Love: A Messy Business (3 page)

She hoped perhaps that she might bump into him in the village, but the reality was that there was little reason for most people to be out and about, unless you wanted a takeaway from The Golden Star chippy or needed to pick up a few groceries from the local Spa.    Most people did their big shop in Gatley, a few miles down the road.  But Kate usually couldn’t be bothered going that far, and anyway her parents did most of the shopping for food.   Besides, her best friend, Liz, worked in the Spa and picking up a pack of gum, a tin of soup or something else was a good excuse to go and have a natter on most days.  They had gone to school together, both junior and senior school.  Then Kate had gone off to University and Liz had stayed behind as, like most of her peers, she’d never had much interest in academics.

Liz had been away on holiday to Majorca for a week so it was time for a proper catch-up.  She was bound to have a nice tan, thought Kate to herself jealously, as she opened the door to the shop.

“Hello, you!” was the welcome she received from behind the till.  It had obviously been a quiet morning as Liz was in the middle of painting her nails.

“Welcome back, you lucky bugger!  Did you have a nice time then?”

“Yeah, it was brilliant.  I’m still knackered though, it was non-stop.  On the beach, down the club, up all hours, you know the drill…”

“Oh I can imagine.  I know you like to try and get round as many men as you can.  How many was it this time?  Did you break your record?”

“I’m afraid not.  I was dead close though.  There was this really hot Swedish guy that was going to be number eleven, but I think throwing up all over him might have put him off.”

“Really?  What’s the world coming to...men are getting so picky these days, aren’t they?”

Liz picked up a toilet roll that, for some unknown reason, was lying on the counter and threw it at Kate.

“Ah, you’re just jealous.  So what have I missed then?  Been fighting the men off with a stick as usual at the Red Lion?

“Yeah, right…although as a matter of fact there was someone interesting in the pub last week…”

“Really?  That makes a bit of a change!  Go on then…spill the beans…”

“Well, there’s not that much to tell.  His name is Colin Love and he’s living at Ashton House.  I’m not sure if he’s bought it or if it belongs to someone else.  The only other thing I know is that he’s from down south.  Actually, I think he must be quite wealthy as well, as I’m pretty sure he left me a twenty quid tip.  He didn’t even buy a drink.”

“Twenty quid? He’s got to fancy you then.  Where you wearing that top?”

“You bet I was – got to use my assets haven’t I? He did seem quite appreciative judging by how red his face was.”

“But is he fit?  And is he single?”

“Definitely yes to the first question, well at least I think so.  One of them metrosexuals – got a great fashion sense as well as a nice bottom.  You don’t get that combination around here. And bloody well hands off him if he is single – I saw him first!”

“Give over; he’s fair game at least until you get a ring on his finger. So tell me a bit more about what he looks like then…”

Kate puffed out her cheeks in concentration as she tried to picture Colin in her head.  She was surprised at how vividly she remembered him, given that she had only seen him once, and only for a few minutes.

“Short, dark brown hair.  Quite tall, probably about 6’1 or 6’2.  Clean shaven. Really nice jaw line. Lovely green eyes…”

“He doesn’t wear a big gold watch by any chance, does he?”

“I’ve no idea to be honest – why?”

“Well there was someone who looked like that in the shop this morning.  I noticed the watch when he handed over his credit card – it looked pretty expensive. He did talk posh…and you said he was rich....”

“Yeah, it probably was him then. Not as though there are a lot of rich, posh people around here, is it? Nice-looking, isn’t he?

“I thought he was gorgeous!  I did try and chat him up, of course, but he seemed in a bit of a rush.  Once I’d packed up the boxes for him, he was off.

“Boxes? What was he buying?”

Liz pointed to an empty shelf, as if that explained everything.

“There’s nothing there.”

“Exactly. He bought every tin of custard we had in stock – everything that was out on the shelf and everything that was in the back.  I think he ended up buying about 30 tins.”

“Well, he must really like custard then!”

“He must do, because even that wasn’t enough, so he bought a few packets of custard powder and ten pints of milk as well.”

“How bizarre is that?”

