Rumours (46 page)

‘There's a good girl,' said Lydia, audibly tired. She looked at Stella, kindly. ‘You wanted to do so much more than your job – but really, dear Stella, your job is to look after me. And my wishes are that this old heap is sold and that this bony scrag –' she jabbed at herself – ‘enjoys her last years in warmth, comfort and without anxiety.'

Stella spoke, her voice compromised by the lump in her throat. She was holding hands with Lydia now. ‘But where will you
go
?'

Lydia began to chuckle. She sighed. ‘I'm going to that nice place where Mercy Benton lives. Summerhill Place. Of course, I remember it when it was the Duggen-Fanshaws' estate. Mrs Biggins is coming with me. We're to have neighbouring apartments. Mine's larger, of course – actually, it's the largest there. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms. A lounge and a study. My own French doors onto my own private patio and marvellous views over the Duggen-Fanshaws' parkland. Oh! And a proper sit-in kitchen. Mrs Biggins only has a galley kitchen and she will still be at my beck and call.'

‘
You're checking yourself into an old folks' home?
' Stella was utterly aghast and not a little mortified.

‘How very impudent! If you are to call it anything, you can call it Retirement Apartments.'

Stella looked appalled.

‘And it does
not
smell of pee,' Lydia laughed. ‘It's rather jolly – a lovely place. With elevenses and afternoon tea and all sorts of shenanigans laid on for residents. And there's a buzzer, you see, in the apartment. You press it if you need someone, quickly. And Mrs Biggins – she's prone to turn a deaf ear to me, wretched woman.'

Stella rested her head against the lion's shoulder, then she turned to Lydia and, reluctantly, she nodded.

Lydia looked at Stella. The girl was quite pale. ‘I should like to take you there,' Lydia said. ‘Show you how gay it is.' While her words reached Stella, Lydia quietly wondered why it was so important to her that her choice should meet with Stella's seal of approval.

‘I hope you will be one of my most frequent visitors,' said Lydia. ‘You. Xander. And Will. There will be shortbread for tea, you know.'

Stella felt utterly dazed when she went to Xander's office. Any other day, she'd be excited, all eyes, keen to ingratiate herself with the infamous Mrs Gregg. But that afternoon she felt drained and her head so full of unbelievable facts that there was room in there for little else. Rembrandt and Summerhill Place in one fell swoop. It had knocked her sideways, all of it. She rang the buzzer to Xander's office and all Mrs Gregg could see in the entryphone screen was the top of Stella's bowed head. As she climbed the stairs, Stella tried to shrug off the bewilderments of the day with each footfall.

‘Mummy!'

‘Hullo, poppet.'

‘I made this for you – Mrs Gregg showed me how.' It was a necklace made out of paper clips.

‘It's beautiful.' It sparkled and, as Will placed it over her head, it lit Stella a little from the inside. She turned to Mrs Gregg. ‘Thank you,' she said. ‘For everything. I'm Stella.' She offered her hand and Mrs Gregg took it.

‘Pauline Gregg,' she said in her bright, telephone voice. ‘And it was no trouble. And young master Will – well, I've told him he can come by any time he likes, now that he's mastered the franking machine.'

‘I'm going to work here, when I'm older,' Will said.

Stella glanced around. ‘Where's Xander?'

‘He has gone to a meeting with some fish and a cow,' said Will.

‘At Fishers and Co.,' Mrs Gregg interjected, smiling at Will.

‘He says he'll see us at home,' said Will.

‘He said not to cook, that he'll bring fish and chips,' said Mrs Gregg.

‘Thank you so much, Mrs Gregg,' said Stella. ‘Really. You're an absolute brick.'

Mrs Gregg liked that very much. It was the sort of terminology she herself employed.

‘Can we give you a lift anywhere?' Stella offered.

‘Thank you but no – I'm partial to walking to and from the office.'

‘Good for you,' said Stella. ‘Well – if you're sure? We'll say goodbye. Come on, Will.'

Will went over and shook Mrs Gregg's hand. ‘Remember,' he said, ‘call me any time you need help. But most weekends I play cricket and during the week I'm usually at school.'

