Paradise Fields (27 page)

Cheered by Abraham's positive response she went back upstairs to dress, thinking that the previous evening had turned out to be really useful, even if that hadn't been her motive for going. Simon was going to make several hundred phone calls on her behalf, and she knew that Abraham was on the right track when it
came to the plans. She glanced at her watch. While she decided what would be the most constructive next step, she might as well make lunch for Jamie and Fleur. She knew if presented with roast potatoes and gravy, Fleur, at least, would stay and eat, which seemed a priority at the moment.

When a completely blasé Fleur and a slightly shamefaced Jamie appeared, the kitchen was full of the smells of roasting meat. Trays of roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding hissed and crackled in the oven, and the windows were slightly steamed up. The place had a homely, lived-in look.

‘Hi, you two. Hi, Jamie.' Nel smiled with relief at the nice, respectable-looking boy whom she might have hand-picked for her daughter. All that anxiety. ‘I'm afraid you've missed breakfast, but lunch is just about ready. I'm making gravy.'

‘Mum! Roast lunch! Beef or lamb?'

‘Lamb. Catherine gave it to me; I had to freeze it but I'm sure it'll still be good. And don't worry, I've done Yorkshire puddings.'

‘I think it's so unfair that you can't have Yorkshire pudding unless it's beef,' said Fleur to Jamie. ‘So Mum always does them, whatever meat we're having.'

‘I love Yorkshire pudding, but my mum's not very good at it,' said Jamie, looking at the tray of golden puffs of batter Nel was taking out of the oven.

‘Oh, nor's mine,' said Fleur. ‘She gets them out of a packet.'

‘That's right, give away all my secrets. Now, be a love and set the table? What would you like to drink, Jamie? Orange juice, as it's your breakfast? Or wine, because it's lunchtime?'

Jamie looked at Fleur anxiously.

‘Or would you like to start with orange juice, and then have a glass of wine?' Nel went on.

‘That would be really nice, Mrs Innes,' said Jamie. ‘If it's no trouble.'

‘Oh, call her Nel,' said Fleur. ‘Everybody else does.'

‘Then let's sit down. It's a shame the boys aren't here. It would have been a family meal.'

‘My mum thinks all this sitting down together as a family is too much like hard work and overrated, so we only do it for special occasions. Mind you,' she said a little reproachfully, ‘Mum didn't warn me about this.'

‘Darling, you can't really expect to invite Jamie for the weekend and not have at least one decent meal. What would his mother think?'

‘Oh, she works full time,' said Jamie, ‘so we have a lot of ready meals. I can cook quite well, and my dad.'

‘Have another potato. I've done loads. And pints of gravy. And have you got brothers and sisters?'

‘Don't give Jamie the third degree!'

‘I'm not! I'm giving him roast potatoes!'

A couple of hours later when Jamie had insisted that he and Fleur do all the washing up, including (and thus earning himself a gold star) all the greasy tins, Nel shooed them out of the house to take the dogs for a quick walk.

Unable to settle to anything relaxing, she decided to clean the house and embarked on it with a thoroughness which irritated her. Cleaning was such a waste of time, she felt normally, it only had to be done again the next day. Now she did it for therapy, to help her think. But her thoughts were gluey and unconstructive,
clogged with emotion. Her feelings, whatever they were, for Jake did not help. Even if he wasn't a crook she was pretty sure he wasn't interested in more than just an affaire, and Nel didn't have affaires. She was fairly certain about that. She wouldn't have considered having one while Mark was alive, and hadn't wanted once since.

The trouble was, she realised, she felt lust so rarely. There'd only been one, brief, holiday romance before Mark. Then there was Mark, and now there was Jake. Simon she liked, had liked for a while, possibly even loved, but she didn't react to him in the way she reacted to Jake. Sitting next to Simon on the sofa was cosy; sitting next to Jake on the sofa would be explosive. She wrung out her cloth and wished she'd put on rubber gloves. Her hands would need pints of Sacha's cream to recover.

She plunged them back into her bucket. But did you need that kind of inflammatory desire for a relationship? Or could gentler, more considered emotions develop into love and companionship of a lasting kind?

