“We have to win him round.” I force myself to let a pause elapse before I add, as casually as I can, “Do you know where he is?”
“Right now, you mean? Don’t know.” Demeter scrutinizes me. “I’ve been wondering something. Are you two…”
“No.” I feel the color rush to my cheeks. “I mean, we…we…” I clear my throat and get up to make my cup of tea.
“Oh God,” says Demeter, watching me. “You are. I thought so. Oh Christ. You’re not smitten, are you?”
“No!” My voice leaps up like a fish. “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous—”
“Katie, listen. Don’t get smitten.” She sounds almost urgent. “Protect yourself. Don’t let him into your heart.”
“Why not?” I try to ask as nonchalantly as possible.
“Because you’ll get hurt. Alex is—” Demeter breaks off, wrinkling her brow. “He’s adorable. But he’s incapable of commitment. What he loves is novelty. New cities, new ideas, boom-boom-boom. Right now you’re the latest novelty, but before long…”
I remember Alex on the office roof, darting about, enthusing about virtual experiences as if they were the real thing. Then I thrust that thought from my mind. Because it’s irrelevant.
“Look, Demeter, it’s fine,” I say, as robustly as I can. “It isn’t serious. I don’t expect it to go anywhere, it’s just a bit of…you know. Fun.”
“Well, as long as that’s all it is.” Demeter eyes me doubtfully. “But I’ve known a lot of his girlfriends and I’ve seen a lot of broken hearts. You know his nickname? It’s ‘One-Way Alex.’ Because once he’s off, he doesn’t come back. He’s like a one-way ticket round the world; never touches the same ground twice. I’ve seen bright, intelligent girls, waiting and hoping…” She shakes her head. “They know deep down he’ll never come back.”
“So why do they hope?” I can’t help asking.
“Because it’s human nature to hope for impossible things.” She eyes me shrewdly. “You’re in marketing. You know that.”
“Well, don’t worry.” I tear my gaze away from hers. “I have no expectations or hopes or anything. Like I say, it’s just a bit of fun. Fun.”
“OK.” She nods once, then looks at her watch. “I’d better get back to Hal and Coco. See you in the morning. Thanks, Katie.” She stands up, then comes over and kisses me on the cheek. As she does, there’s a knock on the kitchen door.
“Hi,” says Alex, coming in. “Oh, hi, Demeter.”
“Hello, Alex.” She shoots him a mistrustful look. “What do you want?”
“Came to see Katie.”
His eyes meet mine and the intent in them is so visceral, I catch my breath. I have an immediate flashback to the meadow. For a moment I can’t quite speak for lust.
“Hi,” I manage.
“Are you OK?”
“Fine.”
My whole body is quivering, wanting a whole, delicious, uninterrupted night with this man who turns me to jelly. I want his touch. But I want his voice too. His thoughts and his jokes…his worries and sadnesses…his theories and wonderings. All the secret parts of him that I never guessed existed.
“Well, I’ll let you get on with it,” says Demeter, standing up. “Whatever you’re up to.” And she shoots such a reproving glance at Alex, I almost want to giggle.
“Demeter, it’s fine,” I say as she reaches the door. “Really. What you said just now…” I gesture surreptitiously at my heart. “I won’t.”
But Demeter shakes her head wryly. “You think you won’t.”
At about six o’clock in the morning, I nudge Alex’s bare calf with my foot. “Hey, you,” I say. “City boy.”
We haven’t really slept all night. We’ve just dozed and laughed and devoured each other in a bubble of him and me and nothing else. But now the birds are chattering and sun is filtering past my curtains and real life begins again.
“Hmm,” he murmurs, only half-waking up.
“You need to go and sleep in your bed.”
“What?” Alex turns a rumpled face to me. “Are you chucking me out?”
“Biddy will be really upset if you don’t. You’re her first customer. Go and try it out, at least. And, anyway, you don’t want to use my shower. It’s, like, a dribble.”
“In a minute,” says Alex, sucking the bare skin of my shoulder, pulling me toward him, and I succumb because I can’t not; he’s like some magnetic force that just drags me in.
