Part 20 (1/2)

'But you've done it with me.'

He thought about this. 'This may sound odd, but you've never felt like a stranger.'

She stopped what she was doing and looked at him. 'That's probably one of the nicest things anyone's ever said to me. Thank you.' She went back to stirring the hot toddy, then took a cautious sip. He could smell the whisky from where he was sitting.

'If you're not feeling well, I ought to leave you,' he said.

'Perhaps you're right. I do feel rather tired.'

He reluctantly got to his feet. Toby stirred, rose up on all fours, arched his back and shook himself out, ready for action.

'Don't we all wish we could do that ourselves,' Jennifer said. 'Just shake all our troubles away.'

'Don't bother to see me off,' he said, as she moved towards the door of the saloon and the engine room. 'Stay in the warm. Is there anything I can fetch you in the morning?'

'I'll be fine.'

'Milk? Bread?'

She laughed. 'Stop fussing. It's nothing but a cold.'

He kissed her for the first time. Just a fond peck on the forehead. 'Sleep well.'

Out on the towpath, the chill of night seeped into his bones. He b.u.t.toned up his coat and walked as briskly as his knee would allow him. When he was level with Will's house, he looked up at the house and saw a bedroom light on. There were no curtains at the window and it was embarra.s.singly easy to make out the two figures and what they were doing. Feeling uncomfortably like a peeping Tom, Bob hurried on. Good luck to them, he thought, with a stab of envy.

Will was doing his best. But after the day he'd had - a fruitless auction and a wild-goose chase covering most of Shrops.h.i.+re for an oak dresser that didn't exist, it later transpired - he just couldn't summon the energy for what Sandra expected from him. Disentangling himself from her voluptuous body and coming up for air, he rolled over onto his side.

'Oh no you don't,' she said, 'you come back here.'

'I need the bathroom,' he lied. Before she had a chance to grab hold of him, he hot-footed it out of the bedroom and across the landing. Just to be sure, he locked the bathroom door and leaned against it in a drowsy fog of exhaustion. He wondered what the h.e.l.l he was doing. Why had he agreed to see Sandra again, after they'd both admitted that the fun had gone out of their ... their what? Their fling? Their mindless coupling? Oh, come on, he told himself, now standing in front of the mirror, what man in his right mind would turn down the chance of uncomplicated s.e.x? He turned on the tap and splashed cold water onto his face.

But uncomplicated s.e.x, he decided, was not without its complications. Hearing Sandra calling to him, he closed his eyes and tried to prepare himself for a convincing performance.

He didn't know whether to be humiliated or relieved when twenty minutes later Sandra was throwing on her clothes in a huff of frustration. 'You know what your trouble is, Will? You're getting old. You're past it.'

'I think you might be right,' he murmured as she was clattering down the stairs and shouting that she never wanted to hear from him again.

He stood in the shower till the scalding water ran cold. In his bathrobe, he went and stood on the landing by the window that overlooked the front garden. The light from the street lamps cast an attractive glow over the road. Further up was Dora Gold's house with its showy plumes of pampas gra.s.s in the front garden, which somehow seemed so appropriate from what he knew of the woman. And then there was the McKendricks' house, where the severely pruned bushes and shrubs looked as austere as Harvey McKendrick had appeared to Will when he'd come over one day to welcome him to the neighbourhood - he'd been civil enough, but no more.

Will had long since decided that he liked living in Maple Drive and probably wouldn't sell the house on as quickly as he'd originally planned. Fast bucks were a bit like uncomplicated s.e.x - easy come, easy go. What he wanted in his life was something with a bit of permanence and substance to it. He smiled and thought how proud Marty would be of him for making this alarmingly grown-up leap of maturity.

Looking across to number twenty, he wondered how Harriet was. He'd enjoyed their evening together. Compared to the one he'd just had it seemed perfect. He wondered if he could get away with asking her out for dinner.

Why not? he asked himself.

Because she's so much younger than you, you idiot!

It would only be dinner, he argued back. Just dinner.

But even as he thought this, his body betrayed him with a stirring that would have solved all his earlier problems with Sandra.

Shocked, he turned away from the window, tightening his bathrobe. What the h.e.l.l was going on? Harriet Swift was not his type at all.

She was too young.

She was too thin - where were the s.e.xy curves he always went for?

She wasn't blonde. Not even a pretend blonde.

So what was it, then?

