In The Company Of Strangers Part 4

'Gutters.' Paula almost spits the word. 'Just making work, you are. Well things are going to change around here, I can tell you that. You'd be better looking for a proper job instead of hanging around here sponging off other people. I heard your mother's gone off with some bloke . . . Bali, they said, not coming back.'

Todd turns away without answering. Paula's always had it in for him, but it's been a lot worse since Catherine's gone, she just shoots her mouth off whenever she sees him. No respect for anyone, Paula, he thinks. No respect at all.

'And mind you don't mess up the verandah,' she calls after him as he walks away. 'I've just swept up.'

'Go f.u.c.k yourself, you miserable cow,' Todd murmurs under his breath, and he strides up the path to the old cattle shed where all the tools and fertilisers and other stuff are kept and drags out the ladder. Then, lugging it onto his shoulder, he makes his way back to the house, sets it up against the side wall and climbs up in time to see Fleur come out of the office and head back to the workroom. Mr Benson follows her out.

'Todd?' he calls, looking around for him. 'Todd? You here?'

Should've just waited by the office, Todd thinks, could've talked to him after all.

'Up here!' he shouts. 'Doing the gutters like you said.'

Mr Benson gives him a thumbs-up. 'In the office when you're ready,' he says, and disappears back inside.

Meanwhile another car is coming slowly along the rough track from the road and draws to a halt outside the office. Todd s.h.i.+fts his position on the ladder and watches as the driver gets out. She's an old woman, short and sort of squarish, with thick grey hair done up in a bun that makes her look like an old-fas.h.i.+oned school teacher. Some bits of her hair have escaped from the bun and she pushes them behind her ears and looks around as though she'd rather not be here. It must be her, Todd thinks, Ruby, Catherine's friend. He puts one foot onto the slope of the roof and leans forward to get a better look.

'She'll be coming soon,' Catherine had said the last time he saw her. 'Ruby, you'll like her. She'll sort everything out.' And she'd waved to him to look in the drawer in the night table. 'There,' she'd said, 'that picture?' It was a framed photograph of Catherine in one of those long dresses she always wore, standing with a shorter woman who was wearing a suit like she'd just come from the office. They were on the steps of a house London, Catherine had said and she had her arm around Ruby and was leaning towards her, but Ruby wasn't leaning. They were standing very close together but Ruby looked as though she was standing there alone: very upright, a bit awkward, straight-faced, as though she didn't really want to be in the photograph at all.

'That's us, when I went to stay with her in Islington,' Catherine said. 'Ruby. You can trust her, Todd. Don't forget that.'

Todd hasn't forgotten, but he's also learned to be cautious and he leans further forward now, straining to see her as Mr Benson comes out of the office to greet her. She looks okay, he thinks, and as he s.h.i.+fts his weight further onto the roof his foot slips, and before he even realises it the s.p.a.ce between his legs opens up, the ladder crashes to the ground, and Todd feels himself shoot off the roof behind it.

uby brushes her hair, winds it up into its usual tight bun and fixes it with pins. Bits of it immediately slip free and she sighs and tries to hook them back. Amanda is right, she thinks, staring at herself in the bathroom mirror, she should have it all cut off; a nice short style that's easy to look after.

'And you'd look ten years younger,' Amanda had said when she'd gone in for a trim before she left. 'You won't recognise yourself.'

'Hmm. Well that might be a good thing,' Ruby had replied, but she still hadn't let Amanda cut it short. She had started growing her hair the day that she and Catherine left the convent. Years of having it hacked off first in the orphanage in London and then by the nuns had made her determined to wear her hair long for the rest of her life.

Somewhere in the very distant past she remembers her father: he is lifting her onto his knee; the coa.r.s.e fabric of his uniform itches against her bare legs but she won't complain because his arm is warm around her waist. He is stroking her hair, winding it around his fingers. 'Just like a princess,' he says tenderly, 'my little princess.' It's all she can remember. After that he was gone, but the war remained. There were nights in the underground, wrapped in rough grey blankets, the stifling air thick with the smells of soot and human bodies. There were streets choked with cement dust, the ruins of bombed buildings, and the sound of sirens. Women queuing for food or hurrying home trundling wheelbarrows heavy with precious coal. And then there was the night when they set out for home after visiting her mother's friend in Lewisham, and they didn't make it to a shelter.

