“Well, I’d better be going,” he added as Tally, tired of flirting, lay down at his feet.
“Fridges to fix?” offered Lucy, flinching as Hengist corkscrewed muddy water from his fur.
“No. My taxes.”
“Fixing your taxes? That’s against the law, you know, even in Tresco Creek,” she joked.
He gave her what her mum had always called a “funny look” which meant the person giving it was the opposite of amused. “Then I’d better not get caught,” he said, holding her gaze. His eyes, she noted, did not have the look of a criminal. He had no need of mascara, either, she decided, reminded of Nick’s tears at the studio.
“Not getting caught is the trick,” she said, looking away first, then cursing herself for doing so. “Hengist, time to go.”
Hengist ignored her and started excavating a rabbit hole. “Hen-gist!” she called, trying to imitate Fiona in her best mistress mode. “You villain!”
Hengist lifted his leg, peed on a clump of dandelions, and resumed his excavations.
“Hengisttttt…” she hissed, rattling his lead more in hope than expectation.
Josh snapped his fingers. “Come here, boy,” he said quietly.
Don’t do it, begged Lucy silently, but Hengist immediately pulled his nose out of the bank, ran over to Josh, and lay down next to Tally. His eyes had an expression of complete innocence. “Traitor,” mouthed Lucy behind Josh’s back.
Josh was smiling now. “Thank you,” she said through clenched teeth, bending to snap the lead onto Hengist’s collar before he loped off again. “I’m not a doggy person but then again, he doesn’t do what his mistress tells him, either.”
“What bloke does?” said Josh, rubbing Hengist’s ears. Hengist was making that satisfied throaty growl he always made when Fiona fed him his absolute favorite treat: fresh tripe.
“I’ll be off, then. Sara will be waiting for me,” said Josh.
“And you always do what your mistress tells you?”
She bit her lip but it was too late.
His eyes were sparkling with amusement. “I’ve no problem with doing exactly what a woman wants. I’ve no hang-ups about a woman being in charge, if that’s what you’re implying. If you want to be boss, that’s fine by me and I’m sure you’re a very good one.”
She was squirming. “I didn’t mean that. I was just being—”
“Funny?”
“Flippant.”
“I presume you know your way back?”
“You presume right. Up the meadow, along the lane. In fact, the same way I came,” she declared.
“See you later, then,” he said, turning on his heel and heading off in the direction of Tresco Farm. Lucy watched him as he made his way down the path, his head occasionally bobbing up above the greenery before finally vanishing from sight.
A few days later, Lucy finally plucked up the courage to make The Phone Call. She’d put it off far too long and she couldn’t wait any longer. She’d spent so long sitting on the stone bench staring out to sea that she’d almost become part of the landscape. In a moment, she thought, a seagull might land on her.
The bench, nearly buried beneath the tough gorse bushes that ran riot over the cliff edge, was a haven she’d recently discovered. While it was half hidden from sight, it gave her a magnificent view over the beach. Below her, she could see the sand, washed clean by the outgoing tide. Accessible only by a precarious path from the cliff edge, and a mile from the nearest parking lot, the beach was never very busy, according to Fiona. On a cool, cloudy day in early June it was virtually deserted.
A handful of walkers, poring over maps or munching sandwiches, had already ambled past Lucy, trying to find the path down to the shore, and hadn’t seemed to have noticed her. Now, all she had for company were the gulls wheeling overhead, crying harshly on the wind. And she was still holding the phone, torn in two by indecision.
She wouldn’t have been contemplating a further attempt to contact Nick at all but for the previous day. Feeling the ridiculousness of being holed up at Tresco Farm, she’d finally plucked up the courage to pop into Tresco Creek’s one and only commercial establishment: a garage-cum-convenience store-cum-post office on the main road that led, after much winding and bending, to Porthstow. Wearing a baseball cap and dark glasses which she’d borrowed from Fiona, and which Fiona claimed made her more conspicuous, she’d hopped into the garage and bought several tabloids and a gossip mag.
