The Wedding Diary (Choc Lit) (6 page)

They stopped to help him pick them up. As Fanny and Rosie piled the stuff into his arms, he turned to glance at Cat.

‘Oh,’ he said and frowned. ‘It is you, isn’t it – the girl from Chapman’s yard? You’re a long way from home.’

Cat stared for half a moment. But then she remembered. It was the surly guy who’d bought those tiles. What was his name? Lawson, Langley, Longley? No, hang on – it was Lawley – Adam Lawley.

What was he doing here? She thought he’d said the place that he was working on – where was it? She wished she could remember! She was almost sure it wasn’t Dorset. He wouldn’t have needed Cotswold tiles in Dorset.

Fanny was staring at the man and very obviously assessing him. ‘So you two know each other?’ she demanded, speculation glittering in her eyes.

‘N-no, not really,’ stammered Cat. ‘A week or two ago, Mr Lawley bought some tiles from where I work, for a house in – Gloucestershire!’

‘But now you’re working here in Dorset, Mr Lawley?’ Fanny asked him, smirking as her eyes peeled off his shirt.

‘Yes, I’m project-managing the rebuilding and conversion of the stables,’ Adam Lawley said. ‘They’re going to become a health club complex with treatment rooms and plunge pools, tanning salons, saunas – all that stuff. I’m not here every day. This is a flying visit to check on work in progress.’

‘So you do renovation, restoration, all that kind of thing?’

‘Yes, but I—’

‘I knew it – serendipity!’ cried Fanny. ‘I’ve just bought this old flint barn in Surrey. It has outline planning permission for conversion to a six or seven bedroom house with triple garage. Perhaps I’ll have a swimming pool, as well.’

Now she was eyeing Adam like a vixen might eye a handsome cockerel she meant to have for dinner. ‘Do you project-manage things like that?’

‘Sometimes,’ Adam said. ‘But I’m a builder, not an architect, and it sounds to me as if you need an architect right now. What I do would come afterwards, working from the plans.’

‘So could you recommend an architect?’ asked Fanny, baring sharp white teeth in a big smile and flicking her pink tongue across her scarlet lip-glossed lips. ‘If you and an architect—’

‘We’d have to talk about it.’ All his plans and drawings now cradled in the crook of his left arm, Adam fished in the pocket of his shirt and found a business card. He handed it to Fanny, absentmindedly stroked Caspar on his sleek, dark head, and then he turned to Cat again. ‘What brings you here, Miss Aston?’

‘Oh, Cat’s the lucky winner of our fabulous competition!’ said Fanny Gregory brightly, handing him her own much posher, heavily embossed and gilded card. ‘She and her fiancé will be having the most fantastic wedding here later on this year. Or maybe early next year – I don’t think she’s quite decided yet. But what she’s seen today has knocked her sideways. She’s totally bedazzled, aren’t you, sweet?’

Cat found she couldn’t manage a reply.

‘Congratulations,’ Adam Lawley said, and then he smiled the sort of smile that looks like it’s been shrunk, it was so tight.

She met his gaze, and there she saw – what was it, curiosity? Or was it disbelief? It wasn’t congratulations, anyway.

‘Th-thank you, Mr Lawley.’ Cat realised she was blushing furiously, and told herself to stop imagining things.

Adam hurried on towards the Georgian stables which were round the back of Melbury Court, fifty yards or so from the hotel. They’d been far enough away to have escaped the fire which had badly damaged the original Melbury House, as it had been known before it was reborn as a hotel.

After half a century of neglect the stables were in disrepair but were now being restored. Their original Grade I listed classical façade had been retained, but inside they were being converted into a luxurious health club with a Turkish theme. This had proved to be a plumbing nightmare, as it so often was with listed buildings, and he had to sort it out today.

He had to go to Gloucestershire on Monday and then come back to Dorset later that same week, because here in Dorset there was the Italian fountain, too. He was looking forward to working on the fountain, even though it promised to be a long, involved and very complicated job.

He meant to start with Venus, who was in a pitiable state, pocked and marked and riddled with what looked like bullet holes, and so cracked and fissured that she was in danger of losing fingers, toes and several petals of the roses which were woven in her hair. Some of these roses were already missing – broken off by accident or deliberately shot away?

Rain was getting in the cracks and threatening to make everything much worse. One more cold and frosty winter would be a disaster, opening these cracks up even further and causing even more bits to fall off.

What stupid, idiot vandals had used a lovely thing like that for target practice?

Drunken, bored aristocrats, perhaps?

Or ditto soldiers?

They should have been shot themselves.

As for lovely things – the girl from Chapman’s yard had looked even more beautiful out in the soft spring sunshine.

Where had he put that woman’s business card?