He remade his bed and lay on top of the duvet, his hands clasped behind his head. Okay, she was smart, pithy and honest, attributes he did like in a woman. She was also fiercely detached, which he found oddly touching. And, of course, there was that whole hedgehog thing he'd found so amusing initially, and which he now found endearing, knowing that her p.r.i.c.kliness was actually due to a need to disguise how vulnerable her new situation made her. She took her role as Carrie and Joel's guardian very seriously - perhaps too seriously at times. It meant that occasionally her judgement was clouded. Nevertheless, he couldn't help but admire her. She had real guts.

So was that it? Did it all boil down to being in awe of her?

There was only one way to find out. He had to get to know her better. Would it be pus.h.i.+ng his luck to say he had a spare ticket for the Jools Holland concert next month? He could always make out he was being neighbourly.

Why not? And anyway, the age gap wasn't that big.

Chapter Thirty-Four.

That night Harriet dreamed she was in a pine forest, lost. She wasn't scared, but she was concerned; she couldn't remember where the children were. She'd had them with her a moment ago, but now they were gone. She ventured further into the heart of the forest and could hear her name being called, faintly at first, but then louder and more distinctly as she drew near its source. She came to the edge of a clearing where sunlight filtered through the towering pine trees and where the ground was soft and blanketed underfoot with pine needles. In the centre of the clearing, sitting on a wooden picnic table with her legs swinging, was Felicity. 'There you are,' Felicity said. 'We were waiting for you.'

'We?' asked Harriet. She wasn't at all surprised to see her sister.

Felicity laughed. 'You didn't think the others would forget, did you?'

Thinking that her sister was referring to the children, Harriet relaxed. Carrie and Joel were safe. Felicity suddenly jumped down from the picnic table and revealed a large birthday cake. Behind it stood Dominic and Miles. Harriet was confused. She was sure it wasn't her birthday. Dominic came towards her. 'Happy birthday,' he said, and then he kissed her hard on the lips, his tongue deep in her mouth, his eyes open and glittering, as if taunting her, daring her to enjoy what he was doing. But she was enjoying it, and kissing him back - breathlessly, pa.s.sionately. She held him tight until, without warning, he pushed her away with a laugh. 'Sorry, Harriet. You must be mixing me up with my brother.'

Confused, she went to Miles. 'I'm sorry,' she whispered. He bent his head and kissed her lightly on the cheek. 'No,' she said. 'Kiss me properly. Like Dominic.'

He did as she said, his eyes closed, his arms around her, holding her firmly. 'I need to know what to do,' she said when she drew away and searched his face to see what he was thinking. 'Tell me what to do.'

'Everything will be fine,' he murmured, before slowly turning away and joining Felicity and Dominic at the picnic table.

The piercing pipping of the alarm clock woke Harriet and she lay for a moment in the darkness. Listening to the gurgling of the central-heating pipes, she considered the dream. It was one of those dreams that could persuade you it held some vital truth or significance. She dismissed the obvious, that once again Miles was being compared to Dominic, and thought hard. As irrational and absurd as it seemed, she was sure there was something it was trying to tell her. It was that comment - 'I need to know what to do' - that chimed like a faint, echoing bell. What had she been referring to?

By the time she was in the shower and thinking about the day ahead - her trip to Ireland - logic had kicked in. Of course! The anxiety in the dream had been about Carrie and school. Harriet still hadn't said anything to her parents about the letter she'd found or how she was going to deal with it. She didn't want them to worry. Especially not her mother, who worried Harriet almost as much as Carrie's latest problem. She was convinced there was something going on that Eileen was keeping to herself. Perhaps her illness was getting worse and she was holding out on Harriet and her father. It would be so typical of Mum to soldier on in stoic silence. Harriet considered speaking to Dora; it was possible that Eileen might have confided in her old friend. But all that would have to wait. Today there was Dublin to concentrate on.

The children were already up when she went downstairs to grab a quick cup of coffee before driving to the airport to meet Howard. They were in the sitting room on the sofa, still in their pyjamas, when she popped her head round the door. Unaware of her presence, they watched the television, transfixed by the young presenter who appeared to be dressed for a photo-shoot for the front cover of some lads' magazine. The girl gabbled on in what pa.s.sed for English in TV-land these days, and Harriet wondered what had happened to the girl-next-door look she and Felicity had grown up with. I'm growing old, Harriet thought. I'll be criticising Carrie's taste in friends and clothes next. Was that what parenting did to you? Brought out all those instinctive prejudices you never knew existed but which would eventually turn you into your own mother and father.

Joel saw her first. He took his thumb out of his mouth and wrapped his silky round his hand, as if keeping it for later. 'You look different, Harriet,' he said.

Carrie wrenched her gaze away from the television. 'You're wearing a skirt,' she said, a mixture of accusation and disbelief in her voice.

'Correction. I'm wearing a suit.'