Neither the spotty teenage boy behind the till nor the pensioner buying a white sliced loaf had so much as tutted mildly let alone thrown eggs at her or asked for her autograph. She was a nobody to them, invisible as she always had been before she’d met Nick.
Back at the cottage, she’d sat down with a swishing stomach to scan the pages, but there was no mention of her or of Nick. Her absence from the pages should have filled her with relief and yet… the very lack of news was confirmation that what she and Nick had experienced was no more, as far as the world was concerned anyway. The newspapers had wiped her off their pages; their relationship was now over.
So why, she thought, as she punched the speed dial button on her phone, was she calling Nick again? There was no time to agonize, because the phone was answered almost on the first ring.
“Good afternoon, zees ees Laurentis Event Management. Can I ’elp you?”
Gripped with panic, Lucy couldn’t even respond to that simple question. “Hello, what can I do to help?”
“Is Nick there?” Lucy blurted out.
“Ees Nick ’ere? Who eees Nick?”
“Nick. Nick Laurentis.”
“’Old on a moment, I’ll see if Mr. Laurentis free. Who’s calling, please?”
Lucy paused. Who was she to Nick now? A friend? She couldn’t call herself that. His ex? She wasn’t sure about that. The person who had hurt him so badly he’d so far refused to speak another word to her? “It’s…” she murmured, her words caught by a gust blowing across the cliff.
“Excusing me. Could you repeat that?” said the receptionist.
“It’s fine. I’ll try again later,” said Lucy.
She laid the phone on the bench beside her. Only two weeks had passed and he’d already set up his company and got a receptionist. He was “Mr. Laurentis” now and she was… nothing. He’d asked her to be everything and she’d chosen the opposite. Now, to confirm that status, she’d disappeared into thin air. Wasn’t that what she wanted—for everything to go back to the way it had been before she and Nick had ever set eyes on each other? It sounded as if he’d moved on from her rather rapidly, which was good, wasn’t it? she asked herself as the gulls cried above her head and the wind stung her eyes.
It took a while before she trudged back to Creekside Cottage, hoping Fiona was too embedded in the murky criminal world to notice her tear-stained face.
Fortunately, Fiona had gone out in the Land Rover, leaving a short note on the table to the effect that she was doing some research. Lucy lay in her room staring at the ceiling for what seemed like ages before the door creaked open and a cold, wet nose nudged her leg. Hengist’s deep brown eyes were gazing up at her, full of hope. They weren’t quite as appealing as Nick’s but Lucy knew it was a whole lot easier to give him what he wanted. Minutes later, he was bounding down the green lane toward the sea, Lucy trudging behind.
It had rained that morning and the scent of hawthorn blossom, saturated with moisture, was so strong it was almost sickly. Fortunately, Hengist made fewer stops for sniffing and Lucy soon emerged into the meadow. As her feet sank ankle deep into the grass, she was glad of the wellies she’d borrowed from Fiona. Hengist shot off toward the water. Finding a flat rock on the shore, she sat down and gazed out over the estuary. In the distance, the channel opened out to the sea and if she shaded her eyes, she could make out yachts and a tanker heading out toward the Atlantic. She needed a new pair of sunglasses; hers were lurking somewhere in her abandoned flat. Maybe she should venture into Porthstow now the heat had died down.
Hengist paddled happily in the shallows as the gulls cried overhead. Lucy’s phoned beeped, startling her. Delving in the pocket of her hoodie, she drew out the phone to find a text from Charlie, asking her if she was OK. She texted back a smiley and a yes and asked him to keep an eye on the flat until she got back.
Going
back
. That prospect had started lurking like an unwelcome visitor at the back of her mind. Sitting here, at the edge of the ocean, London seemed more than three hundred miles away; it seemed like another planet, and what’s more, one that was inhabited by aliens. Hengist didn’t seem to be missing the postbox at the end of the road. With a joyous bark, he bounded out of the water and darted into the thick undergrowth that lined the creek. Almost immediately, he emerged from the greenery with Tally at his side. It was inevitable that Josh should follow and Lucy sighed. Her solitude hadn’t lasted long.
