The First Time I Saw Your Face (12 page)

‘We don’t bite, do we?’ Finlay said, indicating the group with a sweep of one of his long arms, and Jennifer looked around for somewhere to hide. Neale leaped up as if his piles had just burst into flame. Sitting down, she ducked behind the fuss of getting out her A4 pad and a pen.

Finlay called the meeting to order, and she glanced up to see Doug was watching her, and when he smiled, encouragingly, there was such sweetness in his big face that she wished she felt able to smile back.

She was aware that this new guy, Matt Harper, was sitting off to her left and she guessed he would be staring at Finlay with a glassy expression, and that wild horses wouldn’t get him to look her way again. She’d seen it
before; he’d be sorry he couldn’t have handled it better and now terrified that if he did look at her again it would seem as if he was gawping.

She wrote the date on her pad and forced herself to concentrate on Finlay working his magic, enthusing them all with his eagerness. Keep her mind on that, and the first shockwave of humiliation would go.

‘So, another Shakespeare,’ Finlay said. ‘You did such a fantastic job on the Scottish play it’s a pity to let all that experience go to waste.’

‘Not to mention the scenery,’ Doug added.

People laughed and Jennifer saw that Matt Harper was about a beat too slow to join in, as if he was only doing it because he’d suddenly realised everyone else was. Probably as chewed up as her. She noted how Lisa had managed to bag the stool next to him.

Well, her first impression of him, the one she’d grabbed before scurrying behind her hair, had been right: he was good-looking. The kind of good-looking that made all your nerve endings shift about. Certainly the sexiest guy she’d seen since she’d come back home. Brown hair, quite shaggy, with a slight wave in it, and brown eyes. Bit of stubble. She looked down at her pad of paper. Made her think of a pirate somehow; all he needed was an earring. A pirate in a horrible jumper.

‘What do we know about
Twelfth Night
then?’ Finlay said when he had their attention again.

Jennifer wrote down ‘Twelfth Night’ on the pad for no other reason than it made her think about something
other than what had just happened. She turned her head slightly so he was just on the edge of her vision. Despite his lumpy jumper, Matt Harper looked quite athletic, not solid. Nice legs. Good hands.

‘
Twelfth Night
isn’t a tragedy, of course, but it does deal with the big themes – love and its delusions, deception, mistaken identities. A twin brother and sister, Sebastian and Viola, get shipwrecked and each thinks the other is dead. Alone in a strange land, Viola dresses as a man …’

‘Whoa, it’s that kind of play is it?’ Doug asked, again to much laughter.

‘… and gains employment with a duke called Orsino. Now, this duke is in love with a lady called Olivia, and he gives our Viola the task of carrying love messages to her. But Olivia doesn’t want the Duke and the poor woman falls for Viola, whom, obviously, she thinks is a man. In the meantime, Viola herself has fallen for the Duke.’

‘Just a normal day on
The Jeremy Kyle Show
,’ Angus joked.

Jennifer wondered why she had imagined this Matt Harper would be middle-aged.

‘Will it be in modern dress again?’ someone asked.

Jennifer wrote down ‘modern dress’ and looked at the words as if they meant nothing to her.

‘No, Elizabethan costume this time.’

Jennifer distinctly heard Lisa say, ‘Have you ever worn a codpiece, Matt?’ and Jocelyn, sitting opposite, looked at Matt Harper as if she wanted to take a bite out of him.

‘Jealous Jocelyn,’ Jennifer wrote on the pad and then
hurriedly scratched it through and replaced it with ‘Elizabethan costume’.

Why do I always have to be on the outside looking in these days?

‘The important thing with Shakespeare,’ Marjorie announced, ‘is speaking the verse properly. So few people can. Clear enunciation, feel the rhythm, don’t gabble. Feel, feel, feel.’

There were a few covert smiles around the group, but Finlay practically left the ground. ‘Exactly, Marjorie. You’ve hit the nail on the head again.’ The way he clapped his hands together suggested he wanted to start rehearsing right there and then.

Was it envy she was feeling now? She didn’t know, hard to tease it out from the other feelings of discontent. It was these moments of meeting someone new that made her feel most cruelly the gap between what things had been like before and what they were like now. She could still remember that delicious feeling of being at the start of something; recognising that the other person found you as attractive as you found them. The teasing and pirouetting of a good flirt. All gone. She wasn’t even going to think what a man would do if she came on to him.

