Lots of Love (33 page)

‘Not longer than six months, I believe.’

‘Is it cancer?’

‘I don’t know – maybe.’

Ellen gently took the hosepipe from him and twisted off the sprayer. It seemed so strange that he knew so little compared to the way her family had coped with her father’s illness, acquainting themselves with every medical fact at their disposal, reading books and searching the Internet for information until they were better versed than the cardiologist.

‘Nobody in the village knows, so I’d be grateful if—’

‘I won’t tell a soul,’ she promised.

‘Thanks.’ He looked down at his wet feet. ‘She’s always said they’re made of clay – and here’s the proof.’ He laughed bitterly.

‘But you came home to prove otherwise?’

He stepped out of the loamy puddle and prised off the sodden trainers. ‘I guess so. The prodigal son and all that. Take your shoes off.’

Ellen sensed there was a lot more to it, but he wasn’t saying. He took the hose back and rinsed first her feet, then his own before leaving the water running into the pond.

‘Have you thought about your other two wishes?’ He stared at the bubbling water, desperate to move away from his tragic secret.

‘You’ve granted more than three already.’

He stared into the black depths, a crooked smile on his lips. ‘Oh, you don’t get away with it that easily. That’s just wishful thinking.’

‘Then I wish I didn’t think so much,’ she said idly.

‘Wish I couldn’t read your thoughts?’

‘I was thinking just that.’

‘I know.’

With their trainers drying side by side they knelt in front of the bed and started to dig in plants. Ellen couldn’t bear Spurs’ sadness. She longed to cheer him up, however temporarily. ‘Let me buy you a meal tonight to thank you for this,’ she insisted. ‘If you don’t mind eating at the Duck twice in one weekend?’

‘You’ll never get a booking.’

‘Somewhere else, then – the Oddlode Inn?’

‘I’m under a lifetime ban,’ he admitted, not looking her in the eye. ‘Besides, they don’t serve hot food. You can cook for me if you like.’

‘I don’t really cook,’ she confessed, the customary fear gripping her at the prospect of anything involving a pan, a hob and a smoke alarm.

‘In that case I’ll just have to settle for strawberries and lot sixty-nine.’

‘Lot . . .’ Ellen’s heart hammered as she recognised the number only too well. ‘You bought
my
promise?’

‘It was a fair trade. Mind you, I had to fight for it – Giles had bribed the auctioneer, I gather. Thankfully, I have her ear.’

Oh, hell. Ellen buried her hot face in a tray of garish dahlias.

Ellen tried to cram back as much lunch as possible in the hope that there wouldn’t be enough supplies left for supper so they’d have to go out after all. But they had picked more strawberries than the Wimbledon crowds could consume on men’s finals day, and the huge hunk of cheese that had survived from the day before was still as big as a brick, even after she’d stuffed her face with the doorstep sandwiches she’d lobbed together.

‘Worked up an appetite flying around earlier?’ Spurs watched her bulging cheeks with amusement, no longer melancholy.

‘Something like that.’ She thought about the way he had made her cry afterwards and found she couldn’t swallow.

He threw the crust from his sandwich to Snorkel. ‘It’s a beautiful place. I haven’t been up there for years. We used to go there as kids – play dare.’

‘Ever do that dare before?’

‘That was at least a double dare,’ he teased her, silver eyes egging her on to play verbal catch. ‘And no, we never got the girls to do double dares.’

They eyed each other childishly, and Ellen felt the sparks light her touch-paper as always. ‘Does that mean I get to dare you?’

‘If you like.’ He smiled, but his eyes hardened warily. ‘What did you have in mind?’

The tension stretched out between them like taut elastic. He knew her well enough already to guess she wasn’t going to challenge him to naked mud-wrestling in the flower-bed.

She fanned her T-shirt and chewed a corner of her lip, risking a wild card because time was running out. ‘I dare you to apologise to Pheely.’

‘That’s not fair.’

‘I think it is.’

He ate a strawberry, threw the stalk on to his plate. ‘I’d rather gallop Daffodil’s horse down from Broken Back Wood.’

‘I doubt she’d let you do that.’

‘Want a bet?’ His eyes sparkled.

‘No. You mustn’t ask that of her. It’s not fair. The horse might get hurt – then Pheely would never forgive you.’

