The Sunshine And Biscotti Club (24 page)

She looked at him. Short dark hair a bit messed, shoulders so wide they swallowed her up, eyes almost black under hooded lids. Eyes that saw everything, every detail of her, with a look that put her both completely at ease and shockingly on edge. A look she found herself already missing before he’d even gone.

As the sun dimmed outside and the pub began to fill with after-work drinkers it was on the tip of her tongue to suggest dinner. The urge took her completely by surprise but, just as she opened her mouth to ask, Bruno glanced at his watch and said, ‘Time for me to go. I have a plane to catch.’

‘Oh, OK.’ Jessica hid her disappointment behind the relief of not having made the suggestion.

They walked out of the pub together weaving their way through tables, again his hand on her back at the door, again her liking the feel of it.

He paused in the street to glance around for a taxi, pulling his shades on. ‘I’m actually here again in a few weeks,’ he said.

‘To see your sister?’

He laughed. ‘Yes. But actually I have investments here.’

‘You do?’ she said, a touch too much enthusiasm in her voice.

He laughed again. ‘You like that?’

She tried to reclaim her cool. ‘It’s interesting. Something else for you to come over for.’

He smiled. A taxi pulled up next to them. ‘Interesting is good enough for me,’ he said, opening the door.

Then to her surprise he slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her into a crushing great kiss.

She was just getting over the shock, her excited heart thumping like crazy, when he let her go and climbed into the taxi.

‘I’ll call you,’ he said and, about to shut the door, added, ‘and remember, don’t think about it too much. Yes?’

Jessica nodded, still a bit breathless. She glanced round with a half-smile, disbelieving that she had just been kissed so passionately on the pavement in public and enjoyed it.

‘Trust me. I never lose,’ he said.

She nodded.

‘Until next time, Jessica.’

‘Until next time,’ she said, and the taxi drove off in one direction and Jessica walked to the tube in the other, a secret smile playing on her lips all the way.

One year later

‘So how’s it been?’ Miles asked.

‘Crazy!’ Libby replied.

Miles laughed. Then he turned to the woman next to him and said, ‘Libby’s one of those superstar bloggers now.’

‘I am not,’ Libby said, waving a hand for Miles’s new girlfriend Chloe to ignore everything he was saying. ‘It was a teeny weeny press whirlwind that I got caught up in. It was nothing. It was just about people who are “honest” online.’

‘I believe the term is Social Media Realism,’ said Jessica.

Libby shook her head, going over to throw open the outhouse windows because she was starting to get a little hot. The noise of the birds and the hum of the cicadas filled the space in the air. ‘I was just an add on, they had much bigger people than me to focus on.’

Eve leant forward on her bench and said, ‘Libby was in every magazine and newspaper in the UK. It wasn’t that teeny weeny.’

Peter, who was sitting at the bench behind Eve, nodded. ‘Even I read about it and I don’t know about anyone famous.’

‘I’m
not
famous.’

Chloe nodded, still impressed despite Libby’s protestations.

‘And did everyone see the Hidden Gems sticker on the front door?’ Jessica said from the back. ‘She got into the guide as well.’

‘Congratulations,’ said Miles with a proud grin.

‘Frank came good,’ laughed Libby. ‘I think it was more to do with Giulia in the end, plying him with bowls of spaghetti vongole.’

‘Don’t believe a word of it. They all love Libby, the people who come here,’ Jessica said. ‘I’m always hearing them in the bar chatting about how she rescued their bake and how fabulous their dinner was.’

Miles turned. ‘So you’re here a lot, are you?’

Jessica shrugged, self-consciously pushing a curl behind her ear. ‘A fair bit.’

‘She’s here all the time,’ said Libby, pleased to have the focus moved onto someone else. ‘Like once a month.’

Miles nodded as if he was pleased to hear that. Jessica nodded back. ‘I like it,’ she said. ‘It’s very calming.’

‘She even has her own little desk set up at Bruno’s bar,’ said Libby with a big grin.

Jessica rolled her eyes as if she hadn’t needed everyone to know that.

