Chapter 12
CHAPTER
TWELVE
The app on Simon’s phone said the trains were definitely running.
After complex calculations involving journey times and whether or not it was possible to get a taxi to come twelve miles down the drive on a Sunday, a remorseful Richard deigned to offer to drop us at the station on the way to Castle Huntley-Templeton for dinner with the in-laws.
Then Temp stood in the middle of the hall, cradling an overly-cellophaned bouquet of roses and a bottle of Scotch, bellowing out a sporadic countdown to departure like she thought she was launching a rocket to the moon while he hared about shoving things into a monogrammed holdall.
“Have you seen my charger?”
“Bedroom, darling.”
“Sunglasses?”
“Here.”
“Phone.”
“Hand. Dicky, do let’s go.”
Sidestepping the swirling vortex of the two of them, Simon leaned against a marble column, methodically adjusting his cufflinks and I loitered about like a fourth wheel left on the pavement next to a Reliant Robin.
A Range Rover that had never seen a speck of mud in its life sat out front, spawned from an underground bat cave at the press of a button.
“Get in. Chop-chop.” Richard hustled us out onto the gravel, bip-bipping the car open. “I’ll do the door.”
Simon and Temp swapped a glance.
“It’s a bit stiff,” all three of them chorused, perfectly in time. Fuck my life. Simon and Temp giggled. What a comedy duo.
SLAM.
I jumped about a foot. The entire front of the house shook as Richard put the full force of his body weight into convincing the slab of oak on hinges to submit to him.
Click. SLAM. Cl–ick.
Surprisingly, brute force didn’t seem particularly effective.
SLAM!
Crrr-aaaaaaCK.
“Oh blast.” Temp sighed. “There goes the other one.”
Slow motion, the lonely gargoyle at the other end of the roof heeled over, clickity-clacking across the slates, building speed like a downhill skier. Hitting the rim, it pitched off the lip of the porch, sailing forwards in a stunted arc before gravity thwacked it down onto the stone steps.
The head fell off.
And its snarling nose hit the waterlogged gravel with a wet crunch.
The four of us winced.
“Well.” Simon tilted his head to one side. “At least now the house is symmetrical.”
Through the back passenger window of Richard’s Range Rover, all the trees bordering the narrow country lane blurred into a swirl of green. We hurtled past a white-painted sign for the station.
Simon double-cheek-kissed with the best of them outside a tiny yellow-brick ticket office.
Mwah-mwah, let’s do lunch. An ivy-covered footbridge over to the other platform spanned the tracks.
It should have had pinafored children waving hankies all along it.
We had to have stepped back in time. Too much rural charm for reality.
Temp leaned out of the window and pelted me with air kisses even though I’d busied myself jabbing at the ticket machine, well out of range.
“Toodles, darling. The pair of you simply must come and see us again!”
They sped off before the tickets printed.
The announcement board on the platform spiralled through a string of pixelated orange stars. The app on Simon’s phone had told us horrible, terrible lies. Next train: never coming. We made it up for the craic. Suckers.
Both of us took our phones out.
“No signal.”
A deep grumbling rumble echoed from the sky. I peered upwards.
“Uh-oh.”
One hand shading his face, Simon peered up at the purple cloud the size of a tower block looming over us. “It’ll clear up in a minute.”
He had confidence. Backed up by absolutely no evidence whatsoever. I nudged his shoe and he turned to me. “You reckon?”
“Absolutely.”
Right on cue, the sun vanquished itself, and someone pulled the rip-cord on an entire melted ice-cap’s worth of rain right above our heads.
We darted for the station wall, both of us pressing in close against the bricks under the twee little overhang of the roof. Water sheeted from the gutter, full on torrenting away down the tarmac, and droplets plink-plunked off the scalloped, white painted edging board.
Simon nudged my shoulder. “You got a coat?”
“It’s supposed to be summer.” Did he think I had a pac-a-mac shoved in my holey carrier bag?
“We’re in England.”
“I repeat: it’s summer.” The lanes were verdant with wildflowers and everything.
“Umbrella then?”
“No.” I tried to scrub the itch of his disapproval from the back of my neck. “Didn’t pack one.”
“Too bad.” He raised an I-used-to-be-a-boy-scout-even-though-Baden-Powell-was-a-racist-homophobe eyebrow, and popped out an immaculate folding pocket thing he unfurled with a flourish.
Inside his little circle of shelter, he drew his wheelie case close in against his leg. His pristine satchel perched on top, held there by sheer wizardry. A hammering drip from the flooded downpipe splattered me with fat droplets. He squashed a laugh.