'Come on, Ruby,' her mother had cried, grabbing her hand as they heard the whine of the doodlebug, and they ran, following others who were heading for the safety of the station. 'Can you run a bit faster, darling?' But then her mother had tripped and fallen, and by the time she had struggled back to her feet it was too late. There was just the eerie silence then as they waited, terrified, to see where it would fall.

Later, much later, two men in tin hats pulled her from the rubble. The smoke and dust burned her eyes, and not far away an already half-demolished building collapsed bit by bit as though in slow motion and people fled in all directions. Even now she can remember calling over and over again for her mother as she was lifted into an ambulance. The princess had been transformed into a terrified orphan: homeless, fatherless, motherless, entirely alone, or so they said. The princess hair was matted, black and sticky with blood, ash and dust. That night, as she sat propped up on hard pillows in a hospital bed, a nurse had gently cut it away with surgical scissors. She was four then and it would be twelve more years before she regained control of her hair and could let it grow again.

'I can't let go of it,' she'd explained some years ago in the salon, lowering her voice so that Amanda had to lean closer to hear her over the roar of hair dryers. 'It's about my independence, who I am. A bit like Samson, his strength came from his hair, and when Delilah came along and lopped it off he lost the plot. Can't risk it, I'm afraid.'

She takes a final critical look at herself in the mirror now, and fiddles again with the messy bits of hair. It's the trap of living alone, or one of them, she thinks, this constant self-scrutiny. It was worse in the past, of course, when she was young, when looking beautiful and desirable seemed so important, when it seemed to be all that mattered, when it could mean acceptance or rejection. But even at this age, when no one gives a d.a.m.n how she looks, when lowered standards could be affectionately regarded as endearing eccentricity, it's still there, this other critical self following her always, feeding back anxiety about how others will see and judge her, and it's always negative. 'Get over it, Ruby,' she tells herself, 'who's looking at you anyway? Who the h.e.l.l cares what an old woman looks like?' and she strolls out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom.

'I hope this is all right,' Alice had said earlier, leading her in here and setting her suitcase down near the foot of the bed. 'Declan asked me to get a room ready for you. Mrs Benson had moved into the lounge, so I a.s.sumed he meant what used to be the main bedroom.'

Alice couldn't have known, of course, nor Declan. Ruby knows she would have done the same thing herself. It was considerate, thoughtful, and the large white porcelain jug filled with lavender and white roses was the obvious sign of a woman's touch. Alice seemed nervous and anxious to please and a request for a different room would have come as a slap in the face.

'It's fine, Alice,' she had said. 'Lovely, in fact, and the flowers are beautiful.'

A look of relief had spread across Alice's face. They have never met before but there is something very familiar about Alice; it's a way of being that Ruby has come to recognise during years of working with women whose sense of themselves has been crushed by circ.u.mstance. It's the aftermath of trauma: abuse, incarceration, mental illness, displacement, profound loss. Which, she wonders, is Alice's story? What sort of horror is she emerging from?

'Well I'll get on then,' Alice had said. 'You'll probably be glad of a rest after your drive, and . . . well, everything else. That poor boy, I do hope he's going to be all right. I'm glad Declan went with him to the hospital. It didn't seem right for him to go alone.'

'Absolutely not,' Ruby agreed. 'Catherine mentioned him in her emails. She was very fond of him.'

'Right. Well if you're sure there's nothing else, I'll get on. Shall I make dinner for about seven? Declan's bound to be back by then.'

'Perfect. Is there anything I can do?'

Alice's hasty response that she was best left to her own devices in the kitchen was obviously not mere politeness, and Ruby, still a little jetlagged and somewhat bruised by the reality of being back in Australia, in Perth, and now here in this house, had kicked off her shoes, lain down on the bed and willed herself to lock the memories back into the past where they belonged. It was nearly half past six when she woke, just enough time to unpack a few things and take a shower.

The sun is lower now, was.h.i.+ng the skyline pink and gold, softening the outline of the distant tree-clad hills beyond the boundaries of Benson's Reach. Ruby rests her arms on the windowsill. How often had she stood here watching the sun set, the kangaroos hopping cautiously out at first light and again at dusk. It was gra.s.sland in those days and there were trees closer to the house; beautiful then, it's even more beautiful now that the purple haze of the lavender beds spreads into the distance. Catherine had changed the place for the better and built a fine business here. Ruby wonders how she managed it alone for all those years after Harry was gone. As young women they had learned the hotel business together, working for Harry's parents in their Perth hotel. Catherine had put that experience to good use but it can't have been easy. Ruby sighs and turns away from the window, wis.h.i.+ng she were in any room but this.