“Very.  Perhaps he’s having a dinner party and he needs lots of dessert…”

“Dessert?  They’d be knee-deep in the stuff with that much!”

Liz shrugged.  “That’s his problem, not mine.  Anyway, he seemed nice enough.  Speaks really nice and he’s got a nice smile.”

“I’m really hoping he pops in the pub again soon, so I can find out a bit more about him, especially if he’s single. Anyway, I’d best be off.  What time do you finish?

“Bloody eight o’clock – double shift.  I’m paying for that holiday now – well, paying it off.  Too many tequilas!”

Kate nodded sympathetically as she opened the door to leave.  On her way out, she noticed that there was an official-looking white piece of paper on the parish noticeboard on the opposite side of the street.  This was enough of an unusual occurrence to warrant crossing the road to find out what it was.   It turned out to be a notice from the local council, advising of a request by some local resident who apparently wanted to keep pigs and poultry in their back garden.  As this was hardly earth-shattering reading, Kate was just about to be on her way when she noticed a familiar name address at the bottom – Colin Love, Ashton House.

Huh, now that was more interesting.  Kate had not had him down as a farmer – but appearances could obviously be deceptive.  She couldn’t imagine him being the type that would relish all the muck, mud and stench that it would involve – but good luck to him if that was what he wanted.  Perhaps he wanted to rear the pigs for slaughter and the hens would provide lots of eggs to sell – it could be a bit of a cottage industry.

Kate collected her bike from the nearby railings and started to cycle home.  It was uphill most of the way and by the time she got as far as Ashton House, she was in need of a rest to get her breath back and a drink of water from her bottle to fortify her for the remainder of the journey.  It was of course also a good excuse to see what, if anything, was going on there.  As it happened, there was another lorry parked in the driveway.  Not a moving van this time, but a grocery van from OnlineGrocers.com – there was no mistaking the bright orange livery on the side.  A delivery was well under way and there was quite a pile of boxes and containers waiting to be taken inside, some of them big enough to require two people to carry them.  This seemed to confirm Liz’s hunch that there was an impending dinner party.  Or, thought Kate, perhaps there was to be a big housewarming party to which the whole area would be invited.  That would make some sort of sense and would be quite fun as a matter of fact – although of course that would force the guests to actually have to enter the building.  Some might find that a tad disturbing, so perhaps it would happen outside.

Kate made a mental note of the things she wanted to find out from Colin, when she next saw him.  Was he single, obviously?  What was all this about him applying for permission to keep farm animals in the back garden?  And when was this house-warming party going to happen?  She would want plenty of notice so she could book the time off work - it wasn’t as though that kind of thing happened every week, plus who knew where it might lead?

But if Kate was hoping to get some answers soon, she was going to be disappointed.  Over the next week, there was no sign of Mr. Love down at the pub, nor could he be spotted at Ashton House at any of the times she went by as she cycled back and forth to work.  Kate would have assumed that he was off at work somewhere if it wasn’t for the fact that his posh car was always in the driveway, usually along with a different vehicle every day – the only explanation was that he worked from home, doing whatever he did.  That was another thing that Kate wanted to find out.

Kate finally got her chance one evening as she was cycling home from the pub.  It was dark by then of course, which always made her feel a bit on edge, being out on her own on the road – but the other option of taking the bus every night would cost a tenner a week; that was an expense she could do without.  She consoled herself with the fact that biking it was good exercise for her and gave some toning to her legs.  Even so, she often tried to calm her nerves by singing as she rode along up the hill to home.   That was the reason why Colin became aware of her before she became aware of him.  Whoever was coming up the hill and round the corner had a beautiful voice, he thought to himself.

As Kate rounded the corner, she had her head down as she tried to extract the last bit of energy from her legs to conquer the incline.  It was only at the very last second that she saw a vehicle about two feet away from her and swerved violently through sheer instinct.  Happily, she avoided colliding with Colin’s car, but the price to be paid was as steep as the hill she had been climbing – becoming acquainted with a large and extremely muddy puddle that had accumulated on the very top of the hill.    If Kate hadn’t been off-balance, she probably could have navigated her way through it with nothing more than a bit of muddy spray hitting her.  But, as it was, the brakes squealed, the tires slid and, almost in slow motion, she dismounted on her front into the quagmire.

