Summer at Tiffany's (14 page)

‘You can take the boy out of fashion . . .' Suzy chortled.

‘When have you got to leave for the airport?' Cassie asked.

‘Now, really.'

She pulled a sad face. Their twenty-four hours had flown by too soon, everyone losing precious time together by sleeping late this morning in an attempt to recover from the tequila shots that Gem had insisted upon last night. ‘Are you missing Luis?'

‘What makes you think that?' Bas asked, before gnawing on his fist and making them laugh again.

‘Oh, it's horrible you being separated,' Cassie sympathized, laying her head on his chest so that he could stroke her hair. He had always loved her hair. ‘When did you say you'll see him next?'

‘He's coming over to New York at the end of the month.'

‘That's grim. I know how hard it is trying to keep a long-distance relationship going. I hate it when Henry goes away.'

‘Do you?' Anouk seemed genuinely surprised. ‘In my opinion, absence is the best thing for desire. More people should try it.'

‘Oh Christ, don't tell Arch that!' Suzy said urgently. ‘I'm forever trying to tell him the longer he goes without sex, the less he'll want it.'

Bas and Cassie spluttered with laughter.

‘What? It's not funny,' Suzy said, but chuckling herself. ‘I've not slept in two bloody years. I keep a packet of pregnancy sticks on the bathroom shelf just to put the fear into him and stop him getting any ideas.'

‘Well, he's not going to be bothering you for a while, at least,' Bas said cheekily. ‘That's the last thing his ticker needs.'

Suzy's eyes brightened. ‘Oooh, I hadn't thought of that. Silver lining!'

Everyone laughed, feeling guilty and yet relieved at the same time – joking about Archie's heart attack would have seemed unthinkable even yesterday, but now he was out of danger and had come out the other side, they all had.

It was official – life was back on the straight and narrow again.

The sky was as pink as a sleeping child's cheek when they set off, the cream Morris Minor pulling noisily out of the quiet, immaculate, tree-dotted street and heading west towards the M4. Henry was driving, his head bowed low to keep from knocking against the roof as Cassie struggled with reading the map before her car sickness kicked in. A thermos of tea was propped between her knees, and some bacon baps wrapped in tin foil steamed temptingly beside them.

Henry turned on the radio – Radio 4 on account of the soft-spoken programme presenters; Cassie wasn't renowned for coping well with mornings – his hand automatically coming to rest on her knee and squeezing it gently. Cassie shifted position slightly and stroked the curve of his cheek, remembering their athletics from the previous evening – so much for that early night!

It was impossible to hold hands driving a manual car, but they listened in easy silence as they motored through a slumbering London – enjoying its Saturday-morning lie-in – to the motorways and the countryside beyond. Cassie fell asleep again, the Radio 4 presenters doing their jobs rather too well, dozing through most of the suburbs and missing the stunning vistas of the North Downs. But as the roads grew smaller and more winding, she blinked slowly back to alertness again, far preferring being woken by the sight of heavy-headed oaks and lush wheat fields speeding past the window than the angry red numbers on her alarm clock, shouting ‘5.15 a.m.' at her.

‘Tea?' she asked, weakly reaching for the thermos as they passed the village sign for Midhurst.

‘I think we may as well wait till we park now,' Henry smiled, patting her hand before changing gear and swinging the car through the imposing gates of Cowdray Park, flashing their hospitality pass to the security guard. It was on the nose of eight o'clock and barely anyone else had arrived. In the distance, the castellated ruins of the original great house dominated the outline of the present property where the Cowdray family lived. The two giant polo pitches ran ahead of them, perfectly flat, pristinely striped, as groundsmen buzzed up and down on their specially adapted red machines, scarifying the turf before the thunder of hooves decimated the lawn later on. The grandstands stood empty, the hard green plastic seats folded closed against the strengthening sun, but there were plenty of horseboxes in the competitors' area and Cassie could see some of the ponies being walked by the grooms, others tethered to the posts, their faces in nosebags. The distinctive smell of leather and manure that Cassie had always loved carried on the air, filtering through the old car's basic radiator system, and she unwound the window to stick her head out like a happy dog, inhaling deeply.

