Homecoming (35 page)

‘Do you think the attraction is reciprocated?’

‘No.’ Connie sighed. ‘I don’t think so. We get on well, that’s all. I bet half the single mums at Ella’s school have got their eye on him. Some of them are much more his type.’

‘He told you this?’

‘Not in so many words, no –’

‘How about you don’t give up on him until he does tell you in so many words?’ suggested Eleanor.

‘You old romantic,’ teased Connie.

18
The Dairy

A good country cook had to know how to churn her own butter. Most girls learned when they were young, but I was too sickly. I spent many days watching my mother labour over the big barrel churn but I was at least fourteen before I made my own butter.

My mother had her favourite cow, a small Friesian named Baby, so called because she’d been only a heifer herself when she’d had her first calf. Baby was a great milker and produced gallons of the creamy milk you needed for good butter.

Each day after milking, my mother would pour the milk into big tin buckets and leave them to sit in the cool of the dairy. After a few hours, the cream would have risen to the top and she’d scoop that out and pour it into the separator. It was a piece of mechanical genius, except when you had to wash it, because it was made of twenty-five small steel funnels that fitted together like Russian dolls, and washing it till it was perfect took a good hour. The creamy milk went in, you turned the big handle and the milk was separated from the cream. I never cared for the cream, but I liked drinking the bluey-white skim milk. What
I really loved, though, was pure buttermilk. It’s not like that bitter slop you find in the shops. No, this was tangy and pure, with tiny kernels of soft butter floating in it. Once you had enough cream, it was into the churn with it and the hard work began.

There was no easy way to make butter. You had to turn that handle for hours. The moment would come when you’d start to hear a mild thump inside, and you’d lift the lid to find a small lump of butter had appeared. So you’d churn away until the lumps were bigger and then finally you could lift out great golden chunks of the stuff.

My mother would heft it into her butter basin, and begin to pat it out with the butter paddles, adding a pinch of salt until it was just right. She’d make slabs that weighed about two pounds each, and they’d be sealed in greaseproof paper and kept in the dairy until needed. When we had too much, Mam would sell some.

Connie was on her way back from getting milk in the shop when she saw the man in the car with the camera, without really realising what he was doing. One part of her mind registered it: man with giant lens trained in the direction of the east corner of the square. Sometimes people sat and painted in the square itself, although that was more of a summer occupation. He might be an amateur photographer, someone working on photographing architectural details, she decided. As she walked briskly past the car, Connie looked in the direction his lens was pointing. It was near the chiropodist’s practice. She thought of Megan.

On cue, the door opened and Megan came out, arm stretched out with those two mad dogs pulling her along.

Connie smiled. Megan had abandoned her usual woolly hat and her hair, a bit longer now but still dark as midnight, was all over the place. She really never brushed it, and yet it looked great.

Casual chic.

Then the window of the car opened and Connie heard a great series of whirring clicks. Her mind suddenly processed what was happening.

‘Megan!’ she shrieked and saw her friend look in her direction, eyes widening with shock.

Connie could almost see the photographs in the newspapers: Megan’s haunted eyes, her face a picture of horror.

Someone had to do something.

Connie ran in front of the camera, which gave Megan time to turn round and bundle the surprised dogs back indoors. The photographer got out of the car and swore at her, so Connie crossed the road and followed Megan inside.

Megan was hunched on the floor, shaking silently, so Connie took action.

‘Nora!’ she yelled.

Nora appeared from the small kitchenette, her face a question mark. Through the window, Connie noticed the photographer’s car draw up outside. The car door opened.

‘A photographer’s outside. He’s taking pictures of Megan.’

‘Merciful hour,’ said Nora. ‘That’s all we need.’ She rushed to lock the practice door.

‘Let’s get her out now, before a whole horde of them turns up. Out the back door,’ ordered Connie. ‘Quick. You can’t stay here, Megan, love,’ she said, helping Megan up. ‘If we go out the back, we can get out the wide gate into the lane behind the gardens. We’ll go that way to my house, and he won’t see us if we go in the fire escape. I’ll go round the front and let you in, Megan.’

‘We need a different coat and a hat, Nora,’ said Connie.

