Never Alone (9 page)

You are in York city centre, in the bar of the Grand Hotel. It’s Monday, early afternoon, and the bar is empty apart from an elderly couple and a man in a suit talking loudly into his mobile phone. After five minutes you know everything there is to know about his portfolio, and how fucked it will be if Henry doesn’t pull his finger out.

You check your phone for messages. It is already turned to silent but until she turns up you want to keep an eye on it, in case of problems.

You like to be early. It gives you a chance to set up everything you need, to get into the right frame of mind.

The man in the suit gets up to leave, throwing a tenner on to the table and not so much as casting a glance at the woman behind the bar. You give her a sympathetic smile. She looks at you and smiles back.

You think for a moment that she is about to come over and talk to you, but luckily she does not, because in that moment Jane Christie enters and you stand and smile and kiss her on both cheeks.

‘Would you like a drink?’ you ask.

‘Definitely. Do they do cocktails?’

You hand her the cocktail menu, which you have already looked at, trying to guess which one she would go for. You have put a theoretical fiver on the Vesper Martini.

‘I’ll have a Vesper Martini,’ she says, to the waitress who has approached your table.

Jane Christie is not her real name. You have known her for nearly four years, met her maybe a dozen times, and she has no idea that you know this about her.

You know many other things, too, but this is the one that amuses you most of all.

It’s only afterwards, when you’re heading back to your car, that you think about what it is you’re doing here. You’ve managed to push Sarah to the back of your mind for the past few hours, but the result is that now you can think of nothing but her.

Is this what you really want?

Sophie and George live in the Old Rectory. Sarah has always thought this is odd, since the church is right at the far end of the village, half a mile away. The churchyard has sheep grazing in it. This strikes her as odd too, seeing the ragged-looking hill sheep wandering between the gravestones, munching. But the graves are all very old, and it saves the vicar having to spend church funds on employing someone to cut the grass.

Genuine rectory or not, Sarah has always liked Sophie’s house. Outside it looks like a typical early Victorian functional building, grey stone walls and a porch, a gravel driveway; inside, it has been designed and decorated up to its rafters. It has even featured in a magazine, one of those ones Sarah thinks exist to make you feel inadequate.

‘It’s not me, darling,’ Sophie has said more than once. ‘If it were up to me, I’d be happy in a messy old place with muddy kitchen floors and piles of dust everywhere.’

Sarah doubts this is true, but appreciates the sentiment nevertheless. She parks the car at the top end of the drive where she can be sure not to block in any of George’s vehicles. It’s been raining most of the weekend, and rather than easing up it seems to be getting heavier again now that she has to get out of the car.

Sophie opens the door of the conservatory, or orangery as George insists on calling it, to save Sarah walking round to the front of the house.

‘Do you need a hand?’ she calls.

‘I can manage,’ Sarah answers. ‘No point both of us getting wet.’

She is holding two cake carriers stacked on top of each other; the top one holds a chocolate cake; the bottom one is full of cupcakes. She has spent most of the morning baking on Sophie’s behalf, for the Women’s Institute sale which is taking place tomorrow. Sophie is a member of the WI; Sarah has always managed to avoid it.

‘You’re a lifesaver,’ Sophie says, taking the two plastic containers out of her hands while Sarah wipes her feet and then, to be on the safe side, takes off her trainers.

The kitchen, which is twice the size of Sarah’s and a vision of chrome and black granite, smells of fresh coffee. Sophie lifts the lid on the cake box and takes an appreciative sniff. ‘Lucky buggers,’ she says. ‘Can’t we just eat it now?’

‘Have a cupcake,’ Sarah says. ‘I did an extra one.’

In the end they share it, half each, cut down the middle with a dinner knife. They take their coffees into the snug at the front of the house where Sophie has lit a fire. Even in here, everything co-ordinates, from the silver-grey sofa to the glass coffee table with art books and unlit candles arranged on the centre of it. But at least it’s warm.

‘Where’s George?’ Sarah says.

‘Away this week,’ Sophie answers, ‘thank God.’

‘Why?’

‘He’s being grumpy as anything. No idea why. How’s the tenant?’

Sarah swallows the bite of cake she’s just taken. It’s too sugary, she thinks, wishing she’d gone easy on the icing. This is the WI, not a city bakery – they don’t do excess. So much for helping Sophie out: comments will be made.

‘I keep missing him,’ she says, truthfully. ‘He seems to go out a lot.’

‘Has he shed any light on the mystery meeting with Jim?’ Sophie adds, when Sarah doesn’t immediately reply.

There is a little pause. Even right before she opens her mouth, Sarah thinks she isn’t going to tell; but this is Sophie, her best friend, and who else can she confide in?

‘He says Jim loaned him some money. He says he’s paid it back.’

There. She’s said it. It feels as though the words are hanging in the air like bubbles; she wishes she could scoop them back in.