A huge spider fled from her scrubbing brush. ‘Before Christmas I'd have said yes, definitely,' she said aloud. ‘But now I know I can feel such passion, would I be happy without it?'

Early evening, exhausted, and the furniture only half put back, she rang Vivian. Talking to her about the new crisis with the fields would stop her thinking about her emotions for a little while. Emotion, like cleaning, was very wearing.

‘Hi Nel! How are you?'

‘I've been better, frankly. I haven't had a chance to get you up to speed, but the things I've found out about the building plans would make your hair curl.'

‘My hair already does curl.'

‘This is serious! Listen!'

‘Oh shit!' said Vivian, a few minutes and several questions later. ‘What can we do?'

‘Nothing until Abraham finds out who owns that bit of land, then we can make a plan. In the meantime, I thought we could try convincing the Hunstantons that the new, bigger plan – the one involving the hospice land – is a really bad idea. We could start on Kerry Anne.' Nel did not sound enthusiastic. Her feelings for Kerry Anne vacillated between chilliness and downright hatred. ‘Although personally, I'd rather not.'

‘But what's the point of talking to Kerry Anne? She's not the organ grinder. We should be talking to Pierce.'

‘Viv! I've just had the most fantastic idea!'

‘What, you're going to seduce Pierce and make him give up his dreams of avarice?'

‘No, you are!'

‘Nel—'

‘Oh come on, Viv. He's not that disgusting, and it would be in a good cause. Seducing him would be child's play for you.'

‘Now listen, Mrs Innes, my number may be a bit higher than yours, but I'm not a slut. Mind you, your number's increased by fifty per cent recently, hasn't it?'

‘Shut up.'

‘Anyway, it would be completely unethical. I like sex but I'm not a home-wrecker.'

‘No,' Nel said enthusiastically. ‘Not “a” home wrecker! You'd wreck hundreds of them! Stop them ever being built!'

Vivian sighed. ‘Very funny. I also think you're being
defeatist. We were hoping to stop any building at all. So what is the point of getting the Hunstantons on side?'

‘I may be wrong, but I think it would be easier to fight Pierce and Kerry Anne, individuals, than it would someone like Freebody who has probably done hundreds of similar schemes.'

‘Nothing to do with a certain solicitor, is it?'

‘No!'

‘And have you heard from a certain solicitor recently?'

‘Hardly! We only went out last night. I'll email his office to thank him. Simon brought me flowers this afternoon though!'

‘Really? What's he feeling guilty about, then?'

‘Nothing! He'd just made dozens of phone calls for me and brought the details round.'

Viv's response was a deep sigh. She was clearly unimpressed.

THE FOLLOWING WEEK,
Nel was driving back from visiting a woman who made particularly unpleasant homespun bags, which Nel had resolved not to have anywhere near her market, however well the producer complied with the regulations, when she found herself near the pub where Jake had taken her to dinner.

Although she spent her whole time warning herself off him, she decided to indulge herself with a little sentimental detour. After all, in the years to come, it might be the little memories of their brief times together which would keep her going through the dark days and nights.

There were roadworks just by the pub, and while she waited at the temporary traffic lights she had a good opportunity to inspect the car park. She remembered him finding somewhere to park so she wouldn't have to step in a puddle. So thoughtful.

Then she saw his car. He was there! Her heart jumped and she half considered turning into the pub and finding him. She could make some excuse; if he was busy with clients she needn't speak to him, she could simply ask directions or use the loo and leave. Suddenly her need to see him again was overpowering. She was just looking in her rear-view mirror and regretting that the awkward entrance and the roadworks meant it would be better to go on to the next roundabout than to try
and negotiate her way into the car park from here, when he came out. He was with Kerry Anne.

‘Don't panic,' she told herself, perspiration already forming at her hairline and down her back. ‘Pierce will appear at any moment. It's just a business lunch, but maybe it'd be better not to go in.'

The traffic lights were still red. Now she urged them to change so she wouldn't be tormented by the sight of Kerry Anne and Jake together. She couldn't stop watching them. She saw him walk with Kerry Anne to another car – her car, apparently. So they hadn't come together. Was that significant? And where was Pierce?