‘Do you now?’ said Eve, delight shining in her eyes. ‘That sounds cosy.’

‘It’s
very
cosy,’ said Libby.

‘Very
cosy, eh?’ said Eve.

‘OK you can stop now.’ Jessica sighed.

They sniggered.

Jessica leant forward on her bench. ‘And what about you two?’ she said to Eve. ‘How’s the frolicking?’

Peter looked confused, as if he’d just been asked something about their sex life, but Eve laughed. ‘The frolicking is fine. We have scheduled frolicking when we go back to the countryside to visit the chickens who are now living very happily with our old neighbour. And the children are with Peter’s parents. I have no idea what they’re doing but when they get home they will be drinking a lot of Nutribullets to make up for it.’

‘What the hell’s a Nutribullet?’ Jessica asked.

‘It’s a blender,’ said Peter with a sigh; clearly he’d heard far too much about the subject.

‘It’s not just a blender,’ said Eve. ‘You can put the whole apple in stalk and all and it turns it into a drink.’

Jessica snorted. ‘I can see why you need a holiday, Peter.’

Peter chuckled. ‘It’s not that bad. And at least we got rid of the chickens.’

‘Yeah, otherwise Eve would have Nutribullet-ed them,’ Jessica laughed.

Miles’s girlfriend looked a bit shocked.

‘Oh don’t, I still feel really bad about the chickens,’ Eve said. ‘Maisey and Noah were really sad.’

‘They weren’t that sad,’ said Peter. ‘Nothing a trip to the fair didn’t fix.’

‘Yeah, and now we’ve got two bloody goldfish because of that,’ Eve added. ‘It never ends.’

Libby watched Eve as she talked, all wavy blonde hair and toothy smile, lounging back against Peter’s bench. It struck her that she looked like a whole person. Solid. Rather than before when it was almost like her edges were blurry, parts of her almost see-through like a faded photograph.

‘And are you still meditating?’ she heard Jimmy ask Peter.

‘Every day.’ Peter nodded.

Eve rolled her eyes. ‘He still won’t tell me his mantra.’

‘As it should be,’ said Jimmy.

‘How about you?’ Peter asked.

‘Yeah, it’s all good.’ Jimmy nodded, casting a quick glance at Libby before repeating. ‘All good.’

‘You can talk about him, Jimmy, it’s OK,’ Libby said, coming round from behind her bench and leaning against it, wanting at that moment to remove the barrier and bring herself further into the group.

‘Well …’ Jimmy shrugged. ‘It’s fun, you know? Just normal I guess. We’ve got a flat in Camden. It’s what you’d expect I suppose, two blokes together.’

‘And you think you’ll stay there for a while?’ Miles asked.

Jimmy made a face. ‘Yeah, no, maybe. I don’t know. I feel maybe, you know, maybe it’s time …’

‘Don’t say you’re going to say settle down,’ said Jessica, ‘please.’

Jimmy ummed and ahhed. ‘Yeah, maybe, maybe I’m feeling the pull.’

‘Oh my god,’ Jessica laughed. ‘So much for no labels and young-ish, free and single.’

Jimmy conceded a smile at himself. ‘Well, it gets a bit lonely sometimes.’

Libby wondered if Jake felt the same. They’d had the odd text conversation, a few emails to work out how they would split their assets. She was ready to agree to anything as long as she got to keep the hotel but in the end it had all been much more amenable than she’d imagined. She had wondered if Jimmy had had anything to do with that, coming down off the fence in order to make Jake see her side of things. She wasn’t sure but she suspected that was the case.

‘Well you know, Jimmy,’ she said. ‘There’s a lovely girl who comes from Florence with a yoga group at the end of the summer. You’ll have to come back then.’

Jimmy cocked his head as he thought about it, as he looked at Libby with the realisation that this was a gesture to confirm the definiteness of their friendship. ‘I might just do that,’ he said with a smile.

‘Good.’ Libby nodded and went back round behind her bench.

‘So what are we making today?’ Jimmy asked, rolling up his sleeves.

