Lots of Love (45 page)

‘Really? Has he said something?’

‘I haven’t seen him lately.’ The goosebumps sprang to attention as they always did when she spoke about Spurs.

‘I see him around all the time.’ Dilly sounded surprised, then thought about it, pressing the roller to her chin. ‘Maybe it’s fate.’

‘Maybe.’ Ellen painted carefully around a light fitting.

‘I believe in fate. Like him coming back to the village this summer.
And
I’ve just studied
Romeo and Juliet
for A level.’ She waved the roller excitedly, revealing a white beard where it had been pressed to her chin.

Ellen was too jumpy at the subject matter to risk arguing about the spurious connection between the two. The Bellings and the Gentlys were hardly the Montagus and Capulets of Oddlode, but Dilly’s romantic interpretation was pure teenage Juliet, and Ellen was a reluctant Nurse, listening to her flights of fancy. Somewhere in the outskirts of her mind, this triggered a thought she couldn’t quite grasp – something or somebody Dilly reminded her of.

‘I can’t see Spurs making a very reliable husband,’ she mused, before remembering suddenly that Glad Tidings had said Hell’s Bells was determined to marry him off. She felt spiteful fingers pinching her heart.

‘I don’t want a stockbroker, I want a soulmate,’ Dilly said petulantly.

Ellen tried to imagine Dilly having anything approaching a normal marriage, and couldn’t. It would be wild and wonderful, and almost certainly disastrous unless she found somebody wild and wonderful enough to take her on. Then her pinched heart turned over as she registered that she was being handed a golden bow and a poisoned Cupid’s arrow.

They did look beautiful together, Ellen conceded, thinking back to the day in the garden. They would have stunning children. Perhaps Dilly was the angel Spurs needed to lift him from disgrace. They could be eccentric and lawless together in the decrepit old Lodge. He could paint and ride and revel, and she would have his babies. If only the mothers-in-law could see the sense in it . . .

‘I thought you two got on really well.’ Dilly was fishing, radiating as much heat as a Ready Brek kid.

‘I hardly
know
him.’ Ellen turned to look into those sparkling green eyes, caught up in a frenzy of goosebumps and heart rush. ‘But I know his soul very well indeed. I recognised it straight away.’

‘You did?’ Dilly didn’t think this odd at all. ‘And what’s it like?’

Ellen bit the corner of her mouth before saying truthfully, ‘It’s very like mine.’

‘You fancy him, then?’ The plump lower lip was thrust out huffily.

‘Oh, Dilly, he’s not my soulmate,’ she lied. ‘We’re sole survivors from two separate shipwrecks that washed up on the same shore – or, in our case, the same landlocked village. I’m leaving as soon as I can float this boat.’ She jerked her head around the room. ‘Spurs only stopped by to help me put it back together – like you are.’

‘Like me.’ Dilly drew in a little breath. ‘That is
so
beautiful.’

Ellen coloured against the white wall she had just painted, aware that she had got thoroughly swept up in Dilly’s ingenuous fairytale world of love-ever-after.

‘It
is
fate, isn’t it?’ Dilly smiled widely, cracking her painted white beard. ‘Village fate!’

Ellen nodded. It was, in fact, a village fate worse than death, as far as she was concerned. Meeting Spurs was confusing enough, but playing the Good Witch to his wizardry and to Dilly’s Dorothy made her want to join Richard in Oz.

By late evening, they had painted the dining room. Dilly dashed home to check whether Godspell had gone and to invite her mother back for a drink, leaving Ellen to scrub paint splashes from the flagstones. A strong wind blew blossom in through the open door and drew long, mournful breaths in the chimneys.

Ellen folded up the old sheets that she had used to cover the furniture and carried them through to the sitting room, ready to tackle it the next day. Dilly had been right. The white walls transformed the dining room, so that moving between it and the dark reds of the sitting room was like walking from heaven to hell. Fitting, then, that she was in hell when she heard hooves on the lane and looked out to see Spurs riding past on Otto with Dilly walking beside them, chatting eagerly. Spurs was dressed in an old hay-covered sweatshirt with a rip in one shoulder and jeans so faded they were almost white. His cheeks were high with colour and, from the dark sweat glistening on Otto’s neck and flanks, he had clearly been for a gallop.

He reined Otto to a halt at the gate and Ellen ducked down to peer out through a vase of orange chrysanthemums strategically placed by Poppy, cursing Snorkel who was barking an ecstatic greeting from her tether. The wind was buffeting Spurs’ curls and whipping Otto’s pink mane into a Mohican as he snorted nervily, nostrils flared like two red trumpets.

