Part 2 (1/2)

After a brisk goodbye she rang off. Without the aid of a crystal ball she knew exactly what the future held. It was adios time, inevitably. Why would Spencer want to stay involved with her now that she lived so far away and had two children to bring up? She'd been mad to think it could be otherwise.

Smarting with hurt pride and the sheer unfairness of it, she flipped open her mobile again and scrolled through for the number she always tapped in when she needed a good rant. She'd got as far as putting the phone to her ear when she realised what she was doing. Very slowly, she closed the mobile and held it tightly in her fist. It was one of the things she found almost impossible to come to terms with: accepting that Felicity was no longer around to talk to, that she wasn't there at the other end of the line to be told the latest office joke, or to fill Harriet in on a missed episode of Footballers' Wives, or just to gossip about nothing in particular.

She decided she needed some fresh air to clear her head and improve her mood. But when she stepped outside and locked the front door behind her, she found that fresh air was in short supply. August, with its unbreathable, muggy air that was thick with pollen, was her least favourite month of the year. It was when her asthma was at its worst and she always had to be sure she was never too far from her inhaler. But a short walk along the ca.n.a.l would be okay. The moment she started to feel a tightness in her chest, she'd turn round.

Pocketing her set of keys, she looked across the road and saw a large white van. Its tailgate was lowered and furniture, piled higgledy-piggledy, was clearly in the process of being removed and carried up the drive. A self-drive Rent-A-Van, noted Harriet. The people who usually moved in to the four-bedroomed house were never around for long. For the last twenty years it had been owned by a couple who worked abroad and rented it out in their absence. Dozens of young families and professional couples had come and gone; consequently it was the shabbiest house in the road. The general feeling in the neighbourhood was that a permanent resident would smarten the place up. But judging from the tatty-looking Rent-A-Van, yet another temporary occupant was moving in. She wondered who. It was strange that Dora hadn't been on the case and brought them news of who, what, when and how. Just then, a stockily built man in baggy shorts appeared in the open doorway. Annoyed she'd been caught gawping, Harriet pretended she hadn't noticed him and walked on down the road.

Chapter Five.

'Where do you want this?'

Will bobbed up from behind the sofa, where he was plugging in the CD player, and checked out the large box Marty was holding. 'Bung it on top of the other box over there in the corner,' he said.

'I will, but on the condition that we stop for some lunch. If not, I'll have you in an industrial tribunal faster than you can say, ”Put the kettle on.”'

'Would that be before or after I've had you arrested for a breach of the Public Order Act? Who'd you borrow those shorts from? Johnny Vegas?'

'Ha, ha. And here's me doing the best-friend routine only to be on the receiving end of fattist jokes.'

'I could run through my extensive collection of follically challenged quips, if you'd prefer.'

Marty put the box down with a thump. 'What I'd prefer is for you to get your a.r.s.e into gear and make me a sandwich. I'm starving.' He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of an arm. 'Don't suppose you know where I can lay my hands on a cold beer, do you? Trust you to move on the hottest and muggiest day of the year.'

'I can do d.a.m.n-all about the weather, but the cold-beer situation is well under control. Help yourself to a can from the cool-box on the kitchen table.'

'And lunch?'

'If you stop whingeing long enough, that will be brought out to you in the garden in about quarter of an hour.'

'Now you're talking.'

Minutes later, with Marty taking a break outside, Will retrieved a loaf of bread, a tub of Flora, and a packet of bacon from the cool-box. He cleared a s.p.a.ce around the cooker and set to work on throwing some lunch together. Once he'd sussed how the gas hob worked, he loaded up the frying pan with rashers, then b.u.t.tered half a loaf of sliced bread and squirted a generous amount of HP sauce onto Marty's bread. They'd been friends long enough to know each other's likes and dislikes perfectly. Not dissimilar from a marriage, really. Except Will's friends.h.i.+p with Marty had never turned sour, unlike his marriage.

It was eight years since he and Maxine had divorced but it still felt as if it were yesterday, probably because Maxine never let him forget what a b.a.s.t.a.r.d he'd been. Oh, and a loser, too. That was a constant favourite of hers. 'The trouble with you, Will,' she'd say, as if he'd ever asked for her opinion, 'is that you're never going to amount to anything for the simple reason that you refuse to grow up.'

'And there was me thinking it was my boyish charm that got me where I am,' he'd said only last week when she was in his office, once again raking over the coals of their burnt-out marriage, listing yet more of his failings.

