His thoughts strayed back to Rose. She had been the guilty party who had put a smile on his face on an otherwise bleak and cheerless day. He must have looked particularly chirpy for Gardenia to notice. Normally things that happened on the periphery of her personal stratosphere simply failed to register. It wasn’t even that Rose was particularly attractive – well, she was, but in an ordinary sort of way, not a Gardenia sort of way.
Gardenia was perfection personified. If you took Helena Christensen, Claudia Schiffer, Elle Macpherson and Kate Moss, rolled them all together, pushed them through a person-shaped extruder like Play-Doh, what would pop out would be Gardenia. That good. But a bit older. A bit more brittle. She always looked as if she had spent three hours in the bathroom before venturing a foot out of the house. The trouble was he knew that she had spent at least three hours in the bathroom, which sort of took the edge off it. He’d had to build a second bathroom at Builder’s Bottom just to make sure he got to work in the morning.
Rose was different. She was fresh-faced. Her make-up didn’t look as if she had spread it on with a trowel. She had pale blue eyes that weren’t surrounded by neon stripes of colour or thick clumps of black gungy mascara clogging her eyelashes. Her lips were more or less their natural colour rather than cerise or burgundy or scarlet. Her hair was pretty too; it looked as if it was a virtual stranger to hair gel. She was bright and bubbly and would have been a wonderful person to present the National Lottery show. Such as it was.
Amazingly, she had laughed at his jokes. Really laughed. He was so used to Gardenia sneering at him, he had forgotten what it was like to get a laugh. She would have been a useless straight man. And he had lied blatantly for her when normally he was quite an honest man. He didn’t know if she was a well-respected aromatherapist. She could have trained two weeks ago, for all he knew. Or she could have been one of those bogus practitioners that the Daily Mail was always going on about. And he had absolutely no idea whether she had ever clapped eyes on Cliff Richard in the flesh, let alone laid hands on his body. What on earth had possessed him to say that? You only had to mention minor celebrity and Gardenia was like a dog with two tails. She had a friend whom she had coffee with religiously every fortnight because she was second cousin once removed to Bryan Adams. She couldn’t stand the woman! But she had to keep in touch with her just in case Bryan ever happened to be passing and decided to drop in. That still didn’t explain why he was so anxious for Gardenia to be impressed by Rose, did it?
And why had he felt so light and funny and interesting when he was talking to her? Why had his stomach churned as if he hadn’t had any breakfast when, in fact, he’d eaten three Shredded Wheat? Yes, he was a man who could eat three without batting an eyelid – even four at a push. And why, when it was only Monday and he had the joy of building a new Tesco, was he looking forward so damn much to knocking a few bricks out of a fireplace on Saturday?
Chapter Four
MELISSA
A pale yellow oil with the light fresh fragrance of lemons, which helps to induce a sense of calm and sensitivity. Care must be taken when purchasing Melissa, as this is one of the most frequently adulterated oils, usually with the addition of lemon, lemongrass or citronella. It is difficult to find true, pure Melissa.
from: The Complete Encyclopaedia of Aromatherapy Oils by Jessamine Lovage
‘You’re getting through gallons of this stuff, Mel. You’re supposed to rub it on, not drink it.’ The tip of Rose’s tongue licked her upper lip while she concentrated on pouring almond oil from a five-litre plastic container through an unhelpful funnel into the much smaller glass bottle on the shelf. ‘Your Frank must be the luckiest man alive. Well, certainly the most massaged.’
‘He does like a good rub-down,’ Melissa giggled.
‘Show me a man who doesn’t,’ Rose replied sagely. ‘What do you want me to put in this one?’ she asked, looking over her shoulder.
Melissa was perched on the edge of the treatment couch swinging her legs while she leafed aimlessly through The Complete Encyclopaedia of Aromatherapy Oils by Jessamine Lovage. She reminded Rose of a schoolgirl. A naughty one.
‘You know I like the saucy stuff.’ She giggled again. ‘Something to get them . . . him, going. Those dizzy things.’
‘Aphrodisiacs.’
‘That’s the ones!’
Rose smiled. ‘I’ll use some rose oil, it’s one of my favourites.’
