Walking Back to Happiness (28 page)

‘I’ve been out with farmers all day, so I had to nip home and change. Didn’t think anyone here’d appreciate what I’ve had to wade through today.’ He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek, once. ‘Fresh air’s one thing, but what goes with it isn’t always so lovely.’

He talked through the kiss, so Juliet didn’t have time to react. When he leaned back, he was smiling, and she smiled too, feeling a little flutter of relief.

First social kiss from strange man.
Tick.

‘Shall we go in?’ he suggested, sweeping his arm towards the door.

As the man at the desk crossed their names off a list, Mark reached out to collect a couple of glasses of sparkling wine from a passing tray and handed one to her. ‘Where’s Minton this evening?’

‘At home. Next door’s keeping an eye on him. It feels a bit weird being here without him.’

‘You two go everywhere together?’

‘We do.’ They were walking through the foyer now, Mark nodding and smiling at people he recognised. He seemed to know quite a few people. ‘That’s the great thing – he’s quite portable. Not like Damson.’

‘Damson likes to think she’s portable,’ he said. ‘I found her trying to get into my rucksack once, when we were on a long hike together. Although she might have just been trying to cadge a lift. She’s not daft.’

Juliet laughed. This was easy, she thought. We’re talking about the dogs again. And now we can talk about the photographs.

She and Mark settled into a relaxed conversation as they moved from one picture to the next, taking in the big blow-ups of Longhampton’s various landmarks, with added dogs and clouds. Mark had the auctioneer’s knack of keeping conversation going; he smoothed over her occasional pauses and panics with simple questions – did she like that one? Did she know where that church was? – and slowly the social party questions started to come back to her. Not too bland, not too personal, just enough to oil the wheels of conversation.

The glass of wine helped, as did not having to maintain eye contact. Once they’d had a look at the main wall, and established how Mark knew Christopher the event organiser and that Juliet thought Chris might have gone to school with her brother, Ian, a warm, bubbling feeling was buoying Juliet’s mood.

I’m having a good time, she thought, with surprise and relief. At an arts event! Even if my feet are killing me.

The space had filled up with more guests while they’d been talking, and the side of the exhibition they hadn’t managed to see was crammed with guests, nearly blocking the view. Juliet was surprised to see what a varied crowd it was.

‘Chris works for the local paper and that glossy
Hamptons Life
magazine you get in dentists,’ Mark muttered in her ear. ‘Which is why you see before you the cream of Longhampton’s media inner circle. And quite a lot of the outer circle as well.’

‘Ooh,’ said Juliet, impressed. Louise would be impressed too. And her mother. Diane sent her brother Ian a subscription to
Hamptons Life
as a way of ‘keeping him in touch with his roots’. Privately, all Louise and Juliet thought it kept him in touch with was Longhampton’s obsession with hog-roast-themed fundraisers and the many faces of the council.

‘Did you . . .’ she began, turning her head. Mark had been jostled nearer by someone moving through the crowd with drinks, and, elevated by her boots, she accidentally brushed his cheek with the side of her nose.

She froze, and he turned round to see what had touched him and did the same. Their eyes met in an awkward panic, and then Mark laughed and stepped back.

‘Sorry! Bit soon in the evening for that sort of thing!’

‘Ha!’ said Juliet, not sure what she felt about the unsettling smell of his aftershave and clean skin.

There was a buzz from the microphone, and the man who’d ticked their names off the guest list got up on the stage, waving his hands for quiet. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began.

‘Oh, here we go,’ said Juliet, but Mark was looking up at the stage.

Juliet tried to calm her nerves by concentrating on the welcome, the speech, the halting thanks from the photographer and then the exhortations to buy, buy, buy from the organiser.

‘Do you want to step outside?’ Mark asked, when the music was put on again. ‘We can see the rest later. I don’t think Chris was expecting so many people to come! Must be the free wine.’

He gestured to the yard outside. Someone had put out tables and chairs, and set tea lights in fishbowls. As the sun set, leaving trails of red in the evening sky, they were starting to glimmer.

‘Yes,’ said Juliet. ‘I could do with a sit-down! My feet are sending “more wine” signals to my brain on behalf of my toes.’

