Love Letters (14 page)

‘So you really like him?’ Monica was studying her closely.

‘God yes,’ said Laura, too late realising she should have been less vehement. She knew full well that she was deeply infatuated, and equally well that it could go nowhere and she’d better start getting over it as soon as she could – immediately after they’d had their walk together. Until then she could have her few hours of joy, even if having them was likely to make the getting-over part far, far worse.

‘Well, I wish you luck with him. He’s a stunner, I’ll give you that but not a novice ride, if I can make an equestrian pun.’

Laura raised her cup in congratulation. ‘It’s a very good pun. With Irish connections too. Excellent.’

‘But it’s too late, isn’t it? All my good advice, too late, no use.’

‘Good advice almost always is, isn’t it?’

‘I expect so, but do me one, big, massive favour; if you sleep with him, remember it this time – and take precautions!’

‘Monica, it’s January, in Ireland. We’re going for a walk. I think that’ll provide all the precautions we need.’

Chapter Seven

Well wrapped up in all the sensible clothing they had between them and with a bag of toffees in her pocket for emergencies, Laura waited for Dermot on the corner, as arranged. Just as she had convinced herself that he’d overslept and wasn’t going to come, a rackety old Citroen appeared and drew up next to her.

‘Get in, we’ve a way to go.’

She got in, reminding herself that she was sharing a car with one of the great names of modern Irish fiction – modern anything fiction, in fact. She made a decision to start keeping a diary, simply so she could record this moment.

The car got them up the hill a great deal quicker than the bikes had. At the top, they took the other road along the coast, in the opposite direction to where she and Monica had cycled a lifetime and several dramatic experiences ago. As they passed the sign to the village they had cycled to, Laura wondered if Monica would use the car and her free day to go and see the boy she’d been so keen to catch up with. Although she’d asked her, Monica had been non-committal but cheerful. Laura didn’t know if Monica had had a reply to the note she had stuffed through his letterbox but her new friend wasn’t one to let things lie. She would make the most of her opportunity.

Laura, on the other hand, wondered if her attempts to get Dermot Flynn to come the literary festival would come to anything. Would he just string her along?

Monica would get him to sign something, possibly in blood. If only she could make herself more like her feisty companion, all would be well. The trouble was, she couldn’t.

Laura realised these mental ramblings about Monica were a distraction from her own situation. What was happening to her was almost too wonderful, and she wasn’t sure she could cope. She just had to hope her ‘in-love state’ or whatever it might be, didn’t make her do anything stupid again. Although before, when she had so blithely agreed to sleep with him, she had probably just been in lust (and, of course, very drunk). Now she was in a position to spend a day with a writer she’d admired all her adult life – she mustn’t let anything interfere with that.

Conversation, however, didn’t seem possible. She tried to think of some casual remark – about the scenery, for example. But there didn’t seem to be any way of describing it other than as ‘beautiful’ or ‘lovely’ or, worse, ‘very pretty’, and clichés would simply not do. Besides, the scenery was so beautiful, conversation seemed superfluous, intrusive, even. And she wasn’t going to talk about his work. Or hers. So she stayed silent.

Eventually, he turned the car down a narrow lane. The hedges either side were in desperate need of attention and there was a good solid strip of grass growing up the middle. It went downhill and seemed to lead towards the sea. It got even narrower and the hedges higher as they progressed.

‘Are you sure this is a road, and doesn’t just lead to a farm or something?’ said Laura, anxiety breaking her self-imposed silence. ‘It’s hardly wide enough for the car.’

‘It does lead to a farm. We’ll leave the car there and then walk. I hope you’ve got the right sort of shoes on.’ He glanced down at her feet.

‘Of course I have,’ she said, glad of her sturdy, flat-heeled boots, aware that he might think she was a complete airhead now. Just because she had got very drunk and had nearly done something very silly, had he got her pegged for a fool? If so, it was very unfair. She was intelligent and efficient in her real life. If only he could see her in the shop, discussing the latest literary phenomenon, running an event, then he’d be impressed.

Even before he parked the car, several farm dogs came leaping up to it, barking furiously. Laura thought of herself as an animal-lover, and any pet dog she met was greeted with a pat and a warm ‘hello’ but she suddenly felt unwilling to open the door. They looked positively feral.

Dermot seemed not to notice the ravening swarm and got out and walked round to the boot of the car. The dogs surrounded him. Laura turned anxiously from the front seat, wondering how she’d get help if they attacked him. They didn’t seem to be savaging him, however, or if they were, Dermot was saying very little about it. But why did no one appear to call them off? Or if they were guard dogs – the farmyard wasn’t far away – why didn’t anyone appear with a shotgun to order her and Dermot off their land? Surely someone must have heard the noise. Presumably Dermot actually knew the people and they wouldn’t mind him parking here. She’d spent most of her life in small towns and wasn’t sure of the ways of the countryside. And Ireland, by all accounts, was not just the countryside, but somewhere else altogether.

Dermot came round to her door and opened it. ‘Come on, time to stretch our legs.’ He had a rucksack with him, which clanked rather.

She hesitated, but before she could force a leg out of the safety of the car he said, ‘Are you nervous of the dogs?’

‘A bit. I was once bitten by a collie, who had no excuse at all to bite me.’

‘You mean you weren’t threatening its young, or eating its food?’

‘No.’

Dermot shrugged, obviously unable to explain this freak of nature. ‘This lot may be noisy devils but there’s no harm in them.’

Gingerly, she got out. The dogs surged up to her, still barking their heads off.

‘You see? They’re fine.’

Laura didn’t think they were fine at all. They had wall eyes and looked thin and hungry. They jumped up to smell her better. Although she tried hard not to, she whimpered.

