Seeing Stars (10 page)

‘Yes, thank you. I’ve just been saying to Fern—’

‘Fern? You’re with Fern?’

Amber nodded. ‘She’s gone inside to get some drinks.’ ‘Right.’ Zillah sketched a smile which merely stretched her lips but
did nothing for the wariness in her brown eyes. ‘OK, well as you can see I’m very busy – maybe we can have a proper chat later.
Um – nice to have met you at last.’

Frowning, Amber watched Zillah collect some more glasses and then shove her way into the pub. Very pretty woman but oddly
not very friendly … Ah, well – she’d been warned that southerners weren’t as open and chatty as their northern counterparts.
All that reserve and stuff, no doubt. Maybe Zillah’d loosen up a bit when tonight’s mayhem was over.

Zillah elbowed her way through The Weasel and Bucket’s merry throng and plonked the empty glasses on the bar. Timmy winked
at her. She didn’t wink back.

Well, at least she could stop torturing herself with imagining what Amber would be like. Now she knew. And it didn’t help
one little bit.

‘Hi, Zillah,’ Fern yelled along the bar. ‘Where’s Lewis?’

‘Over there.’ Zillah nodded her head in the direction of the dartboard. ‘Talking to Slo – and probably giving him an illicit
fag while Constance and Perpetua are outside.’

‘And Jem?’

‘Over there as well. Naturally.’

They both looked. As the crowd parted for a second they could see the tiny table by the dartboard. Lewis, standing up, had
his back to them, leaning down towards the elderly Slo who was blissfully wreathed in cigarette smoke. They were both rocking
with laughter. Jem – tiny, reed thin and dark, also facing away from them, also laughing – was, as always, holding Lewis’s
hand.

‘I won’t interrupt – but if you get a moment, tell him I’m outside,’ Fern said. ‘With Amber.’

‘Mmmm, OK. Mind you, I doubt if he’ll be interested.’ Zillah slid behind the bar and ignored the dozen or so
people who all immediately screamed ‘When you’ve got a minute, Zil, love!’ ‘I’ve just met her. She seems a bit vacuous to
me. I’ll admit she’s very pretty, though. Lewis didn’t say she was that pretty.’

‘Probably didn’t notice,’ Fern sighed, fanning her face in the intense heat. ‘After all, as every woman in the world hurls
themselves at his feet, he’s spoilt for choice. And I don’t know what vacuous means but I guess it isn’t complimentary. Anyway,
can we have four big glasses of house white and four pints of Andromeda and two pints of lime juice and soda with ice, because
it’ll save us having to come back and wait forever to be served – oh, no insult meant there, Zil. I know you’re working as
hard as poss – oh, and a tray, please.’

‘If you drink that lot you’ll both be sick,’ Zillah said shortly, reaching for the wine glasses and the Jacob’s Creek. ‘Which
won’t endear you to anyone, will it? And who’s paying for all this?’

‘Me. Why?’

‘Because I wondered, that’s why. As Amber is clearly happy to sponge off Gwyneth for the duration of her stay, I wondered
if she’d at least had the decency to put her hand in her designer pocket and pay for the drinks.’

‘She offered, I refused.’ Fern frowned. ‘Blimey, Zil, that’s a bit harsh. I’m sure she’ll stump up when it’s her turn. Strewth,
it’s so hot in here! And so many people – I don’t know why Timmy didn’t get more staff on tonight.’

‘I’m quite capable of coping with this lot – bugger and sod!’

Both Zillah and Fern watched a good half pint of Chardonnay gush merrily across the bar top.

‘I wouldn’t have minded working behind the bar tonight,’ Fern said, mopping up the wine with the sleeve of her rugby shirt.
‘Or you could have asked Amber. I’m sure she’s looking for work …’

‘One barmaid with shaky hands is all I need.’ Timmy, his face gleaming with sweat and the glow that only a
constantly ringing cash register can bring, beamed along the bar. ‘And much as I’m sure your cleavage would be universally
admired, Fern, I do need someone who can add up – and you’ve got your hands full with Hayfields.’

‘True,’ Fern grinned, grabbing the tray. ‘But I do get some evenings off. Still, the offer’s there – you know where I am if
you need me. But Amber might honestly be—’

‘Over my dead body,’ Zillah muttered, still mopping spilt wine with angry vigour. ‘What use would someone like she be in a
village pub? Anyway, she’s not staying long, is she? Gwyneth said she was finding it all a bit strange. She’ll be back to
the bright lights before she’s even had time to unpack if you ask me. Next!’