Mrs Gregg nodded most formally. ‘I will certainly do that – most useful.' She looked at the Stella girl, watching her smoothing her son's hair, seeing the way she looked at him. Nice hands – clean nails kept sensibly short. A tidy way about her. Polite – and warm. Mrs Gregg felt pleased. Absolutely spot on, Mr Fletcher – very good choice.

‘Any time you want me to snap my fingers at Xander, you just let me know.'

Stella grinned. Another ally in her life, another new person rooting for her and Xander. How lovely. ‘Thank you. I'll try not to make a habit of it.'

‘Come on, Mummy.'

‘I'm coming.'

‘By the way, Mrs Gregg let her children call her Mum when they were twenty-one, when she gave them the key of the door.'

* * *

‘I'm not allowed to tell you that I'm better than you at reading
Beast Quest
,' Xander said, coming downstairs having just read to Will for twenty minutes. ‘Will said,
don't tell my Mum
.'

‘He says that to all my boyfriends,' Stella laughed. Fish and chips and a mug of tea had made her feel so much better. ‘I'm sure it's just because my voice isn't low enough to do a proper scary beast.'

‘Has he met many?'

‘Beasts?'

‘Boyfriends, silly.'

Stella put her arms around Xander's waist. ‘There's only been you. Since Charlie.'

Xander knew that already, but for some reason it was nice to hear it again. Just so stabilizing not to play games, to simply embrace good fortune and get on with life.

‘Don't go,' said Stella.

‘I have no intention of leaving,' said Xander. And he really meant it.

‘I have had the most bizarre day,' said Stella. ‘You really couldn't make it up.' She poured a glass of wine for each of them and motioned for Xander to snuggle up close to her on the sofa while she told him all that had come to pass at Longbridge that afternoon. He knew about the Rembrandt – he told her how, when they were young and it hung in the nursery, he and Verity would move around the room mesmerized by how the eyes appeared to follow them. He didn't know about Summerhill Place. At first, it shocked him deeply. It seemed so undignified. But then he laughed and laughed and helped Stella see how Lydia really was having the last laugh of all.

‘But we must keep a tight rein on the rumours that will abound from this,' Stella said. ‘I know Lydia professes not to give a hoot what people think of her – but I do.'

Xander chinked wineglasses with her.

Stella sipped thoughtfully. ‘Would you like to stay, Xander? I mean – the night?'

Xander tucked her hair behind her ears and thought to himself, that wasn't two monumental things that happened to Stella today – that's three.

In the small hours, Stella woke Xander and asked if he'd mind very much sleeping the rest of the night on the sofa downstairs.

‘But you're so toasty,' he mumbled, spooning close. ‘And you smell so good and I was having such a great sleep.'

‘Please? For me?'

He yawned. ‘And your room is so – I don't know – calming, warm. Lovely.'

Stella chuckled. ‘Yours could be too – if you bloody well let Caroline weave her magic up there.'

Xander groaned. ‘God – is nothing sacred?'

‘Not between two women who get on like a house on fire.'

They talked in the darkness, Xander quietly dissecting himself; working it all out, out loud, how after Laura he didn't want to be doing with love and all its panoply.

‘I guess I claimed self-sufficiency,' he said. ‘It was easier than being glum. And it warded off Caroline from wanting me to workshop my feelings the whole time.'

Stella laughed. ‘My poor friends – the hours and hours they politely spent patiently listening to me analysing exactly the same issues over and over again.'

‘For a while, though, I believed the myth I put out about myself,' Xander mused. ‘That relationships weren't my thing. That love wasn't to come into my life because it was hassle I didn't need.'

‘Well, I'll bet you gave the village something to talk about. That grouchy bachelor up Tramfield Lane, you know the one – the one who likes jogging.'

At this Xander launched at Stella, tickling her furiously and calling her a cheeky cow.

‘Then I came along and turned your world topsy-turvy,' Stella said with mock self-importance.

To Xander it didn't seem appropriate to bat the truth away with some larky quip or ironic insult. So he said nothing, just spiralled her hair through his fingers as she lay against his chest.