There's a tap at the door and Ruby straightens her shoulders and gets ready to face the real world again.

'Sorry,' Declan says, 'sorry about all the drama, sorry that you didn't get a proper welcome. Have you got everything you need?'

'There's nothing to apologise for,' Ruby says, 'and yes, thanks, I have everything I need.'

'Good, that's good,' he says, nodding. 'Alice says dinner's ready when you are.'

'Let's do it,' she says, stepping out and closing the door behind her, sensing that he too seems to need some sort of rea.s.surance from her. 'How's young Todd?'

'He's going to be okay,' Declan says, 'but he presents us with something of a problem. I'll tell you about that over dinner. Alice needs to hear it too.'

Paula is usually long gone by this time of day. Her hours are eight till four but stuff's been going down today and she needs to keep tabs on it. It was different when Catherine was here. Paula knew everything that was going on then not because Catherine told her but because she was careless. She left paperwork lying around, left doors open when she was on the phone or talking to someone in the office. At first Paula had felt a bit guilty about what some people might think was snooping or eavesdropping, but as time went on she was able to rid herself of that feeling because she recognised that what she was actually doing was keeping an eye on things. Catherine's laxity left both her privacy and her possessions vulnerable; they always had seasonal staff pa.s.sing through and often they were not the sort of people you could trust. Out drinking every night, hungover and smelling like a parrot's armpit the next morning, they could take off with anything and you'd never see them again. Not that it had ever actually happened, of course, but Paula puts that down to her own vigilance. Besides, Catherine had become forgetful so an occasional nose through the paperwork on the desk enabled Paula to remind her about things. She made sure she did it in a subtle but confident way so that Catherine just a.s.sumed she must have told Paula things herself and was grateful for the reminder. Paula was pretty sure this made her indispensable.

It's different now, of course. Things had started going downhill when Catherine, who'd been sick for some time, had taken it into her head to turn the lounge into a sort of makes.h.i.+ft bedsit. The only other places she went to were the kitchen, the bathroom and the office. Of course, Paula understood the logic, and she'd a.s.sumed that, apart from Catherine, she alone would have access to the room. At the very least she'd be going in and out to clean it. To Paula's dismay the call to clean the room never came, though others were allowed in. Whatever that b.l.o.o.d.y Todd had done to be in there with her, Paula had no idea. Sucking up to Catherine, he was, a leech, just like his mother, always working his way in where he wasn't wanted, taking what wasn't rightfully his. The only other person who was occasionally allowed in was Fleur but she wasn't the type to keep a person informed about what might be going on in fact as far as Paula was concerned Fleur was a snooty cow and not to be trusted.

'You do a fantastic job, Paula,' Catherine had told her more times than she could remember, 'worthy of Her Majesty the Queen, no less.'

Paula didn't have much time for HM the Queen, but she did have a soft spot for Prince William; if she was good enough for Her Maj then why wasn't she allowed to clean the room? Anyway, she needed to get in there now, and on her own. It was in Catherine's best interests, after all: who knows what other people would think if they discovered what she'd been up to in there? And by now the place must be a pigsty. But the b.l.o.o.d.y door is still locked. This morning, as she pa.s.sed the window, she'd caught sight of that Alice in there, just standing in the doorway. Then she'd come out again and locked the door and later Paula had seen her still wearing those stupid beads with the key around her neck, just like Catherine used to. As though she owns the place!

'You should get another key cut,' Paula had told Catherine a few times when she first moved her things in there. 'Give me the one you've got and I'll get it cut on my way home and bring it back in the morning.'

But Catherine had said it wasn't necessary.

'Suppose you were locked in at night and got worse, we couldn't get in to help you.'

'I don't lock myself in at night, Paula,' Catherine had said in that withering tone she sometimes used. 'I simply like it locked when I'm not in there myself.'

It wasn't true of course, Paula knew that. Catherine often locked herself in there alone, both day and night, and Paula knew why, but she also knew how to hold her tongue . . . well, sometimes she did, and this was one of them.