He patted all his pockets, but he couldn’t find it. But it didn’t matter. It wasn’t as if he needed any work.

He had more than enough of it already, and she could always call him, anyway.

‘What a hottie,’ Fanny said, as she watched Adam Lawley stride away.

She read the details on his business card and then she slipped it into her Versace leather handbag, smirking speculatively.

‘I must get my train,’ said Cat, zipping up her own bag which was made of bright pink canvas and had come from Stead & Simpson.

‘Of course you must, my darling.’ Fanny snapped her fingers, and Rosie and the boy photographer came hurrying up at once.

They all piled into Fanny’s BMW and Fanny zoomed away at Mach 1 speed, churning up the gravel and scattering the rabbits who were venturing out to take their evening promenade.

‘A good day’s work, my angels,’ Fanny told them, as the BMW careened along the narrow country roads. ‘We’ve lots and lots of lovely pix of gorgeous Cat, so darling Lulu’s going to be delighted – don’t you think so, Rosie?’

‘Yes, she should be very pleased,’ said Rosie, who was clearly used to being thrown around in purple BMWs and didn’t seem to mind one little bit. ‘Mummy said to tell you, Fanny – if you’ll let her have a snap or two, she’ll write a little piece for
Dorset People
. The editor’s a friend, plays golf with Dad.’

‘Excellent,’ said Fanny, honking at some walkers who were cluttering up the road and forcing them to take evasive action in the form of falling in a ditch.

Cat didn’t know what Rosie and her boss were going on about. But she found she didn’t really care. By now she’d had enough of Fanny and her gang and wanted to go home.

As Fanny brought the BMW to a shuddering halt outside the station, she turned to look at Cat. ‘I’m sorry we can’t take you back to London,’ she said crisply. ‘But we have to drive to Solihull.’

‘What’s in Solihull?’ asked Cat, relieved. She didn’t fancy driving back to London with Fanny, Rosie and the boy photographer and being interrogated all the way.

‘We’re seeing a woman who makes sugar flowers and sugar Moses baskets, rocking horses, bootees and the like for christening and wedding cakes,’ said Rosie.

‘She reckons she’s the queen of sugar art,’ continued Fanny. ‘She’s won all sorts of prizes and awards, apparently. Now she wants to move upmarket, sell her stuff to WAGs and supermodels. So she needs my help.’

‘She says she doesn’t mind how much it costs. We think she must be loaded,’ added Rosie.

‘Or maybe she’s delusional,’ drawled Fanny.

She’s not alone, thought Cat.

As soon as she got back to London, she decided, she was going to write to Fanny Gregory. She would say that everything was off, and she was sorry for all the inconvenience she had caused. She hoped the runners-up would have the wedding of a lifetime.

She got out of the BMW. ‘It’s been great to meet you,’ she said insincerely, shaking hands all round and stroking Caspar on his velvet head and hoping the experience of spending time with Fanny would never be repeated.

‘Thank you, sweetheart, likewise,’ Fanny said. She arranged her face into a terrifying grin. ‘I’ll finalise some details and then I’ll be in touch. I’ll need firm confirmation very soon, most probably Monday morning.’

‘But, but,’ said Cat, ‘I can’t—’

‘I’ll call you, angel. So mind you keep your phone on all the time.’

Cat watched the BMW zoom away. She knew she wouldn’t write that letter. She didn’t have the nerve. She wondered what the hell she should do now, apart from find a lake and drown herself?

Adam and the foreman on the site sorted out the urgent plumbing problems, so on Monday morning the men could get on with the next phase of the stables project.

Then he made his way back to the car park, mentally clicking through the list of things he had to do and places where he had to go before he went to Italy.

He was looking forward to the Italian trip, because he would be seeing a guy whose father, brothers, cousins, uncles – those who didn’t run restaurants and cafés and let out apartments
to Lucca’s summer visitors, anyway – were all involved in building work of some kind, in various restorations and conversions, and who himself was project-managing the total restoration of a sixteenth-century manor house. Or a
castello
, or
palazzo
, or whatever Italians called such things.

Sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth-century domestic architecture was his own special subject. The one he’d choose if he should ever go on
Mastermind
, which of course he wouldn’t, because there was no way you’d ever get him sitting in that big black leather chair.

But the thought of working in the warm Italian sunshine, of project-managing restorations for the many well-heeled British who, in spite of the recession, were still buying anything from a castle to a cowshed over there – it had a most definite appeal.

He was working hard on his Italian, listening to CDs as he drove round the country, repeating words and phrases after someone very florid and excitable, someone who used far too many exclamation marks.
Andiamo!
Pronto! Presto! Arrivederci! Si, Signor, Signora, Signorina!

