Rumours (20 page)

Glanced up. Him looking down. Eyes, dark and intense – not grey blue today but slate navy. He hadn't shaved.

That's not a glance. That's a linger.

The apartment above the coach house bays was long and appeared to be subdivided by little more than folding screens. The windows themselves, of which there were six in a long horizontal run, were wide but short and resembled pairs of eyes squinting. It wasn't dark inside, but it felt low, quiet, because one had to stoop a little to see out, as if those within the apartment could choose to hide from the outside world. It was empty, dusty, still. There were some old tea chests filled with rubbish, gingham curtains hanging limp and moth-eaten at the windows like a peasant girl's skirt. Will, automatically, was walking to the far end. Xander was not directing him otherwise. Just in front of him, Stella. She had stopped at the first of the partitions – which were indeed folding screens covered in calico.

‘My dad called this place a moveable feast.'

‘Your dad?'

‘This is where I grew up.' Why am I telling her this?

‘This?
Here
?' Stella turned and for a split second, Xander thought she was going to reach for his arm, at much the same time that Stella thought she might, too. She hugged her clipboard close. ‘This is your childhood home?'

‘It was,' Xander said, looking about himself. ‘Unconventional – I'll say. But it was a merry place. Warm and bright – with my parents forever rejigging the layout with the screens. I can't exactly remember where my room was – it grew with me when I was a boy and needed the space to play, then it seemed to shrink when I was in my late teens and hardly ever here. And when I left for uni, it disappeared altogether and my parents went for the Ultimate Open Plan – like something you'd see on
Grand Designs
these days.'

He sat on a tea crate and watched Stella gazing about. He told her how his parents moved to Little Dunwick when they retired, but that his mother still visited Lydia regularly. He told her about Nottingham University and Caroline and Andrew and their communal, post-student existence in Highbury before they all moved to Long Dansbury. Him renting. Them buying. Marrying. Again, he wondered to himself why he was telling her any of this.

‘No mortgage?' Stella asked. ‘No offspring?'

‘Er – no,' Xander laughed.

And then he wondered, what about you, Stella? What's your story? Divorced? When? Are you a single mum by choice? And while Will came back to them, in awe of his surroundings, asking for Xander's say-so to start the shortbread, Xander wondered why Stella should be of any interest to him. Why had he noticed the amber in her eyes, why was he interested to see what she'd make of it all, up here in the quiet shadows of his past? Why had he stopped to think that she suited being a mother to a boy like Will?

‘Please, Mr Xander, can I have the biscuits now?'

‘Very nearly almost.' Caroline's kids loved it when he said that. ‘Come on.'

At the very far wall was a door, which opened to another door – much like between the carriages of a train. Through this door, and at right angles to the apartment and to Art and Mr Tringle's flats, ran the clock tower section, joining the two. It felt draughty, as though they shouldn't be there. There were gaps in the floor and holes in the roof and bird shit encrusting some of the rafters like barnacles on a lobster pot.

‘Are there bats here?' Will asked.

‘Yes, right up high in the clock tower itself.'

‘Does it chime?'

‘Not any more.'

‘Can I eat the biscuits?'

‘If you share them with your mum and me.'

‘Can we go in further?'

‘You'll have to ask your mum.'

‘Can we, Mummy?'

‘No, darling. No. I don't think so. I think it's time we went on.'

Xander noted how quiet Stella had become as they left the stable yard and walked through the yard with the workshops in the old barns, past the livery stables and out into the farmland.

‘Are you all right?'

‘I'm fine, thank you,' said Stella. She looked at her clipboard. ‘Clarence's place?'

‘That's right,' said Xander. ‘Over there.' He pointed, a long way off, to a stone shack.

‘Who is Clarence?' Stella asked. ‘The only Clarence I know of is the angel in
It's A Wonderful Life
.'

Xander smiled. ‘He's a great big, soft gentle bear of a man.'

‘Sounds like Hagrid,' chirped Will.

‘Who?'

‘You can tell you haven't got children,' Stella laughed.