‘Well, I was thinking we should wait for Dex to arrive,’ Libby said, peering out of the open windows of the outhouse. ‘What time does his train get in?’ she asked, checking her watch, thinking that he should be here by now.

Jessica glanced up. ‘Oh, he’s not coming,’ she said. ‘Something came up at work. Sorry, did I not tell you?’

Libby felt like her whole body had just pooled at her feet.

How could Dex not be coming? They’d emailed loads about it.

Now, as she heard that he wouldn’t be there, it suddenly made her realise quite how much she’d been looking forward to him arriving. How when she pictured them all working in the outhouse or sitting on the terrace laughing it was his face that was the clearest,
his voice the funniest, his smile the brightest, him that she was sitting next to in the garden as the sun set.

She was unexpectedly crestfallen.

‘Oh,’ she said. Then she nodded. ‘OK. Right.’ She looked down at the floor. Why did it feel like the whole week was suddenly in black and white? She looked out of the window at the blinding sunshine and blue, blue sky. ‘That’s OK. Right. Well, let’s think about what we’re going to make.’ She’d completely forgotten what she had planned and walked over to her bench to take another look at her recipes.

As she was familiarising herself with the lemon panna cotta recipe that she usually knew by heart, the door slid open and Dex walked in, case slung over his shoulder, pale blue shirt rolled up at the sleeves, familiar self-assured glint in his eye. ‘Just when you were starting to worry,’ he said, doing a small bow and dumping his bag on the ground. ‘I made it, safe and sound. The train, I’ll have you know, is a god damn fine mode of transport.’

‘Dex?’ Libby looked up, confused, delighted.

‘Don’t sound so surprised,’ he said with a bemused smile. ‘You knew I was coming.’

‘But Jessica—’ Libby started then stopped and glanced to the back of the room where Jessica was leaning over her bench, her chin resting in her hands, enjoying the scene with a huge smile on her face.

‘But Jessica what?’ asked Dex, wary.

Libby shook her head, unable to believe she’d been so easily duped. So easily read. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Nothing. Just. I’m glad you’re here,’ she added, suddenly a touch shy.

Dex narrowed his eyes and looked at her for a second, trying to work out what was going on, what he’d missed.

But then the others all came forward to say hello. Eve bounding over for a hug, Jimmy slapping him on the back while Miles proudly introduced Chloe. Dex made all the right comments, said all the right greetings, but all the while Libby could see he was half distracted, glancing over to check that she was still waiting patiently to say hi.

‘All right?’ he said, when they were finally standing opposite each other.

‘All right,’ she said, nervous and excitedly shy.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said.

‘That’s no problem at all.’ She shook her head.

In the background the noise of the others chatting seemed to fade away as he bent down to kiss her cheek. She smelt the warmth and the kindness of him. She wanted to somehow tell him something that she couldn’t with everyone around. Something that had been waiting and building and finally seemed real now he’d walked back in the door. So she reached forward, tentatively at first, then with more confidence. And when her palm touched his, Dex was momentarily
taken aback. But she laced her fingers tight through his for just a second and, giving his hand the quickest squeeze, whispered, ‘I
really
am glad to see you.’

‘You are?’ he said, unsure.

‘Yes. Very.’ She nodded, biting down on the start of her smile as she looked up at him and saw a momentary flicker of surprised delight in his eyes.

‘Well I’ll be damned.’

With the sun beaming into the room, the cicadas humming through the open door, Dex strolled over to his bench, a massive grin on his face, and said, ‘Right then, what are we baking? You’d better all watch out because I’ve been practising all year.’

* * * * *

Read on for an extract from THE VINTAGE SUMMER WEDDING by Jenny Oliver
.

They arrived in the dark in a heatwave. As Anna stepped out of the car, all she could smell was roses. An omen of thick, heavy scent. A potent reminder of a well-buried past. She remembered being knocked off-kilter by a huge vase of them at the Opera House once – big, luxurious, peach cabbage roses – and shaking her head at her assistant, trying to hide her agitation by saying dismissively,
‘No, they’re not right. Swap them for stargazers or, if you can get them, hydrangeas.’