She was interrogating him about his reasons for moving. 'What's wrong with where you are?' she'd asked.

'Well, honey,' he'd replied, all silky-smooth and knowing it would annoy the h.e.l.l out of her, 'I'd tell you if it was any of your business. But seeing as it isn't, you'll have to reach your own conclusion.'

'You're moving in with someone? Is that it?'

'I might be.'

'Okay, so you're not. I can't say I'm surprised. And not just because you change your women more often than your boxer shorts. Or maybe it's them. Perhaps they see the light just in time and turn tail.'

'I'm sure you're right, dear. You usually are. Now, if you've had your fun, I have important things to do.'

She'd tipped back her head and laughed, her even, white teeth framed by glossy pink lips. 'William Hart doing something important. Now this I have to see.'

'Then pull up a chair and learn from the master.' Reaching for the phone, he'd added, 'While you're here, you could make yourself useful by putting the kettle on. If that isn't beneath you these days.'

Fortunately she hadn't stuck around and after she'd swept off in one of her up-yours-see-you-around-sucker flounces, and after he'd said, 'Be sure to give my best wishes to PC Plod, won't you?' he'd been able to get down to business. Putting the phone back in its cradle, he'd closed the door of his ramshackle office and, tuning to Radio Four, he'd rolled up his sleeves for his afternoon fix of The Archers. It didn't take much to please him these days.

Turning the rashers over and lowering the heat on the gas hob, he supposed that Maxine's opinion of him would never change. In her eyes he would always be the bad guy.

The big girl's blouse of a husband who dared to have an early mid-life crisis.

The lousy husband who played around.

The brute of a husband who broke her heart.

Although it was debatable she had one of those.

One way or another, he had a hard reputation to live up to. It wasn't easy playing the villain every day of his life. Or the village idiot. Just occasionally he'd like to think he was a cut above your average no-good ex husband. He'd never once raised his hand to a woman. He'd never drunk to excess. He'd never picked his nose in public. And surely, what counted for more than anything, he was perfectly toilet-trained and never splashed or left the seat up. In some quarters, he'd be considered quite a catch.

And if he'd been such a bad lot, why had she stuck around as long as she had? Thirteen years in all.

The answer to that, as she'd repeatedly flung at him, was the only good things to come out of their relations.h.i.+p: Gemma and Suzie. Apples and eyes didn't come close. His gorgeous daughters - Gemma, seventeen and Suzie, nineteen - were the crowning glory of his life. In many ways, marrying Maxine had been the best thing he'd ever done. But he'd withhold that fact from her to his dying day. She could burn him at the stake and he'd never utter those words in her presence. A man was ent.i.tled to his pride.

'Hey, you in there!' called Marty from the garden. 'Any chance of something to eat? My stomach's panicking; it thinks it's been stapled shut.'

They took their lunch down to the end of the garden, unlocked the rotting wooden gate and went and sat on the rickety bench that overlooked the ca.n.a.l. It was the most perfect spot, the main reason Will had bought the house. The house itself, as it was, left him cold. Modern but seriously dated, it was totally lacking in any character; it failed on all counts. But the location was superb and he could understand why the owners - clients of Marty's who in their retirement had now decided to settle in Geneva - had hung on to it for as long as they had. However, their loss was his gain and by the time he was finished with it, he'd have it transformed and ready to sell on for a tidy sum.

As if picking up on his thoughts, Marty said, 'Here's to you and your new home.' They tapped their cans of beer together. 'Cheers. So how do you think you'll like living here?'

'It'll do. Though it's tempting to nuke the house and start over.'

'I'll tell Marion and Joe you said that.'

'Tell them what you like. They should be rounded up and shot for having such appalling taste. Those hideous carpets and curtains can't have slipped your notice, surely? And as for that chocolate-brown bathroom suite ... that can be first to go in the skip.'

Marty laughed. 'Not everyone is blessed with such high-minded style as you. Besides, I thought retro was all the rage.'

'In lesser circles, maybe. But I'm a purist. Give me a fine pair of Queen Anne legs any day.'

'You antique dealers are all the same; just a bunch of screaming sn.o.bs.'

'You say the sweetest things.'

'I caught sight of one of your neighbours earlier. As natives go, she didn't look the sort to welcome you with open arms.'

'I expect she was in shock at the sight of you in those shorts.'