“Ben, are you always in martyr mode?”
“What?” A spray of wet splotched onto the cotton of my t-shirt, soaking straight in, darkening the fabric.
“Oh, for godsake, that’s my line. Get under here.”
In one decisive motion, he shoved his suitcase out into the rain and tugged me under the tiny umbrella with him.
“Oh. Right. Thanks.”
We were too close to even sign, breath fogging the air between us. Kissing distance, if I stretched up on my toes. Which I wasn’t going to do.
Pointless trying not to look at him though; he was right there, blinking back at me. And he’d need to look at me if we were going to talk. Not that he was saying anything.
Which was fine.
We didn’t need to talk.
No skin off my nose if he wanted to stare into my eyes. Sometimes silence was exactly the right thing. Calm. Peaceful. Really good friends did silence all the ti—Oh, bollocks to that.
“D’you think Sev got enough footage? I mean, you reckon it’s going to look believable?”
“I’m sure she got something passable.”
What a glowing endorsement. “Passable?”
“It’ll be a very short clip.”
Getting on for the best make-out session of my life dubbed maybe just about okay by the other participant. Kill me now.
“Ben, passable’s good.”
“No, yeah, definitely.” Good like a report card stamped A+ for Effort, D- for Achievement.
“Don’t get offended.” He nudged my boring trainer with his patterned shoe and got a grubby wet mark on the fabric. “You did excellent fake boyfriending. And, I—um. Enjoyed myself immensely.”
I nearly nutted him whiplashing my head up to look him in the eye. “You what?”
Immensely enjoyable did not sound like passable. Not even close. Holy hell. The laws of physics must have inverted themselves. Horsemen of the apocalypse were thundering around the corner.
“I mean. Me too. Obviously.”
Laughter in the corners of Simon’s eyes crinkled his skin. “Good.”
Nothing about this meant the clouds were going to part for a flock of bluebirds and rainbows sprouting from every corner. But Simon had enjoyed himself. With me.
“You shouldn’t listen to Richard. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“I dunno...” Oh god – the cringe of Simon trying to prop up my listing ego. “Isn’t he sort of an icon?”
“Ben, he doesn’t have a clue.” Too loud, his voice echoed off the back wall of the station. I could live here forever. Toe to toe with him, watching him watching me, saying things like that, like he really, really meant them.
“Right.” A beaming smile took my face hostage. It wouldn’t let go. The muscle of my jaw spasmed with fatigue. “If you say so.”
Soft rain drummed a murmured patter onto the thin fabric of his bright red umbrella above our heads. Simon peered past it, out of our bubble, up at the sky.
Grey clouds loomed fat and dark and unending. We could be stranded here for hours, huddled together in the rain, staring into each other’s eyes. What an absolute shame.
“This isn’t letting up. Let’s walk back to Heybourne.”
My brain stuttered. “Wh-at? Why?”
Our little umbrella bubble wasn’t going to stand up to the reality of his ex-polycule’s country pile. I’d rather hitch hike back to London. But there was no passing traffic.
I’d rather walk the entire way.
“Don’t know about you, but I’d prefer to figure out our travel arrangements in the dry. With phone signal.”
Ah, logic and practicality. My twin nemesis-es.
Simon set off. The hard rubber wheels of his bag whirred along the tarmac, whisper-quiet, kicking up grit.
A few microsplatters of watery mud sprayed his box-fresh shoes and the bottoms of his trousers with little pinpricks of dirt, but you’d never know unless you were staring at the back of his legs like a totally obsessed nutcase.
Dodging puddles, I darted out into the rain to catch him up, and he held the umbrella out for me again, eyes finding mine as I ducked under. Getting out of the wet made me warm all over. It was absolutely nothing else.
“How are you planning on getting in when there’s no one home?”
“Don’t disappoint me Ben. Surely you’ve jimmied a window before?”
Crouching at backbreaking half-height in the middle of Heybourne’s porticoed rear terrace, I rattled my Tesco loyalty card up and down along the pencil-lead-wide gap between the patio doors like I was trying to swipe the mag strip at the self-scans. That never worked either.
Housebreaking skills: negative.
“Why am I the one doing this?” Twisting to look up at Simon, I rattled at the door to underline how badly it was going. His bright socks peeked at me from beneath the hem of his trouser legs, striped like deckchairs at the beach. With all the gravel on the drive we could have been at Brighton.