Amber, having been mercilessly cross-questioned by the elderly lady with a lot of lacquered curls, who she thought may have
introduced herself earlier as Cornucopia, looked up in relief as Fern arrived with the tray.

‘Thank the Lord for that. I’ve been grilled better than a charcoaled steak. And everyone keeps laughing.’

‘Not at you,’ Fern reassured her, placing the tray carefully between them and sinking to the ground. ‘It’s because of the
St Bedric’s food. Hubble Bubble. Mitzi Blessing cooks – er – herbal dishes. She uses this old-fashioned recipe book and puts
all sorts of funny natural substances in her recipes, and they all have sort of – well – magical properties apparently. And
they make things happen.’

Amber shook her head. How gullible could you be? Magical cookery? Asking the moon to make things happen? It was really, really
sad how backward these rural places were. Emma and Jemma and Kelly and Bex had been right – this was like something out of
the dark ages. And she’d never go along with all this witchy magicky stuff – never.

Still, everyone did seem a bit – well – spaced out.

‘You mean they’re
stoned?
All these old people?’

‘Pretty much, yeah.’ Fern handed Amber a glass of lime juice. ‘Cheers!’

Amber drank greedily. The whole place was mad. Completely insane.

‘So?’ Fern raised her eyebrows over the rim of her glass. ‘Have you and our Zillah had words?’

‘No – well, yes, but only passing introductory sort of words.’ Amber sighed. ‘I was just going to ask you if she had a problem
with me. I met her for the first time just now and she really didn’t seem to like me at all. Why are you smirking like that?’

‘I don’t smirk, I smile winningly. But I bet it’s got something to do with Lewis.’

‘Why? What – you mean …? She’s another one of Lewis’s women? She thinks that I’m after him?’

‘She thinks everyone’s after him. She’s very protective. And you’re new here and very pretty and sexy and – oh, I don’t know.
Zillah seems to have this thing about Lewis being a bit – er – casual with his love life, and it seems to scare her every
time someone new comes on the scene. She’s practically phobic about it.’

Amber shook her head and started on the wine. ‘Sad … And I know she’s attractive and all that, but isn’t she a bit old for
him, anyway?’

‘Oh, God! Zil’s not one of Lewis’s women!’ Fern trilled with laughter. ‘She’s his mother!’

Moonlight Shadow

‘Surely that’s even more dubious?’ Amber said. ‘She’s his
mother?
I’ve heard all about Andromeda and Cassiopeia and Orion and Pegasus and the like since I got here – but no one mentioned
Oedipus.’

‘Who’s she?’ Fern was taking mouthfuls from each glass and was currently halfway down her lager. ‘Nah – I’m not really that
ditzy. And it’s not like that. Zil just gets hung up over Lewis being less than committed to anyone. No idea why. She goes
spare every time a new woman comes on the scene – like she knows he’s going to do his love ’em and leave ’em act and takes
it personally. I honestly think she’d like to see him settle down – but he shows no sign.’

Amber bristled. ‘Huh. And she thinks I’m going to be the next on his list, does she? That I’m some desperate piece from the
frozen wastes with my morals round my ankles? That her son is so damn irresistible that I’m going to hurl myself panting in
his direction? And that he’ll dally with my affections for a while before adding me to the heap of broken-hearted damsels?’

‘That’s about it,’ Fern giggled.

‘Well, she needn’t worry about me. Has Zillah never heard of women with gumption? Women who take control of their own destinies?
Women who can make choices?

Women who can say no?’

‘Oh, I’m sure she has – it’s just that when Lewis is around even the most together independent ladies seem to forget that
this is the twenty-first century.’

‘For heaven’s sake!’ Amber snorted. ‘How sad is that! Of course he’s a great looking bloke, but he’s not the only man on the
planet. I, for one, intend to remain immune. Zillah need not worry about my heart being rendered into a million pieces by
her cavalier son.’

‘Hah!’ Fern rattled the remaining ice cubes in her lime and soda. ‘Famous last words.’

There was absolutely no need, Amber thought, to mention that no matter what she felt about Lewis, he clearly had no more interest
in her than he had in taking up macramé. In fact, considering the way he’d behaved on the Reading journey, he’d clearly far
rather be fashioning pot holders out of string. It was the sort of snippet a girl should keep to herself.