‘Otto’s Dilly’s horse. I bet she’d let me.’

‘You could kill him.’

‘And me? What if I got hurt?’

‘You’d be more likely to get hurt apologising to Pheely.’ She was suddenly incensed. ‘That’s what you’re really frightened of, isn’t it?’

‘Fuck Pheely.’

Ellen felt her arteries boiling, all pity abandoned. ‘I
dare
you.’

‘To fuck Pheely? No, thanks.’

‘To apologise to her!’

‘Never. I’ll ride that hill every day and kill a hundred horses until I shatter my spine first.’

She looked at him levelly. ‘You’re such a coward.’

‘I’m not!’ He hulled half a dozen strawberries, laying them out in front of him like ducks in a shooting gallery. ‘They’d love it round here if I broke my back.’

‘Maybe it would break the rod you’ve made for it?’

‘The only rod I can feel is the one between my legs that wants to fuck you.’ He popped the strawberries into his mouth one at a time as he stared her out.

‘Oh, grow up.’

He laughed. ‘I thought you loved me?’

‘Not when you’re like this, I don’t.’ Ellen stacked the plates together, grabbed the strawberry bowl and carried them inside.

‘I haven’t finished!’ he complained, following her and snatching strawberries. ‘And what d’you mean “when you’re like this”? Like what?’

‘Where do I start? Self-pitying – reckless – headstrong – crude as oil.’

‘Just like you, then?’

‘I’m not crude.’

‘Oh, you are. And you want to get a whole lot cruder with me right now.’

She slammed the plates down on the kitchen surface. ‘I didn’t know you before, but frankly I’m finding it hard to swallow the “I’ve changed” line. You don’t seem to care about another soul – human or animal – apart from yourself.’

‘Don’t you believe I love you, then?’

‘That joke’s worn thin. I’ve enjoyed your company these past couple of days, and I’m really grateful for your help. Honestly. But you are one of the most changeable, unpredictable and screwed-up individuals I’ve ever met.’

‘So are you.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I’m not surprised Richard pissed off. Two days with you is hell – how the poor sod lasted thirteen years is a miracle.’

‘You bastard!’

‘You bitch.’

She threw a strawberry, which bounced off his chest. He lobbed a tea-towel back. She launched a handful of strawberries and half a baguette. He retaliated with a kitchen roll. She scored a direct hit with the cheese. He played an underhand shot with a wax lemon from the artificial fruit arrangement and laughed when it ricocheted off her forehead into the sink.

‘This is
not
fucking funny!’ she howled, then hurled a plate, which he only just managed to duck. She stormed outside to the pond, which had filled to overflowing. Picking up the hose, she turned back to stop him chasing her outside.
‘Don’t
come any closer!’

‘Or what?’ He slowed to a walk.

‘You get wet.’ She held up the hose.

‘Oh, I am
so
scared.’ He carried on walking towards her.

‘I mean it!’

‘How wet would I get?’

‘Bloody wet.’ She turned the jet from a trickle to a blast and wagged it in the air, inadvertently showering herself with drips.

‘As wet as you are now?’ he asked.

Thinking he was referring to her lack of hose control, she glowered at him.

‘As wet and slippy and hot and bothered and horny and turned-on as Ellen?’ He spoke in a hypnotic chant.

Ellen felt the hosepipe wobble as her hands started to shake.

‘Deny it.’ He was still walking towards her. ‘Deny you’re so wet you don’t know what to do with yourself.’

‘Get lost.’

‘You can’t, can you? You can’t deny it.’

She thrust the hosepipe in front of her and let him have a gallon full in the face.

‘Yeaaaaaaawwwwwwwwww!’ The next thing she knew, thirteen stones of muscle-power had rugby-tackled her and she was flying backwards, his arms around her waist, straight into the pond.

‘You b-b-bastard!’ she spluttered, choking on the water.

‘Bitch!’ He held her under.

She hammered at his chest and kicked out, convinced for a moment that she was fighting for her life. She should never have crossed him. He was capable of murder. He’d tried to kill her once already that day – sending her off on a crazy parachute jump for a dare. Now he was drowning her. Well, she wasn’t going without a fight.

‘Owwww!’ he wailed, as she scratched his face hard. ‘Get off!’ He was still laughing.