‘Scripts are on the pool table,’ Finlay said. ‘Auditions Monday, hall over the road as normal. Isn’t that right, Jennifer?’

She started. ‘Isn’t what right?’

‘Village hall,’ he said patiently, ‘booked for Monday for the auditions?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Six thirty, no, sorry, seven thirty. Um … No, it’s seven … seven … Sorry.’ Brilliant. Now Matt Harper was going to think it wasn’t only her face that had got damaged.

‘So, Jen will pass round a pad. Put your name on it and whether you want to act or help backstage.’

Matt Harper put his hand up.

‘Can you give me some idea of the timescale involved, for rehearsals and then the play? Sorry, the rest of you probably know all this off by heart.’

‘Matt, my dear man,’ Finlay said using the heel of his hand to pummel at his forehead, ‘I am an idiot. Everyone, this is Matt, here writing a book, comes from –’ Finlay raised his eyebrows and Matt said ‘Bristol’, and a couple of people made ‘ooh arrr’ noises before Finlay went on – ‘In answer to your very sensible question, we only have a six-week rehearsal period, but it’s three rehearsals a week – Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, plus some Sunday afternoons as we get nearer to performing. Play dates? Thursday, April fifteenth and Friday, April sixteenth. Just before Easter. All quite intense, I’m afraid.’

Jennifer saw Matt Harper put on some glasses and write something in a notebook. Now he looked like a pirate who probably had A-levels in piracy. She passed the pad to Pamela on her left.

‘So, Harper?’ Lisa’s voice drifted across. ‘Probably Viking blood in you. They were always round here pillaging. How’s your pillaging?’

She didn’t hear Matt Harper’s reply because Pamela had
reached out and grabbed her hand. Jennifer braced herself. Poor Pamela, she saw herself as a caring, sympathetic person and would be mortified to know people called her ‘the leech’ behind her back.

‘Are you all right, Jennifer?’ she said, her head at an angle and her thick glasses magnifying her eyes so that she seemed like a very caring owl. ‘Only I couldn’t help noticing that awkward moment with the new man, can I just suggest—’

‘Sorry, Pamela,’ Jennifer was already getting up, ‘I’ve just remembered I need to help bring the sheep in for the night.’

Pamela blinked. ‘The sheep in—’

‘It’s something new we’re trying; keeps them safe from rustlers.’

‘But, but—’

Jennifer left Pamela’s buts behind and found Doug.

‘I think I’ll head home,’ she said. ‘Could you say bye to Finlay for me, tell him I’ll call him tomorrow?’

‘Aye, will do.’ Doug looked across at Pamela. ‘And ignore the leech, you’re doing canny. Just think, this time last year you couldn’t have handled being here at all; now you’re back and fighting.’

Funny how Doug’s sympathy bolstered you up, not sucked the lifeblood out of you with its mawkishness. Pamela could have learned a thing or two if she’d stopped talking long enough to listen.

‘Bet you, this time next year, it’ll be you back auditioning for the main parts. That’ll wipe the smirk off Jocelyn’s face.’

‘Language, Doug.’

‘Sorry. That
cow
Jocelyn’s face.’

‘Much better.’

She left the pub after that, not looking in Matt Harper’s direction.

Doug was right, this time last year she couldn’t have sat in a crowded room; she
was
making huge strides. But, however big they were, she’d never arrive back where she used to be. She’d never be sitting where Lisa was now, chatting unselfconsciously to an attractive man just after meeting him, or believing that if the magic was right, she might find herself alone with him later and discover what lay beneath that horrible jumper.

And she couldn’t imagine how that was ever going to make her feel any less miserable than she did right now.

‘Do you have any bloody idea what time it is?’ O’Dowd’s voice stormed out of the phone.

Standing in the absolute blackness of a Northumberland night, perched on Peter Clarke, Mack thundered back, ‘It’s twenty past eleven, I’m still in the same time zone as you up here … and I’m ringing to tell you I’m not doing this. No. Never. No.’

‘Ah,’ O’Dowd said, ‘you’ve met her then? How bad is it?’

‘You bastard. You should have told me, you should have said something.’

‘Thought it might have been a deal-breaker. Anyway, think about it. This makes it easier – she’s got low self-esteem.
Good-looking guy like you giving her a bit of attention bound to make her come on side quicker.’