Melissa looked up. ‘So it should be!’
‘And ylang-ylang – that’s really exotic. You like jasmine too, don’t you?’
Melissa’s nose twitched the air like a cat testing the scent. ‘I love it. It reminds me of my Mr Sheen.’
‘I don’t think that’s really the desired effect.’ Rose measured the drops carefully into the waiting bottle of almond oil. ‘But whatever turns you on, I guess.’
‘My Frank loves it too,’ she said, abandoning Jessamine Lovage.
‘Mr Sheen?’
‘Silly!’ Melissa jumped down from the couch and walked to the window. Spreading her hands on the sill, she looked out of the window. ‘Jasmine oil. Well, he likes all the aromatherapy oils I’ve tried so far. He says they make him feel sexy.’
‘I didn’t know Frank was such a goer,’ Rose teased.
Melissa turned and looked at her, perching her bottom on the windowsill, and Rose noticed there was a slightly wistful look in her eye. ‘He’s not really.’ She shook her head. ‘I think he just says it to make me feel better.’
‘Well, there’s a lot to be said for having a rock steady eddy rather than an unreliable raver.’ Didn’t she know! Rose thought for a minute, her pen poised over the specially printed gold label that stated ‘Rose Stevens – Hand-Blended Quality Aromatherapy Oils.’ She decided on ‘Secret Passions’ and her mouth turned up at the corners as she wrote it with indelible ink in the appropriate space.
It really was quite difficult to imagine Frank and Melissa together. They were a fairly unlikely couple. Frank was so steady you probably could have built a house on him. He was tall, stocky and had dark hair flecked with grey, cropped short to suit the dictates of his job. Frank was the local policeman. Not a race round in a squad car and kick down doors type of policeman, but a serious, nineteen-sixties-style one. He rarely smiled with his mouth, but did so constantly with his clear, kind eyes. He had been a confirmed bachelor until Mel bowled him over and whisked him down the aisle before he had a chance to say no.
Melissa was fun, frothy, flirty, feisty and any other frivolous words you could think of beginning with f. She had long fair hair trailing almost to her waist in lazy, natural curls and she had the kind of naive chicness that people in soap operas spend three hours in make-up trying to achieve. Ignoring the vagaries of fashion, her eyebrows remained steadfastly unplucked rather like Brooke Shields’. Her figure was round in a childish, puppy-fat way, not plump, but probably in a few more years she would be heading that way.
Melissa shrugged. ‘I think sometimes the age difference bothers Frank and he pretends to like things that he can’t really be bothered with for my sake.’
‘Come on, there’s not that much between you.’
‘Fifteen years.’ Melissa said it with a kind of hushed reverence.
‘That’s nothing these days.’
‘He’ll be forty soon,’ Melissa protested.
‘That hardly makes him the old man of the sea.’ Having dripper-plugged and capped the bottle of ‘Secret Passions’, Rose started on the next blend.
‘Sometimes Frank treats me like I still wear knee-length white socks and a school uniform.’
‘It could just be one of his fetishes.’ She gave Melissa a ‘you-know-what-I-mean’ look.
‘You know a lot about men, don’t you?’
‘You’re making me feel very old, Mel.’ Rose sighed. ‘I’ve had one or two in my time. Although, I have to say that I’ve had considerably more hot dinners.’
‘I wish I knew a bit more about life, like you.’ Melissa
twisted the wispy ends of her hair between her fingers, plaiting them and unplaiting them with a dexterity that made the habit look as if it was a longstanding one. ‘I’ve only had one serious relationship and that’s with Frank. We hardly knew each other when we got married. People say I rushed him into it – I know they do. Before that it had just been a few furtive fumbles with some spotty local lads who weren’t ever sure whether they’d rather be shoving a hand down your blouse or shoving a frog in your face that they’d caught in the village pond. I bet you’ve known some really sophisticated men.’
‘Sophisticated?’ Rose gave a wry smile. ‘That’s one word for it. Cads, scoundrels, bastards and complete gits are others.’
‘I sometimes think that Frank was the original model for Mr Plod.’
