Wild Oats (40 page)

Rod’s arm was hooked around her waist. He was holding her tightly, as if he would never let her go. She snuggled deeper into him, revelling in the cosiness, and in his sleep he hugged her even tighter as if he feared she was trying to escape. Jamie half closed her eyes and drifted away on a cocktail of contentment and anticipation. Half of her wanted to wake him and make love again, but this time in the light of day, so she could be sure it was real. But the other half wanted to lie there and revel in the memory of the night before. The curtains were slightly open and the morning light streamed in. Motes of dust swirled in a sunbeam. Jamie remembered how she always used to pretend they were tiny fairies, dancing in the air. She imagined herself one of them now, arms outstretched, spinning in a triumphant pirouette of happiness.

Beside her, Rod stirred. She wriggled out from under his grasp and turned to face him just as his eyes opened. She could see by his expression that he was undergoing the same blissful slide into realization that she’d just felt. They lay and looked at each other, unable to stop smiling. And they made love again. This time it was slow, the movements imperceptible, culminating in the intimate, all-consuming ecstasy that can only be evoked by love, not lust.

At last, one of them broke the silence.

‘So – what do we do now?’ asked Jamie.

‘We’re meant to be, aren’t we?’ answered Rod simply. ‘We’ve wasted all those years; waited all that time. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t got any doubts.’

Jamie’s heart hammered. She knew if she analysed it logically and dispassionately, she might hear warning bells. Childhood sweethearts meeting up after twelve years, falling into bed and declaring undying love for each other? It wasn’t a firm foundation on which to build a future. At best, it was romanticizing.

But her heart told her she wasn’t going to let this chance slip away. The feeling she’d thought she’d never have again in her life had resurrected itself. She wasn’t going to sacrifice that by being practical and sensible. She wanted to spend every moment with him. They lay in each other’s arms a little longer, not wanting to break the spell. Then Jamie turned to Rod with a grin.

‘Do you know what?’

‘What?’

‘I’m absolutely starving.’

When Olivier heard two sets of footsteps coming down the stairs, and Jamie talking and laughing excitedly, he didn’t need telling who the other pair belonged to. He’d seen the way she’d looked at Rod the night before, watched them slip away hand in hand. The last thing he wanted to do was give them a cheery greeting and offer them coffee. He didn’t want to see her sparkling eyes, her besotted aura. With a heavy heart, he slipped quietly out of the back door just as they came into the room.

They sat out in the garden with a pot of tea, eating toast and blackberry jam. There was no sign of anyone else: the remaining guests had either gone or were still sleeping off their hangovers. It was almost impossible to believe that the garden had been heaving with nearly a hundred revellers the night before. Jamie made a mental note to buy Lettice a big bunch of flowers to thank her for her hard work – she had a heart of gold, once you got through the rather overpowering facade. Lettice and Jack had gone off somewhere – she’d heard the purr of the Bentley earlier this morning – for which she was rather grateful. Jack was very open-minded; he wouldn’t necessarily be shocked to find her sharing breakfast with Rod, but Jamie felt the need to let things breathe a little before the two of them declared their love to the world.

‘So,’ she said, flapping a wasp away from the jam with her hand. ‘Where do we take it from here?’

Rod considered his reply carefully.

‘What’s happening to this place? Are you still going to sell?’

Jamie sighed, feeling her bubble deflate slightly. At the end of the day, you might have found your true love, but there were still practicalities to consider.

‘It’s going on the market next week. There’s no way we can afford to keep it going. Well, you know that – you know Dad’s financial situation. I had all sorts of grand ideas about opening a country hotel, but the figures were terrifying. We didn’t have a hope.’ She looked rueful.

Rod munched on his toast thoughtfully.

‘What about,’ he ventured, ‘if you and I bought Bucklebury Farm off your dad?’

Jamie stared at him. He carried on, feeling a flutter of excitement in his stomach as he warmed to his idea.

‘We can go back to my original plan. With a few minor adjustments. We can convert the stables and give your father one of them to live in. But instead of selling the rest off, we could turn them into holiday cottages. It gives us an income, your father realizes his capital, and we’ve got the farmhouse.’