He got a lot of nervous looks at traffic lights and junctions as he tried to get some
brio
into what he said and as he attempted to get the accent right.

He had been in e-mail contact with Pietro since last autumn, had told him he’d be coming to Lucca in late spring or early summer, and Pietro said that would be fine –
perfetto
,
ideale
,
assoluto
.

Of course, he’d meant to go with Maddy, to combine a bit of business with a lot of pleasure. They’d drive around the Tuscan countryside and visit hilltop villages. They’d sit in shady cafés and drink cold Pinot Grigio. They’d make lazy love on linen sheets throughout the warm Italian nights.

He’d wondered if they might find something wonderful themselves, if she would fall in love with some
castello
or
casale
. If she’d turn to him and say – this is it, my darling, this is where I want to live, where we’ll bring up our children.

But of course all that had been a fantasy. He wouldn’t be doing any of it now, and this would be a business trip, no fun in it at all.

He thought about the girl he’d seen this afternoon, the pretty, kind and helpful girl from Barry Chapman’s salvage yard, who was getting married at the Melbury Court Hotel.

She hadn’t looked very happy at the prospect. In fact, she’d looked like she had lost a grand and found a penny, and he wondered why. Where was her fiancé, and why hadn’t he been there today? Why did she seem so anxious and so sad?

Then he thought – what’s it to do with you? Why are you so worried about a girl you’re never going to see again?

He made some notes about the stuff he’d done today, he sent some e-mails and then he rang Jules.

‘I’ll be back in London eightish, nineish,’ he began. ‘Yeah, I’m fine. Gwennie’s still at her sister’s, is that right? She’s going straight into work on Monday morning? What do you mean, I don’t sound fine? I’m doing really well today.’

Who am I trying to fool, he asked himself. ‘Jules, old mate,’ he added, ‘do you fancy getting very drunk with me tonight?’

Cat didn’t usually drink spirits.

But, once she was on the train back home, she realised she needed something stronger than rubbish-from-the-trolley instant coffee.

So she bought a shot of vodka and a can of tonic, and drank it in defiance of the sixty-something couple sitting opposite who had a squirming grandchild on each lap and were glaring at her as if she were the living incarnation of the Antichrist.

What was she going to do?

Start an online manhunt, she supposed. Post Jack’s picture all over the world wide web, captioned
have you seen this man
and offering a reward for information?

‘Excuse me?’ said the sixty-something woman.

‘Yes?’ said Cat.

‘There is another way, you know.’ The woman offered her a brightly-coloured leaflet. ‘If you’re troubled in your mind, that devil’s brew will only make things worse. But if you let the good—’

Cat tuned out and, when the trolley next came down the aisle, she bought another shot of devil’s brew. She stared out of the window. Somebody or something was messing with her mind. But it wasn’t Jack. It wasn’t Fanny. It wasn’t Rosie, Caspar or the boy photographer.

Who was it then, she asked herself, as she drank her vodka and wondered why she felt so very strange.

‘Okay, what’s the problem?’ Jules enquired.

‘Why does there need to be a problem?’ Adam shrugged. ‘Why shouldn’t I get drunk with an old mate?’

‘Your oldest, dearest mate,’ corrected Jules.

‘Yes,’ said Adam, nodding. ‘You’re absolutely right, and it’s your round. I’ll have a black and tan and a Macallan chaser, if it’s all right with you.’

But this had been at ten o’clock, and now it was gone midnight. Adam had passed the awkward stage of being an uptight, stiff-necked Anglo-Saxon. He wanted to confide, have therapeutic, meaningful discussion, man to man. He wanted to be in a Cheyenne sweat lodge or a Californian man cave, not in a crowded London pub with an extended licence and a football-pitch-sized pull-down screen.

Jules must have felt the same.

Or, at any rate, he put his arm round Adam’s shoulders and gave him a big hug. ‘What’s bothering you?’ he asked, as he picked up his own Macallan chaser from yet another round. ‘It’s not that bird again?’

‘It isn’t Maddy, if that’s who you mean.’

‘You’ve got yourself a different bird?’ Jules grinned. ‘Well, nice work, my friend! What’s this one like?’

‘It’s not a girl, exactly.’ Adam was now light-headed with fatigue and fumes of single malt. ‘It’s more about what girls can do to you.’

‘Oh.’ Jules switched his grin off and put on his family doctor face. ‘Some trouble in the trouser region, right?’

‘No.’ Adam thought about it for a moment, wondering if he should tell his friend about the girl from Chapman’s yard, the one who was engaged, but who had somehow got inside his head and made herself at home there?

But in the end he found he couldn’t do it. He’d sound so pathetic, such a loser, such a fool. There’s this girl, she’s in my mind, he’d say, and Jules would laugh and say I can’t believe I’m hearing this, why isn’t she in your bed?