Sophie raises an eyebrow. ‘And that’s why they were meeting?’

‘Apparently.’

‘And you believe him?’

Sarah thinks for a second. ‘I’ve no reason not to.’

‘What did he say the money was for?’

‘Funding some projects, when he started up.’

‘Hm.’ Sophie pulls a face, drinks some of her coffee.

Sarah thinks it would be good to change the subject. ‘What’s up with George? Do you think he’s worried about something?’

Immediately she regrets phrasing her question like that. Last year, when George was confronted by Sophie about his infidelity, the only excuse he could come up with on the spur of the moment was that he was worried about the general election.

Sophie smirks at the thought of it. ‘I don’t know. I don’t even care, to be honest. He’s still at least trying to be discreet.’

‘Oh, Soph. It’s not fair.’

‘It’s entirely fair. After all, I’ve not exactly behaved impeccably either,’ she says, and gives Sarah a little wink.

Sarah frowns.
Really?
Sophie kissed Will, maybe more than that, but she can’t remember anything else…

‘You’ve forgotten Armando.’

Sarah laughs out loud. ‘That was different, wasn’t it? You just –’ she stops herself, lowers her voice, although there is no one here to overhear ‘– you just paid him for a massage, didn’t you?’

‘And the rest,’ Sophie purrs.

‘But it wasn’t a
relationship
,’ Sarah insists. ‘You weren’t seeing him… were you?’

‘No, of course not. It was a transaction. He provides a service – entertaining and diverting as it is – and then goes away again.’

Sophie visits London often, meeting friends, shopping, theatre trips, events with George. She’s down there at least twice a month, often staying over. And once or twice that included someone called Armando, who visited her in her hotel room and provided her with a therapeutic sensual massage. Stress-busting, she called it.

‘You’re not still seeing him, are you?’

‘God, no! I couldn’t get over the way he kept calling me “baby”. Not to mention that fake exotic accent. I think he was from Swindon.’

‘I’d forgotten all about him,’ Sarah says. ‘How strange.’

‘It was years ago,’ Sophie says. ‘Like going to a spa, he said. Not quite the same thing, really.’

Sophie is a veteran spa-goer, an enthusiastic partaker of facials and treatments. Sarah has tried it once or twice, usually using a voucher that had come her way at Christmas, but she has never quite got the point of it. Especially facials: being slathered in five different substances and having them wiped off again has always felt rather odd. And the intimacy of being touched on your face, she thinks, by a complete stranger. It made her feel uncomfortable. Even back massages, nice as they are when you’ve been working hard, bending over a desk… you have to get dressed again afterwards, oily and relaxed.

She thinks of Aiden, of him stroking her back. The endless patience in the way he touched her. The care he took over it. And then the phone, buzzing in the pocket of his jeans, on the floor.

‘You’re worried about him,’ Sophie says. She sits next to Sarah and puts her arm around her shoulders. ‘Come on, my lovely. It’s fine. Don’t be upset.’

‘It’s not that,’ Sarah breathes, ‘it’s got nothing to do with me, he can do whatever he wants to. It’s just…’

‘What?’

‘It feels as though he’s lying to me about something, and I can’t work out what, or why.’

Afterwards, as she is driving slowly back up the hill, Sarah realises she didn’t tell Sophie about Will staying on Friday night. Sophie has not mentioned Will either; perhaps he has been forgotten, in which case it’s just as well she didn’t bring the subject up once again. The wind is fierce, and she can feel the strength of it as she drives out of the village and up the hill, where it is more exposed. The road is full of detritus, washed down the hill by the heavy rain last night, rivulets of water rushing down to the bottom. She slows down as the Land Rover is buffeted on the narrow lane. Where the road bends to the left a figure appears, straddling the narrow ditch, and she brakes abruptly. It is her closest neighbour, Harry Button, apparently wrestling with something heavy. He waves at her and she pulls into their driveway.

The wind snatches the car door out of her hand and flings it open. She climbs down and pushes it shut again. Walking back to Harry, she finds she has to shout to get his attention.

‘Bit breezy!’

He doesn’t answer but acknowledges her with a nod. He is bent at the waist, struggling to lift what looks like a canvas sandbag.

‘Here, let me help.’

‘No, no, lass, I can manage.’

He clearly can’t. But this is Yorkshire; you don’t just take over a man’s job.

‘Is everything all right? What are you doing?’

‘Spring’s burst through. Gone under t’wall. Garden’s flooding.’

His white hair is blowing all around his face. Sarah finds herself wondering inexplicably if the wind has somehow caused the spring, which flows down the hill all year round, following the ditch by the side of the road, to burst its banks. But she sees quickly that the ditch is clogged with leaves and branches at the sharp bend in the road, and that as a result the water has backed up and flowed through a gap in the dry stone wall.