Mark glanced down at her feet and made a gasp of surprise at her boots. ‘I thought you seemed taller tonight. Wow. Those are amazing,’ he said. ‘I have no idea how you’re standing up in them, but they are . . . amazing.’

Juliet liked that response. No sensible observations about her arches, or whether she’d break her ankle, just open admiration. It made her feel unusually glamorous. Unusually . . . flirtable.

She laughed and tottered over to the table, where relief flooded up her hips as she sat down. Mark took another couple of glasses from the tray going round and took the seat next to her.

‘So,’ he said. ‘This has turned out to be a much more enjoyable evening than I thought it would be, when I got the invite. How’s your week been so far?’

The relaxation abruptly stopped. This is the hard part, thought Juliet, racking her brains for conversation. This is where we have to
stop
talking about the photographs and the dogs and have to start talking about each other. The date part.

‘Have you had a busy day, or did you get a chance to enjoy this lovely weather?’ he went on, stretching out his long legs. He wore deck shoes, Juliet noted. Nice deck shoes. Could she ask about his shoes? Was that conversation? ‘Although I suppose the busier you are, the more you
are
outside, right?’

‘Well, we’re well into summer holidays now, so it’s cats and houseplants, as well as the dogs. So far this week, six dogs, six cats, one lot of tomatoes and waiting in for a delivery from John Lewis,’ she said. ‘Who knew some families needed three washing machines? Makes you wonder what they’re washing.’

‘Sounds better than valuing three herds of dairy cattle for auction in this weather.’

‘It’s definitely better than catering,’ said Juliet, with a twinge of remorse that she still hadn’t got back to Kim with a return date. ‘August’s barbecue season for caterers – my boss’ll be singed up to her eyebrows.’

‘So you’re a dog-walker by day, caterer by night?’ Mark arched an eyebrow. ‘Is there a hot-dog joke in there I’m missing?’

Juliet told him about Kim’s Kitchen, and her famous croque-em-bouches, and some of the funny things that had happened with bridezillas. Mark didn’t know the supporting cast of Juliet’s working life, as Ben had done, but he did know some of the clients Kim and Juliet had catered for. His social circle was ‘quite varied’ because of his work, he explained modestly, and he got to hear all the gossip. He made her laugh with the real story of why the bride at the Hanleigh Court wedding had vanished in a taxi, and where the Labradors at the Williamson wedding had taken all the meat for the barbecue.

‘But don’t tell your boss!’ His eyes flashed in the darkness. ‘I promised I’d keep it secret!’

‘Believe me, she won’t want to know,’ said Juliet.

The night darkened around them, but the outdoor heaters kept the chill away, and the candles in the bowls threw flickering shadows on their faces. Occasionally, Juliet glanced over at Mark and noticed the fall of his fringe into his eyes, and the cute way he pushed his glasses up his long nose as he talked. He was easy to talk to, but there was a flutter of something else too. The frisson of the unknown, as the end of the evening got nearer.

The dusk and the hum of conversation from inside the hall made it less awkward to ask personal questions, and Juliet found herself telling Mark an edited version of Ben’s heart attack, and how weird and disorientating the past few months had been, blundering around her new life as if she’d gone blind.

‘Nights like tonight really help,’ she finished. ‘I mean, going out. And doing new things. I’m a bit out of practice.’

‘To be honest, this is the first event I’ve been to in ages myself,’ admitted Mark. ‘Got fed up of people asking where my ex was, having to do the whole story . . . Well, you know what it’s like.’

‘I do,’ said Juliet. ‘But it gets better. People who need to know hear anyway. And you realise you don’t have to tell everyone.’ She risked a personal question. ‘Has it been a long time?’

‘Long enough,’ he said with a wry huff. ‘I moved out last year, but the solicitors have taken their time. As they do.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Juliet. ‘How long had you been married?’

‘Not that long. Two years? It was a bit of a whirlwind romance, always very up and down. The ups were great, but the downs . . . weren’t. We made that fatal error of thinking that a baby would give us something to talk about, which of course is the most stupid thing in the world, I realise now.’

‘So I hear. Don’t they use sleep deprivation and Barney the Dinosaur as illegal torture?’

Mark laughed, then looked sad again. ‘Yeah, it’s tough. If there are any cracks at all, a few weeks of no sleep soon blows them up. And it makes you realise what your real priorities are in life. Neither of us behaved very well. We made a real mess of things, to be honest.’ He shook his head, clearly seeing things in his mind’s eye that he didn’t want to relive, then squeezed his nose and carried on.