But then, a while later, when we’re both sated, and I’m wondering belatedly if we were a bit noisy, I give him a firmer kick.
“Go on. Be a good B&B customer. I’ll see you at breakfast.”
“All right.” He rolls his eyes and pushes back the duvet. I think it was the description of my shower as a “dribble” that tipped the balance. He strikes me as a guy who might have quite uncompromising shower standards.
“See you at breakfast, then,” he says, heading to the door in boxer shorts. Which isn’t very discreet, but if he bumps into Biddy, he can always say—
Oh, whatever. He can say what he likes. She’s not stupid.
I wait until I’m sure he’s gone before I move. Then I leap out of bed and take my puny shower. I yank on some jeans and a top and creep out of the house in the other direction. I hurry over the dew-laden grass to Demeter’s yurt, say, “Knock, knock!” and let myself in.
Demeter is sitting up in her wooden Ansters Farm bed, wearing pale-gray marl pajamas and one of our alpaca blankets round her shoulders. She’s sipping from a water bottle and tapping feverishly at her laptop.
“OK,” she says, as though we’re seamlessly continuing the conversation from last night. “I’ve remembered something. There’s a whole stack of email printouts in my office.”
“In your office?” I think doubtfully back to the piles of paper on Demeter’s floor. “But won’t Sarah have gone through those and thrown out anything incriminating?”
“Not the ones in the cupboard.” Demeter looks up with a glint. “The ones she doesn’t know about.”
“Doesn’t know about?” I echo in blank astonishment. There’s something in Demeter’s life that Sarah doesn’t know about?
“She got so cross at me for printing out emails that I used to do it secretly. And then I put them all in that big cupboard. There must be hundreds in there. The cupboard’s locked.” She pauses. “And I’ve got the key. Here on my key ring.”
“Hundreds?” I stare at her. “Why did you keep hundreds of email printouts?”
“Don’t you start!” says Demeter defensively. “I suppose I thought I might need them one day.”
“Well,” I say after a pause. “You did.”
“Yes,” says Demeter dryly. “Turns out I did.”
She meets my eye and I feel a sudden rise of confidence. A conviction. She’s bloody well going to win this. Demeter taps again at her computer and I can see her eyes teeming with ideas again. Ideas and anger.
“You seem different this morning,” I say tentatively. “You seem like…you want it.”
“Oh, I want it,” says Demeter, and there’s a steeliness to her that makes me want to cheer. The strong, determined woman I know is back! “I don’t know what got into me last night. But I woke up today and I thought…what?”
“Exactly!” I nod. “What?”
“I am not being fucked over by my own fucking assistant.”
“Hear, hear!”
“The only thing which has come to me…” She pauses and rubs her brow. “I think Sarah must have teamed up with someone else. Some of that information she played around with came from meetings she didn’t attend.”
“Right,” I say after a pause. My mind is already working round the possibilities. “So who do you think…”
“Rosa,” says Demeter flatly. “Has to be.”
“Or Mark,” I say.
“Right.” Demeter winces. “Or Mark. Equally likely. Any other contenders?”
I’m not being very tactful here, I suddenly
realize. It can’t be much fun to think there are so many people out to get you.
“Look, don’t think about that,” I say hastily. “Whoever it was…we’ll find out. But now we need to work out a plan.”
—
Demeter and I march into breakfast half an hour later, side by side. We have a strategy worked out and now we just need to find Alex. Which isn’t hard to do, as he’s sitting at the kitchen table, looking a bit shell-shocked while Biddy piles mushrooms onto his plate. A plate which already holds three sausages, four rashers of bacon, two fried eggs, two tomatoes, and some of Biddy’s famous fried bread, which, honestly, is heaven. (If heaven had four hundred calories a slice.)
“That’s wonderful.” Alex gulps. “That’s plenty. No!” he almost yelps as Biddy advances with the other frying pan. “No more bacon, thanks.”
“So, as I say, Alex,” Dad seems to be concluding a conversation, “it’s a one-off opportunity, which an astute businessman like yourself will be quick to spot. Anyway…” He darts a shifty look at me and crunches a piece of toast. “We’ll leave that subject for now. HP Sauce, Alex?”