‘Wondered whether you two would ever turn up.’ Jeff Mallory, the landlord of the new property, a man with a moustache and a belly that sagged over his dark-green cords, heaved himself out of the cab of a white van.

‘Sorry, mate.’ Seb strode forward, arm outstretched for a vigorous handshake. ‘We would have been here earlier but—’

He left the reason hanging in the air. They both knew it was Anna’s fault. Stalling the packing at every conceivable opportunity. Dithering over how clothes had been folded and obsessively wrapping everything in tissue paper, then bubble-wrap until teacups were the size of footballs.

‘Not a problem.’ Jeff shook his head. ‘Just been reading the paper, nice to have a bit of time to myself if I’m honest. Nice little cottage this – you’ll love it, just right for a young couple.’

Anna turned her head slowly from the view of the field opposite, the pungent smell of cowpats and hay and something else that she couldn’t quite put her finger on that had mingled with the sweet roses and was drawing her back in time like a whiff of an old perfume. She let her eyes trail up from the white front gate, the wild overgrown garden, the twee little porch and the carved wooden sign that she knew would spell out something hideous like Wild Rose Cottage.

You have to try, Anna
.

Seb did all the chatting while she opened the car door and grabbed her handbag.

‘It’s good to be back,’ she heard him say, taking a deep breath of country air. ‘Really feels good.’

‘Well I never thought I’d see the day.’ Jeff ran a hand along the waistband of his trousers, hitching them into a more comfortable position. ‘Anna Whitehall back in Nettleton.’

She scratched her neck, feeling the heat prickle against her skin, wondering if by some miracle someone had thought to install air-conditioning in the crumbling cottage. ‘Me neither, Mr Mallory,’ she said. ‘Me neither.’ She attempted a smile, felt Seb’s eyes on her.

‘You know I played you at the village Christmas play the other year.’ He nodded like he’d only just remembered. ‘Best laugh in the house I got. Dressed
in a pink tutu I had to shout, “I’m never coming back, you losers. Up your bum.”’ He snorted with laughter. ‘Brought the house down.’

Sweat trickled down between her shoulder blades as she huffed a fake laugh. ‘I’m so pleased I left a legacy.’

‘Too right you did.’ He moved round to the boot of the car to help Seb with the other cases, hauling them out as his trousers slipped lower. Seb was smiling along, trying to smooth out the creases of tension in the air. ‘Whole village has been waiting for you to come back,’ Mr. Mallory went on, regardless.

Seb wheeled a case past her over the uneven road and let his hand rest for a moment on her shoulder. She wanted to cover it with her own, but not good with public shows of sympathy she shook his hand off, trying to keep her poise.

‘Well I’m glad I gave them something to talk about.’
This won’t be for ever
, she said to herself as she gathered some of the plastic bags crammed with stuff out from the back seat.
You can do it, I promise
.

‘Gave?’ Jeff laughed as he hauled another case out of the boot.

‘Oh mind that—’ She ran round and rescued the dress-bag that was being crumpled under the stack of suitcases he was piling up in the street.

‘No past tense about it, Anna. Still giving, sweetheart. Still giving.’ He laughed.

She folded the Vera Wang bag over her arm and took a deep breath. That was it, that was the smell that
mingled with the rest. The unmistakable scent of small-town gossip. I bet they loved it, she thought. The great Anna Whitehall fallen from her perch. Rubbing their hands together gleefully, hoping she landed with a painful bump.

Well, she’d made it through worse. She may have promised Seb a year, but she was here for as short a time as she could manage. All she had to do was get a decent new job and, she stroked the velvety skin of the dress-bag, get married. The wedding may no longer be at the exclusive, lavish Waldegrave, and it may not have tiny Swarovski crystals scattered over the tables, a champagne reception, forty-four bedrooms for guests and a Georgian townhouse across the street for the bride and groom, a six-tier Patisserie Gerard chocolate frilled cake and bridesmaids in the palest-grey slub silk, but there was still this bloody gorgeous dress and, she looked up at the cottage, a bare bulb hanging from the kitchen window that Seb had clicked on, and took a shaky breath in, well, no, not much else.