But today it's been all action. With Alice snooping in the room and then out in the garden cutting roses while Paula was was.h.i.+ng the kitchen floor, it was pretty clear that Catherine's friend was due to arrive. Paula had spun out her work for as long as she could and then found a few other things to do. And then that nice woman in number six had arrived and she'd actually remembered Paula from the last time she was here.

'What a shame about Mrs Benson,' Mrs Craddock had said. 'I really liked her and she had this place running beautifully. But it's good to see you're still here, Pauline.'

'It's Paula, Mrs Craddock,' Paula had corrected her. 'Yes, it's very sad, and Declan didn't turn up to help in the last few months so some things have been let slip. He used to be a big drinker, you see, not a very reliable person.'

'But I guess they'll get it back on track before too long,' Mrs Craddock had said. 'He'll be grateful he's still got you though, your knowledge of the place must be invaluable. And do call me Lesley, by the way.'

Paula had managed to crack a smile of acknowledgement at all this although there was no indication that Declan found her knowledge invaluable. In fact ever since he'd arrived she felt totally excluded. It seemed that as far as he was concerned she was just another member of the staff rather than a trusted insider who had been there longer than anyone, even Madam Fleur, who had been up and down to the office today on some sort of urgent business. And then Catherine's friend had turned up and Todd managed to draw attention to himself by falling off the roof. So Paula has stuck around waiting to see what happens.

Now everything seems to have gone quiet. Even standing as she is, having a quick smoke around the corner from the kitchen, she can't quite hear what's going on. Paula crushes her cigarette end with the toe of her shoe, picks up the b.u.t.t and stuffs it in her pocket. Well, she thinks, things are probably going to perk up a bit from now on. Ruby Medway seems pleasant enough and if she's anything like Catherine she at least will see Paula's potential and value her long service at Benson's. Meanwhile she'll have to find a way to get into that room and Ruby might be the answer. She, presumably, will have the task of sorting out Catherine's things and she'll need a hand. 'And I,' Paula murmurs, walking to her car, 'am the obvious person to help with that.'

She had slept for a solid three hours but as Ruby helps herself to pasta and salad she realises it has done little to restore her energy rather, it has relaxed the tension in her muscles and allowed the physical and emotional exhaustion to make itself felt. A good thing she had turned down Declan's offer of wine or she would have been incoherent before she even started to tuck in to the food. They're all on water, she notices; perhaps they too feel the need to stay cool and alert. There is something immediately likeable about Declan and it is partly, she thinks, the vestiges of that plump little boy with his reddish blond hair, freckles and intensely blue eyes. He's still a little overweight, and not particularly fit; an anxious man, Ruby suspects, who finds it a struggle to play the role of host and proprietor that has, so recently, been thrust upon him. But she thinks she will both like him and trust him, just as Alice seems to do.

When Declan had introduced Alice that afternoon he'd described her as a good friend whom he'd employed to help them in the collective effort of sorting things out at Benson's Reach. Ruby had a.s.sumed that they were lovers, but now it's clear that, although they're friends, they don't know each other very well, and they certainly lack the physical ease conferred by intimacy, or even of people who have spent a lot of time together. There is warmth between them, and respect, affection certainly, but also the tension which speaks of a lack of familiarity. They are feeling their way with each other just as they are with her, and she with them. Like three animals trapped in the same enclosure, Ruby thinks, edging cautiously towards each other, but a change of pace and we will all recoil.

'So,' Declan says as he starts on his pasta, 'is it too soon to talk about what we have to do, Ruby, or would you like to leave it until tomorrow?'

'Not at all,' Ruby says. 'I want to know what you think. At the moment I don't have a clue, but first I'd like to hear about Todd.'

Declan puts down his fork. 'Yes Todd. Well, the poor kid has broken his ankle in two places but is otherwise okay apart, of course, from the possibility of concussion. The hospital will be keeping an eye on him for the next few days. I feel bad about it because I should have talked to him sooner. Catherine apparently took him under her wing about three years ago. He was living with his mother in a caravan-'

'I knew that,' Ruby cuts in, 'she mentioned him in an email. The mother was drinking and smoking dope.'

'That's right, and Catherine got Todd organised to come up here a few times a week, to do odd jobs, maintenance, pruning, cleaning up, anything that needed doing, really, and she paid him cash.' He pauses, clearing his throat. 'It was quite touching, he was telling me about it while they were strapping up his ankle, and then he suddenly stopped and went quiet. I don't think he'd talked to anyone about it since she died. He seemed to be trying hard not to cry.'