‘To hell with this,’ he muttered and without warning, swung her off her feet and over his shoulder and carried her in a fireman’s lift across the muddy distance towards a gate. The dogs, even more excited now their titbit was tantalisingly out of reach, jumped and barked higher and louder. Laura shut her eyes, bracing herself for a bite on the bottom at any minute. She knew she wasn’t enormous but also that she must have felt quite heavy. Dermot was definitely panting.

At last he set her down and she opened her eyes.

‘You stay there while I get this open.’ He indicated a rusty gate made out of scaffold poles. ‘It’ll take a while; it hasn’t been opened in years. I always climb over.’

‘I’ll climb over!’ she offered, feeling pathetic enough already. ‘Just don’t let – oh!’

One collie jumped up and left saliva on her arm.

Dermot turned on it. ‘What do you think you’re doing, you miserable hound of hell! Frightening the poor girl out of wits like that! You’ll have her thinking we have no manners in Ireland – if she doesn’t think that already!’

‘I don’t think that,’ she said. ‘At least, only about the dogs,’ she added in a small voice, feeling very pathetic.

Dermot ignored this squeak. ‘Are you sure you can climb over OK? I’ll open it if you’d rather.’ He paused. ‘Although the ruts mean I’d have to lift it quite high—’

Before he could finish, she put her foot on the second scaffold pole. Sadly, her legs were just a little bit too short to make the process of climbing the gate easy. What would have been for a taller person a simple matter of swinging one leg over and then the other, for her meant an uncomfortable few moments stranded on the top, unable to progress. Dermot held her arm.

‘Bring your leg back over. That’s right. Now, climb up to the next bar so you’re higher. There. I’ve got you.’

Somehow she scrambled over, ending in a heap on the other side. Was there no end to her humiliation? He’ll hate me now, she thought. I’m such a townie I can’t even be taken for a country walk because I can’t climb over the gates without help.

‘Are you all right now?’ he asked when, after an athletic leap, he was over the gate and by her side in one elegant move.

‘Fine, thank you. I’m just a bit out of practice.’

‘When did you last climb over a gate?’ He sounded amused, as if he expected her to have never climbed one before.

‘A while ago,’ she said, trying frantically to remember.

‘I bet you were about six,’ he said.

Although she fought it, a smile appeared at the corner of her mouth as she recalled a family holiday in Cornwall. ‘That would be about right.’

‘We’ve a couple more to climb later. I expect you’ll get the hang of it.’

‘I’m sure I will,’ she said seriously, but smiling inside, and they set off, Dermot setting a cracking pace.

They went uphill. It was a bright, clear day, cold but sunny. Currently the sea was on their left but quite far away. The sun bounced off the little waves as it had done before, twinkling like fairy lights in the distance. The land was covered in short, springy grass. Here and there a sheep looked at them curiously, wondering who on earth was mad enough to be out here if they had a choice. Laura, though, was warm as toast. It was hard work keeping up with Dermot, although she sensed he was going slowly for her benefit. Soon her calves were burning and she had to stop for a breather. The blood pulsed through her muscles like mild electric shocks. Although she was tired she felt totally in touch with her body and utterly exhilarated.

‘Not much further now. I want us to have lunch in the most perfect spot.’

Laura nodded agreement. She couldn’t spare her breath for idle chat.

On and up they went. Laura took off her jacket and tied it round her waist with the sleeves. Even then she was sweating under her clothes. She was elated though, and although she was pleased when he called a halt, she’d have happily gone on for much longer.

‘Right now,’ he said, swinging his pack down from his back and rummaging inside it. ‘What have we got here? A bit of something waterproof to sit on.’ He spread out an old plastic mac.

Eager to oblige she sat down, aware as she did so that is was a rather small bit of plastic and they would have to sit hip to hip on it. Then ruefully she remembered that other things they had done together made sitting side by side while fully clothed, even if touching, completely respectable.

‘Right now.’ He produced a brown paper bag and stared into it. ‘We have hard-boiled eggs, but they need peeling, I’m afraid, some rolls, cheese, ham, and a couple of cans of lager. Are you OK drinking it from the can?’

‘Of course.’

‘Chocolate for afters,’ he said.

‘My favourite. And I’ve got toffees in my pocket. I forgot about them earlier. They were to make the journey go quicker but it seemed to go quite quickly anyway.’

She realised she was twittering and tried to calm down. He was just a man, after all. But she realised that to her, he wasn’t just a man, he was the equivalent of Seamus Heaney and how many young women who’d studied him at university would feel perfectly relaxed in his presence? Lots, probably, she concluded dolefully, but not her. When they’d been walking she’d felt comfortable in his presence but now they’d stopped she suddenly felt shy and self-conscious again.

He handed her a roll and produced a bit of kitchen foil that had butter in it. ‘I’ve tomatoes and cucumber, but no lettuce. I’ll cut it up.’ He produced a Swiss Army knife from his pocket and divided the cucumber into chunks. The tomato followed. He seemed anxious to please her, which was touching. ‘How are you doing? If you pile it all into your roll you can add your ham and cheese. I’ve mayonnaise as well.’

‘Yummy!’

‘I should have brought plates, really,’ he said. ‘Or one of those nifty little sets.’

‘I read somewhere that you should never trust a man who had his own picnic set,’ she said, relaxing a little and then suddenly realising she’d strayed into territory she’d rather have avoided. You should never trust a man with a voice like molten gold, eyes as blue as the sea either, but reading that it was a bad idea didn’t stop you doing it.

‘Well, you’ll be perfectly safe with me then.’ He looked at her quizzically.

She forced herself to meet his teasing gaze. ‘That’s all right then.’

‘So, tell me about yourself, Laura,’ he said after a fair amount of munching.