Gina laughed. ‘Mmm, I fell foul of Zumba too. Although at least mine was nothing to do with Natalie’s class – it was in the privacy of my own room with my Wii Fit.’
‘Really? I’d have
paid good money to see that.’ Kam grinned.
Gina smiled cautiously back.
OK, they were friends, and now they had a shared secret, but was he
flirting
with her? No way. She knew this was a very one-sided attraction that could – as always – end in tears. It was doomed from the start. Not, she told herself quickly, that there was going to be any start as such.
Kam must be at least three years her junior, and gorgeous, and able to have any woman he batted his long, long eyelashes at. Why on earth would he be interested in her? Someone who was rattling towards forty and with a rubbish track record when it came to men? Of course he wasn’t flirting with her. He was probably just being kind.
Get a grip!
Gina shook herself. ‘Well, I’ll be here. If Sam and Part-time Pearl cope tonight, they can do their worst for a couple of hours in the Merry Cobbler next Tuesday.’
‘And, as I said earlier, you can definitely count me out,’ Kam said with a laugh. ‘I’ve had enough bhangra dancing to last me a lifetime. It was the least cool thing any teenage boy could do, in my opinion.’
‘Shame on you,’ Gina teased. ‘I was so looking forward to seeing you in the full regalia, strutting your stuff.’
‘Not going to happen.’ Kam grinned at her. ‘But I’ll come along and watch you, as promised. I can give helpful hints from the sidelines.’
They smiled at one another again. Gina, feeling suddenly uncomfortably warm, looked away first.
‘Anyway,’ Kam
said, ‘I’d better be getting the pick-up back to the surgery and cleaned out ready for its proper purpose. I must admit I never expected to have Hanuman, Saraswati, Indra and Ram as passengers in the back of my truck.’
‘They really are spectacular.’ Gina moved away from him, and walked among the towering statues, stroking the fabulously coloured plaster saris and jewels and dupattas. ‘Wonder why on earth Doug bought them in the first place?’
She stopped and smiled to herself in surprise. She’d actually managed to say the D word without the little pain jabbing under her ribs and taking her breath away.
‘I gather he thought they were going to be smaller and make a window display,’ Nalisha said. ‘Doug Boswell’s loss – our gain.’
Gina gave a mental cheer and was just about to say something else when Kam’s phone rang.
He grabbed it and listened.
‘OK, Bella. I’m on my way. Yes, I’ll pick Jay up. Has he? Good. Thanks.’
Gina paused in admiring the haughty faced and heavily ear-ringed Bhuvaneshwari. ‘Call-out?’
‘Yes, afraid so. Would you like a lift back to the pub?’
‘No thanks.’ Gina shook her head. ‘It’s only a quick walk across the green. Hardly worth the trouble and you’ve got far more important things to do. But thanks for the offer. Have you got your key if you’re going to be late?’
‘Yes thanks. Hopefully we won’t be very long and I’ll be back before you lock up.’
They all watched him go.
‘God,’ Sophie, said wistfully, ‘he’s soooo bloody fit.’
Gina nodded to herself. He certainly was.
‘Kam’s a bad boy,’ Nalisha said softly. ‘But with a good heart.’
‘Mmm, I’m sure he is,’ Gina sighed.
She could have sworn
Bhuvaneshwari was laughing at her with a knowing look in her heavily kohled eyes.
‘And didn’t you and Kam ever … well … you know?’ Sophie looked at Nalisha. ‘I mean, with you knowing the family so well, you and Kam must have been thrown together all the time. I don’t know how you could resist him.’
‘Easily.’ Nalisha smiled. ‘Kam’s my friend but definitely not my type. There’s no chemistry there at all. Anyway, I was far too much in love with someone else when I was a teenager to give Kam a second thought. And since I’ve grown up – well, nothing’s changed. I know he’s simply not for me.’
Gina, realising she’d been holding her breath, shook her head, moved away from the statues and clapped her hands. ‘OK, everybody, are we all done in here? Good. So, who’s for a last drink on me to say thank you?’
She was almost flattened in
the stampede for the door.
‘Why are you sitting in the dark?’ Erin, having found Uncle Doug’s cottage empty, apart from Florence sprawled out luxuriously on a windowsill in the still-stifling dusk, peered into the Old Curiosity Shop. ‘Oh, and you’ve moved everything back in again. Blimey. On your own?’
‘Yes,’ Doug said wearily. ‘All on my own. Like I’ve been all day. Like now. Alone again – naturally.’
‘Do not quote Gilbert O’Sullivan’s saddest-ever song.’ Erin avoided the bell-ringing doormat, manoeuvred her way through the once-again crowded shop and perched on the edge of a rickety table. ‘And don’t go all maudlin on me.’