'Cat thought a lot of him,' Ruby says. 'The last I remember her saying was that she hoped he'd stay on at school at the end of last year.'

Declan nods and swallows another mouthful of pasta. 'Mmm, he told me that, but he said he needed to earn a living, and he wanted to keep coming here, so he got a part time casual job at the supermarket in town, which he won't be able to go back to for a while at least. But he apparently only took that because it meant he could also keep working here for Catherine.'

'But you said there was a problem for us?'

'Yes, his mother,' Declan says. 'Apparently she took off to Bali with a man some months ago and all he's heard from her since is the occasional postcard, so he's living on his own in the caravan, going everywhere on foot or on his bike, and when they release him from hospital there's no one to look after him. And I thought that if the hospital knew he was on his own they might get social services involved and send him off somewhere. So . . .' he hesitates, flus.h.i.+ng, looking down at his plate, 'I said he could come back here. And I know I should've asked you first, Ruby, but-'

'Of course,' Ruby cuts in, 'of course he should come here. It's what Catherine would have wanted, what she would expect. Besides, he was injured working for us on our property so we have a responsibility to him.'

Declan looks up, relieved. 'Great,' he says, nodding furiously, 'that's excellent, I'm glad we agree about that. Alice?'

Alice, who Ruby is aware has been watching them both closely while appearing to be interested solely in her pasta, jumps at the sound of her name. 'Oh, well it's not for me to say, really, I'm just an employee . . .'

'But you have an opinion?' Ruby says.

'Yes, of course, I think you're right. There's plenty of s.p.a.ce. I can get a room ready for him and we can keep an eye on him here. It would be horrible for him to be taken off somewhere else.'

Ruby thinks that they have cleared the first hurdle, established some trust. For a while they talk more generally about the chaos in the office, about the closed cafe, about how to proceed.

'And the other bombsh.e.l.l that lobbed into my lap this afternoon is Fleur,' Declan says. 'She's given notice. She'll stay until we can find someone else but she doesn't want to hang about for long. She's going to do a stocktake of the products and have a look at the sales figures so we know where we are, but the first thing we have to do is find someone else to take over. Someone new or maybe one of us has to get in there and learn how to do it.' He looks pointedly at Alice, who, Ruby notices, deliberately looks away. There is an awkward silence around the table.

'I think what we should do,' Ruby says, 'is start by sorting out what needs to be done in order of priority. We could also make a list of the various things we each think we're good at and what we're willing to have a go at, then we could sort out who does what, and what other staff or maybe subcontractors we need.'

Declan does his energetic nodding again, and Ruby thinks it could prove to be a really annoying habit.

'Good plan,' he says. 'Shall we say first thing tomorrow morning, over breakfast maybe, we convene for the first Benson's Reach strategic planning meeting around the kitchen table? The good thing is that we don't have many bookings and it's nearly the end of summer. We can plan to keep the place ticking over during the winter months while we re-organise for next summer.'

Alice clears her throat. 'There is something else,' she says. 'I'm not sure if either of you know about this but I discovered it this morning while I was in the office.' She pauses, looking between the two of them. 'There's a file, I knocked it off the windowsill and had to collect up the papers. It's about the music festival.'

'Huh!' Declan laughs. 'Well that's the last thing we need, a music festival. I think we'll give that one a miss, don't you, Ruby?'

Ruby nods. Her festival days are long gone, although not forgotten: the Isle of Wight and Glas...o...b..ry had been part of her new life when she quit Australia and returned to England. But they have more than they can cope with here without getting involved in a music festival.

'The thing is,' Alice says, 'that if I've understood it correctly, you don't have a choice. The festival's in May, and there's a contract . . .'

Declan's head shoots up. 'What sort of contract?'

'Catherine has rented out the five hectares of land on the east boundary,' she says, 'and all the cottages are booked out for that long weekend, and some for a few days either side. There are arrangements for security, a first aid post, coffee carts, sub-contractor electricians and so on. It looks as though Mrs Benson had been working on it for some time, months really, and then she just stopped . . .'

'Phew well thank goodness for that,' Declan says, leaning back in his chair. 'I guess she must have given up on it when she realised she was getting sick.'

Ruby nods. 'Yes, she'd have had to cancel,' she says. 'She'd have known for some time that she couldn't take on something like a festival.'