Kev appeared with his coat and a baseball hat.

‘Perfect.’

Connie then stuck a baseball hat on Megan’s head. Megan just stood unprotesting, weary.

‘I’ll bring a bag of her stuff round later.’

‘Right.’ Connie looked at them both. ‘Let’s go quickly.’

There was nobody watching the back of the house. The photographer must have found her on his own and come without a reporter, Connie figured. But once his photos were published, everyone would be stalking Nora’s. They tramped down the long garden to the small gate at the back, and out on to the lane where some of the houses had once owned garages. Most of the garages had been sold and converted into mews houses. It was a road that only locals knew about. They hurried down the lane until they reached Connie’s house. Their gate was rusted and took a lot of shaking and rattling to open.

That end of the garden was a jungle, and Nora used the hold-all to bash nettles out of the way until they reached the back of the house.

‘I’ll go in the front, he won’t see me,’ Connie said. ‘Lend me the hat, just in case.’

She peered round the front of the house but couldn’t see the photographer. The car was still in front of Nora’s, but he wasn’t in it, so perhaps he was standing outside the practice with his nose pressed to the window. Speedily, she rushed up the steps to the front door, let herself in, then raced up to her apartment. The fire escape was a modern affair that had to be let down from the kitchen window in the apartment. Connie unlocked it, let it rattle down, then watched Megan and Nora climb up.

Megan was shaking from head to foot. ‘I didn’t see him,’ she kept saying, over and over again.

Nora was uncharacteristically mute.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ she whispered. ‘It’s awful to admit it, but I don’t. We don’t even talk about it, and now look at her.’

Megan was in pieces. What could they do? Connie had an idea. ‘Eleanor – she’ll be able to manage her.’

In the apartment downstairs, Eleanor looked back on what she’d written.

Do what frightens you.

That sounded a little strange any way you looked at it.

The problem with writing advice was that, unless you included details of how you came by the advice, it sounded anodyne.

Do as I say and not as I do.
I never lost my heart to a stranger and fell into his bed, but I’m telling you what to do if that ever happens to you…

If you fight with the people you love most in the world, running away might not be the answer…

No, concrete examples were required.

The knock on the door made her jump.

‘Eleanor, it’s Connie. It’s a crisis, can you help?’

Connie’s whispered explanation was quick.

‘I see,’ said Eleanor calmly. ‘Poor Megan. Bring her in.’

‘Thank you.’ Connie kissed Eleanor on the cheek, and Eleanor felt a pang of loneliness at the kindness of the gesture. Nobody had kissed her cheek in so long, not since she’d left New York.

Connie came downstairs, leading poor Megan by the hand.

‘Nora’s going to get a number for her agent from Megan’s sister. Someone needs to do something, right? And I’ll close the blinds so the bloody photographer doesn’t spot you in here,’ Connie added, for Megan’s benefit.

Eleanor smiled. ‘You think of everything,’ she said.

‘I wish I really did,’ Connie said wistfully. ‘I’m great at other people’s lives, it’s my own I make a mess of. Bye, Megan, I’ll be back later.’

When Connie had left, Eleanor went into the kitchen. ‘I’m going to make us a hot drink,’ she said.

From the kitchen, she watched Megan wander round the living room, staring at the paintings on the walls and picking up ornaments. There was, Eleanor observed, undoubtedly a book on what it meant if a stranger caressed a female nude sculpture or put all the books on a coffee table at right angles. But she didn’t need any textbook to help her. Reading people was part of what she did instinctively.

She poured boiling water on teabags, and watched the girl. She didn’t visit the books on the coffee table and she bypassed the pretty little bronze nude on the sideboard. Instead, she ran a questing hand over the giant conch shell beside it, feeling the spirals as if she could see with her fingers. And she spent a while looking at the photos Eleanor had brought with her from New York.

The one she lingered over longest was of Eleanor and Gillian, taken on Gillian’s eighteenth birthday.

‘You look so happy,’ Megan said wistfully. ‘I’ll never be happy again. I ran away and this is my punishment.’

It was the voice of someone in shock, who said things they mightn’t normally say.

‘Punishment for what, exactly?’

