Lost (Arielle Lockley Series Book 2) (21 page)

‘I...’

‘It...’

‘Well...’ I try and restart, but I can’t finish that sentence either. Ob looks similarly lost for words.

‘Bloody hell, Fatty,’ he finally chokes out. ‘I think we’d better leave.’

‘We should–’

But I’m interrupted by the sound of Graham, the burly owner of The Guinea Inn, tapping a microphone, sound-checking it for later this evening.

‘One, two. One, two,’ he booms.

‘Let’s go.’

I grab Ob’s arm and we dive out of the pub, bursting into a fit of giggles as soon as we’re clear of Graham’s earshot.

‘Karaoke?’ I splutter. ‘Since when is The Guinea Inn a karaoke sort of place?’

Ob looks suitably disgusted. ‘There goes the neighbourhood,’ he mutters. ‘Though everything changes, of course.’

‘Ob?’ He looks seriously glum.

We had planned on having lunch at The Guinea Inn, our favourite haunt in Brockenhurst, before I catch the train back to London this afternoon. I did want to stay in the New Forest for the rest of the week to call in on Felicity whilst she transitions to having a live-in carer but Tabitha, who is popping in to look after Atlas since Piers is in the US, needs to skip town. I really need to find a cat-sitter.

I don’t regret Ob giving me Atlas, but I do feel sorry for him. He just wants to purr on our laps and be around us, not be left on his own for most of the day. Ob’s suggestion, whilst we were driving over here, was to get another cat. It solves the companion dilemma, but not the feeding and litter tray issue. 

‘Shall we try The Cobbler?’ he suggests as we get back in his car.

‘Sure, now what’s up?’

He pulls out of the car park and starts driving towards the train station; The Cobbler is handily opposite it.

It’s a gorgeous sunny April day. The sky is a bright blue with not a wisp of a cloud in sight. I only have a short-sleeved white tee on underneath my quilted navy Barbour jacket, and I’m only wearing that as I have no room for it in my holdall. I love the weather when it’s like this.

‘The Guinea Inn.’ He sighs. ‘What have they done to the place? That was our local, and they’ve bloody destroyed it.’

‘They have,’ I admit. ‘But it’s not as if we’re there every week, like we used to be. You live in Bournemouth, I’m in London, and it’s nice enough to visit when we’re both back here.’

Ob pulls me a filthy look.

‘OK,’ I admit. ‘Maybe not if they’re going to be running karaoke nights, that’s a step too far, but it’s not as if it affects us. Not really.’

‘No,’ Ob says dourly, ‘especially not since I’m moving to Edinburgh.’

‘What?’ I screech, as we pull up outside The Cobbler and Ob deftly parallel parks his Land Rover in a space outside. ‘Where’s this come from?’

‘OK, not me, but my parents are. They’re putting the house on the market.’

Oh, now that
is
sad. The Thomas’s have always lived next door to my parents. They bought the houses the same year and, OK, I’ve moved out, but it will still be wrong without them living next door. Why couldn’t it be the Penrose family moving away? That would be much more welcome.

We climb out of the car and head into the pub. It’s not as rustic and charming as The Guinea Inn once was, but its bright yellow walls and flowery decor are far more welcome than karaoke. There are a few locals sat around and a very obviously German couple tucking into delicious-smelling steak and ale pies, but it’s mostly empty. We grab a table, and pick up the menus.

‘Why are they moving?’ I ask.

‘My grandparents aren’t getting any younger, and you know they have that big house in Edinburgh. My parents are going to sell up and move in with them, look after them in their old age.’

Ob’s dad is a giant of a Scotsman, the wonderfully named and utterly kind-hearted Creighton Thomas. It’s from him that Ob gets his red hair. His parents met in London – his mum is from Canterbury, originally – and I know they’ve been hankering to move to Scotland for years but their careers, and Ob’s schooling, kept them here. Now retired and with Obélix settled into his career, it makes sense for them to sell up and go.

‘That’s the bad news then?’

‘Yep.’

‘Fuck.’

‘Yep!’

I squeeze his arm. ‘You know you’re always welcome at my parents’ house if you want a bit of paternal pretence or a Sunday lunch.’

He nods.

‘What’s the good news then?’

He looks at his watch. ‘Shall we order first? You’ve got a train to catch in just over an hour.’

