Part 16 (1/2)

'All right, Loveday?' Jesse was standing over her. Smiling his warm, familiar smile. His eyes s.h.i.+ning in a very tanned face, his good looks were almost blinding.

'I've just tipped b.l.o.o.d.y pork scratchings all over me,' she said helplessly.

'Do you want me to lick 'em off for you?' Her eyes darted to his face to see if he was laughing at her. He wasn't, but there was a look in his eyes that she couldn't read. Something she had never seen there before. A hardness.

'Do you want a drink?'

'Yes, please, darling.' Greer appeared from behind Jesse and plonked herself neatly on the bench next to Loveday. 'White wine spritzer, please.'

15.

'The house is just adorable. Mum and Jan worked so hard setting it up for us. Dad's bought all new carpets and appliances. I've got such plans for the interior. I think I'm going for modern with a twist of ”olde worlde”. We're going to save up for bits as we go along. You must come and see it.' Greer was on a roll. The boys had left the girls to it and were now standing at the bar with a group of male pals. How Loveday longed to be with them.

'I'd love to,' said Loveday, feeling horrible but trying to sound normal. 'How was the honeymoon? Was the hotel nice?'

'It was sooo luxurious. Our room was huge with a balcony overlooking the pool and our own table and chairs out on it. One day we had breakfast out there. Room service. Just a continental breakfast, croissants, black coffee, freshly squeezed orange juice. I loved it, but Jesse didn't want to do it again. You know what these boys are like. He wanted the full English in the dining room. Most nights we ate in the English bar in the marina, but once or twice I made him eat local stuff. He liked the paella ... and the calamari, until I told him it was baby octopus.'

Loveday grimaced. 'Octopus?'

'Yes. He's a fishermen! I thought he ate anything that came out of the sea.'

Loveday had been around the fis.h.i.+ng boats all her life, and enjoyed cod and chips as well as the next woman, but octopus was going too far. She kept smiling, but as Greer went on and on, about the weather and the pool and the waiters round the pool, and the one waiter that Jesse got really jealous about because he was paying so much attention to her, and how being married gave her such a feeling of enormous security, and on and on and b.l.o.o.d.y on, Loveday fought the desire to tell her best and oldest friend to shut up.

Here, with Greer sitting right in front of her, she was struggling with the conflicting and terrible feelings she felt cras.h.i.+ng around within her: jealousy that Greer had been alone with Jesse for so long; overwhelming guilt about sleeping with Jesse; horror at how she'd betrayed her best friend, betrayed Mickey. The last four weeks had been h.e.l.l for her. She'd been dreaming of Jesse coming home. Stealing away with him, up to the sheds, to talk and make love and disentangle themselves from the mistake he'd made in marrying Greer. In her most optimistic moments, she'd imagined him coming back and explaining to Mickey and Greer what had happened and, after a while, in due course, after the divorce, Jesse would marry Loveday and Mickey and Greer would be happy for them. Everyone would understand what a mistake it had been for Greer and Jesse to marry and they'd be glad that a mistake had been rectified. They'd see that, and they'd all be so much happier. In the meantime Greer was still chuntering on, and it was seeming increasingly unlikely that was going to happen.

'Perhaps you and Mickey would like to come over to Pencil Cottage tomorrow night? Just kitchen sups. Spaghetti Bolognese?'

Loveday flicked a glance over to Mickey at the bar and saw Jesse heave himself off a well-worn bar stool and begin to walk towards them. She answered Greer with a vague, 'Erm ... yeah, I'll ask Mickey.' She was so alert to Jesse getting closer to them that every atom in her body started to shake. He reached their table and took a seat on a low stool opposite Greer, who immediately took his hand. 'h.e.l.lo, husband!' She glowed. 'I've just been telling Loveday all about our honeymoon.'

'Not everything, I hope,' he said, looking at the floor, finding a beer mat to pick up.

Greer blushed a little. 'No. Stop it. What are men like?' She looked at Loveday and raised her eyebrows. 'Honestly! Boys have one-track minds, don't they?'