‘Well, you can give me reliability over sophistication any day of the week.’ She abandoned the unwieldy plastic container of oil, which was glugging far too enthusiastically for her liking and looked set to glug on to the work surface if she didn’t give it her full attention. Instead, she joined Melissa on the windowsill.
‘Don’t you miss the glamour of London, Rose?’ Melissa’s lower lip was starting to pout.
‘There isn’t any glamour in London. It’s dirty, busy, expensive and you spend most of the time on the Tube getting your bottom fondled by perverts in pinstripe suits. Where’s the glamour in that?’
She turned and looked out of the window at the garden. There was possibly more moss than lawn and some of the well-established shrubs looked as if they hadn’t been threatened with a pair of secateurs in years, but it was all hers. In London the flat had the grand embellishment of a roof terrace but once you had installed four Homebase wrought-iron chairs, a wobbly table and half a dozen tubs of struggling nicotiana, there was barely room to stretch your legs. Besides, there had usually been a gale force wind up there and, when there wasn’t, the pollution that drifted up from the congested road below hung heavy in a pall of smog and nearly choked you to death. That was not gardening as God had intended.
‘I mean, look at this, Mel. Wide open spaces, fresh air in your lungs, little furry animals rustling about in your borders. A view to die for. What more do you want?’ Melissa looked unimpressed, which was a bit disheartening. Perhaps she would have to get some help with the garden if she was going to illustrate her point.
‘The little furry animals usually wreck your plants and having lived with that view for the last twenty-five years, it does lose some of its appeal.’ Melissa looked at Rose with doe eyes. ‘Eventually,’ she said, trying to be kind.
‘Don’t join the “grass is greener” school of philosophy, Mel. You’ll always be disappointed in the end. The other side of the fence may look a deeper, richer shade but it usually isn’t once you’ve taken the leap.’
‘So is that what made you want to move out of London? The urge to plant pansies in the morning and watch the squirrels eat them for their tea?’
Rose looked at her sideways. Quite often it seemed that Melissa knew more than she was letting on. Rose hesitated before replying. This was getting on to sticky ground. She had moved out of London purely and simply to get away from Hugh. The fact she had ended up in this green and pleasant farmland had been a secondary consideration. The thing was, did she really want to tell Melissa that? She was trying to bury her past, sever all connections, kick over the ashes and make bonfires out of all her bridges. You couldn’t get much more emphatic than that. The best thing would be to keep her mouth shut, claim brainwashing by the covers of Country Life and let the locals be none the wiser. But there was this persistent, nagging, itching, needling urge to talk about Hugh that squirmed through her. Both her mother and her sister were unaware of the tangled life she had been living in London, so there was no chance for any filial confidences and ensuing comfort there. However, there would be endless recriminations and lots of ‘I told you sos’ if they ever did find out. She had bored most of her friends to death with the ins/outs, the will he/won’t he, the could I/would I and all the other dichotomies that had been part and parcel of life with Hugh. And that had been part of the deal too. No more contact with friends. Particularly mutual ones. Consequently, since arriving here she had mentioned him to no one. His name had not passed her lips. It had circumnavigated her brain several thousand times but not once had she ever let it out. The ivory tower that she had built for herself didn’t include a connection to the Hugh helpline – an 0898 number for sad and lonely addicts, pathetic people who weren’t strong enough to give up Hughs on their own. Did she really want to tell Melissa all this? Yes, she did.
She tossed her head back and looked at the tidy stipple of Artex on the ceiling. ‘I left London because I was too cowardly to shave my head.’
‘What?’
‘Sorry.’ She turned back to Mel. ‘I’m being flippant.’ Rose leaned towards her new confidante. ‘Promise that you won’t breathe a word of this to anyone.’
‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’ Melissa’s heart took some crossing, covered as it was by an ample supply of bosoms. She performed some ancient pagan ritual in front of her which was probably supposed to replicate the sign of the cross. It was clear that Melissa hadn’t been in a church for some time.
‘I’ve come here to get away from a relationship.’ Her voice sounded hoarse, as though she was unused to talking, rather than just unused to uttering the H-word.
Melissa was rapt. ‘With a man?’ she said breathlessly.