Splashing away from him, Ellen realised that perhaps he hadn’t been trying to kill her, after all. Breathless, heart hammering, she managed to stand upright, only to find his hand on her ankle, pulling her over again.

She kicked out as she fell and caught him hard on the chin.

Totally submerged, she felt the water rush through her nostrils and down the back of her throat as she gulped it into her windpipe by mistake. In the gloom, she could see a hand reaching out close to her face and she batted it away, kicking back with her legs to get as far away as possible. Her head burst out of the water, and she made a lunge for the bank, dragging herself up on to the reed bed and spluttering as she fought for breath, laughing and gagging as she went. Then she turned back to the pond.

‘You bast – oh, shit!’

He was lying face down in the water, motionless.

‘Oh, shit!’ Ellen plunged back in, realising that she must have knocked him out when she kicked him. She turned him over in the water and cupped his chin, towing him to the edge before heaving him out by the arms.

‘Spurs! Spurs – can you hear me?’ she called, hauling him into the recovery position and prising his mouth open to check his airway. It was clear. She reached for his pulse, looking urgently around for help – but Hunter Gardner was not at his lookout for once, and the lane was empty. She could hear children playing in a distant garden and a lawnmower moving further away.

His heart was beating hard and fast.

‘Spurs. Wake up!’ She slapped his cheeks and rubbed his back to encourage him to cough.

That was when she realised he was faking. She’d been through enough life-saving dummy runs to know the difference between practice and the real thing. She’d only done the real thing twice – both times assisting rather than life-saving – but she knew that people on the verge of drowning didn’t open one eye when they thought you weren’t looking.

‘Oh, Spurs, don’t die,’ she begged melodramatically, stroking his forehead. ‘You might be an unmitigated shit with no morals, but I would miss you.’

He started to splutter.

‘That’s it! Live, my darling,’ she encouraged. ‘How else am I going to beat you to a pulp? I can’t do it when you’re dead.’

He spluttered some more, but his eyes stayed shut.

‘Spurs, if you think I’m going to give you the kiss of life, you can lie there faking it as long as you like – this laughing gear is going nowhere near your pond breath.’

He spat out a great shower of water and opened his eyes. ‘Damn.’

‘Feel better?’ she asked sweetly.

‘You really wouldn’t care if I died, would you?’ His silver eyes glittered.

‘Not right now.’

‘I’d have cared if you’d died running down Broken Back Hill like a lunatic with an oversized handkerchief tied to your arse.’

‘Only because you thought you’d get the blame if I did.’

‘True.’

They exchanged a long look of understanding.

‘Don’t ride Dilly’s horse down it.’

‘I wasn’t going to.’ He sat up, shaking his wet hair and spitting out more water. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

‘Fine.’ She squeezed the water from her own hair and pulled at her T-shirt, which was clinging like an Ibiza nightclub competition winner’s. Then she went to switch off the hose, which was dancing like a maddened snake and drenching Hunter’s chicken pen.

Finally, she lay down at a safe distance from Spurs to dry off a little too. However alarming, the dunk had cooled her off. She could hear the storm rumbling in the distance, but overhead the sun still scorched out of big blue gaps in the gathering clouds.

‘We’d feel a lot better if we got it over with, you know,’ he called.

‘Got what over with?’

‘Screwing each other’s brains out.’

She hoped nobody was walking along the lane. That drawling voice carried. ‘Forget it. It’s not going to happen.’

‘Shame.’ He was doing his light, clipped, play voice again. ‘Too soon after Richard?’

‘Yup.’ She closed her eyes, adding silently, and I’ve lost my nerve.

‘Dare you.’

‘It’s your turn to do a dare, not mine.’

‘Name it.’

‘I already have.’

‘Can’t do that one.’

‘Do a circus trick, then,’ she muttered impatiently. ‘Disappear.’

He laughed. ‘On Psychotto?’

‘If you like.’

‘If I do, will you kiss me?’

‘No – but I’ll cook tonight.’

‘Just who’s being dared here?’

As predicted, Dilly turned up at exactly the same time she had the day before. Otto exploded through the gates and almost charged straight into the replanted beds when he spotted the sparkling pond now bobbing with lilies, the little fountain trickling at one end.