‘What, you couldn’t find any blind kittens I could kick to death instead?’

He knew he should be freezing, but all he could feel was red-hot hatred for O’Dowd. ‘I’m not doing it. Not to someone already damaged.’

‘You’re doing it. As agreed. Rory Sylvester has sent Cressida a car; he’s never done that before. Can you imagine if her and him get together? The bloody world’s going to go apeshit, not to mention his wife. Little South American spitfire, and her dad’s that director who wins all the prizes for foreign language films—’

‘Not listening.’

There was something that sounded very much like a growl from O’Dowd’s end of the phone.

‘You’d better listen, my son, or I’ll start up with the little drip-feed pieces in the paper to keep the public’s anger alive. You know, something about new evidence emerging that Sir Teddy might have had a lover. Yah-de-yah-de-yah.’ That raspy laugh got a little outing. ‘I knew you’d go all touchy-feely on me. Mack the Knife? More like Mack the Old Wife. Nasty little seam of pity in you, a mewling conscience. You’re doing this, or Phyllida gets it, the whole family gets it.’

‘We’ll cope,’

‘Really, how exactly does a four-year-old cope, or a seven-year-old? They’re going to have a lovely time in the playground: Granny’s a traitor and a dipso. Probably have to
leave Bath. Can’t see that brother-in-law’s business getting many orders after this, can you?’

Mack couldn’t think of anything that would draw the sting out of those words.

‘Put your bleeding heart away and get the job done. Anyway, you didn’t say how bad it is. Looks repulsive in the photos. Want to know what happened?’

‘Bugger off,’ Mack said, but O’Dowd told him anyway.

‘Went through a windscreen one Saturday night after drinking at a party in Manchester. Daft bint didn’t have her seat belt on. Her and Cressida were in the car—’

‘Wait, what? Cressida was with her, I’ve never seen that anywhere?’ Out of habit Mack looked over his shoulder as he spoke.

‘Did a trade-off, dished the dirt on one of her past lovers, anonymously, of course, in return for a total news blackout on the accident. Her management are a fierce bunch. Juicy details she coughed up too, remember? It was about the guy who liked to use—’

‘Thanks. I’ve got the picture.’

He finished the call and then listened to the messages on his own phone, including one from Tess saying she was glad he’d arrived safely. Trudging back to the cottage, he tried to hang on to the comfort of her voice. He sat in the armchair and stared at the depressing pile of grey ash and cinders in the grate.

However much he rammed his head against the problem of Montgomery and Phyllida, he couldn’t force a way
through. Phyllida, at a pinch, he could sacrifice, but never Tess, Joe and the girls.

He thought of Jennifer again and closed his eyes. Perhaps then that scar wouldn’t dance in front of them. But closing his eyes only made the scar appear more livid, and so he opened them again and went upstairs, unlacing his boots, taking off his socks and just sitting there with them in his hand until the cold got too much and he wrapped himself in his duvet and lay down.

This whole thing stunk worse than he imagined. He’d always known that he ran the risk of landing up in court, that O’Dowd would deny having hired him, but he’d reasoned that it was better he got hung out to dry than his whole family. But when he saw that face …

Get a grip, get this back into proportion. All you’re doing is getting her trust. You’re not going to tell her she’s beautiful or try to get her into bed.

He turned over, but his doubts and worries followed him into his new position.

How low had he fallen? She already looked pretty fragile to him.

He turned over again.

It’s her or the whole family. Make a good job of it and ask for forgiveness later.

If only he’d got a glimpse of her before she’d seen him, though, then he could have had a different expression on his face, not the one of … what was it? Disgust?

The lousiest possible start. She’d have erected the barricades against him already. If he imagined the task in front
of him as a journey from London to the Rosebys’ farm, at this moment he was somewhere off the coast of France. And, if he didn’t do something quickly, he was probably in danger of drowning.

CHAPTER 10

Jennifer watched Sheila throwing the books down on to the floor to form two rough piles.

‘But just getting community service is good, isn’t it?’ she asked.

‘Yeah, it means he won’t get locked up, but knowing bonehead Reece, he won’t learn his ruddy lesson.’

Jennifer made some soothing noises, but Sheila was off again: ‘And you know what Loopy Lionel downstairs had the nerve to suggest? Massage. Not for me, mind you, but for Reece. Lowers the levels of aggression, evidently. Said the penal system in Sweden has been getting very good results.’