He didn’t add the bit about filling it with fat, happy babies. Not just yet.

Jamie stared at him, her heart pounding.

‘Do you think that’s possible?’

‘I don’t see why not.’

Jamie shook her head in wonder, unable to keep the smile off her face as she mentally ran through what Rod had outlined.

‘It’s absolutely incredible. I can’t see any flaws at all.’

‘There aren’t any, that’s why. It’s meant to be, Jamie. It’s meant to be.’ A little voice told Rod to exercise a modicum of caution. ‘Obviously, I need to sort things out with Bella first. Make everything official and agree some sort of settlement. I can’t go ahead and make plans otherwise. I don’t want things to become messy. Not when we’ve waited this long.’

Jamie nodded in agreement, spreading another slice of toast with a layer of jam, realizing that she hadn’t really eaten last night.

‘When you’ve sorted everything out, then we can talk to Dad.’

‘What do you think he’ll say? About his daughter taking up with a Deacon?’ teased Rod. ‘Isn’t that every father’s worst nightmare?’

Jamie thumped him on the arm good-naturedly.

‘Actually, I think he’s quite a fan. He was certainly singing your praises when I was calling you every name under the sun the other week.’

When Jamie went in to fill up the teapot, Rod sat in the sunshine, trying to take in what was happening to him. It was just possible all of his dreams were coming true at once. Jamie, his beloved Jamie, who had never been far from his thoughts all these years,
despite what he might have pretended to himself. And Bucklebury Farm… his gaze wandered lazily round the garden. It was almost perfect as it was, even though there was the odd tell-tale sign of last night’s revelry – cigarette butts in the flower beds, beer bottles tucked into peculiar places, heel marks in the lawn. He thought he might build a little summer house – somewhere they could have breakfast when it wasn’t quite as warm as this, or shelter from the hot midday sun with a bottle of beer…

Stop, he told himself sternly. He was going too fast. There were miles of red tape to sort out first. He had to find himself a decent lawyer for a start. He wasn’t a vindictive or a spiteful man, so he wanted to be fair to Bella, but at the same time he had his own interests to protect. And if they were going to buy out Bucklebury from Jack, he’d got quite a bit of extra money to find. Without Bella’s half of Owl’s Nest (he was resigned to the fact she’d have to have half) and Pauline’s contribution, he was going to have to scrape up another couple of hundred grand from somewhere. But it would be worth it. He’d have everything he’d ever wanted…

26

As the church bells rang out across Ludlow indicating the end of the Sunday service, Christopher managed to extricate himself from Tiona’s heavenly embrace and stagger back home in time for lunch. The boys were running round the garden with a hose, letting off steam after being frog marched to church by their grandmother that morning. Rosemary was chopping up mint to go with the leg of lamb she’d put in the Aga a couple of hours earlier.

‘Good party?’ she asked.

‘Fantastic,’ replied Christopher carefully, and hastily offered to help peel the potatoes. He couldn’t face actually lying to his mother about where he had stayed the night before. The chance of her corroborating his evidence with Jack or Jamie or any of the other guests was fairly slim, but he didn’t want to risk it.

He spent the afternoon bowling for the boys so they could practise their cricket, a supreme act of self-sacrifice designed to assuage his guilt for he was secretly yearning to curl up on the sofa and relive the night before, like a lovesick teenager. He’d taken off the shirt he’d been wearing, but instead of dropping it into the laundry basket he hid it at the back of his wardrobe. Occasionally he nipped indoors for a
surreptitious sniff of the scent that still clung to it, feeling like a total pervert but unable to resist as it transported him instantly back into Tiona’s arms.

The phone rang twice during the afternoon and each time he nearly jumped out of his skin. He thought there was no way she would phone him at home, then reasoned if she was as desperate to hear his voice as he was to hear hers, she was clever enough to manufacture an excuse. And no one would think it was particularly odd if she phoned. She did work for him, after all.

But it wasn’t her. The first time it was a friend of Hugo’s, wanting to check up on some homework. And the second time it was Zoe, calling on her mobile. Her train was due in at six-thirty and she needed a lift back home. It was the reality check Christopher needed. He had his second shower of the day. The first had been scalding hot to wash away his sins. This one was cold, pinpricks of ice to sharpen his senses, to ensure he didn’t make any of the careless mistakes that so often trip up the unfaithful.