My sister says I want a protector and I don’t care where he comes from. She thinks I stole him.’

Eleanor waited for Megan to go on. It was what she’d done all her professional life: wait for the person to continue to tell their story. And she’d waited a long time to hear Megan’s.

But Megan changed the subject. ‘What are you doing here? Are you running away too?’

Eleanor said uncertainly, ‘No, I’m not running away. I’m where I need to be right now, there’s a difference. I needed peace and quiet, and I couldn’t get it back home.’

‘Snap!’ said Megan.

And she began to cry.

‘I ruined a woman’s life, totally ruined it,’ she said. ‘I thought he loved me, you see, and I was wrong.’

Prague was postcard pretty in the run-up to Christmas. The Hotel Sebastien was decorated with Christmas trees, dark-red velvet bows and unusual cloisonné baubles with pictures of the old city painted on them. Megan felt drunk with the atmosphere, as well as drunk from being with Rob.

They’d spent a whole day in bed, having room service sent up and making love endlessly. He was an amazing lover, patient and gentle, yet passionate.

She was still stunned that she was there with him: it wasn’t easy not to gaze at the famous face when she found it on the pillow beside hers.

Megan never wanted the day and the night to end, and she thought she’d remember it forever.

She’d tried to ask him what would happen next, but Rob didn’t want to talk about that.

‘Let’s not waste time talking,’ he’d murmured and began nuzzling her breasts again.

The following morning, he was up early and on the phone to Charles in the States. Megan had heard enough about the Hollywood super agent to be impressed at the slightly cavalier way Rob talked to him.

There was none of the cautiousness that was present when she discussed things with her agent.

‘Tell him to go to hell, Charles,’ yelled Rob down the phone. ‘You should never have got me into this in the first place. I hate those commercials.’

He’d gone into the sitting room of the suite for the final part of the conversation and Megan could overhear snippets.

‘Yeah, the Sebastien’s still looking good…no, nobody else knows apart from the usual suspects – how dumb do you think I am?…Yes, I’ll be there in two days…’

Megan wondered where Rob had to be in two days. He hadn’t mentioned it to her, he’d mentioned nothing apart from the current moment.

She sat with her arms around her knees and wondered if she had the right to ask him about the future. Men hated that, didn’t they? She could recall her mother saying so many years ago: ‘Men don’t like to be rushed.’

As if it were an emblem to be inscribed on every woman’s heart so she wouldn’t forget.

So Megan didn’t ask. Instead, she obediently searched Rob’s luggage for his phone charger, which he appeared to have forgotten.

‘Phone Boo, he has my spare one,’ Rob commanded.

Boo was one of his assistants.

‘Boo thinks you’re in London, doesn’t he?’ Megan countered.

‘No,’ said Rob shortly. ‘He knows I’m here. He has to know.’

‘Oh. What about Charles. Does he know?’

The look Rob sent her was faintly pitying. ‘My love, of course he knows. Charles knows everything.’

‘Does he approve, about you and me?’

This time, Rob didn’t even favour her with a look. He busied himself with his phone, dialling another number. ‘Sure.’

His legendary energy meant he didn’t want to stay in the suite for another day, so despite Megan worrying about them being spotted, they both put on shades and went out shopping, Rob wearing an old cap, she a baseball hat.

His and her disguises. It reminded her of reruns of
Hart to Hart
, a TV show her mother had always loved, that featured a glamorous, rich couple who solved mysteries.

In a jewellery shop, he’d bought her a gold bracelet, a showy piece scattered with diamonds. It wasn’t the sort of thing Megan liked. In fact, the thing she wanted in the window had been much simpler, an antique piece of amber the size of a gull’s egg on a thin gold chain.

‘No, this is how I like you,’ said Rob in his deep voice, as he fastened the bracelet on her wrist.

Megan was surprised at how little he seemed to know her. She’d thought he could see into her soul, but he’d learn, wouldn’t he?

Later, she realised that the extravagant gesture of buying her the diamond bracelet had let their secret out. The jeweller had known who he was as soon as he whipped his black credit card out. He’d probably phoned a newspaper pal and got paid for the tip-off.