'She didn't,' Alice says. 'There's no indication in there that she cancelled or even tried to and she was still sending emails about it until the week before she went to hospital. You need to read the contract but as far as I can see you're stuck with it. The South West Jazz and Blues Festival is the last weekend in May, and it's here at Benson's Reach.'

esley knows exactly what she's doing but she just can't stop herself. She's been here for a couple of weeks but somehow on her previous sorties into town she missed this boutique. Perhaps it was the rack of reduced items outside that had made her dismiss it as trashy. Whatever it was, pa.s.sing it today the yellow linen skirt in the window had caught her eye and when she went inside she found a whole range of her favourite labels, and some really unusual locally made silver jewellery. So here she is, squashed into a fitting room with the yellow skirt, and half a dozen or more other things to try on. There's no need for her to hurry she is, as she keeps reminding herself, on holiday, her time is her own but she just can't seem to slow down. Ripping off her own clothes she drops them to the floor and drags the skirt up over her hips without stopping to undo the b.u.t.tons, consequently pulling one off in the process. It bounces on the floor and rolls out under the fitting room door into the shop, but still she doesn't stop.

She's been like this ever since she got here anxious, restless, combing the shops for things she doesn't need, filling carrier bags with purchases about which she is really only half hearted, and then filled with despair when she tips them onto the bed back at the cottage. She's usually careful with money, both Sandi and Simon have accused her of being a tightwad, although Karen, who is more like Lesley herself, thinks she's just cautious. But now it's as though some spending virus has invaded her bloodstream. And it's not just the spending, it's the restlessness. She wakes several times a night, picks up books by her favourite authors and puts them down again, finding she's gone through half a dozen pages but has no idea what she's read. She can't even lose herself in the television or any of the movies she's borrowed from the supply in the office at Benson's Reach, and she's already drunk her way through much of the wine she'd bought on her visits to the local wineries.

Displacement activity pointless, destructive, sickening in all sorts of ways is what she would have told anyone else, but somehow she can't stop, because from the moment she arrived here she has known that she is here for a purpose. There is a lot more at stake than just how she feels about being a confident, independent woman at ease outside her comfort zone. Whether she has propelled herself into a crisis by coming here or she's here because she was already in crisis is immaterial. The walls of her life are crumbling around her and if she slows down, if she stops shopping and drinking and looking for new places to go, then all that's left is herself, alone in a cottage with no one to talk to. The only person who always seems ready for a chat is the cleaner, Pauline . . . no, Paula, she must remember to get that right. Three times the woman has corrected her.

It had started on that first day when Alice left Lesley alone in the cottage. As she watched from her balcony there seemed to be a lot of coming and going. An older woman turned up from somewhere, a younger one was going back and forth between the office and the place where Mrs Benson used to make the lavender products. An ambulance came and went and then, late in the afternoon, it all went quiet too quiet, and she paced back and forth with nothing to do and nothing to distract her. She would go out, she thought, be brave, have a meal somewhere, a nice cafe, her first attempt to eat out alone in the evening. She didn't know why it seemed such a hurdle, she frequently had lunch in cafes alone, but dinner . . . anyway, it was early in the evening so if she went straight away she'd probably feel less weird about it.

On the main street she read the menu outside the local branch of a smart Perth restaurant where she and Gordon had been a few times with friends, but the white linen and low lights seemed a bit too formal to manage alone, and she opted for a smaller, more casual place where she could see a couple of families with children sitting close to the window. Walking in was the hardest part but strangely no one, apart from a very young waiter who gave her a menu and directed her to a corner table, even seemed to notice her. As well as the two big families there was a couple in the far corner, holding hands across the table, oblivious to anyone else. Two elderly couples sitting together were just about to start on their food and to Lesley's relief there were two single women. The older one looked up briefly from her book as Lesley walked past; the other, toying with half a gla.s.s of white wine, was keeping an eye on the entrance, and glancing frequently at her watch, waiting, Lesley thought, for a date to arrive. Coming in early was a good choice; this wasn't anything like as hard as she'd imagined. She ordered King George whiting with steamed vegetables, and a half-carafe of wine, and sat back feeling quite relaxed as the restaurant started to get busy.

