CHAPTER 37
Harriet
Dorset
Harriet tried to conceal her shock. ‘When you said, come round to mine,’ she said, ‘I had no idea . . .’
‘I’ve never been into material things,’ said Scott. ‘I’m more of a free spirit, an easy come, easy go kind of a guy.’ He pulled a key from the pocket of his jeans and unlocked the door.
‘Yes, I think I’m beginning to understand.’ And she was. It was like a new dawning. A thunderbolt of empathy and a realisation of what she could do. With Scott.
She followed him up the step and into the camper van.
She could travel, for a start. Anywhere.
Just like Joanna. She was conscious of a sudden dart of loss.
She had so rarely been away from West Dorset and the place was undeniably woven into her veins.
And then there was her mother – could she leave her?
What about the promise she’d made to Father?
But Scott turned around to flash her that smile of his and all these thoughts took wings and flew.
Perhaps, after all these years, it was Joanna’s time to look after Mother.
Scott flicked a switch and a small spotlight was illuminated above her head.
‘You’ve got electricity then,’ she said admiringly. ‘And everything.’
‘Leisure battery.’ He bent to light a compact gas fire tucked into the back wall. ‘And a gas bottle, of course.’
‘Of course.’ It all looked very ingenious.
‘But mostly I use candles.’ He started lighting them one by one, and gradually it came to life.
His home. The sweet little gas cooker, the tiny sink, the fridge, the strip of red carpet.
And the bed. Harriet gulped. The bed dominated everything.
It was covered with a purple tie-dye bedspread and strewn with embroidered Indian cushions – in rich reds and aubergines, bright pinks and ochres.
‘It’s absolutely charming,’ she said. And she meant it. It was such a contrast to the tatty, rambling and run-down Mulberry Farm Cottage. The simplicity of Scott’s camper van almost made her ashamed. This was how people should live – in an ideal world. No one needed so much stuff.
Scott lit another candle and the scent of incense rose in the air, smoky and sweet.
‘Sit down, Harriet,’ he said.
She looked around, but there wasn’t much choice.
She perched gingerly on the edge of the bed.
Did he keep it made up (which wouldn’t leave much room for manoeuvre in the kitchen space) or had he made the bed up before he came out tonight, fully intending to invite her back here to, to . . . Here her imagination faltered.
‘I meditated on your email,’ he said. He got a bottle out of the fridge and splashed wine into two glasses.
‘No, really,’ Harriet said. She shouldn’t have any more. Her head was already spinning. She’d have to take a taxi home and she certainly couldn’t afford that. Home. Goodness. Home seemed a long, long way away.
‘Oh, but I did,’ he said, misunderstanding her. ‘Technology and spirituality can complement one another beautifully. Like earth and water.’ He passed her a glass.
‘Yes.’ She took it. There was nowhere to put it down so she had a sip or two, just to increase her confidence levels.
‘I’m Pisces,’ he said. ‘The dreamer. And I’m guessing that you . . . ?’
‘Taurus.’ She didn’t want him to get it wrong. ‘The bull.’
‘Earth and water,’ he said. ‘There you go.’
Harriet smiled and tried to look as if she understood what he was talking about.
‘Earthy.’ He regarded her seriously. ‘Astute . . . intuitive . . . sensual . . .’
Was she? Harriet adopted an expression that she hoped, somehow, would make her look all four.
Scott flicked a switch and the sound of Indian music filled the camper van and Harriet’s ears; a sitar strumming her soul, it felt like.
She exhaled and leant back a little on the bed.
It was only inches, but for Harriet it was a mammoth journey.
‘How long have you been living here?’ she asked him.
It was only a car park by the football ground, but it was at least next to the river and only a short walk from the town centre.
She tried not to think like an estate agent.
The point was that tomorrow, the camper van could be in Cornwall or France . . . or almost anywhere.
‘I’ve been travelling around Somerset and Dorset since Glastonbury,’ he said.
Glastonbury – yes, she should have guessed. Harriet wanted to ask him how long he would be staying for, but that sounded needy. She compromised on, ‘You travel around a lot then?’
‘When I can.’ He gazed into her eyes. ‘But I believe that the essential journey occurs within.’
Harriet nodded. ‘I so agree,’ she said. What would Joanna say if she could hear her now? I so agree, bollocks . . .
Scott plumped up some cushions and placed them behind her. ‘Relax,’ he said. ‘Would you like me to massage your feet?’
‘Er, all right.’ Harriet needed something – she was a bag of nerves.
He scooped her legs onto the bed and slipped off the slightly too-small black boots she’d borrowed from Joanna’s wardrobe.
Harriet hoped they hadn’t made her feet sweat.
He peeled off her socks one by one without comment.
The touch of his hands was perfect. Not too hard, not too soft.
He began to rub the balls of each foot. Slowly.
Hypnotically. Mmm. She yawned. It was getting harder and harder to remember the all-important first-date questions.
He paused to relieve her of her glass, putting it down on a shelf behind him.
‘I don’t suppose you, er, work, do you, Scott?’ she asked.
‘When I have to,’ he replied. He gave her an enigmatic look. ‘Mine is an alternative lifestyle,’ he elaborated. ‘It wouldn’t suit Mr Average.’
No, and he certainly wasn’t that. He was about as average as a duck-billed platypus.
‘And when you do work . . . ?’ Harriet wasn’t sure why she was even pursuing this subject.
The truth was that she wanted to stop thinking.
She wanted to lie back and be healed by his touch.
She wanted to close her eyes and be transported to heaven.
She wanted . . . But she couldn’t stop thinking.
It was ingrained in her psyche – it had been forever.
Thanks, Father, she thought. ‘What do you do?’
‘I don’t do anything in particular.’ He was working on her left ankle. It would never be the same again. ‘I just am.’
‘Yes, but when—’
‘Shh.’ His fingers were on her lips now. He was stroking her cheek, her hair. ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s not important.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Harriet murmured. What blissful words. With the wine and the music and the candlelight, not to mention the exquisite massage, the tension was at last seeping out of her, bit by bit. ‘It’s not important.’
Scott was undoing the buttons of her blouse. It doesn’t matter.
‘Nothing matters,’ he said. ‘Apart from you and me and the moment.’
‘The moment.’ Why was she repeating everything he said?
Didn’t she have a mind of her own? Harriet wondered if she was drunk.
Not with the wine, but with the sensuality of it all.
She had always worried about tomorrow. And this afternoon, and the next hour, minute, second .
. . She had never, she realised, lived for the moment.
‘In some ways,’ Scott was murmuring, as his fingers parted the thin fabric of her blouse and drew it gently from her shoulders. ‘You are an innocent woman, Harriet.’
‘Oh, I am,’ she breathed. Would he guess that she was a virgin?
Would it put him off or make him want her more?
She couldn’t imagine. It was something that she had been embarrassed about for so long.
Who was a virgin at thirty-nine years old, for heaven’s sake?
And she still didn’t know how it had happened – or hadn’t happened, in her case.
‘And I love that about you.’ He turned his attention to her breasts. Harriet gasped.
‘Really?’ She could hardly speak. What had she been missing all these years? Quite a lot, evidently.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he said, sliding a hand under her skirt. ‘So, so beautiful.’
And Harriet let out a small sigh of ecstasy. Because this was all so wonderful. And because no one had ever, ever said that to her before . . .