The answerphone light was flashing furiously when Rod got home that afternoon. He’d deliberately turned his mobile off when he’d gone to Bucklebury Farm, as he didn’t want any drunken prank calls from Foxy. But whoever was after him was persistent. It was probably a client moaning about something – for some reason people who were busy the rest of the week seemed to think Sundays were the best days for
getting results out of other people. Rod made it a rule that anyone who hassled him on his day of rest got sent to the back of the queue.

Or it could be his mother on the warpath, having found out about Lee. It incensed her when her off-spring fought amongst themselves, which inevitably they did from time to time. He really wasn’t ready for a wigging.

Or it could be Bella, pleading for a fair trial. But he didn’t want to think about her yet either. He wanted everything straight in his head when he next confronted her.

Whoever it was, he didn’t want to know. He drifted upstairs in a dream and took a shower, steaming hot followed by an icy-cold blast. He went back into the bedroom with a towel round his waist and opened the chest of drawers to find some fresh clothes. The phone rang again. He let the answering machine click in downstairs while he got dressed. As he did up his jeans, it occurred to him that it might have been Jamie phoning.

He ran back down to the sitting room and rewound the machine. He’d have to listen to all the messages before he got to hers. He paced round the room, buttoning up his shirt. The first was from Foxy, very drunk the night before, telling him what a great night he was missing. He grinned and wound on to the next message.

‘Rod? It’s Pauline. I’m on my way to the hospital with Bella. She’s taken an overdose. Get here as quickly as you can, for God’s sake.’

His bowels froze. The message had been at gone midnight last night. He listened to the next one.

‘Where are you? I’m at the hospital. They’re just taking her into intensive care.’

The next message was Pauline, almost incoherent, sobbing.

‘I’m still waiting to hear. Where are you?’

The next message was icy calm but incredibly weary.

‘They think she’s going to be all right. But they’re keeping her in. I’m going to stay here. She needs somebody with her…’ She didn’t say any more, but the voice was dripping with reproach.

The last message was downright curt.

‘Rod. It’s Sunday morning and I’m on my way home to have a shower and get changed. Then I’m going back to the hospital. Bella’s conscious, but not feeling too bright, obviously. I’d appreciate it if you could call me.
If
you get back in…’

‘End of messages,’ the computerized voice informed him.

A psychiatric nurse came in to Bella that afternoon. She found it hard to believe that’s what he was – he looked incredibly young, with spiky blond hair. More like a member of a boy band than anything. He told her his name was Dave, and that he needed to ask her a few questions. Despite his appearance, he was very reassuring and surprisingly gentle. He wanted to know all about how she’d been feeling lately. If she’d been
depressed. If she’d meant to kill herself. If she still felt as if she wanted to die. If she knew what it was that was making her feel this way.

Bella didn’t want to answer his questions at first. She felt dreadful, for a start. They’d put her on a drip, to rehydrate her, but her head was still pounding. Her stomach and her chest felt flayed on the inside, raw from vomiting, and she ached all over. She lay in her bed listlessly. She couldn’t summon up the strength to speak, only to let two big fat tears slide down her cheeks.

Dave persisted. ‘The thing is, Bella, if we can get to the bottom of this we can try and help you. You probably feel very alone at the moment, as if there’s no answer.’

She took in a deep, juddering breath and wiped away her tears.

‘It’s stupid. I don’t know where to start.’

‘It’s not stupid. It’s important. And I’m not going to tell anyone what you tell me, if you don’t want me to.’

His voice was soothing. Bella thought perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to tell him.

She tried to explain. How her body had been her only currency. The one thing that had got her admiration. The one thing she had that no one else could match up to. All her life, she had clung on to the maintenance of her perfect proportions as her
raison d’être
. Without it, she’d be nothing. Invisible. Irrelevant. Women envied her. Men lusted after her. And
she needed that adulation to feel worthy. That was all she was. A great pair of tits, a peach of an arse, a washboard stomach and fabulous legs.