One Day in May - Catherine Alliott [73]
He ignored me and kissed me again; languorously this time, his tongue like a warm sea snake in my mouth. ‘Oh, you’ll have to do better than that, Miss Carrington,’ he murmured. ‘I’m rather enjoying this trapped and supine scenario. In fact, if I didn’t have to see a man about some eighteenth-century firedogs…’ He resumed the kiss, long and luxurious, and, despite myself, I began to join in, when a sudden burst of Vivaldi stopped us in our tracks.
Ivan sat back on his heels and pulled his phone from his pocket. ‘Hello? Yes… yes I know. I’m on my way now.’
‘Man about the dogs?’ I enquired lightly.
‘Hm?’ He looked at me vaguely as he pocketed it. ‘Oh, yup.’ He sprang to his feet. Gave me a lopsided grin. ‘Night, Miss Carrington.’ He bent to kiss me, but this time it was a peck.
‘Night.’
And he was gone.
I reached for a face cloth to wipe away my mascara, kept on until the last minute as an insurance policy. Yes, this suited me, I thought as I heard the front door slam behind him; listened to his footsteps going down the path. I balled the flannel and tossed it in the water. Maggie was right. I had all the fun of a man, with none of the aggro. No snoring lump beside me – but then Ivan didn’t snore – no one drinking me out of fruit juice then, or demanding supper. No one hogging the computer. It was perfect.
Later, downstairs in the kitchen, in my dressing gown, not the slinky silk one I reserved for Ivan, but my comfortable old towelling one, I locked up and made myself a cup of cocoa. On the way back upstairs I tripped on a bit of rucked-up carpet I’d been meaning to fix for ages; spilled some of my drink. Annoyed, I went and found the hammer in the kitchen drawer and banged in a few tacks. Then I mopped up. When I eventually got into bed with the remains of my cocoa, I took a sip. A skin had formed; clung coldly to my lips. It wasn’t ideal.
15
Laura rang me in the shop the following morning. Maggie was out getting the skinny lattes at the time, and I had a blonde woman browsing, picking things up and peering incredulously at the prices: not the most convenient time to be interrogated by my sister.
‘You didn’t tell me you’d seen Letty and Hal in the village?’
‘Didn’t I? I must have forgotten. There was all that Ralphie de Granville business when we got back. Must have slipped my mind.’
‘So what did you think?’
‘Of Letty?’
‘No! We all know what we think of Letty: a poor lost soul who’s never got over her husband dying and has embraced the bottle with brio. No, Hal.’
‘Oh, Hal.’
‘Yes, Hal! Don’t you think he’s completely gorgeous?’
‘Laura, I’ve known Hal for years. I know what he looks like.’
‘Nonsense,’ she scoffed, ‘he didn’t look anything like that when you knew him. I came up to see you in Edinburgh, remember? He was a skinny, sunken-chested yoof with long greasy hair. He’s filled out beautifully now, and those dark brooding eyes – heaven. Very like his brother, don’t you think?’
‘Not in the slightest,’ I lied. It hadn’t escaped my notice that the family resemblance was more marked now that Hal was older: a good few years older than Dom had been when he died, I realized with a start.
‘He’s getting married in the autumn, in Provence. It’s going to be huge, apparently.’
‘Yes, he said.’
‘What, that it’s going to be huge?’
‘No, that he’s getting married. Or Letty said, I think. Um, yes, that’s right, seven hundred and fifty pounds…’ This, to the heavily highlighted woman who was reaching up and fondling the chandelier, peering at the price tag. ‘It’s turn of the century and each drop is crystal.’
‘Of course, he had the hots for you years ago.’
‘Years ago,’ I said brusquely. ‘We were a couple of teenagers at university, for God’s sake.’
‘Well, early twenties, by the time you left. And you know what they say: the first cut is the deepest and all that.’
‘Laura,’ I said with studied calm, ‘where exactly is this going? You’ve just told me he’s getting married.’
‘Oh, I know, it’s just that when I saw Letty in the butcher’s just now, she said Hal was so affected by