‘Sure, I’ll get it. What do you want?’

‘Get me a double rare-breed beef burger with extra bacon and jalapeno mayo, a large portion of triple-cooked chips, a pint of Amstel, and a pint of Coke. Oh, and some chicken wings with the blue cheese sauce.’

He’s such a greedy pig. I head to the bar and order Ob his mammoth lunch; I ask for a small portion of duck lasagne and a Coke for myself.

‘Spill!’ I demand, placing his pints in front of him. He takes a deep swig of his pint of Amstel, and half of it is gone in less than five seconds.

‘I have a date.’ He wipes his mouth with his hand.

‘A date?’ I clink my glass with his excitedly. ‘Who with?’ 

‘It’s with Jade.’

‘
Jade
Jade?’

‘What other Jade do we know?’ he answers.

Finally! He’s
finally
asked her out. I can’t believe it! I thought he’d be on his own
forever
. OK, he might not be with Jade forever, but this is a brilliant start.
He’s asked a girl out.

‘Anyway,’ he continues, finishing off his Amstel, ‘she asked me out.’

That’s not how this is supposed to happen.

‘Well, she didn’t ask me out, per se,’ he continues. ‘But she’s taking me out for dinner as a thank you, which is sort of like a date. Maybe.’ He won’t look me in the eye.

‘What do you mean, Ob?’ I ask carefully. He is making very little sense.             

‘I had to treat her horse yesterday, but she can’t afford to pay me, so she’s taking me to Beaulieu for dinner.’

The absolute idiot!

‘Obélix Thomas!’ I splutter. ‘Dinners don’t pay vet bills!’

Whilst I’m thrilled he’s meeting Jade for dinner, I have the awful feeling that she’s using him here. When I point this out to him, he goes strangely quiet, and the mood turns sour as we eat our lunch.

It’s a welcome relief when we say goodbye and I head over the road to the train station.

‘Thank you so much,’ I say again as Tabitha gathers up her things. ‘Atlas definitely appreciates it, as do I.’

‘You’re very welcome.’

Tabitha stayed for a cup of tea, and I quickly filled her in on the pop-up that was never mine, as well as an update on Felicity, but now she has to go.

‘Are you sure I can’t tempt you to a takeaway to say thanks?’

‘I really just need to leave London again, get away.’ She pulls a face. ‘There’s a story coming out in the press sometime this week about my cousin Lottie. It’s nice they’ve taken the pressure off me, but I wish it wasn’t Lottie. Paris Hilton is in town,’ she jokes. ‘Surely she’s more interesting than my family? ’

‘It must be so stressful,’ I say, looking sympathetic. ‘And if you ever want to talk about it, I’m a really good listener.’

‘Thanks.’ She pulls on her tan Burberry trench coat and picks up her handbag. ‘I might take you up on that one day, but I should leave you in peace. It sounds like you’ve had quite the few days.’

We hug, and I walk her to the door.

‘Felicity is right though,’ Tabitha says. ‘
You
did the pop-up. Don’t let pride stop you from doing another. If you want to continue, take her up on her offer, and keep blogging, OK!’

I nod and call goodbye, closing the door quickly behind her as Atlas is trying to poke his head outside. I carry him through to the living room where I plonk him on the sofa, and I follow suit. He’s immediately on my knee, clamouring for more attention.

‘Have you missed me?’ I coo, scratching his chin so he meows at me. ‘
You have?
’

Oh dear, I’m turning into a crazy cat lady.

After a few minutes he gets bored and scuttles off to the kitchen. I grab my laptop and boot it up, opening up my blog and social media channels to see how they’re doing. I’ve not looked at them since the pop-up ended on Sunday, four days ago.

I swear out loud as I clock that my followers on Twitter have increased by nearly two thousand people; a quick look at the people tweeting me reveals I’ve been mentioned in a few major magazines online.
This is
incredible
.

I scroll back to the mentions from Sunday, and start tweeting people back... I even found myself typing “Watch this space” to those asking when the next pop-up will be.

‘Hi.’

‘Hi.’

‘How are you?’

‘Good. How are you?’

Feeling so awkward, if you must know, but I obviously don’t answer that.

‘I’m good, too,’ I say to Lydia. I try and smile at her, but it doesn’t meet my eyes.

