Village Fortunes (Turnham Malpas 17) (15 page)

Alice was livid at that final parting shot. So angry with him that she decided to phone the Charter-Placketts and let them know who was back in town. Forewarned is forearmed.

It happened to be Harriet who answered her call. ‘Alice Templeton here, Harriet. Got to be quick. Just thought I’d let you know that Chris is back.’

‘Oh! Is he? Right. What is he—’ was Harriet’s reply, but she was too late as Alice had already put down the phone.

‘Damn and blast,’ said Harriet loud enough to alarm half of Turnham Malpas. She stamped her foot too and it hurt because the limestone floor tiles in the kitchen were so hard. That blasted man, just as Fran seemed to be getting over him. Well, appeared to be, at least. Not quite her bouncy self yet but getting there. Alice sounded angry. Why should she phone here? Did she know something Harriet Charter-Plackett didn’t know? Why was he back again when he couldn’t stand, he claimed, the English winter? Johnny had told Jimbo only the other day that the two small country hotel chains they were intending buying had at last faced the fact they were heading for bankruptcy and had definitely decided to accept the Templeton’s meagre offer. So Chris wasn’t entirely a waste of space, but right now Harriet could kick him hard enough to send him right the way back to Rio.

Winter had arrived in earnest about three weeks after he’d left. Icy-cold nights, frost on the ground, and the promise, according to the weather forecast, of a bitter winter right through until the New Year. But still Chris was back again.

Harriet rang Jimbo at the store. ‘Don’t express big surprise at this piece of news I’m about to tell you; keep a straight face, OK?’

‘What on earth are you going to tell me? You’re not pregnant, are you?’

She heard him chuckling at the other end of the phone.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. No I am not. Alice has just rung me and in an ultra-brief phone call told me that Chris is back. So if he comes in to buy something or asking to see Fran be careful, OK? I’m relying on you. I mean it, I’m serious. Home for lunch?’

‘Definitely.’ Before he put down the receiver Jimbo chuckled again, knowing it would amuse her. And it did. But what then stuck in her mind was the word ‘pregnant’. She wished he hadn’t said it. He didn’t mean anything by it because she was way past that kind of jolly surprise, but Fran certainly wasn’t. And so Harriet spent most of her morning off worrying about Fran.

By the time Jimbo came home at two o’clock she had relaxed though. After all, Fran knew all the rules, the two of them talked about it endlessly during her teen years, so Harriet was absolutely certain that Fran would have taken precautions every time. Every time? Said that way it sounded far too often for Harriet’s peace of mind. They’d never spent a night away, nor a weekend, all those weeks he was here. So how could they? Should she ask Fran outright when she came home? Or assume she wasn’t? Deep horror filled Harriet’s head. She honestly couldn’t imagine Chris not wanting sex – he looked that kind of a man. Had they been doing it at the Big House, under Johnny and Alice’s roof? If they’d colluded with Chris to make it possible, she and Jimbo would have an awful lot to say to Johnny and Alice, and a precious friendship would be in ruins.

Harriet and Jimbo had quiche and salad and some lovely bread rolls for lunch, finished off with one of Harriet’s tasty fruit pies. She kept giving him looks full of meaning, and eventually he had to ask why she kept looking at him like that.

‘Where’s Fran?’

Jimbo said he’d asked Fran to go round collecting the food from their outworkers in the villages.

‘Greta has declared she can’t fulfil her orders as she’s been so busy this week her shelves are almost empty; and we’re right down on organic vegetables, and so Fran’s calling on absolutely everyone she collects from. Lucky if she’s back by three. I’ve given her the money for lunch at the Wise Man, as she’s got to keep her strength up. They’ve started letting out rooms now, you know, apparently they’re doing rather well. They’ve opened up four rooms, all en suite.’

‘I didn’t know that. How long have they been doing it?’

‘Started in August. You’ve got to make use of every inch of your establishment if you’re to succeed nowadays. Can I finish the fruit pie off?’

‘Of course. I won’t have any more.’ Harriet couldn’t have eaten a single piece of anything at all she felt so sick. So that was where it happened then. The Wise Man. He must have paid for a room when they had dinner there. She’d skin him alive if anything untoward had happened. Face a few facts, Harriet, she thought, speak it out loud in words of one syllable. ‘Jimbo, you don’t think Fran might be pregnant, do you? I mean, she isn’t, is she?’