Fortunately at that moment, a crowd of villagers started a loudly discordant impromptu singsong and there was a burst of hand-clapping
and foot-stomping. Sadly several of them, clearly fortified by their green cheesecake, were also attempting to salsa. The
number of people sprawled on the ground hampered any flamboyant moves and the lack of organised music meant they were all
dancing to different rhythms. It was pretty scary.

Why on earth wasn’t there a band? There was food, drink, moon-baying and dubious substances in vast quantities: music, Amber
felt, would have made it into a real party.

As the dancing gaggle swept past them and on to safer territory on the village green, she clutched her glass of wine and leaned
towards Fern. ‘Read my lips: I Do Not Fancy Lewis.’

‘Yeah, you do. Everyone does. And Zillah knows it. And it bothers her big time.’

‘But what about Jem? I thought, Lewis and Jem were, well, together.’

‘Oh, he lives with Jem – but that’s not the same at all for God’s sake.’

Amber groaned inwardly. Jem was a live-in lover. Well, that was Lewis off-limits then. She’d never been a man-stealer. And
surely that made Zillah’s attitude even more weird. Most mothers, in her experience – especially two-timing rat Jamie’s harridan
of a mother – had always been delighted that their sons
weren’t
about to make honest women of their never-quite-good-enough girlfriends.

‘And is Jem in Hayfields?’

‘Oh yeah,’ Fern nodded. ‘We all are.’

As she’d thought. ‘So why aren’t you all providing a bit of yee-haw tonight? It is Country and Western, isn’t it?’

‘Uh?’ Fern frowned. ‘You’ve lost me now. Is what Country and Western?’

‘Hayfields.’

‘Hardly. Hayfields is a house. Well, it used to be – it was a big farmhouse, a couple of centuries old. It’s all been converted
to flats now, of course, but we’ve still got several acres of land so the grounds are lovely. We all live there. What on earth
made you think it had something to do with music?’

‘You mean it doesn’t?’

Fern shrugged. ‘We have our fair share of parties, and we’ve got some musical instruments kicking around, and the stereo is
always on. Is that what you meant?’

‘No, I just thought … the Hayfields van and the scribbled messages and everything was all so rock’n’roll … and the way Lewis
looks … and …’ She stopped. ‘And I didn’t realise that you lived with Lewis.’

‘I don’t. Lewis lives with Jem. I live with Win. Win’s stayed at home tonight with Martha to watch something on the telly.’

Now she really was confused. ‘So, Hayfields is flats, you all live there, it’s nothing to do with music. So what is it? What
do you do?’

‘You’d better ask Lewis,’ Fern giggled, swirling rapidly
melting ice round in her glass. ‘It’ll give you something to talk about. He’s just come out of the pub.’

Amber couldn’t see Lewis at first because Goff Briggs, clearly overcome by a herbal fancy, had attempted to wink with his
good eye and tumbled from his rustic bench. The two elderly Cornucopia women were trying to haul him to his feet. All three
of them were chuckling raucously.

It simply wasn’t what you expected from the older generation.

Then she spotted him. Despite her recent protestations she felt her stomach do a wanton somersault. Oh God, he was gorgeous.

He’d made concessions to the wearing of the green, by adding green patches to the knees of his tight faded-to-grey black jeans
and had a slender green bracelet around one wrist. His thin T-shirt might well have been green once too but the colour had
long since disappeared. He was, quite simply, the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.

Knowing she was also looking for Jem, Amber was surprised to notice that Lewis was not accompanied by some sort of supermodel
but by a lanky, cadaverous, elderly man wearing a green tartan suit and a furtive air.

‘Who’s that with him?’

‘Slo,’ Fern said. ‘One of the Motion cousins. He bums fags off Lewis. The other two cousins –’ she indicated the melee round
Goff Briggs who had promptly slid from his bench again ‘– think Slo gave up smoking at New Year and he’s terrified of them
– well, of Constance in particular. Which is understandable.’

‘Slow?’
Amber laughed. ‘Really? Slow Motion?’

‘S-L-O – Sidney Lawrence Oliver – either his parents were as mad as hatters or they really didn’t realise. Still, it’s quite
a good name for an undertaker.’

‘No way!’

‘True,’ Fern nodded. ‘Their fathers were brothers, funeral directors, each of whom had one child: Constance, Perpetua and
Slo – the Cousins Motion. None of them
married and they’ve carried on the family business. I guess it’ll die with them as there are no baby Motions, but despite
all three of them being geriatric they’re still going strong at the moment. No one round here gets despatched by anyone other
than the Motions.’

‘Talk about something else, please,’ Amber groaned. ‘Let’s do life rather than death.’