‘Yeah, well.’ Doug moved in the rocking chair. They both creaked. ‘Maudlin’s how I feel. Along with knackered and pissed off.’
‘Poor old thing. And where are the gods and goddesses?’
‘Nalisha has taken
them to the village hall.’
Erin laughed.
Doug frowned. ‘It’s not a laughing matter.’
‘No, sorry. It’s just you made it sound like she was taking them for an outing or to play bingo or something. You mean, Nalisha’s installed them in the village hall already?’
Nalisha certainly didn’t hang around.
‘She has. I was just glad to see the back of them.’
Erin smiled. ‘Agreed, they possibly weren’t the best purchase you’ve ever made. Never mind, you’ll have to make your money back on something else. You’ve made mistakes before and put them right in your next deal.’
‘Yeah, whatever. Nalisha had half of Nook Green with her to help move the statues. I thought I was going to have to pay them to take the damn things away. I felt it was a bonus that I got away with that. And anyway, why are you here? Where’s Jay? How did the Swan go?’
‘Best not to ask,’ Erin sighed. ‘Long story. Which I might just tell you over a pint. I desperately need a drink and you look like you could do with one or several.’
‘I could do with a dozen. But I haven’t been over to the pub since … well, for ages. I’m not the most popular person in the Merry Cobbler at the moment, am I?’
‘Your own fault. And I think Gina is far more grown up than that. Although you were a complete prat to finish with her. She’s so gorgeous. Blimey, Uncle Doug, she turns heads whereever she goes and the pub’s always full of men with their tongues hanging out. She’s absolutely sex on legs. Some other bloke will snap her up within days and then you’ll be sorry.’
Doug groaned. ‘And
that’s supposed to make me feel better, is it? Don’t you think I’ve been over and over it? I know how damn sexy and beautiful Gina is. And such a lovely woman, too. Funny and kind. Maybe I was a little bit hasty.’
‘A damn lot hasty.’ Erin shook her head. ‘But if Gina has got any sense she’ll realise she’s had a lucky escape and find someone who really loves her, and appreciates her.’
‘I know I’ve hurt her. I shouldn’t have been such a fool.’
‘No, you shouldn’t. But it’s too late now. I doubt if she’d take you back even if you got down on your knees and begged.’
‘Oh God, you’re right – I can’t face her.’
‘Of course you can. Don’t be such a wimp. Come on, shift yourself, we’ll just manage to catch last orders if we hurry.’
‘I’m way past hurrying.’ Doug eased himself out of the rocking chair. ‘But I could certainly do with a drink. And as long as you’ll protect me if Gina lunges for my throat.’
‘Not a chance,’ Erin snorted. ‘You brought that on yourself. Deal with it. Now come on before the pub closes.’
‘Do I look OK?’ Doug ran his fingers through his floppy hair.
Erin laughed. ‘How vain are you? As far as I can see in this light – or lack of it – you look fine. Like a sort of shattered, scruffy, careworn, ancient surfer boy. And Gina, if she’s got any sense, will be so over you that she won’t give a toss what you look like. So, for pity’s sake, come on!’
Doug locked the shop and, with arms linked, they walked across the green.
Shadowy figures were still hunched on the banks of the Nook and on the rustic benches and beneath the trees. Lazy, splintered conversations and the odd shout of laughter pierced the purple dusk. As they walked, Erin briefly filled Doug in on the events of the day.
‘… and I don’t want
to talk about any of it again tonight,’ she said as they reached the Merry Cobbler’s crowded beer garden. ‘OK?’
‘Whatever you say, love,’ Doug said with a shrug, as they walked through the propped-open door and into the furnace heat of the bar, ‘but surely, this
mandap
thing –’
‘Not another word,’ Erin said fiercely. ‘And I’m buying. Beer?’
Doug nodded, looking round the crowded pub. ‘Please. And call me chicken, but I’m going to sit outside here in the garden. OK?’
Erin sighed, nodded, left him at an outside table and fought her way to the bar.
It was like a sauna.
‘Yers?’ Sam glowered at her. ‘Time’s getting on, nearly last orders. What can I get yer?’
‘A pint of bitter, please, Sam. Draught. Uncle Doug’s usual. And a pint of cider for me. Loads of ice. Thanks.’
‘Damn silly new-fangled idea,’ Sam muttered as he rattled glasses, ‘putting ice in cider. Makes the drink go flat. Anyone knows that.’