‘My ex-wife went to counselling and made me go too, but they basically said what we both knew already – we’d be better off parenting separately. And we are. I mean, the one good thing to come out of this is Tasha. I’d go through all that again a hundred times for her.’

Juliet’s heart gave a little thud at the besotted expression that came over Mark’s face. She could see him glowing, even in the dark. There was something really attractive about a man who loved his children. She’d often pictured Ben with a toddler on his hip, just to admire the handsomeness of it.

‘How old is she?’ she asked.

‘Eighteen months. You want to see?’ He got the photo out of his wallet; Juliet pretended she hadn’t seen it before, and cooed over it.

‘She’s gorgeous,’ said Juliet, thinking of Toby and his chubby hands reaching out for her. Her knowledge of children was pretty limited; she didn’t want to say the wrong thing. ‘So, walking, talking . . . ?’

‘Yeah.’ Mark’s unconscious smile broadened. ‘She’s pretty smart for her age. Although I would say that, I suppose. Doting dad. That was the great thing about flexible working hours around auctions – I got to spend proper time with her when she was little. You might have seen us in the park? Me and the pushchair and Damson?’

Juliet shook her head, although she was smiling inside at the image. ‘I never used to walk Minton, except at weekends. Ben used to take him to work. Daily walks are very much a new thing for him. For both of us, actually.’

‘Well, you’re obviously very good at it. To go from nothing to semi-professional in a couple of months.’

Juliet dropped her head into her hands jokily. ‘Oh God. So my life has come to this – compliments on my dog-walking abilities!’

Mark hesitated, unsure about whether she was really offended, but she lifted her face to reassure him she wasn’t. He doesn’t know me well enough to read my ironic voice, she thought. What if he doesn’t have a sense of humour?

‘Minton’s probably saved my sanity,’ she said. ‘There was a time about six months back when my mum was virtually faking fire alarms just to make sure I could still leave the house in daylight hours. Now I’m walking about six miles a day . . .’ She pulled an amazed face. ‘I don’t like to tell her she was right, but yes, dogs do sometimes give you a reason to get up when you don’t want to.’

Mark nodded. ‘Well, not just dogs. Tonight, for instance. I don’t think I’d have bothered coming if I hadn’t asked you.’

‘Why, thanks,’ said Juliet. ‘I think.’

He caught her ironic expression this time. ‘That came out wrong,’ he laughed, ‘but I meant it in a good way. I’ve had a great evening, and I wouldn’t have had it if you hadn’t been here.’

The conversation petered out as they gazed at each other across the table, and the look in Mark’s eyes made something burn in Juliet’s stomach. It wasn’t quite lust, more like nerves, but it was a start. She wasn’t running screaming from the yard; she was smiling back.

Fielding definite flirty look from man who isn’t Ben
. Tick.

Enjoying flirty look back from under eyelashes
. Tick.

A shape appeared in the doorway. ‘Um, excuse me, but we need to clear the hall now . . .’

It was one of the girls who’d been running the bar, holding a tray with empty glasses.

‘What time is it?’ Juliet pushed her chair back. The lights were on in the hall and people were moving around, stacking chairs and clearing tables. She knew the signs they were sending out from personal experience. If they’d flashed ‘Please go home’
in red lights, it couldn’t have been clearer.

‘Gone ten. That went quickly.’ Mark paused. ‘Do you want to grab something to eat?’

The possibility hung in the air, but Juliet couldn’t quite take it. Leave while it’s all going OK, she thought.

‘I should get back. Minton waits up for me. And I can’t let you leave Damson longer than four hours on her own.’

Mark grinned. ‘Always on duty, eh?’

They stood up and made their way back into the hall. Juliet blinked in the bright light and tried not to notice the pinch in her toes now the numbing effects of the wine had worn off.

‘Hey, where’ve you been hiding?’ It was Chris, the organiser, standing by a big landscape of the railway station from an angle Juliet hadn’t seen before. A quirky blond woman had her arm round his waist and was chatting to another man. As Chris spoke, she turned her head and took in the pair of them. Juliet’s pulse sped up with new-person overload.