‘If it’s not a bird, and if it’s not trouser trouble, it can’t be too bad,’ said Jules. ‘Mate, I said—’

‘I heard you.’

‘You’re overworking, though – bombing up and down the motorways, Cornwall one day, Dorset, Middlesex and bloody Gloucestershire the next. You don’t know if you’re coming or going. You need to take time out.’

‘You could be right,’ admitted Adam.

‘Of course I’m right,’ said Jules. ‘You need to chill a bit. You need to have a little holiday.’ He looked down at his empty glass. ‘You need to buy a round, as well.’

This is wrong, thought Cat. It’s more than wrong, it’s totally insane.

Since meeting Adam Lawley once again so unexpectedly, she’d thought about him all the time. On the train while coming home from Dorset, while she ate a takeaway in front of the TV, while she took a shower, then dried her hair, then went to bed – he wouldn’t go away.

She spent the whole night dreaming about Jack. But Jack was somehow all mixed up with Adam. Now the dawn was breaking, all the street lights had gone out, and she was still confused.

Why should she obsess about this man? She hardly knew him, after all. She didn’t fancy him. She didn’t even like him.

So why did she remember he was tall, and – if he’d been her type, which of course he wasn’t – reasonably good-looking, albeit in a gloomy sort of way?

What did it matter if he had broad shoulders, if his waist was neat and well-defined, if he had dark, Spanish-looking eyes with long, black lashes – lashes which were wasted on a man?

Why had she noticed that in the bright spring sunshine his poker-straight dark hair was streaked with red, as if it had been stroked by fire? What was it Fanny Gregory had said, something about red hair being delicious on the right sort of man? She could have had a point.

Adam might be solemn, but he didn’t look mean or cruel or spiteful – just serious, in fact, and surely being serious was no crime? She was always being told that she was much too serious herself.

As she mixed some muesli, adding seeds and raisins and banana slices – I must eat healthily, she told herself. I can’t afford to pile on pounds. I still might need to fit into a wedding gown – she was wondering if he had a girlfriend. How did solemn, serious men find girlfriends? Did they advertise on dating sites?

If they did, how did they sell themselves?

Almost every man you saw on dating sites made a point of saying he had a sense of humour. But Adam seemed to have no sense of humour. Perhaps he said as much, and added that he didn’t want a sense of humour in his girlfriends either, and serious women only need apply?

Oh, shut up, you idiot, she thought.

She was broken-hearted. Surely it had to be obscene, to take an interest in another man while she was broken-hearted? She must forget him and she had to do it now. She had to concentrate on finding Jack and getting him to talk about their future as a couple – that’s if they had a future.

This Adam Lawley, he was just a sudden crush, a wild infatuation. It often happened, she was sure, especially when a girl had been just been dumped. She’d read about it in a magazine, about the need within us all to fill up psychic voids.

She must talk to somebody.

Tess would fit the bill.

But Tess was worse than useless.

‘Of course he isn’t dead, you muppet,’ she retorted, when Cat rang and got her out of bed, wondering aloud if Jack might be in serious trouble, adding what if he hadn’t rung because he’d had a breakdown or a psychological collapse? If he’d been in an accident and was lying unconscious somewhere in intensive care, unclaimed, unknown, unloved, like in that storyline in
Holby City
or was it in
ER
?

Or if he might be dead?

‘Well, he could be,’ Cat said, stung.

‘We’d have heard,’ said Tess. ‘It would have been the headlines on the BBC and on Sky News – unknown alternative comedian kicks the bucket. Only the good die young, in any case. So Jack the lad will live to be a hundred.’

‘But listen, Tess! What if—’

‘Cat, it’s half past six on Sunday morning! Please can we do this some other time?’

‘Sorry, I didn’t realise.’

‘Why don’t you buy a clock?’

‘I’ve said I’m sorry.’

‘Okay, apology accepted, now I’m going back to bed.’

‘Why, have you got company?’

‘Yeah, I might have, Mrs Nosy Parker.’

‘Who is it, someone nice?’

‘I haven’t quite decided yet,’ said Tess. ‘By the way, what happened when you went to Dorset? I assume that’s where you must have gone? I tried to call you but your phone was off. So did you see the place?’

‘Yes, and it was fabulous! The hotel was gorgeous. The gardens were amazing. There was this fantastic marble fountain. It needs a lot of work done on it, but it could be wonderful. Then there’s going to be this awesome health club with saunas, tanning salons, plunge pools – Tess, I’ve got so much to tell you! I—’

‘Tell me tomorrow, eh? At this very moment, I have a pot to watch, a fish to fry.’

‘A pig who needs a poke?’

‘Yeah,’ said Tess, then giggled and hung up.