“Oh shit!” were the first words that came from Colin’s mouth as he saw this unfolding, before quickly realising that he should be chivalrous and help the damsel-in-distress.  It was immediately clear that said damsel was not so much distressed as bloody angry.  Colin had to admit he was impressed with the range of expletives that were uttered as she staggered to her feet – a real Tourettical tour-de-force. Colin learnt there and then that there actually such a thing as a Northern lexicon of swearwords.  Before he had the chance to say anything else, Kate had realised who he was and let rip in no uncertain terms.

“You! You stupid bastard!  What the fuck do you think you were doing, hiding round corners in the pitch black?  Look at me, I’m covered in shit.”

Colin’s response to that was notably delayed, quite simply because he had obeyed Kate’s command and could not help noticing that her white blouse had become pretty translucent and that the cold, muddy water had had quite an uplifting effect on her nipples.  Colin found that he had an uplifting effect to deal with as well.

“I’m terribly sorry Kate!  My car conked out just as I got to the top of the hill – must be the battery or something.  I’d just given up trying to get it started and was about to phone the RAC when you arrived. Oh dear, what a complete mess!”

Kate had to admit that this was a pretty reasonable explanation and that there was nothing Colin could really have done. She was less angry now, and more just fed up.  She was cold and slimy and what she could smell made her wonder if there was something other than mud in that puddle – yuck.

Without thinking of the effect it might have on Colin, Kate instinctively cupped her breasts and squeezed them to try and get the worst of the mud off her shirt.  She stopped, a bit embarrassed, as she saw him transfixed, tongue hanging out stupidly like a dog who has just seen a very juicy bone appear on the floor.  As she paused, Colin realized that now was the time to put some chivalry into action.

“Well, the least I can do is get you inside and dried off a bit.  You’re more than welcome to have a shower as well if you want.  There’s plenty of hot water.”

“Thanks, but shouldn’t you get the RAC out to tow your car first?”

“Oh, that can wait until the morning, there’s no rush.  I’m in all day tomorrow.”

“But you can’t leave the car here at the top of the hill!  Some other poor sod is going to collide with it like I did.  Or else the bus is going to come along in the morning and smash it to smithereens.”

“Ah, good point and well made!  But the RAC will take an age to get here at this time of night and it seems a bit daft waiting here for hours so that they can tow it a few hundred feet.   Tell you what – how about I try and push it and you steer it?  I’ll try and avoid the last bit of the puddle that’s not on you.”

“Ha, very funny.”  Kate suspected that Colin was secretly enjoying this a bit too much.  Nevertheless, she couldn’t think of a good reason not to help him out, at least not until she had to sit down in the driver’s seat and felt the unpleasant saturation of her undergarments. 

“Oh, this is just wonderful”, she thought to herself.  “A complete embarassment this evening is turning out to be.”

The electric windows weren’t working of course so she had to open the door slightly to be able to communicate with Colin.

“I’m sorry if I leave a wet patch on your seat.  Really classy, I know.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it.  I knew I should have paid the extra for the leather seats.  You just never know when a woman’s waters will break, do you?”

“You’re a cheeky bugger, you, aren’t you?”

“I try my best,” Colin replied, almost with a straight face, and gave an extravagant bow.

“Oh, piss off…”

Even with the distraction of such delightful banter, it wasn’t that difficult to get the car moved in the end, once they got going and Kate had, in the absence of power steering, finally managed to wrestle the steering wheel into submission.  At first, she had been petrified of steering it into the stone wall on either side of the road, but fortunately the car had soon arrived unscathed in the driveway, on the outside at least.  Colin emerged from the back of the car, puffing his cheeks a bit after the unexpected exertion.

“I’ll just pop back and get your bike.  Don’t want that left in the middle of the road either!”

“Oh crap, yes.  I’d forgotten about the bike.  If you don’t mind, thanks…”

“Not at all, the least I can do…”