They hauled in bag after bag like cart horses as the dusk dipped to darkness. When Seb handed over the cash for rent, Anna couldn’t watch and, instead, peered into each room, flicking on lights and opening windows to try and get rid of the stifling heat. The air, though, was still like the surface of stagnant water, mosquitos skating over it like ice, buzzing in every room. She swatted one and instantly regretted it, the little squashed body oozing blood on the paisley Laura Ashley wallpaper. It was
the same paper her granny had had. The memory made Anna’s breath catch in her throat – of warm, cosy fires and freshly baked bread. Of her hair being stroked as she relished the sound of
Coronation Street
– half an hour of peace before her mum would come and drag her back. If her granny were still alive, still here, keeping the village in check, then none of this would be so bad. But she wasn’t, and it was.

Looking out from the upstairs bedroom window, she could see Seb talking with Jeff in the street, their shadows as they laughed. She leant forward, the palms of her hands on the cracked, flaking windowsill, and watched as Jeff waved, clambered into his van and cranked the engine and imagined him pootling off to the King’s Head, his pint in his own silver tankard waiting for him on the bar and a million eager ears ready for his lowdown.

‘So what do you think?’ A minute later she heard Seb walk across the creaking floorboards as he came to stand behind her, his hands snaking round her waist, the heat of him engulfing her like a duvet.

‘It’s fine,’ she said, leaning her head back on his shoulder and feeling the rumble in his chest as he laughed.

‘Damned with faint praise.’

‘No, it’s really nice. Very cute.’ She turned and almost muffled it into his T-shirt so he might miss the lack of conviction.

‘Yeah, I think it’ll do. It could be much worse, Anna. I think we’ll be OK here. Get a dog, plant some vegetables.’

She bit her lip as her cheek pressed into the cotton of his top, swallowed over the lump in her throat and nodded.

He stroked her hair. ‘We’ll be OK, Anna. Change is never a bad thing. And you never know, you might love it.’

‘I might,’ she lied with as much enthusiasm as she could manage. Pulling away from him and going over to the big seventies dressing table she unclipped her earrings and put them down on the veneer surface. The reflection in the big circular mirror showed Seb’s profile – wide eyes gazing out across the fields of wheat that she knew from her quick glance earlier was accented with red as the moonlight picked out the poppies. She couldn’t miss the wistful look on his face, the softening of his lips.

She wanted to say, ‘One year, Seb. Don’t get any dreamy ideas.’ But she couldn’t bear the idea of wiping that boyish smile off his face. And anyway, she wasn’t in any position to lay down the rules. The fact that they currently had nothing was her fault. The dream she had been pushing had broken, now it was Seb’s turn to try his. The feeling was like having her hands cuffed behind her back and her smile painted on her face like a clown.

He turned to look at her. ‘Think of it like a holiday,’ he said, his eyes dancing with teasing laughter.

She thought of her vacations, two glorious weeks somewhere with an infinity pool, cocktails on the beach, restaurants overlooking the sea, basking in
blazing sunshine. But then again, there had been schlepping round Skegness with her dad in the rain as a teenager. Anything was better than that.

‘I’m going to have to shower, I’m too hot,’ she said, peeling off her silk tank-top, wondering whether if she just hung it by the window, the little dots of sweat would dry and not stain.

The bathroom was tiny, the grouting brown, the ceiling cracked where the steam had bubbled the paint. She pulled back the mildewed shower curtain and found herself perplexed.

‘Seb!’ she called.

‘What is it?’

‘There’s no shower.’

‘No shower?’

‘No shower.’

He stood in the doorway and laughed. ‘You’re going to have to learn to bathe.’

‘Who doesn’t have a shower?’ she whispered, biting the tip of her finger, feeling suddenly like a pebble rolling in a wake, her façade teetering.

‘Primrose Cottage, honeybun.’

Oh she knew it was going to be called something dreadful like that.

‘Home sweet home.’