‘Clarence is special,' Xander said defensively. ‘Of all the people still tied to Longbridge, he's the one I'll worry about most, if the estate goes. He's more than just a tenant – he's part of the land. I honestly don't know-how he'll manage.' She could feel Xander looking at her – no doubt with some confrontational expression as if to say, well, have you thought about that? She kept her eyes on Clarence's place.

The building seemed at odds with all the others on the estate. Stella thought it looked best suited to the moors. Stout and low with thick walls constructed from uneven slabs of stone. Small windows, like deep-set eyes. Clarence wasn't in. Though she stood on tiptoe and cupped her hands around her face as she pressed close to the window, Stella could see little.

‘It's really an outhouse,' Xander said, now with affection. ‘It's very simple inside – Clarence has made it homely. He's been here since the War. Many times Lydia's offered him different quarters, but he's happy there.'

‘Since the War?' Will was all ears.

‘He came with his parents from the East End of London,' Xander said. ‘He was a boy. His dad was a corporation dustman – none of them had ever seen a cow before.' He paused. Will would love Clarence. Xander remembered how he'd sit for hours on an upturned bucket listening to Clarence's stories.

‘Never seen a
cow
?'

‘Never. His dad became head herdsman. He had a gift – passed it on to Clarence. Limousins – the cattle at Longbridge.'

‘Where are Clarence's cows now?'

‘Long gone.'

‘But he's still here?'

‘It's his home,' he told Will, whilst looking at Stella accusingly. ‘He's very old.'

Stella thought, don't you look at me, you with your dark stare. But she couldn't say anything. And she couldn't look away.

‘Look!' Will showed Sara the napkin that had contained the shortbread which Xander had advised him to keep because, if Will returned it to His Lady, Mrs Biggins would be in trouble. Xander had winked at Stella at that part but Will hadn't seen so he couldn't recount that bit.

Sara fingered the embroidered crest. ‘How fabulously posh,' she said.

‘You should see the place,' said Stella. But tonight, Sara wasn't interested in details of cornicing and fanlights and horse's bums and men called Clarence.

‘Go,' Sara said to her. ‘The life of Riley awaits you.'

‘Who?' said Will.

‘It's a saying,' said Stella, sensing Sara grinning at her lasciviously. ‘You help Robbie and Sara with the Stickies, darling,' she said, ‘and I'll see you first thing in the morning.'

Driving home, Stella thought how bizarre the concept of going on a date seemed. She felt a little alarmed that she wasn't more excited. A blind date at the age of thirty-four, her first blind date ever, in fact. It was too long after breaking up with Charlie, not least now that the divorce was through, to consider the merits of The Rebound. A couple of her friends had proposed it, in the early days, but Stella had an intrinsic sense that it wouldn't suit her. These days, she doubted a relationship was her thing either. But there again, Saturday nights alone were rather pathetic, when they happened week in, week out, so she'd humour the good intentions of her loved ones and spend the evening with some charming, well-off, handsome chap with a silly name.

She'd been through various options of what to wear – standing critically in front of her wardrobe and mirror and sharing her thoughts via text and phone calls with Jo, Juliet and Sara. Ultimately, the women closest to her were unanimous in the pairings they suggested. Dark grey skirt not too short but sassy enough, black boots with a heel and her silky tunic top in dusky rose. Hair up, she'd been told. Drop earrings. Dark lipstick. Smokey eyes. And be five to ten minutes late. Stella was slightly concerned that her own instincts were apparently so far off the mark – she'd have been on time, in stretch jeans, just a lash of mascara, just a slick of lipgloss and lower heels in case a getaway was necessary. She started to fret. Say she found Riley unattractive physically and in person? What would she do and what would she say – not to him, but to all those involved in making this evening happen? As she made her way to the restaurant, she felt utterly burdened by the expectations of others. Only then did she think, what on earth would Riley make of
her
? What was
he
expecting? Oh God – this all felt so contrived. Awful. It was little comfort knowing her domestic army was behind the scenes, rooting for her and, it had to be said, living vicariously through her too. It just felt like pressure. Jo had told her to buy new underwear – just in case you're tempted. Sara, conversely, had advised old, mismatched, shapeless – to ward against temptation on a first date. If those closest to her couldn't agree on how she was to behave, what chance did Stella have to decide for herself? Stop bloody thinking! The one thing she did hope was that either they would both find the other attractive – or else that neither of them would.