Jimbo’s spoon clattered into his dish. ‘She’d better not be. Believe me, I’ll kill him if she is.’

‘Takes two, you know.’

‘No, it takes one when he’s so much older and more experienced than she is. If you suspect she might be you’ll need to have a word when she comes home. Tonight. Don’t let another day go by. When did he go back to Rio?’

‘I think it’s about six weeks.’

‘Six weeks. She’ll know by now if she is. Where’s my diary? He went back almost straight after that meeting where we had to bring Johnny up to speed on Bonfire Night and such. So . . .’ Jimbo flicked through the pages and worked out it was six and a half weeks since Chris left the village.

‘So if she is she’s at least six weeks.’

‘She won’t be, will she? She and I talked through it several times as she was growing up. Flick told her a few home truths too one night. I know, Fran told me. And even Fergus put his oar in.’

‘Fergus? Heaven’s above, he wouldn’t spare her blushes. You know what he’s like.’

Harriet felt failure flood all over her. ‘I’ve done all I can to keep her safe, and what’s more I don’t agree with abortion.’

‘I know you don’t, I don’t either,’ Jimbo added. ‘Nor do I agree with shotgun marriages. Nor with Fran in Brazil. No. Definitely not. They wouldn’t be happy for long. I think he’s a bit of a bully. Johnny isn’t, but he is.’

‘Pity Venetia isn’t alive, she’d have been just right for Chris.’

‘I always had a soft spot for her, you know. She longed to get married, she told me, but no one ever offered other than Jeremy, poor chap.’

Harriet grunted a mumbled response at the idea of anyone wanting to marry such secondhand goods as Venetia, and immediately went back to her more immediate problem. ‘Frankly, I want Fran home here in this house right now.’

‘Soon be three o’clock. Let’s both go to the store and help her unload the Range Rover. Right now, this minute.’

‘I’ll clear up then we’ll go.’ With no pans to wash they soon tidied up the kitchen and reached the store at ten minutes to three to find Tom just starting to help Fran to unload. Between the four of them the organic vegetables were unloaded first, having been picked up the last, and then they unloaded the boxes of chutney and the preserves Greta Jones was waiting for, and the home-baked cakes for the freezer, in no time at all.

‘Fran, have you had lunch, darling?’

‘No.’

‘In that case come straight home with me.’

‘Dad needs me here, Mum.’

‘You don’t need her, do you, Jimbo?’ This was an order rather than a question.

‘No, I don’t.’ Jimbo was relieved that Harriet had taken it upon herself to find out. ‘Off you go, Fran child, you’ve already done a day’s work. Tom and me can manage, can’t we, Tom?’

‘We certainly can.’

Harriet threw together a salad with the rest of the quiche, found a lemon drizzle cake that needed finishing off, and shared a fresh pot of coffee with her daughter.

When Fran had wolfed down her meal and was emptying the last of the coffee into her mug, Harriet told her that Chris was back. Fran almost shuddered and then pulled herself together. ‘Is he? He hasn’t been here, has he?’

‘No.’

‘Why have you told me?’

‘Thought you should know that’s all, just in case.’

‘In case of what, Mum?’

‘I don’t know, just thought I should tell you. You know, in case he came in the store and you weren’t prepared. Or he rang you unexpectedly.’

‘Prepared for what?’

‘Well, the surprise of seeing him when you thought he was back home in Rio. Fran, why are you so touchy with me? I thought I was being helpful.’

Fran drank down the rest of her coffee and then stood up, saying, ‘All right if I leave the clearing up to you, I’m tired, it’s been hard work today, there was so much to collect. I’m going to lie on my bed for a while.’

‘You are OK, aren’t you, Fran, about Chris? He left the village so abruptly and I did feel that you were very hurt.’

‘Well, I wasn’t, so don’t worry about me. If . . .
if
. . . he should ask about me I’m not going out with him. I don’t even want to see him. I’m playing hard to get. Right?’ Fran went to leave the kitchen, but she paused in the doorway as though debating whether she should stay and talk some more. Then she changed her mind and Harriet could hear her slowly climbing the stairs. Things weren’t right with Fran. If she said that to Jimbo his answer would be, ‘What do you mean? What’s she said?’

But Harriet wouldn’t have an answer for him. It was simply a mother’s intuition.