Zara had beaten them to it, her tall, skinny olive-green Mark II Land Rover bagging the plum spot of the first parking space in the corner – hence the dawn call – meaning pedestrians coming from either the north or west sides would have to walk right past them.

‘Hey!' she beamed, even that one word clipped with her South African accent, as they parked alongside. She looked very awake and very beautiful as she scampered along the foot rails; her skin was the colour of almonds; big, splodgy freckles peppered her nose and cheeks, and her pale brown eyes always seemed to be sparkling. Anouk thought she could be the most beautiful woman she knew, if only she'd ‘consider her nails'. She was already wearing her usual working uniform of Land Girl baggy dungarees and Peter Pan-collared blouse with boots, her afro kept back from her face with a headscarf knotted at the front. The two of them had decided early on that they would back up the company's retro branding by dressing in vintage themselves and Cassie's look was a prim floral tea dress and pinny, her hair rolled at the front, and red cupid's-bow lips.

Zara was unzipping a safari tent that was tightly rolled to the side of the roof rack so that it looked more like a telescope. ‘What do you think? Good spot, huh?' she called through their open window.

‘For as long as I've known you, you've always been the first to arrive and last to leave any party, Za,' Henry smiled, jumping out of the car and playfully swatting her off the foot rail to deal with the tent himself. ‘Off. Let me, missus.'

Zara laughed gratefully and wandered over to Cassie, who was still sitting in the passenger seat, now munching hungrily on her bacon butty. A smudge of ketchup was smeared on her chin, her eyes closed with satisfaction as the carbs began to work their magic on her tired body.

‘Worn out, are you?' Zara cackled, peering in through the open window.

‘Ugh. I am never waking up in any hour that has a five in it ever again,' Cassie moaned, taking another bite. ‘I bet Jude can't have been pleased having you roll out of bed so early on the weekend either.'

‘She didn't notice. She's like you – she doesn't so much sleep as die for eight hours every night.'

Cassie chuckled, taking another heavenly bite of the bap.

‘Arch OK?'

Cassie nodded – her mouth full – and gave a thumbs-up sign, accompanied with much relieved head-nodding.

‘Great stuff.' Zara patted the open window frame with one hand. ‘I'll start hulling the strawbs. Come and find me when you're a fully functioning human again.'

‘OK,' Cassie mumbled with a mouth still full of food, watching with a different sort of hunger as Henry pulled the tent tight over the collapsible aluminium frame, his athletic physique thinly veiled in his faded black T-shirt and jeans as he set to work with the energy of a child on a six-pack of Coke.

She loved it when he helped out at weekends – if nothing else, he was a whizz at popping the champagne corks – but today his presence felt somehow . . . pitiful. Arch was being assessed in a series of tests, so Henry couldn't ‘fruitfully' spend his day sitting by his bed and cracking jokes, and it wouldn't even occur to him to spend the day on the sofa, but there really was nothing for him to do at the moment. The expedition was done, gone, over for this year at least. Henry was trying to be philosophical about it, agreeing with Bob Kentucky's confidence that there was always next year, but Cassie had caught the pensive expression on his face any time he thought he was alone and she knew he was up in the night, unable to sleep. Because being philosophical and ‘taking it on the chin' didn't resolve the pressing – and alarming – issue of what they were going to do for money until then.

She thought of the lump sum sitting in a bank account in her name. It would solve their problems at a stroke, and yet . . . and yet it felt like blood money, as though in using it –
relying
on it – she was somehow relying on Gil again. Still. And she wouldn't give him either that satisfaction or power. She couldn't.

No. It was better to keep Henry occupied at least. Something would turn up. If nothing else, he'd said he could volunteer to teach at a climbing wall, sailing club . . . She watched as he got the safari tent up in minutes, bashing the pegs into the hard ground with ease. At least it was physical work, manly stuff, better for his ego than hulling strawberries.

As if sensing her scrutiny, he straightened up and turned, flashing her a smile that made her heart pivot. His smile turned into a laugh as he pointed to his chin and she remembered the ketchup on her own. She stuck her tongue out before wiping it off with a Kleenex from the glovebox.