‘Yes,’ said Rose, suppressing a smile.
‘Was he sophisticated?’
Rose laughed. ‘Oh, yes. The word sophistication was invented for Hugh.’ Why was her voice cracking now that his name had passed the hallowed ground of her lips once more. Bloody traitor!
‘Wowwwww!’ Melissa whispered.
‘He was sophisticated. Devastatingly handsome. Intelligent, charming, witty. He was successful, rich, powerful, great in bed.’ She paused for breath. ‘Shall I go on?’
‘And you left him to come here?’
‘Well . . .’ She might be spilling the beans, but it was worth leaving a few lurking in the bottom of the can. ‘That’s the crux of it. Really.’
‘Wowwww!’ Melissa’s eyes were shining with awe. ‘Get them keen, treat them mean!’
‘It wasn’t really like that.’ Rose’s voice wobbled as much as the wrought-iron patio furniture on their roof terrace had.
Melissa flung her arms wide. ‘This is so romantic!’
‘Romantic?’ Her eyes widened in disbelief. ‘It wasn’t romantic at all.’ She shook her head, shuddering as the last few days she had spent with Hugh shot past her eyes like the frames of a video on fast forward. ‘It was horrible. Painful. Stomach-churning.’
‘Oh, but it is! It’s so desperate!’ Melissa jumped down from the windowsill. ‘I can’t wait to tell Frank.’
‘Melissa! It’s supposed to be a secret – i.e. just between us. Don’t you remember? You crossed your heart.’
‘There’s no need to worry, Frank won’t tell anyone. He’s a policeman.’
‘I know he’s a policeman. And I’m not doubting his integrity. It’s just that it’s private. I wanted it kept strictly between you and me.’
‘Oh.’ Melissa looked crestfallen.
‘I needed to get away from Hugh. He has no idea where I am. It has to be kept that way. I don’t want to be a source of gossip in the village.’
Melissa made an unhappy, huffing sound.
Rose could understand perfectly why Frank envisaged her in white knee-length socks and a school uniform. It wasn’t a perversion, he probably couldn’t help it. ‘Is that too much to ask?’
Melissa tutted. ‘No,’ she said reluctantly. ‘But it’s the most sensational piece of gossip I’ve heard for ages. Nothing ever happens here. It seems such a waste to keep it to ourselves,’ she pleaded.
‘I really would prefer it like that.’ Rose could do a fair amount of pleading herself when push came to shove.
‘Okay
.’ Melissa was suddenly sunny again. ‘What time is it?’
Rose felt slightly perplexed as if she’d pushed an on/off switch which she couldn’t see. ‘Just after two.’
‘Oh hell! I need to go. I’m due at the vicarage. I’m doing an extra day for Dave.’
‘The Reverend Allbright?’
‘Mm,’ she nodded. ‘I have to go in the afternoon today because there’s a bible study in the mornings and they can’t hear themselves think when I’ve got the radio on loud. And I can’t hear the radio over the Hoover unless it’s on loud. Dave didn’t think that Job and Jon Bon Jovi went together that well.’ Melissa pulled a roll of notes out of her pocket. ‘Personally, I thought it livened the whole thing up a bit. But there’s no accounting for taste. What do I owe you for my oils?’ She waved the roll in front of Rose.
‘Heavens above, Melissa! You couldn’t walk around London with a wodge like that, you’d be mugged within five minutes.’
Melissa flushed. ‘It’s the money I get from Dave.’
‘You must do a darn sight more for him than rub round with a bit of Flash to warrant that lot.’ Rose winked knowingly.
Melissa’s skin surged from radish red to beetroot. She straightened her sweatshirt over her leggings. ‘I’d best be off then.’
‘Aren’t you going to wait till I’ve blended your other oils? It won’t take a minute.’
‘No. I best not. I’ll take the one you’ve done and leave this on account.’ She thrust fifty pounds into Rose’s hand. ‘I’ll pop back for the others in a few days, if that’s all right. We can have a cup of tea.’
Rose looked in astonishment at the crumpled notes. ‘Fine,’ she said hesitantly. ‘Fine.’
Melissa headed for the door. ‘Oh, and Rose?’