“You’re all...” He made a vague hand gesture that wasn’t even pretending to be a sign, circling around me with fluttering fingers looking to snatch the right word out of the air. My skin prickled under the weight of his incoming assessment. “...Practical.”
“Right.” That had to be a euphemism for meat-headed and knuckle-dragging. “Can’t we get a cab and go home?”
Crossing his ankles, Simon leaned against a column like he was posing for one of those smudgy, lifesize oil paintings from way back when. It’d be called Nonchalance, and under the brim of the hat he would be wearing, his hooded eyes would follow me all over the room.
“Mel’s convinced I’ve willfully attempted to torpedo the company she single-handedly birthed in the middle of a recession. She’s not going to pay a ￡300 taxi fare to get us back to London unless it’s for my funeral.”
“Fair point. I’ll get back to it.”
“This has to be easier than you’re making out.”
Apparently I wasn’t failing at a life of petty criminality fast enough.
Dusting myself down, I shoved my loyalty card at him. “You have a go then. Knock yourself out.”
“Rather not ruin my suit.” He waved my offer away like a box of chocolates on the third round.
“Alright. No bother.” My jeans had twin wet patches leaching larger and larger circles into the denim from the puddle on the flagstones right outside the terrace door. My hamstrings screamed at me for crouching too long. And I was starting to shiver. “You stand there playing Lord of the Manor.”
Pushing away from the column he’d been leaning against, Simon stepped in closer, tilting his head to lock my eye contact. “Is that what you think this is?”
Under my blunt thumbnail, I compulsively tick-tacked the edge of the plastic card. The air between us prickled. I couldn’t look away from the fullness of his mouth. “Who am I to argue if you want a bit of breaking and entering alongside your interpretation services?”
Simon took another step. “This is a bespoke suit.”
“Yeah.” I flashed him a once-over, as if his outfit choices didn’t permanently engrave themselves into my memory the moment I looked. Every. Single. Time. “I can see that.”
The sky blue jacket moulded to his body. The cut of his waistcoat was devastation itself. No way Simon was getting down on his knees in a puddle for anyone, no matter how many future daydreams I was going to have about it.
His eyes narrowed dangerously, but a flash of amusement lit his mouth.
“Wait here.”
The soles of his shoes rasped sharply against the damp stone pavers as he pivoted on the spot. Cutting the conversation off dead, he jogged down the steps to the gravelled carriage drive, without so much as glancing back.
Beyond a strip of formal garden brimming with roses, the landscape fell away, the slope of the hill running down towards a pond that probably counted as a lake. Imagine being our age and owning all that. No wonder Simon was happy to get involved.
I slumped against the locked door, thunking my skull on the glazing. No point me calling down to him – he wouldn’t hear. No point staring at him obsessively either.
Simon crunched along the sodden gravel, head down, inspecting the ground like he’d lost a cufflink. Around him everything dripped and glistened as the clouds cleared. He ducked, picking something up and the sunlight shafted down leaving the world behind him wet and fresh and new and flawless.
Tossing a rounded cobble in his hand, he jogged back up the steps. I squinted at him. Silhouetted against the sun, ten feet away from me at the edge of the terrace, he looked like he was glowing.
Uncomprehending, I watched him curl his arm in and wind up, windmilling forward on a darted free-fall step.
The rock shot out of his hand. Right at me.
I dove sideways.
The crack of splintering glass echoed like a shot. My elbow throbbed sick-hot where I’d thwacked it on the pavers.
“Did you just spin-bowl a rock at my face?” The small rectangular pane next to the handle of the patio door had a perfect hole in the middle of it. Right where my head would have been.
Simon folded his arms, crumpling his jacket. “I suspected you’d get out of the way.”
“Play cricket at school did you?” I groused, cradling my arm for an allowable three-point-five seconds before forcing myself to man-up and ignore it. And the seeping wetness all along my leg from the puddle I sprawled in.
Simon flashed his teeth on a laugh, holding out a hand to haul me up. “Didn’t everyone?”
“No.”
“Well, it was either cricket or rugby. I’m far too handsome to risk the depths of a scrum, don’t you think?”
He laughed when I didn’t answer. He didn’t need me to.
And he was already knocking out the toothy glass around the edge of the shattered pane with the side of the rock. Sticking his hand through, he drew the key out, holding it up with a dramatic flourish. Once again, I’d failed the test to get the prize.
“Thought you didn’t want to get your hands dirty?” I grumbled.
“That was my suit Ben, pay attention. Besides,” his smile formed in slow motion, “you’re right — I shouldn’t have asked you. They’re my friends. Much more likely to tolerate minor vandalism from me.”