With a final heave, Harry manages to lift the sandbag against the dip and the rush of water changes course, channelling everything it’s got down the hill once more, over the blocked gully and out across the road.

He is in the ditch up to his knees, and, as Sarah stands there on the road, watching helplessly, he loses his balance, wobbles and regains it again. Sarah looks up over the wall to the picture window of Cragside Cottage, where Moira Button is standing watching them both.

‘Harry,’ Sarah says, ‘you’d be better sandbagging the other side of the wall. Come out of the ditch, will you? That’ll hold for now. I’ll go and get help.’

Harry looks confused, but it’s almost with relief that he takes Sarah’s offered hand to help him out of the ditch. At the age of eighty-nine, or whatever he is, he is still a tall man, an upright man. His corduroy trousers are soaked beyond the tops of his wellington boots. He can scarcely lift his feet. He holds her shoulder, lifting his feet out of each boot in turn and draining them of muddy water.

‘You must be freezing,’ Sarah says.

‘It i’n’t all that bad,’ he says, speaking up against the howl of the wind.

Sarah looks up at the scudding grey clouds and wonders when it will snow. The ditch that normally has the spring trickling through the bottom of it is a raging torrent that has crested the bank and is now flowing fast down the road.

‘Go inside,’ she says. ‘You get dried off. I’ll go and see if my friend’s in.’

She looks at the garden, which has been terraced and therefore does not properly match the slope of the hill. Despite living in such a challenging place for a keen gardener, he has made it a labour of love. Year-round, the lawn is green and carefully weed-free. From here, it looks like a giant brown puddle.

‘Aye,’ he says. ‘Thank you, Sarah. Very grateful to you, for stopping an’ all.’

‘Don’t worry,’ she says. ‘Your garden’s dealt with worse over the years, I’m sure.’

He walks slowly off up the driveway towards the house and Sarah sees Moira move from her position at the window, heading towards the back door. No doubt to make sure Harry doesn’t enter until he’s stripped off the wet and muddy garments.

Sarah climbs back into the Land Rover and drives another hundred yards up the lane, pulling in through the gate of Four Winds Farm. She drives into the barn, and then heads straight to the cottage. The car is outside, and in the cottage a light is on even though it’s barely lunchtime. The clouds are coming over, promising more rain at any moment. If it rains, it seems unlikely that Harry’s single sandbag will hold.

‘Hi,’ Aiden says, opening the door.

‘Aiden,’ Sarah says, the words snatched from her mouth by the wind, ‘do you think you could give me a hand with
something? You’ll need wellies. And a waterproof. Have you –’

‘What’s up?’ he asks, but he’s already pulling on a black ski jacket.

‘Have you got boots?’

‘No,’ he says.

‘Come on, I’ve got a pair of Jim’s still.’

Without waiting, she heads to her back door. As she opens it the dogs burst out, chasing each other around the yard, barking. She lets them, concentrating instead on sorting through the tangle of boots in the cupboard. Eventually she finds a matching pair. Aiden is behind her.

‘What size are you?’

‘Nine-ish.’

‘These are a ten; they’ll do.’

He kicks his way out of his brown leather boots and wraps his jeans around his calf, before slipping his socked foot into first one wellington boot, and then the other. Sarah hopes no spiders or mice have taken up residence since they were last worn, but it’s too late now.

‘My neighbour’s had a bit of bother with the spring,’ Sarah says, calling to the dogs. Tess comes readily enough, but Basil ignores her for a moment, scampering around, pretending to be deaf. ‘It’s burst through the wall into their garden.’

‘Right.’

With both dogs safely inside – she doesn’t want them running around on the road – Sarah sets off back down the hill, Aiden by her side. ‘They’re both in their eighties,’ she says. ‘Been here all their lives.’

‘Are they your nearest neighbours?’

‘Only neighbours, until you get down to the village,’ she says. They have reached the Buttons’ driveway. There is no sign of the elderly couple, which is probably a good thing.

The sandbag, slung against the bottom of the dry stone wall, is holding, but the water is forming a deep reservoir at the top of the spring. At any moment, it will back up to the edge of the dry stone wall and from there it will flow down the Buttons’ drive towards the house.

‘We need to clear that blockage,’ Aiden says, heading towards it. Sarah’s hair has escaped from the band holding it back, and she struggles to gather it all up again so that she can see. By the time she has joined Aiden at the bend in the road, he has moved a large branch and a tangle of bramble with his bare hands.

‘Christ,’ Sarah calls, ‘I should have got you some gloves!’

He is extricating himself from the bramble, throwing it on to the road. It starts to tumble down the hill so Sarah catches it, and moves it to the other side of the road.

The rain starts, and as it does so the wind picks up even more, howling and gusting around them, blowing heavy drops of icy water into their faces. Aiden works quickly, straddling the ditch precariously, heaving bundles of dead leaves, litter and twigs out of the way. The water rushes around him.