‘Makes it lovely and cold and refreshing though,’ Erin said cheerfully, scanning the many faces in the pub. Most of the village seemed to be there – Part-time Pearl was busy serving Dora Wilberforce, and both the Blundells and Sid Duncan and the rest of the Yee-Hawers, as well as an awful lot of the Nook Green yoof, but there was no sign of Nalisha. Thank goodness. ‘And a long cold drink is exactly what I need after the day I’ve had.’
‘You got problems with
yer wedding?’ Sam slid the drinks across the bar, took the money, dispensed the change. ‘That don’t surprise me. Too many people trying to interfere. It wouldn’t have happened if your mum and dad were still here, or your nanna.’
Erin frowned. ‘They wouldn’t have made any difference, and anyway, no, we haven’t got any problems with the wedding. Who said we had?’
‘No one d’rectly. I just keeps me eyes and ears open in here, that’s all. Seems to me this village is turning into
Mumbai Calling
– and all of ’em only want to do things their own way, as I sees it. And as it’s your wedding, they should be told to sling their ’ooks.’
As this was far too close to home for comfort, Erin nodded but said nothing. Unfortunately, Gina had overheard.
‘Sam! You stop that this minute! I’ve told you before about making racist remarks. There are laws, you know.’
‘Ain’t racist. Ain’t breaking no laws. Simply telling the truth. I never said nothing bad about any of ’em. And I wouldn’t. Young Jay and Kam and that there Nalisha is all smashing. And Jay’s mum and dad, they’re the salt of the earth. Polite and know what’s what. Decent people. Could do with more like ’em round here. Ain’t got nothing to do with race or colour or creed – got everything to do with interference. Sticking their noses in where it’s not wanted. So there.’
And grumpily he staggered along the bar to serve the next customer.
‘He’s not wrong.’ Erin grinned at Gina. ‘He’s just the only one brave enough to say it.’
‘You’re right, but for God’s sake don’t let him know that. He’ll be unbearable. Anyway, do you want to know what I’ve been doing tonight?’
‘Pulling pints and warming lasagnes?’
‘Much more exciting than that.’
Erin listened as
Gina described the rehoming of the Indian gods and goddesses and the plans for Nalisha’s first bhangracum-Bollywood dance class being held on Tuesday.
Erin thought that an ear-blasting influx of Bollywood via Dhanush, or Bhangra courtesy of Panjabi MC – see, she thought triumphantly, she
had
listened to Jay – in Nook Green village hall was going to be fantastic, even if it was all down to damn Nalisha, and wondered vaguely if they might like the
mandap
to go with the gods and goddesses.
‘So, how did things go today? At the Swan? With all the last-minute wedding plans?’
Erin pulled a face. ‘Don’t ask. I was mad to think my wedding would be different to everyone else’s and go without a hitch.’
‘Oh really? I’m so sorry.’
‘I’m sure it’ll all work out OK in the end,’ Erin said, actually pretty sure that it wouldn’t, but too tired to care tonight. ‘Now I ought to get this pint outside before Uncle Doug dies of dehydration.’
‘Too scared to come in, is he?’ Gina raised her eyebrows. ‘Yes, actually.’ Erin laughed. ‘And serves him right. He behaved appallingly towards you. I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s not your fault. You warned me often enough what he was like. I was silly to think it would end any other way.’ Gina smiled. ‘Made a bit of a fool of myself there, and not for the first time. But, you live and learn, don’t you? I’m over it and I shall be more careful next time.’
‘Next time?’
‘Figure of speech,’ Gina said quickly. ‘Nothing more. But tell Doug he can come into the pub. I’m not going to deck him.’
‘Shame.’ Erin grinned. ‘It might bring him to his senses. And, honestly, Gina, I think he’s regretting it now.’
Gina held up her hands. Lots
of bracelets rattled round her wrists and twinkled in the bar’s overhead lights. ‘Tough. Seriously. I was silly enough to fall in love with him. You know how much I loved him. And he didn’t feel the same way. There’s no going back. My only regret is that I won’t be there to see you and Jay married.’
‘What? Of course you will. Why wouldn’t you be?’
‘Because I was only going with Doug, wasn’t I?’
‘Rubbish. You’re our friend. You just put on your slap and your best slinky dress and a knockout hat and make him realise what he’s missing – with knobs on. Don’t you dare think you won’t be there.’
Gina beamed. ‘Erin, that’s made my day. Honestly. I was thinking earlier that I wouldn’t be there and feeling really sorry for myself. And actually, there’s something I really have to tell you –’
‘Gina!’ Sam barked. ‘Stop
all that jibber jabber, there’s a good girl, and come and give us a ’and along here. Some of us do have homes to go to, and I’d like to see mine afore sunup. Pearl’s gorn orf again. She’s out the back crying. Thinks she’s caught the Marburg virus from a dodgy pork pie.’