She was five minutes late, but there again her watch was set five minutes fast. Riley, however, was not on time. On entering the restaurant, aware that it was full and feeling too intimidated to even glance around to assess whom he might be, Stella polarized her vision and made straight for the maître d' who appeared to take pleasure in leading her, very slowly, to an empty table, nodding to his diners left and right as he went.

She thought, I'm not remotely hungry. She glanced at the menu and couldn't see a thing that whetted her appetite. She thought, what am I meant to do now? She wasn't going to be stood up, was she? She didn't dare look around her. She ordered a vodka and tonic. Soon after, a Bloody Mary. She took out her phone, nervously playing Solitaire which she won in two minutes seventeen seconds. New best time! New fewest moves! Well – that made the evening a success, if nothing else. No texts. She checked the news headlines, the weather. Nothing surprising there. No texts. Phone on vibrate. She scrolled through photographs and gazed at Will, wishing with a pang that the two of them were snuggled up doing their usual Saturday evening thing but then realizing, sadly, that it was his bedtime and if she had been at home, she'd have been curled on the sofa, with a glass of wine, watching rubbish TV and hoping to feel tired enough for an early night. A text came through. Jo. A barrage of larky Emoji images. She couldn't find any appropriate to fire back so she left the text unanswered. Fourteen minutes late. She did have the right time, didn't she? And date? And location? Another voddie?

‘Miss Stella!' Riley had missed Stella. He'd already had a good scout around the restaurant wondering which of the three lone female diners might have been his blind date. Missed Stella. ‘God – am I late? Sorry. Couldn't get parked.'

‘That's OK, I was a little late myself,' she said. She half stood to greet him while he sat down, leaving her stooped so it looked as though she had gut ache. They shook hands a little gingerly, having to negotiate the candle, the condiments, the small vase with the single gerbera – the spiral of wire around its stem seeming to garrotte the flower as much as support it.

‘How
are
you?' he asked, as if she'd been on some epic worldwide adventure and he was ready and waiting to be fascinated by her.

‘I'm fine!' She remembered to smile, do the eye-contact thing. He was good-looking, and she was relieved. She didn't want to not fancy him – Sara wouldn't accept that as an excuse. And he looked nothing like Charlie, thank goodness. An open-necked shirt rolled up to just below the elbow. Nice forearms. A quality watch a little clunky for her liking. A neatly trimmed goatee, dark hair, green eyes. Slim, tanned, obviously fit.

‘Come here often?' He laughed as if the cliché was beyond witty. She laughed for him.

‘A first for me,' she said. She paused. Did that sound pathetic? Be yourself. Be honest. ‘All of this is a first for me.'

‘I'm starving,' he said and overlooking her awkwardness to peruse the menu was helpful. ‘Do you drink?' he asked.

‘Yes, please,' she said, draining her glass and crunching the ice.

He gave the wine list great attention, muttering names under his breath as though they were players in a football team it was his duty to rank.

When the waiter came to take their order and Riley looked expectantly to Stella to place hers, she realized that each dish she liked contained words she was unsure how to pronounce. So she changed her mind said, green salad to start, please. And then the risotto. It was sage and broad beans. She didn't like broad beans but the dish was a better option than Agneau de Lait which sounded barbaric. Riley pronounced quinoa
key-noir
. Stella thought that was incorrect. Or else she'd made a fool of herself in the past. She hadn't fancied it tonight. It was with something called Noix de Ris de Veau and she wasn't even going to ask what that was. Riley ordered the steak for his entrée.

‘So, tell me about yourself,' Riley said which, to Stella, was on a par with a job interviewer asking where she saw herself five years hence.

‘I – er—'

Luckily, he interrupted. ‘The only Stella I know is Artois,' he chortled. ‘And I've had a very chequered time with that one!'