Of course it must be just business. But three things arrived simultaneously in her mind and collided with bitter precision: the image of Kerry Anne flirting with Jake the first time Nel met her in his office; Simon's voice coolly telling her he had seen Jake and Kerry Anne having lunch; and the memory of the American voice on the telephone at Chris Mowbray's house.

Kerry Anne. Jake. Chris. Chris who was so keen on Gideon Freebody's plans. Jake who seemed so keen on Kerry Anne, who wanted to make as much money as possible out of her husband's inheritance. As the Hunstantons' solicitor, Jake was in a very good position to persuade Pierce and Kerry Anne that selling the land to Gideon Freebody was the best thing to do. If they sold to Abraham, or let Abraham develop the site, Gideon Freebody would get nothing. And if Jake was in league with Gideon Freebody, that would be the last thing he'd want.

Nel suddenly began to really sweat. She felt sick, and her head swam as if she was physically ill. Oh God, I am so stupid! She wanted to cry, not the sentimental
tears which slipped out of the corners of her eyes several times a day, but the kind of racking, heart-tearing sobbing she hadn't done for a long time. Jake was making up to her, had seduced her, even, because she was the most engaged person on the board of the hospice. The other committee members, except of course Vivian, tended to follow Chris Mowbray's lead. Chris must have been confident he could steer them towards Freebody, but not her. Jake had been primed to keep her quiet, so she wouldn't make waves.

Maybe she did always see the good in people, but she was not entirely stupid, she knew a rat when she saw one, knew when she'd been stitched up. She wiped her forehead in an agony of remorse and despair. For a moment, she felt she'd despoiled Mark's memory and their happy years together, allowing her senses to cloud her brain like that. She rubbed the space between her eyes with her finger fiercely, as if trying to erase what she had done.

Kerry Anne was now searching in her bag for keys. Jake took them from her and opened her car door. She turned to him, stood on her tiptoes and put her arms round his neck, pulling his head down so she could reach.

The car behind her alerted her to the fact that the light had gone green. He hooted, loudly, and stuck his head out of the window and shouted. She put the car in first gear and moved off, unable to see Jake's reaction. It was terrible, not knowing if he had responded to that tender, affectionate gesture.

But whether he did or not, this confirmed it. There was definitely something going on between Jake and Kerry Anne. She'd been mad to pretend to herself that there wasn't. Now she'd seen it, with her own eyes.

In some strange way it was a relief to know the worst. Her thoughts and dreams were all despoiled by the sight of that tall man leaning down to kiss a tiny, pretty, greedy woman, but at least she knew. She was out of her misery. She bit her lip to stop herself crying. If she cried she'd have to pull over and do it properly and she wanted to get home.
Out of one's misery
. Such a strange expression. What it really meant, in this case, was that she was tipped so deeply into her misery that she may never claw her way out of it.

Fleur was at home when Nel got there. ‘Hi, Mum, cup of tea?'

‘Actually, darling, I think I need something stronger. Have we got any whisky? Burrow about behind the cornflakes and see what you come up with.'

Nel went into the sitting room and hauled the nearest spaniel onto her knee. There was nothing like a spaniel on your tummy for instant comfort. But at that moment it would take a whole Crufts' worth of spaniels to make a dent in her despair. Still, it was good to have Fleur to talk to, to be normal in front of.

‘Simon rang,' called Fleur from the kitchen. ‘I've found some. How do you like it?'

‘In a glass. Very simple. What did Simon say?'

‘Nothing much. He just wants you to ring him back.'

Nel groaned, more loudly than she'd intended. Recently even the thought of Simon made her feel as if she was pre-menstrual, edgy and irritated. Now she doubted if she could even be polite to him. Fleur came into the sitting room and handed Nel a glass. ‘Don't you want to ring him back, then?'

‘Golly, this is huge. No, don't take it away! I'll manage.
I will call him back, but not now. I've had such a strange day. I think I'll ring Viv in a minute.' Nel didn't know if it was so she could tell Viv ‘I told you so' or for a good bitch about life, men and Kerry Anne. Probably both.

‘Well, Simon's got a newspaper cutting or something which he says might be useful for the anti-building campaign.'