Undertaking Love (16 page)

But then again, in Rupert’s defence, last night’s situation
had
played to Gabe’s strengths, so hadn’t it been all too easy for him to jump in and be her knight in shining armour? Her head ached with the pressure of trying to be judge and jury, of juggling the facts to make them fit the evidence.

She wasn’t stupid. She was well aware that there was no love lost between Gabe and Rupert. It was entirely possible that last night had been an exercise in posturing and one-upmanship that had nothing much to do with her at all. She cringed at the memory of how she’d thrown herself at Gabe, and was only too glad of the pop-psychology cover story he’d handily provided her with.

But now she had guilt and betrayal to add to the ever more confusing list of emotions she felt towards Rupert. What had started out as fun had turned into something far more intense than she’d bargained for, definitely on Rupert’s part at least. They’d muttered the L word last night, albeit in a lighthearted manner, and she’d felt a shiver of fear run down her backbone. Throwing herself at Gabe within a couple of hours of the declarations left her feeling distinctly shabby and disloyal, but the fact remained that she was in over her head.

She pushed it all to the back of her mind as she glanced out of the window to the private shady spot at the back of the chapel gardens beneath the oak tree. It had been one of Bluey’s favourite flop spots, and Gabe had already been across early this morning to prepare a permanent resting place there.

Once again she found herself glad of Gabe’s guidance to lead her in the right direction. He’d made a horrible situation bearable with his subtle strength, and she was aware that she owed him a debt of gratitude for the way he’d taken care of all of the practicalities. It comforted her to know that her fur-boy couldn’t be in safer hands. Bluey had been so much more than a pet to Marla. People had come and gone in her life over the years; her gentle giant had been her only constant, her faithful friend, guardian of her secrets.

She glanced up at the clock. Almost five. Soon Gabe would be closing up for the day and would head over to bury her best friend.

Gabe and Jonny lowered Bluey’s simple pine casket into the sun-warmed earth, then stepped back for a few seconds of reverential silence. Pale blue ribbons fluttered around Marla and Emily’s wrists as they stood arm in arm next to the grave.

Tears tracked down Marla’s cheeks as she bent to place Bluey’s favourite, dog-eared chew toy on top of his casket.

‘Bye, Bluey,’ she whispered.

Words failed her. She wanted to say something perfect, but her heart felt too heavy, her throat too constricted.

Emily held out a hand to help her back up again, and kept a tight hold of it as Gabe stepped forward.

‘A man far more eloquent than I am wrote a few special words about his dog. Maybe now would be a good time to hear them?’

Marla nodded at him with gratitude. She couldn’t find the words to express how losing Bluey so cruelly had shattered her heart. He’d been such a huge physical presence in any room, utterly unwieldy and impractical in her small cottage with his gangly legs and huge head. He’d been forever knocking things over with his eagerly wagging tail, but if it had come down to a straight choice between moving house or losing Bluey, she’d have called the estate agents without a moment’s hesitation. And now he’d gone, and Marla had never felt so alone in her life.

Gabe waited as the nearby church bell rang out six solemn times, then cleared his throat.

Near this Spot are deposited the

Remains of one who possessed beauty without vanity,

Strength without insolence,

Courage without ferocity,

And all the virtues of Man without his Vices.

Marla sighed. In a million years, she couldn’t have found more appropriate words. ‘Thank you, Gabe. That was perfect.’

Gabe nodded. ‘Byron was obviously a dog lover.’ He reached for the spade that rested against a near by tree trunk. ‘Go inside, Marla. You don’t need to see this.’

‘Marla, honey?’

Marla’s heart plummeted at the sound of the familiar nasal twang. Why, oh why had she answered the phone? Mondays were her Sundays. They were the only day of the week that could be relied upon to be wedding-free and calm, the only day that she ever took off for herself.

She plopped down into her armchair and resigned herself to a good hour of listening to her mother’s latest forays with men and mayhem stateside. Much as she loved her mother, hearing about her exploits as a sex therapist aging disgracefully in Florida always gave Marla the makings of a headache. At least it wasn’t hard work. Her mother never gave her chance to get a word in edgeways. She reached for her coffee mug and curled her feet up underneath her bum, glad to be on the opposite side of the pond to her mother for the majority of the time. She cursed silently as she wriggled and slopped coffee on her knee, before tuning back in to try to make sense of the tail end of her mother’s monologue.