Loveday picked up her pint of shandy and tried to look world-weary. 'Gosh, don't they?'

Greer twittered on, 'I've just asked Loveday and Mickey round for tea tomorrow. Loveday wants to see the house.' Jesse looked sharply at Loveday, who gave her head the slightest of shakes. Greer cantered on oblivious, 'And I know you've missed Mickey. I thought I'd do spag bol.'

Jesse was still looking at Loveday, but with an expression she couldn't interpret. Why was he being so cold towards her?

She blurted hurriedly, 'I didn't say I wanted to see the house ... well, not the day after you come home. You need to get settled.'

Jesse turned to Greer. 'Yeah, we've only just got home, love. Let's get ourselves sorted out first.'

Mickey ambled over and put his hand on Jesse's shoulder. 'Come on, big man. I've got a hot game of bar billiards to play with you.'

Jesse stood up and, putting his hand in his back pocket, pulled out his wallet and took out a ten-pound note. 'You girls get yourselves a drink and maybe something to eat. Mickey and I have some serious cueing to do.'

Both young women were silenced. Greer felt slighted, abandoned by her husband on her first night home, and Loveday felt, without having the right to feel it, dumped.

Just before ten thirty, Pete the landlord rang the old s.h.i.+p's bell behind the bar. 'Last orders, ladies and gentlemen. Last orders, please.'

Greer and Loveday were sitting where the boys had left them almost two hours before. In front of them was a barely touched prawn sandwich (Greer's) and the last crumbs of scampi and chips in the basket (Loveday's). They were each nursing a drink and had run out of conversation. The bar was thinning out and, across the floor, they could see into the games room, where Mickey and Jesse, more than tipsy, were whooping with jeers and laughter after each cue shot.

Pete was calling out to the stragglers, 'Drink up now, ladies and gents. Time to get home.' He was moving between the bar and the tables, collecting up the dirty gla.s.ses and ashtrays. He stopped by Loveday and Greer. 'Welcome home, Mrs Behennna. 'Ow was the honeymoon?'

'Lovely, thank you,' said Greer with an automatic politeness.

'Glad to have your mate back, aren't you, Loveday?'

'Yes,' said Loveday dully. 'Yes. Very glad.'

'I'll round those two lads up for you,' Pete a.s.sured them. 'You'm ladies need your beauty sleep.'

Pete was as good as his word and within a couple of minutes Jesse and Mickey appeared, still giggling with each other.

'Get my coat, would you, Jesse?' Greer was irritated and impatient to get back to Pencil Cottage.

Jesse took the long black coat off one of the row of pegs by the pub door and handed it to her. 'I mean, can you help me into it?' asked Greer with an edge to her voice.

'Since when couldn't you put your own coat on for yourself?' he asked her.

'It's what husbands do for wives,' she told him, handing the coat back to him.

Loveday zipped up her scarlet padded Puffa jacket and opened the pub door. A wall of now icy February air hit her and she was glad to breathe in the freshness of it after the fug of the Hind.

Mickey stepped out behind her and put his arm through hers. His eyes were gla.s.sy with beer and he smiled soppily at her. 'That was a nice evening. Did you have a good time catching up with Greer?'

'Hmm,' said Loveday tersely. 'I know all about b.l.o.o.d.y Gran Canaria anyway.'

The pub door opened again and a coated Greer and a sloshed Jesse appeared. 'Gosh, it's cold,' s.h.i.+vered Greer. 'But of course after a month of winter sun we'd feel it, wouldn't we, Jesse?'

'You would 'cos you ain't got enough meat on your bones. Not like Loveday. I bet she's warm as toast, eh, Loveday?' Loveday couldn't believe that Jesse could be so heartless towards her and felt tears stinging her eyes.

Mickey grabbed at Loveday's b.u.m and gave it a good squeeze. 'Yeah. She's got enough flesh on her to keep her warm.' Jesse laughed with him, and Loveday, feeling like a heifer, turned towards home.

'By the way, Mickey,' she heard Greer saying, 'I've invited you and Loveday round for kitchen sups tomorrow. Spag bol. Six o'clock?'