It was eight-thirty when she left and by then the place was humming. Tomorrow, she thought, I'll go a little later, see how it feels. Out in the street, walking back to her car, she felt pleased with herself, as though she had overcome some hurdle. Her more independent friends would probably think it a pathetic effort but it was a big thing for her and she had driven back to Benson's Reach in better spirits. But once back in her cottage her mood faltered under the weight of the silence, a silence more sinister than the tense standoff silence at home with Gordon roaming around, waiting and wanting. This was the silence of her aloneness in a place where people came with their families, friends or lovers to be together. She opened a bottle of wine, kicked off her shoes and drank two gla.s.ses rather quickly as she paced back and forth across the lounge, flicking the remote control to find something on television to keep her company. When nothing caught her attention she poured a third gla.s.s and wandered out onto the balcony taking the bottle with her. It was dark by then and where the land dropped away from the front of the cottages she could see the terrace at the back of the main house where Declan, the new owner, was sitting with Alice, and the other woman the older one with the bun who had arrived earlier.

She could catch only the occasional murmur of their voices but it was clear that they were deep in conversation, leaning forward, helping themselves to food. They were a little clan down there, plotting something, intent on what they were doing, oblivious to anyone else. They must know each other well, she thought, old friends perhaps, family even. Sitting alone in the dark Lesley felt the anxiety rising in her gut. The horrifying significance of the way she had left and the impact of her parting words to Gordon gripped her in a panic and a series of possible outcomes raced through her mind in stark jerky images, as though someone had pressed the fast forward b.u.t.ton in her brain. Focusing her attention on the candlelit table, she had watched as Alice cleared the plates and returned with a coffee plunger and cups. Lesley wanted to be down there with them, be part of that conversation, share the coffee and the candlelight, feel the warm lavender-scented air on her skin, anything to take her mind away from what she had done and what might happen next. The longer she watched the more alone she felt, and with another gla.s.s of wine she became convinced that they were deliberately excluding her, talking about her behind her back, laughing about her. You're getting paranoid, she warned herself.

But she hated this sense of being shut out she was, after all, so accustomed to being in her own world and eventually she convinced herself that it would be fine to walk down there and join them. Getting up she went inside and fetched another bottle of wine from the fridge and was crossing back to the balcony when she saw that they were on their feet now, clearing the table, snuffing out the candles. It felt personal, as though they had sensed her plan and deliberately moved on to avoid her. She flopped down onto the end of the bed, enveloped again by anxiety. Maybe she should just ring Gordon, apologise for what she'd said, but then he might think that everything was okay, and even through the fug of wine Lesley knew that it wasn't okay. She had meant what she said but it had come out as something horrible. She put the wine bottle down on the floor and lay back on the bed, drawing her legs up, pulling a pillow down and clutching it to her chest. She began to cry, softly at first, then more intensely until, eventually, she fell exhausted into a deep and drunken sleep.

The following morning she'd woken with a fearsome headache and parched mouth, and her eyes felt as though they had been sandpapered. It was ridiculous, she told herself, a really irresponsible way to behave; she would have a shower, make some coffee, get her head together and start again. But as she emerged from the bedroom, showered, dressed and ready for her coffee, the anxiety grabbed her again, sucking her into its depths and sending her out time and again in search of something, anything, to stop her thinking about the one thing she should be thinking about the reason she is here now, and what she is going to do next.

Now as she makes her way back down the slope of the main street to the car park with a carrier bag of clothes she doesn't need and may not even like, she sees him, Declan Benson, sitting alone at a table on the crowded terrace of the pub on the corner, looking as though he might need a distraction just as much as she does, and she crosses the street and hurries up the steps to the terrace.

'It is you,' she says, dropping her bag onto one of the spare seats at Declan's table. 'I thought so, I thought I'd come in here for some lunch but there aren't any tables, and then I saw you. You don't mind if I join you, do you?'

He looks up startled, as though he's been lost in some world of his own, and moves to get to his feet.

'Oh please don't get up,' Lesley says. 'It's a bit unfair descending on you like this but there's just nowhere else to sit, and you do look as though you might need a bit of company.'

'Well,' he says, shrugging, 'I was just . . .'

'Let me get you a drink,' she says, indicating his empty gla.s.s. 'Wine? We could share a bottle with lunch.'

He holds up a hand, palm outward. 'No, no thanks. Just tonic water with ice and lemon, thanks.'

'And a little gin or vodka with it?'

He shakes his head. 'Just the tonic, thanks.'

Lesley goes to the bar and returns to the table with their drinks and two menus.