‘It’ll only be a flying visit for Brynn though, hon, he has to give a speech at a taxidermy conference. He’s flying out again after the weekend, but I thought I’d stay on and spend some time with my little girl. Whaddya reckon?’

Marla’s mind played hectic catch up. Brynn?
Who the hell was Brynn?
And a
taxidermy
conference? Jeez, her mother had been with some odd men in her time but this one ranked up there alongside Herman the snake-wrangler.

She was so thrown by Brynn’s profession that it took her a couple of seconds to compute the fact that her mother had mentioned a visit.

Her mother’s uncharacteristic silence lengthened, and Marla cast around for a response that wouldn’t convey her horror.

‘When would this be, again?’ she squeaked.

Please don’t say tomorrow or something ridiculous, Mom, or I may well lie down on the floor and die right now.

She heard her mother’s dramatic sigh on the other end of the line.

‘Marla, are you even listening to me? End of the month. Clear your diary. We can hit Harrods.’

‘Mom, you know I’m miles from London.’

‘Yada yada yada. You can’t be far from anywhere on that tiny godforsaken island. I lived there so I know, remember?’

Marla was glad her mother wasn’t in the room to catch the way her eyes flicked up to the heavens. At least it was a few weeks away. Given her mother’s track record, there was every possibility that Brynn the taxidermist would have exited the scene well before then with an otter under his arm, or whatever the hell he happened to be stuffing at the time.

‘You know what you need, my friend?’

Gabe watched Dan over the rim of his pint glass as he waited for the pearl of wisdom. It was his third beer, and it had him well on the way to being more relaxed than he’d felt in weeks.

‘What’s that then?’

‘To lighten up. You’ve had that same long face on for weeks now.’

‘Undertakers need long faces. It’s part of our job description.’

‘I know that’s a lie, Gabriel, because your dad had the biggest smile in Ireland.’

Gabe couldn’t argue with that one. He took a swig of beer to help loosen the sudden tightening in his throat.

‘Let’s go into town, man.’ Dan shoved his chair back with a pointed glance around the quiet pub. ‘It’s crawling with bars full of birds. You need to touch some flesh that isn’t stone cold.’

Gabe sighed loudly, but drained his glass anyway. This thing with Marla was doing his head in. Maybe some distance from the village and its headaches would be welcome. He craved the boozy forgotten nights, to be twenty-two again and not give a damn about tomorrow, or work, or about the red-headed girl who was driving him slowly crazy with need. Marla was thoroughly infuriating, not to mention someone else’s girlfriend.

Which left him with, to coin one of Dan’s choice phrases, ‘two fifths of fuck all’ and the guarantee of a headache in the morning. He grabbed his jacket and ducked outside towards the taxi Dan had flagged down.

Gabe looked around the busy town square. It was thronged with brightly lit bars and glossy-haired girls.

‘Where we headed?’

Dan managed to drag his eyes away from an impressive lycra-encased cleavage of a passing girl to glance down at the flyer she had thrust into his hand. He stuffed it into his pocket and clapped Gabe on the back with a grin.

‘I’ve just had a fuckin’ stormin’ idea, mate.’

Gabe grimaced. He knew that tone of old, and it usually meant Dan was a few hours away from his next walk of shame. He had no time to consider his options though, because Dan yanked him sideways into a black doorway and up some narrow wooden stairs.

Five minutes later, he found himself installed in a red velvet booth with a cold bottle of Budweiser and a half-naked blonde thrusting a G-string clad bottom at him from a nearby pole.

‘A strip joint. Really?’

Dan winked and chinked his bottle against Gabe’s, clearly pleased with himself. ‘So. What’s your poison tonight my friend?’ He inclined his head towards the woman wrapped around the pole. ‘Blonde?’

Gabe took a slug of beer and looked away.

‘Not blonde. Okaaay … how about a classic brunette?’

Gabe followed Dan’s gaze across to the main stage, where men were shoving bank notes of encouragement into the silver thong of an exotic looking girl as she peeled down the straps of her bra. He took it all in, feeling detached and grubby. He’d been in strip joints several times over the years; enough times to know it wasn’t his scene.