“What opportunity?” I say warily.
“Nothing!” says Dad with a guileless smile. “Just chinwagging with Alex here. Passing the time of day.”
“Are you trying to sell him something?” I glare at him. “Because don’t.”
“Your dad was interesting me in a wigwam venture,” says Alex with a straight face.
“Wigwam venture?” I echo, thunderstruck. “Dad, what are you on?”
“Trying to expand the franchise!” says Dad defensively. “If you stand still you go backward, love. There’s a site over by Old Elmford; Dave Yarnett can get us some wigwams….”
I shake my head in despair. “I thought I’d weaned you off buying tents from Dave Yarnett.”
“I could be Big Chief Mick!” Dad makes a Native American–type sign. “The kiddies would love it!”
“Dad, stop right there! We’re not buying wigwams and you’re not dressing up as a Native American….” I wonder whether to launch into a lecture about political correctness, but decide against it. Not the right time. “For so many reasons,” I conclude. “And, anyway, we need to talk to Alex. So could you possibly…” I gesture at him to move, and Dad shifts along the table. “Can you stop the other glampers coming in?” I add to Biddy. “We just need five minutes.”
“Morning, Alex,” says Demeter, and takes a seat opposite him.
She’s got a crisp white shirt on today, and her hair is glossy (she blow-dried it in my room), and she looks calm and focused and on it.
“Morning.” Alex doesn’t seem particularly keen to have her sitting opposite him. “Look, Demeter, there’s no rush, we can do this later—”
“I need another day,” Demeter cuts him off. “Give me one day.”
“Oh, bloody hell.” Alex looks balefully at her and then me. “I knew you were hatching something.”
“One day.” I back her up. “That’s all. It’s nothing.”
“I can’t give you one day,” he snaps. “I’ve already told Adrian that I’ve broken the news to you.”
“We haven’t had a meeting,” shoots back Demeter. “You haven’t explained my employment rights. Nothing’s official. You can give me one more day. You have to.”
“Yes, you have to,” I affirm. “Or else.”
Alex darts a suspicious glance at me. “Or else what?”
“Or else you’ll be a wanker. Sorry, Dad,” I add.
“You go for it, Katie my love!” Dad waves his toast cheerily. “Give him all you’ve got!”
“This is my livelihood,” says Demeter evenly. “And it’s not going to be finished off like this. After all the chances I gave you, Alex, all the support I gave you, you owe me more than that. And you know it.” She sounds scathing, almost contemptuous.
For a moment no one breathes. I can tell from Alex’s flickering eyes that she’s got to him. He’s thinking…thinking…Then, breaking the spell, he sighs.
“OK. Suppose you had one more day.” He shrugs as though to say: What then?
“There are more email printouts in the office. Hundreds of them, stashed away in my cupboard.” Demeter places her hands on the table like a politician. “Let me look through them.”
Alex shakes his head. “Demeter, you won’t be able to step into that office without Adrian being all over you. He’ll march you into talent management on the spot, and you’ll be out before you can draw breath.”
“We’ve thought of that,” I say. “I’ll do it. I’ll pretend I came back for something. No one will suspect me.”
“I’ll give her the key to the cupboard.” Demeter produces her key ring and dangles it. “I’ll write some letter allowing her in. Predate it. I mean, who’s going to stop Katie going in?”
“That might work,” Alex allows.
“It will work.”
“Muffins?” Biddy comes bustling over to the table, holding a basket of muffins. “I’ve got bran…apple…blueberry…Alex!” She looks in disappointment at his plate. “You’re not eating!”
“I am,” Alex says hastily, and shovels a load of food into his mouth. He sits back, chewing, then shakes his head. “Here’s the other thing. Adrian’s expecting to hear from me that I’ve finished the process this morning. Done everything properly. Case closed.”
“Well, fob him off,” says Demeter impatiently.
“How?”
“Be out of signal.”
“All day?”
“Or send him an email. Give him some excuse.”
“What excuse?”
“I don’t know!” snaps Demeter. “Be inventive! Isn’t that your strong suit?”