Fran didn’t have long to wait to see Chris. He arrived at exactly three pm the following afternoon. She was sorting out the fresh fruit displays, making them look so tempting that the customers wouldn’t be able to resist buying, a skill she had honed since she was about eleven and had been put in charge of keeping the greetings cards neat and tidy. She was concentrating so hard that she didn’t hear Bel, who was on the till, say very softly to her, ‘Fran, someone for you, love.’ So Chris was beside her before she’d had time to prime herself for their encounter.

A split second before he gently tapped her on her shoulder she smelt his aftershave and immediately stopped piling the oranges into a pyramid and swung round to face him.

‘Hi, Fran. I’m back.’

‘So you are.’

Chris bent his head with the intention of kissing her on the mouth but she put her hand on his chest and pushed him away. ‘Sorry, not when I’m working.’

He drew back, surprised by her response. Refusing a kiss from Chris Templeton simply wasn’t allowed. ‘Too busy with a few oranges to greet me?’

‘They’re Jaffas and worth sixty-five pence each and the very devil to stack.’ Her hand trembled slightly. ‘Oops!’ The pyramid began tumbling to the floor.

Chris laughed. Fran almost wept.

Chris began picking up the oranges and handing them to her. ‘You stack them again and I’ll pick them up for you. No, no, don’t,
I’ll
pick them up.’

‘Please, I can manage. Thank you.’

Bel, hearing the stress in Fran’s voice, decided to intervene. ‘We can’t have customers helping doing the displays, now can we, Fran? I assume you are a customer? What can I get you?’ Bel, normally the gentlest of people, had a sharp edge to her voice which brought Chris to a standstill.

‘Right, I’ll leave you to it. What time do you finish today?’

Fran never even turned to look at him, she simply said, concentrating again on stacking the oranges, ‘I’m not free tonight. Got things planned. Sorry.’

‘I thought perhaps the Wise Man might be an idea tonight.’

‘Fortunately for me I have other things planned, as I have already said. Hope you enjoy your stay. There, Bel, I’ve finished the oranges. Do you fancy a cup of tea before the school mums all turn up?’

‘I fancy a cup too.’ But Chris’s request was ignored. He half made up his mind to follow Fran into the store’s kitchen, where hopefully they could talk more privately, but she shut the door behind her with a rather bigger bang than it needed. Chris decided to take the hint. Instead he chose the largest box of chocolates he could find on the shelves, paid Bel for it, and asked her for a piece of paper he could use to write a note. He tucked the note under the ribbon on the box, and said to Bel, ‘Could you give her this when she brings your cup of tea?’

Bel, secretly loving being involved in their romantic affair which no one was supposed to know about but which they all did, accepted the box with feigned reluctance and promised she would do as he asked. Chris, rather puzzled by Fran’s response to him, but at the same time wise enough to know the ways of women and to assume she was playing hard to get, quietly wandered out. He was disappointed that he would have to spend the evening with Johnny and Alice and their two demanding babies. Still, tomorrow was another day. But it was a bit unexpected to be rejected in this way. He was unaccustomed to it.

Fran stayed behind to help in the mail-order office as Greta was fretting about getting behind with her orders. ‘These will all have to be posted tomorrow because Tom’ll have cashed up in the post office by now. I do hate not getting them off straight away.’

‘Never mind. They’ll all blame the delay on the post, not you.’

‘Do you think so? Yes, I expect you’re right. I heard that Chris talking to Bel a while ago. He’s very handsome.’

‘He is.’

‘My Vince isn’t handsome, never has been, but he is
very
irresistible.’

‘Handsome is as handsome does, Greta.’

‘Oh, my word, you sound very down about him. Isn’t he all he’s cracked up to be, then?’

Greta watched Fran’s face for her reaction, but Fran had turned away and was leaving. ‘I like it in your office, I’ll miss you when you move to the Old Barn,’ she said.

‘I’ll have a lot more room though, and at least something pleasant to look out on which I haven’t got here, all I have here is dustbins and recycling bins to look at, and the light on for most of the day, even in summer. Still, you can always sneak away and come to visit me on some kind of trumped-up excuse. Parents aren’t always the best people to confide in, you know, and though most people think I’m a gossip, I do know when to keep my mouth shut.’ Greta smiled at Fran and patted her arm to illustrate her good intentions. ‘I’ve known you since you were born, and wouldn’t do anything to harm you. You can trust me. Right?’

‘Thanks, Greta. I’ll remember what you’ve said.’