I know I promised Felicity I would speak to Lydia this week, but if this is how she’s going to be, I’m not sure why I bothered. I sent her a text inviting her over to the house this weekend for cake and coffee, and I received a very terse reply of “Fine”. Nothing more, just
fine
. She is obviously not fine with me.

‘How have you been?’ I ask when Lydia doesn’t reply. She’s chipping her nail polish off onto the kitchen floor.
Classy
.

I spin my iPhone around in front of me on the kitchen table. Piers should be getting up soon, and I’m waiting for his call.

Even though it’s the weekend, he’s stayed in the States as he’s working in New York next week. I understand that it’s pointless him flying home for a weekend – not that he’d get a weekend with all the travelling he’d have to do – but that doesn’t stop me from missing him.

Looking up at Lydia it feels a very long time ago since we used to sit giggling in this house, pouring over
Vogue
and the other fashion magazines, back when I was recovering from my broken ankle. Lydia used to come and see me nearly every day and we’d have such fun together. Of course, that was when she was the evil Nigel’s girlfriend, so some things have improved since then, even if our friendship is fizzling out.

‘Fine.’ She can’t even meet my eyes.

If we’re just going to sit here like this, what’s the point? I did what Felicity asked, but it takes two people to make a friendship work...

I know things aren’t right between us because she hasn’t even commented on my sequinned baseball jersey and houndstooth trucker hat. This is not us. We were obsessed with discussing our outfits in the tiniest detail, but I can’t even be bothered to coo over the floral bomber jacket she’s wearing or her giant pink pearl drop earrings, as awesome as they are.

‘How’s Lady Tabitha?’ she asks spitefully, finally looking up at me. ‘I see it’s her cousin in the papers today.’ She laughs rather cruelly.

Does she honestly think I’m going to answer that one? What a bitch. I suspected that she was jealous of Tabitha, but this is a whole new level of jealousy to take pleasure out of someone else’s misery.

‘She’s fine,’ I say. Two can play that game.

‘So she’s not screwing her sex therapist then?’ Lydia laughs coarsely.

Tabitha has a sex therapist?
What on Earth is one of those?

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ I roll my eyes, even though Tabitha dropped me a text last night saying she had arrived safely in the little village of St Gosfeld, in Cornwall. With her therapist.

‘Anyway,’ I say, desperate to change the subject because I do not want to talk to Lydia about Tabitha. ‘What have you got planned for your birthday? Is Freddie taking you anywhere nice?’

Freddie is the guy she has been dating for the past few months. He works in advertising. Perfectly nice chap, a bit bland, but he’s better than Nigel.
Anyone
is better than Nigel.

‘He’s... What’s that noise?’

I swear and stand up. ‘It sounds like the cat. I’ll be back in two minutes.’

Rushing through to the living room I see Atlas trying to deposit a furball or two onto the Kashan rug. ‘Atlas, no!’ I cry.

I try and sweep him across onto the wooden floor, but he’s digging his claws in whilst trying to cough up a hairball. Irgh. Ob never sold this side of owning a cat to me. He said it was all about enjoying a fluffy purring companion, not cleaning up poo and vomit. It’s exactly the same as having a baby, I imagine.

Finally, after gently unhooking his paws from the rug, I get him on the floor and get some newspaper down in front of him. Two minutes later he’s deposited a gross salmon pink hairball in front of me and is resting his head on the floor, looking very sorry for himself.

‘You poor thing,’ I soothe, softly stroking him and wrinkling my nose at the smell. How can something so small make such big smells? Again, also like a baby.

I quickly wrap the newspaper around the hairball and decide to pop it in the outside bin, rather than the kitchen bin.

‘Sorry about that,’ I say, walking back into the kitchen to find Lydia sitting there with a smug grin on her face. ‘Let me just wash my hands, and I’ll be back with you.’

‘Actually,’ she says, standing up, ‘I need to go.’

‘Already?’ I quickly dry my hands and turn to her, but then I notice something odd on the kitchen table. ‘Did you move my phone?’

I know that sounds silly, but I do have the slightly OCD tendency of lining up corners of things. I left my phone in the bottom right-hand corner of the kitchen table, I’m pretty certain of it, and it’s now next to my mug of half-drunk coffee.

‘Oh, it buzzed whilst you were dealing with the cat. It looked like it was going to fall on the floor.’