“Excuse me overhearing,” says Biddy with a beam. “But would you like some help?”
Both Demeter and Alex stare up at Biddy as though the teapot has suddenly begun to speak.
“Well,” says Demeter politely, “I’m not sure how you could help, Biddy. Obviously if you could keep my boss off my back for a day, then I’d be very grateful.” She gives a short laugh.
Alex nods. “So would I.”
“Easy,” says Biddy. “Do you have his number?”
Alex darts a startled glance at Demeter—then a wicked smile spreads over his face and he holds out his phone to Biddy. “Here’s his mobile number. But he’ll still be at home.”
“Even better.” Biddy twinkles at him. “We’ll catch him off guard. Oh,” she adds to Demeter. “He knows your married name is Wilton, doesn’t he?”
“Yes.” Demeter looks intrigued.
“Good!”
We all watch, agog, as Biddy dials the number and draws breath. “Hello?” she says. “Is that Adrian? It’s Biddy here, the farmer’s wife from Ansters Farm in Somerset.” She’s making her vowels creamier than usual, I realize, just like I did. “I’m very sorry to say, sir, both Mrs. Wilton and Mr. Astalis are terrible ill. Terrible ill.”
I can hear some sort of exclamation coming from the other end of the line, to which Biddy listens peaceably.
“Terrible poorly,” she reiterates. “Yes, it’s been quite a night here, sir, with both of them suffering, like. Poor loves. So they asked me to let you know.”
There’s another outburst at the other end, and Biddy winks at us.
“Oh no, sir,” she says calmly. “There’s no chance of them coming to the phone. Although,” she adds brightly, “I’ve a message for you. Mr. Astalis asked me to pass on that what with him being so poorly and all, he hasn’t quite finished the job that he came here to do.” She listens placidly to another eruption from Adrian. “That’s right. Not quite finished, but he’ll get to it as soon as he can. Whatever it is,” she adds innocently.
I glance at Alex. He’s slowly shaking his head, looking both outraged and on the verge of laughter.
“Such a shame,” Biddy continues. “And on their holiday too. Anyway, they’re best off in bed and I’m calling the doctor later. Shall I send th
em both your best regards? Any flowers at all, sir? A Somerset bouquet for each of them?”
She listens again and then rings off.
“He sends his love,” she says with a twinkle, and hands the phone back to Alex.
“Biddy, you’re incredible,” says Alex, lifting his hand to high-five her, and I feel a glow of pride. Then he turns to Demeter and gives her a wry shrug. “OK. Well, there it is. You’ve got your day.”
I’d forgotten the smell of London, the busyness, the crowds. I’d forgotten about coming up out of the tube steps into the hot, concentrated city sunshine, surrounded by people of all descriptions, and thinking, I could do anything, go anywhere, be anyone.
Ansters Farm is like a circle. It is what it is. And you basically go round and round in a peaceful way, never digressing. But London’s like a spiderweb. There’s a million possibilities, a million directions, a million endgames. I’d forgotten that feeling of…of what? Being on the brink of something.
And right now I could not feel more brinksman-like. It’s all down to me. Katie Brenner. As I turn my steps toward the Cooper Clemmow offices, nerves are gnawing at my stomach, but I firmly tell them to pipe down.
Demeter and Alex aren’t with me. They’ve stationed themselves at a café, two tube stops away, because the last thing they wanted was to run into Adrian. But they’re on the phone. We’re all in contact, constantly. As though reading my mind, Demeter texts me:
There yet? x
I pause and send back a reply:
Nearly. All good. x
As I push my way through the big glass doors, Jade on reception looks up in surprise.
“Oh, hi,” she says. “It’s Cat, innit? Didn’t you…”
“Leave? Yes.” I nod. “But I’ve got to pop upstairs, if that’s OK? I left some stuff at the office and I never picked it up. So, you know, I thought I’d pop by….” Oh God. I’m starting to gabble with nerves.
Jade nods. “Fine.”
“I’ve got a letter from Demeter, giving me permission,” I blurt out before I can stop myself.
“I said it’s fine.” Jade gives me an odd look, scribbles a visitor pass, and presses the button to open the barrier.