‘Ellen? Are you there?’ she heard Dilly call, and ducked down again, accidentally catching the lip of the chrysanthemum vase with her baseball-cap peak and knocking it over so that a litre of smelly flower water cascaded into her cleavage. She lunged just in time to catch the vase as it rolled off the window-sill and clutched it to her dripping chest, holding her breath. Why was it that every time she saw him, she got absolutely soaked? Still, at least it cooled her down.

‘Ellen?’

When she took another peek, she could see Spurs’ forehead creased as his silver eyes watched the window. He said something to Dilly, and shook his head.

Dilly was clearly trying to persuade him to hang around, pointing first at the cottage, where Ellen was lurking, then down to the paddock where Rory’s jumps were still set up from a fortnight earlier. But Spurs just laughed and reached down to ruffle Dilly’s hair before he rode away.

Ellen felt a stab of pain so sharp in her fast-pumping heart that she gasped. She couldn’t believe how jealous she felt, just because Spurs had made an affectionate gesture towards Dilly. She was in agony, and close to tears. It was pathetic.

‘Oh, wow, oh, wow!’ Dilly gasped, as she dashed inside. ‘Ellen? Where are you? Something so fantastic has just happened! Oh – you poor thing. You’re all wet. Jesus! You’re bleeding!’

Ellen looked down to see red marks spreading through the wet fabric of her grey T-shirt. ‘Shit!’ She’d been clasping the vase so tightly to her chest that it had cracked, a sharp edge cutting into her skin. She put it carefully to one side and pulled up her T-shirt to look. ‘It’s okay – it’s just a scratch.’ She watched the little beads of blood gathering in a fringed line along her breastbone.

Dilly dropped to her haunches beside her and started gathering the orange flowers from the flagstones, breathless with excitement. ‘Spurs has just asked me out!’

‘Really?’ Ellen asked in a strangled voice, mopping up water with one of the sheets, burning with envy and self-loathing.

‘Yes – I just met him coming down the bridleway when I was walking out of the gate with Godspell. Mum says she’ll be over in ten minutes, by the way, she’s just taking a shower.’ She was talking far too fast in her excitement. ‘You’re so right – it’s fate! It’s fate! I just stepped out and there he was, like magic, asking if I was busy tomorrow night.’

Ellen closed her eyes for a second. ‘How . . . fateful.’

‘I know! Oh, God, Ellen – Rory’s going to be there so I really, really need your help. Oh, please, say yes. You see, it’s a sort of double date . . .’ The big green eyes watched her pleadingly.

Ellen’s heart crashed so hard at the thought of a night out with Spurs that she expected showers of blood to spring from her T-shirt. ‘I’m not sure, Dilly. I’m pretty busy at the moment.’ Who was she trying to fool?

‘Oh, please, Ellen. I’m helping you paint.’

‘Your mother will be livid.’

‘You mustn’t tell her!’ In alarm Dilly let the chrysanthemums fall to the floor.

Ellen knew she must come across as an ageing stick-in-the-mud, but she was sinking into emotional quicksand. ‘Won’t she want to know where you are?’

‘That’s where I need your help.’ Dilly bit her smiling lip. ‘Can you say you’re taking me to the cinema or something to say thanks?’

‘I don’t like lying – especially to a friend.’

‘You’re
my
friend too,’ Dilly whined. ‘It would mean
so
much to me.’ She snatched up the flowers again. ‘I haven’t seen Rory since I got back from school – Mum still won’t get the moped fixed and it’s too far to walk to Upper Springlode, particularly if he’s not interested.’ It seemed that even a soulmate didn’t merit a three-mile uphill hike. ‘I don’t know how I feel about him any more, but I’m dying to see him.’

And I’m dying to see Spurs, Ellen thought wretchedly. I know I shouldn’t. I know we’re bad for each other, and he’s up to no good.

But she couldn’t help herself. The moment he reappeared from the shadows, the socking great torch she was holding for him lit up with a million candlepower, searching him out. It was all very well teasing herself with the idea that he and Dilly were the Bryant and May of perfect matches, but she couldn’t make herself forget the inevitable fact that she and Spurs were as combustible as a lead azide detonator and a lump of gelignite.

‘So you really want to see Rory?’ She wondered if she could cope with Spurs playing her off against Dilly, if that was his game. She doubted she’d last five minutes, and poor drunken Rory wouldn’t have much fun either.