‘Ah, thanks.’

I smile, and take a quick look. I have a missed call from Piers, and I also have a text message from Ob. Yesterday was his “date” – ha! – with Jade. I hope it was worth waiving his vet fee...

‘Are you sure you have to go?’ I ask, glancing at my watch. ‘You’ve only been here twenty minutes. You’ve not even finished your drink!’

She picks up her mug, and knocks it back in one. ‘Finished it now,’ she quips, walking to the kitchen door and handing me her mug as she passes. ‘See you!’

‘Wait a minute,’ I call, as I put the mug in the sink. She ignores me, and she’s nearly through the front door when I catch up with her.

‘Look, Lydia, have a good birthday, OK? And let’s do something soon.’

Somehow I don’t think I’ll be invited to her birthday celebrations judging by this painful reunion and how desperate she is to get out of this house and away from me. How did it come to this?

‘Sure,’ she says, not even bothering to turn and look at me. I watch her walk down the street, her phone immediately clamped to her ear, but not once does she turn back around to see me waving goodbye to her.
Ouch
.

Slamming the door behind me, I flop on the sofa where Atlas is now purring, hairball forgotten. I quickly read the text from Ob.

‘The bloody fool,’ I mutter to myself.

He’s only gone and slept with her, and he wants to invite her as his plus one to the wedding. I need to have serious words with this boy but, then again, Piers and I need to figure out what’s going on with our wedding and whether Ob even has a plus one. Since Piers aired the possibility of cancelling Tharnham and running off to elope, we’ve not done any more planning. We need to make a decision, and soon.

I’ll deal with Ob and Jade later, but first I’m going to call Piers back.

‘Hi, sweets,’ I say as he answers the phone. ‘How are you?’

‘Lousy,’ he croaks. 

‘You do sound sick,’ I say sympathetically. I blame all the flying he has to do. Even flying First Class doesn’t save you from the recycled plane germs.

‘I’ll be fine.’ He coughs, then clears his throat.

‘Are you sure it’s not man flu?’ I joke. ‘Take it easy today, OK?’

‘I will do. What are you up to?’

‘I’ve just had Lydia round.’ I hesitate.

‘Oh?’

‘A nightmare,’ I confirm. ‘I think our friendship is truly over. Oh, and Ob’s now taking sex as payment for his veterinary skills
.
’

‘Huh?’

‘That girl he was meeting, Jade. The one who was taking him for dinner because she couldn’t pay her bill. He slept with her, can you believe it?’

‘I thought you wanted him to have a girlfriend?

‘Of course I do,’ I fume. ‘But my best friend is bloody taking sex for payment, and a one-night stand does not equal a girlfriend. How’s he going to square this payment with the taxman? He’s a nightmare!’

If she can’t afford her bloody horse, she should sell it. I despair. Why is Obélix such a sex pest? One look from some harlot and he’s gone, and now he wants her at my wedding, whatever wedding that’s going to turn out to be. I should never have granted him a plus one but, let’s face it, with her financial behaviour she’ll probably be shagging the bailiffs when they pay her a visit and that will be the end of those two.

I want Ob to be happy, of course I do, but if he could engage his brain then that would be appreciated also.

‘Come on, Pony,’ Piers soothes down the phone. ‘Does it matter who Ob has there to keep him company?’

‘Of course it matters!’ I huff. ‘Just because–’ Piers’ hacking cough interrupts my train of thought. ‘Oh, Pony,’ I say. ‘Do you have some medicine? Go to the–’

‘I’m fine, Arielle,’ Piers interrupts. ‘Honestly, I know to go to the pharmacy and get something for this. I’m not a child.’

‘Drug store,’ I tease, glancing at my iPhone. It’s buzzing for my attention on the coffee table. ‘Crap, my mobile is ringing. It’s Felicity,’ I explain.

‘Go, speak to her,’ Piers says. ‘We can talk later.’

‘OK.’

‘I love you.’

‘I love you, too,’ I say, all thoughts of his cough and Ob’s stupidity going clean out of my head as I hang up the landline on Piers and accept Felicity’s call.

‘Hi Felicity,’ I chirp. ‘How are you today?’

‘Hi Felicity!’ A voice parrots back meanly at me. ‘
Hi
! Could you sound any further up my godmother’s arse?’

Etta.