After a quick cup of tea, drunk from the blue lid of the bright green flask, she finally got out of the car, ready to assist in the morning's endeavours. She joined Zara by the back of the Landy, slinging her grass-green ruffled apron on over her dress, and they worked quickly as a team, chatting all the while as they strung up the striped bunting inside and outside the tent, and round the roof rack of the car, set up the champagne-breakfast table, stacked the antique bone-china plates into little towers, bunched the knives, forks and spoons into separate jam jars decorated with ribbons and opened out the antique cream canvas and leather campaign chairs.

When that was done, they took the croissant dough from the cool box and began kneading it into shape, laying the pastries out on trays, ready to bake in half an hour so that they'd still be warm when the first guests started arriving at ten o'clock.

‘Hey, slacker,' Zara said, looking up from her duties and finding Henry briefly reading the letters page of
The Times
in one of the chairs. ‘We're going to need some crushed ice for the elderflower bubbly. Can you go blag some from one of those hospitality tents?'

‘What's it worth?' he asked, folding the newspaper and standing up again. ‘Free drink for me? Free bet on Argentina?'

‘Free kiss from Cassie,' Zara said, reaching for another tub of dough.

‘Done,' he said, sauntering over and kissing his fiancée as she sprinkled almonds over the croissants, smiling at the dusting of icing sugar on the tip of her nose. He kissed the tip of her nose too. ‘Won't be long,' he said, grabbing the two large silver ice buckets and wandering off.

Cassie watched him go with a small sigh.

‘God, I really hope you two
don't
get married,' Zara muttered with a glint in her eye. ‘Your honeymoon period would be insufferable.'

They were lying on the roof of the car, topping up their tans, when Henry came back forty minutes later.

‘Hey! When I said get ice, I didn't mean travel to the polar cap to get it!' Zara quipped, rolling onto her side as Henry pulled the two ice buckets on a trolley behind him. Cassie could barely bring herself to move. The sun, pulsing down on them . . . she was almost asleep again.

He stopped and looked up at them, shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun. He was smiling delightedly. ‘Za, you'll never guess who I just ran into.'

‘No, I don't suppose I will,' Zara drawled with infinite patience. She had been one of his housemates at university and well knew that he was one of those people who knew someone almost everywhere he went.

Henry paused for a beat, bigging up the reveal. ‘Beau Cooper!'

Zara sat upright in surprise. ‘No way! I thought he was dead.'

Henry laughed. ‘I think he has nearly been, several times.'

‘Who's Beau Cooper?' Cassie asked, leaning up on her elbows.

‘Hang on. Let me just get this out of the sun,' Henry said, pushing the trolley into the shade of the tent, heaving the filled buckets onto the breakfast table and wedging several bottles of champagne into the ice.

Zara twisted back to face her. ‘He was at uni with us. One of the Trust Fund Yahs,' she said in a low voice, her lovely mouth twisted into a sneer. ‘Way too handsome for his own good, way too much money. Total junkie – had to be revived twice with adrenalin shots, and that's just the times
I
know about. He was only allowed to stay on account of his father donating millions to the new law library.'

‘Sounds charming,' Cassie said wryly, falling back into her sunbathing position. ‘I can't believe Henry would be friends with someone like that.'

‘Well, I think Henry took a fairly dim view of Beau's lifestyle, but they're alike in lots of ways – both of them free spirits, entrepreneurial mavericks, I guess. Neither one of them conforms to stereotypical expectations; they can't do the suited-and-booted commuter thing. And I think Beau liked the fact that Henry wasn't some sycophantic groupie. If anything, it was Beau who wanted to hang with Henry.'

‘Well, I've never even heard of the guy. Henry hasn't ever mentioned him.' But then he'd never mentioned Gem either.

Henry's face appeared at the top of the ladder, his grin growing as he clambered onto the roof and flopped down in front of them, clearly desperate to share. ‘So . . .'

‘Out with it,' Zara said. ‘You're obviously dying to tell us all about him. Does he still look like Byron?'

Henry shook his head. ‘The hair's even longer now.'