’

‘You know it?’ he asked, politely, while his brain bellowed, ‘Arrrrggghh.’

‘Yes. I went to see the preview. I’m extremely keen on drama, particularly from new playwrights.’

Of course you are
.

He was going to have to do some homework before he came back tonight.

‘How’s the squirrel?’ he gabbled.

‘Nearly done. Planning on delivering it—’

‘Are you going to get up here, Fran?’ Natalie shouted. ‘And Tom, take some video and photos, will you?’

‘So bossy,’ Fran said with obvious delight. ‘She’ll make a wonderful lawyer. Oh well, up I go.’

Tom made a meal of getting his phone out of his jacket so that he would not be tempted to watch Fran climbing the ladder. When he did chance looking up at the platform, he saw Hattie was holding the bottle like a club.

‘OK,’ he shouted.

‘I declare,’ Hattie announced, ‘the
Jolly Howard
launched!’ She swung back the bottle and smashed it against the edge of the house where it shattered into pieces and released a shower of chocolate beans which fell on to the platform
and rolled about, some falling down on to the lawn. Natalie and Fran clapped and cheered.