‘Totally.’ She nodded. ‘Can’t you see how kismet this whole thing is? This way, I can decide whether I fancy him or Spurs most.’

And, meanwhile, I do what exactly? Mark them both out of ten for you? Ellen wondered murderously, regretting her earlier encouragement.

‘My only worry is that bloody Godspell will snitch.’

‘Why should she?’ Ellen turned to look at her.

‘Because she’ll be there, stupid.’ Dilly giggled, burying her face in the broken chrysanthemums. ‘Didn’t I say? She’s the other girl coming on the date.’

‘Godspell?’ She wanted to throw herself on the broken vase. She was, it seemed, a wrong-end-of-the-stick in the mud.

‘Yes – I can’t believe she agreed to it, but I guess it’s impossible to say no to someone as gorgeous as Spurs, and it’ll make a change from staying in her room watching horror movies on satellite. I had no idea Spurs knew her. In fact, I’m sure he doesn’t. Oh, he is
so
fantastic – he must have remembered that I said Godspell and I had fallen out and is trying to mend the rift for me. You don’t think he fancies her too, do you?’ She looked worried.

‘I’m sure you’ll have Spurs and Rory clamouring for your attention – along with Godspell.’ Ellen was staggered by Dilly’s egotism.

‘Oh, I do hope so, that would be
so
cool.’ Dilly smiled happily, and Ellen realised who she reminded her of: Queeny from
Blackadder II,
a joyful narcissistic caricature of girl power, winding up Nursey and Lord Melchett with her capricious demands and her petulant reminders ‘Who’s queen?’

‘So will you help me?’ Dilly cocked her head winsomely. ‘And can I please, please borrow something to wear? You have such trendy clothes and Mummy’s been such a bitch about money lately – she won’t let me buy anything.’

Ellen only wished she had a trendy chastity-belt.

‘I’d love a tattoo like yours. Will you do a temporary one on my shoulder for me? I got a henna kit for Christmas.’

‘How about a badger?’ Ellen suggested evilly, overcome by an urge to write a message warning Spurs off.

‘That would be lovely! A badger catching a butterfly – I can sketch it out for you first if you like.’

‘Sure,’ she agreed reluctantly, trailing into the bootroom to rinse off the flower water, aware that she smelled as foul as her thoughts.

That evening, Ellen knocked back an uncharacteristic three glasses of wine with Pheely in the Goose Cottage garden while Dilly – as high as a kite caught in a whirlwind romance – threw Snorkel’s ball again and again, doing handstands and cartwheels like a six year old.

I did a handstand the day Spurs granted me my first wish, Ellen thought angrily. He did a handstand the next day. Now he’s got Dilly at it. Perhaps circus tricks are catching.

‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ Pheely sighed indulgently. ‘I was never that pretty.’

‘I’m sure you were.’ Ellen decided that Pheely was, in fact, far more beautiful than her buxom blonde daughter – who was, in truth, immature and rather gingery. ‘You’re still absolutely stunning.’

‘Oh, you are sweet – like the loveliest little sister – but I’m going to seed faster than the cabbages in Reg Wyck’s allotment. I just wish I had your looks.’

Ellen, who had never been confident of her beauty, particularly after years without a single compliment from Richard, found herself asking vainly why Pheely would want to look like her.

‘Oh, come on!’ Pheely reacted a bit snappishly, already working her way through a second wine bottle. ‘Look at you – blonde, blue-eyed, tanned, a figure to die for. Most women must hate you. You could steal half the husbands in this village if you wanted to.’

‘I don’t want a husband,’ Ellen said idly. ‘I want a soulmate.’

‘Bollocks.’ Pheely giggled, reaching for the bottle again. ‘No such thing – just lovers and other animals. And very good friends.’ She chinked it against Ellen’s glass.

‘Dilly told me,’ Ellen started cautiously, checking that the girl was still doing gymnastics out of earshot, ‘about her father. She said that he was your soulmate.’

‘Did she?’ Pheely said archly, spilling wine over her knees.

‘Sorry. You probably don’t like reminding. It’s terribly sad.’

‘What exactly did she tell you?’

‘That he was killed in a motorbike accident when she was just a baby.’

‘Oh, that one – I didn’t think she used it any more.’ Pheely smiled fondly at her daughter, who was dangling her feet in the pond now and teasing Snorkel with the ball so that the clown-faced collie plunged in and out of the reeds, sneezing at the water in her nose.