‘Well – you literally knocked me sideways,' said Stella, thinking back to the first time she'd seen him on her very first visit to Long Dansbury. Then talk turned to the coming weekend and plans they could make that would fit around and include offers already made to one, the other, to both of them by their own friends and families.

‘Proper relationship this, innit,' Xander joshed. ‘Sweet!'

‘You're such a dick,' Stella laughed, ‘and I love you.'

‘You love me enough to boot me out of bed, with a hard-on, to kip on your sofa instead?'

‘Yes,' said Stella. ‘Fuck off.'

But when Xander made to leave the bed, she reached for him, pulled him back, found his face and kissed him, encircled her hand around his cock.

‘I don't have any more condoms,' he whispered at her nipple, his breath hot and feeling so good against her skin.

‘I don't mind.' Her hands ran over the landscape of his back.

‘You sure?' He brushed inquisitive fingers over her bush, probing for the delicious moistness concealed within.

‘I'm sure.' She was moving herself against him.

‘But what if—'

‘What if what?' She'd pushed him onto his back and was inching herself down onto him.

‘Christ, I want you.'

Want you too, thought Stella. Want you in my life. And Will's. Want to be a family.

And then neither of them could speak.

Stella sat up in bed when she heard Will going downstairs for his early-morning drink of water. She tiptoed to the door and listened. His little footsteps, suddenly stopping. Starting again. The tap running. Off again. On again. Off again.

‘Hullo.'

Nothing.

‘Said –
hullo, Xander
.'

‘Hmmm?'

‘You are asleep on the sofa.'

‘Oh. Hmmm.'

‘Here. I like water at this time in the morning.'

‘Thanks, mate.'

‘See you at breakfast. Did my mum say you can stay for breakfast?'

You can stay for breakfast, Xander.

Stella thought, I have to get to Lydia before the solicitor phones her. And then she thought there was simply no time for further thinking. She ran from the office, phoning Xander as she went.

‘Do you have a number for Mrs Biggins?'

‘Mrs Biggins?'

‘Or is she like Lydia and doesn't have a mobile?'

‘She doesn't have a mobile. What's up? Is everything OK?'

‘No, it bloody isn't. It's mid-August! They've waited till now!'

‘Stella, you're not making sense.'

‘Sorry, it's just the Longbridge sale has collapsed and we were days away from exchanging contracts. I need to get to Lydia. I have to be there when Lydia hears. I don't want her answering the phone at Longbridge. I want to be the one who tells her. She needs to hear it from me.'

‘I'll phone. I'll ask for Mrs Biggins, I'll tell her to intercept the phone if it rings.'

‘Would you?'

‘Not a problem. But Stella – drive carefully, hey?'

Stella's journey to Longbridge was fuelled on all the expletives she could think of, strung into sentences that made no sense but were comforting to hiss out loud as she took the blind bends and undulating roads to the village. Up the drive, feeling like a doctor about to deliver a death sentence. She stilled the engine and sat for a suspended moment, knowing it did not fall upon her to tell Lydia – but knowing that, apart from Xander, she wouldn't have Lydia hear it from anyone else.

The lions looked forlorn today, as though there was something terribly undignified about trying to guard a house that would soon have no one in it to protect. They couldn't do their job. What was the point? Might as well allow the lichen to creep over them, to work in tandem with the centuries of frost that had already begun to erode their features.

Stella rang the doorbell. Please let it be Mrs Biggins.

It was Lydia.

‘Miss Hutton.'

Does she know?

‘To what do I owe this – unscheduled – pleasure?' Her sarcasm – so Lydia, so inappropriate for today.

She doesn't know. Shit. Fuck. The phone! Don't answer the bastard phone!

‘May I come in?'

‘You may.'

Lydia was heading towards the phone on the table at the end of the entrance hall.

Oh God! Don't!

Mrs Biggins reached it first.

‘Longbridge Hall, hullo?'

Please let it be a wrong number; a call centre in Bombay offering some fantastic telecom deal, let it be John Lewis to say the electric blanket has arrived for collection, or Mrs Biggins' daughter in Bishop's Stortford telling her mum she'd forgotten her glasses.

‘One moment, please.' Mrs Biggins clasped the handset to her ample bosom. ‘It's Mr Michaels, the solicitor.'