‘A nice little redhead, then? You seem to have developed quite a soft spot for them lately.’

Dan slid his sly eyes from Gabe’s with a grin and nodded towards a girl at the bar with wild red curls and barely there black lace underwear.

Gabe drained his bottle and reached behind him for his jacket.

‘I’m gonna shoot through. This isn’t for me tonight, mate.’

Dan pouted and punched him on the shoulder. ‘Lighten up, man. It’s just a bit of fun.’

He winked at the blonde, who licked her lips and held a hand out to him in reply. Dan shrugged his shoulders with a helpless laugh at Gabe.

‘Wait for me, yeah? I’ll be back in five.’

Gabe sighed in resignation as he watched Dan trail off behind the glistening blonde like an excited puppy with a juicy bone. He traded his empty bottle for a full one from a passing waitress and settled in to wait, trying to avoid the parade of girls vying for his attention.

‘Feelin’ lonely, cowboy?’

Gabe glanced up from the depths of his beer to find the redhead from the bar had slid into the booth alongside him. Her riotous red curls sent a vicious kick of longing into his stomach.

Yeah. He was feeling lonely.

She scooted closer and trailed long emerald green nails along his thigh.

‘I can make you feel a whole lot better.’ She batted her false eyelashes and wiggled her cleavage closer to his chest.

He couldn’t help himself.

He looked down.

He had to hand it to her; she jiggled in all the right places. She dipped her head for a second, her hair tumbling over her face, and with the benefit of a few too many beers she might have been Marla. When she threw her head back and grinned, a ridiculous shiver of disappointment ran through him.

The girl was wrong. She couldn’t make him feel better. In fact, with one flick of her red curls she’d managed to make him feel a hundred times worse.

‘I’m not a cowboy,’ he muttered.

‘That’s alright, darlin’. You can be anything you like in here.’

‘I’m an undertaker.’

To her credit, she faltered for only the briefest of nano-seconds before she was right back on her game.

‘Kinky.’ She swung a leg over him and straddled his thighs. ‘Then I’ll be Buffy the Vampire Slayer.’ She flashed her eyes and leaned close to whisper in his ear. ‘Here, or somewhere a little more private?’

Out of the corner of his eye Gabe spied Dan as he sauntered back across the bar.
Thank God.
‘I’ll pass, thanks.’

‘Come on, goth boy …’ The girl started gyrating to the music.

‘Get off me. Now.’

She could obviously tell from his tone that he meant business, because she stood up and tipped his drink into his lap.

‘Get a life, weirdo. You’re in a strip joint, remember?’

‘Nice taste, man,’ Dan murmured as he slid into the booth, swivelling his head to check out the redhead’s bum as she strutted away.

‘Did you just put her up to that?’

‘Fuck off. You must have given her the glad eye yourself.’

Gabe brushed the beer from his crotch and Dan’s face creased up with laughter. ‘For fuck sake, Gabriel, I did you a favour. That girl was smokin’.’

‘I don’t need fixing up.’

Dan shook his head without malice. ‘I hate to say it Gabriel, but from where I’m standing, it kind of looks like you do.’

As they grabbed their jackets, neither of them noticed the floppy-haired guy alone in the corner, phone in hand.

‘I need to make another appointment with the midwife for three weeks’ time, please,’ Emily said to the doctor’s receptionist.

She was distracted as she rooted around in the bottom of her handbag for her mobile. The damn thing was ringing, and her handbag had unhelpfully chosen this moment to do its best Tardis impression.

Half-eaten Kit-Kat? Check. Hairbrush? Check. TV license fee she should have posted three days ago? Check. She shoved the license fee envelope into the front pocket in a vain attempt to remind her to post it, but still she couldn’t find the phone.

It didn’t help that Tom had pulled his favourite trick: changing her ring tone to some entirely inappropriate bump and grind porn theme for his own amusement.

Yeah, okay everyone, you can all stop staring at the pregnant lady with the slutty ringtone now. Show’s over.

Her cheeks flamed as disapproving mothers gathered their children onto their knees, and the receptionist tutted and waved a little cream card in her face.

‘Your next appointment,’ she handed it over with a haughty glance over the top of her crescent moon glasses.