He managed a gruff “morning” before jumping down onto the shore and standing next to her, as uncommunicative as the rocks jutting out of the creek. What followed wasn’t so much an awkward silence as an excruciating one. She wondered why they both had to be so British, why he couldn’t just have stalked off or she couldn’t just have beamed Hengist and herself back to the cottage.
“The dogs are enjoying themselves,” she offered at last, as Hengist and Tally romped in the creek.
“They’re both going to stink if they stay in that mud too much longer,” said Josh.
Lucy hardly knew how to reply to this so she gave an exaggerated sniff. “Oh, I see what you mean. The mud is a bit smelly.”
“They’ll both be needing a bath, that’s for sure.”
Hengist’s coat was already thick with gray mud and he had a piece of feathery green weed stuck to his ear. Tally wasn’t quite as muddy but her black coat had lost its shiny luster.
“Fiona won’t want Hengist back in the cottage in that state,” she conceded. “I suppose I’m going to have to give him a bath before he gets home, though goodness knows how. I don’t want to bother Fi because she’s in the middle of
The
Wax
Murderer
.”
With most people, thought Lucy, this kind of line would have opened up an interesting conversation. “
So
,
Fiona’s working on a new novel?
” most people would have said.
“
Yes, it’s a real winner. She’s so-oo talented…
”
“
And
you’re here because of your health…
”
And then she would have had to start lying and deceiving but somehow, she knew she was quite safe with this guy. He obviously couldn’t give a toss about her or why she was here and that suited her perfectly.
“I’ll be off then,” she said.
“If you don’t want to go back the way you’ve come, if you want to walk to Tresco along the creek, I’m going that way,” he said, without taking his eyes from the horizon.
OK. That wasn’t what she’d expected. In fact, it was a turnaround. She had been going to say she wanted to spend some time alone but she’d ruined that by telling Hengist it was time to go.
“Thanks, but there’s no need.”
“It’s up to you, but there’s a tap and hose in the yard back at the farm. You can use that to clean up the dog if you like.”
She turned to face him, struck by this open offer not just to help her but also for her to spend more time in his company than was strictly necessary. “Thanks, but I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble.”
“Why would it be any trouble? I have to go back to the farm; the dogs need a hose down.”
“Yes. Probably a good idea,” she said, suspecting this was as gracious as an offer from Josh ever got. Though there was more to it than that. She had a strong sense, based on no concrete evidence whatsoever, that a refusal definitely would offend.
“I’ll follow you, then. The path’s a bit overgrown for two,” he said, stepping aside so that she could climb onto the bank ahead of him. Tally was already on her way, Hengist tugging at the lead in anxiety to be with her. Lucy gripped the lead with both hands, trying to restrain the dog.
“You’re trying to hold back the tide there. I would let him go. He won’t come to any harm,” remarked Josh as she struggled. Because he was smiling and she didn’t think he was laughing at her, she unclipped Hengist’s lead and gave him his freedom.
Ten minutes or so later, they were in the farmyard, Lucy holding the dog’s collar while Josh scrubbed his thick coat with an old brush. He ran his hands over the dog’s back and haunches, pushing his fingers through the matted fur, teasing out the mud from his coat. If Hengist had been a cat, she decided, he’d have arched his back and purred in ecstasy. Instead, he kept giving little growls of pleasure as Josh rubbed him clean. Lucy was glad when it was over; Hengist in love was not a pretty sight.
“Can you wash him down while I brush Tally?” he asked, handing Lucy the hose.
This should have been a simple task but the writhing Hengist had suddenly developed an aversion to water. He twisted away from Lucy, whipping the hose from her arm and spraying Josh.
“Jeez!”
Lucy stared at Josh’s soaked combats in horror. A huge wet patch was spreading right across his crotch. “Oh. God. I’m really sorry!”