Page 6

chapter

six

That afternoon, I walk down to Con’s house. The village is very busy, and I watch as two coaches pull up, unloading their store of pensioners onto the street.

Con’s house is set at the end of the village behind two huge black iron gates that today are wide open. Dodging two old ladies who are peering inquisitively in, I make my way up the rutted drive.

It’s a bit like walking into a jungle. Plants overhang the path as if trying to take it over, and I can’t see the brick walls that form the property’s perimeter. I often wonder if Tarzan is here lost and wandering amongst the hollyhocks while Jane is shopping at the deli in the village.

The drive widens, and the house comes into view. It’s huge and one of the oldest buildings in the village. It’s built of Cotswold stone and is a rambling old house that’s utterly charming. However, in keeping with the wild look, it’s seen better days, and those were years ago. Window frames are rotting, and the woodwork definitely needs new paint. Some tiles are missing from the roof.

I shake my head as I climb the stone steps to the huge front door. Even this shows its age, the paint pitted and peeling away.

I press the doorbell, and when that doesn’t work, I give up and open the door. “It’s me,” I call. “Con?”

Nobody answers, so I wander into the huge foyer from which an ornately carved wooden staircase rises to the upper storey. I put my overnight bag down and take a right by the staircase. Traipsing down a stone-flagged corridor, I stick my head around the kitchen door. This is a huge room that runs the length of the house, big enough to house a dining table and chairs if he had one. Instead, there’s a wide-open space in which is set a lonely packing case, on top of which is a mountain of unopened post. The sight makes me twitch.

The kitchen units are so old they were probably fashionable when Prince Charles was a child. Some of them have been torn out, leaving gaps like teeth in the run of units. It’s also missing a work surface as he’s torn out half of it, and it lies on the floor.

I look around. Despite the building site air of the house, I still envy Con. If this were mine, I’d have opened up skylights in the kitchen and put in bi-folding doors to take advantage of the uninterrupted view over the fields beyond the house.

“Awful, isn’t it?” Tim’s voice makes me jump, and I twist to find him leaning against the door to the dining room and watching me.

“What’s awful?” I ask reluctantly.

He gestures with the hand holding a cup, and liquid slops onto the floor that he makes no attempt to clean up. It rankles, but I suppose I can see his point in this mess.

“This place. I couldn’t believe it when Con drove up. I mean the size of it. It must be worth a fortune, and look at it. It’s falling apart.”

“He has his reasons,” I say steadily.

This was Con’s parents’ house. From what I’ve heard from him and stories that David told me, they bought the house with a view to doing it up. Con’s father was something big in finance at the time, but he had a wild hair and decided to do it himself. As he was away so much, this took a long time, and they lived in a state of perpetual chaos. However, from what Con says, they were very happy, and his parents found the whole thing endlessly entertaining.

However, on their anniversary, they took a weekend away by themselves to celebrate, only to die when their plane crashed. Now, Con lives here alone, held in chains by a house he can’t leave but doesn’t want to restore because then he’ll lose the last final memories of his parents.

“I hope they’re good reasons,” Tim sniffs. “Because I can’t put up with this. It’s a shithole.”

“Then go home,” I snap. “His reasons are good, and it’s up to him what he does. No one else has a say in it. Least of all you.”

“What do you mean by that?”

I sigh, wanting out of this conversation with him so badly that I itch. “I mean that you’ve only known him properly for a few days. If he gets round to telling you about the house, you need to listen to him and not try to force through your agenda. He needs someone to be with him as he is and not as you think he should be.”

“Is that what you did with your husband? It didn’t seem to work very well.”

I stare at him, unbothered by his barbs. “No,” I finally say. “I didn’t do that with my husband. He wasn’t Con.”

“What’s going on here?”

Con’s voice makes us jump, and I turn to face him. “Just talking,” I say quickly.

“So it seems.”

Tim huffs and walks out of the room without saying another word.

“Trouble in paradise?” I say sweetly.

Con scrubs his hand over his neck. “Hardly paradise. More a huge misjudgement on my behalf that’s currently landed me in purgatory,” he mutters. He looks at me. “You ready to go?”

I gesture to my outfit of black skinny trousers and a pink filmy shirt. “Does this not look ready? Does this not scream I am prepared to talk pop culture while Con sighs and languishes in an artistic sulk because no one knows what a treble clef is?”

He snorts. “Any sharper and you’ll cut yourself.”

“Better other people than myself,” I say, looking after where Tim vanished.

Con shakes his head. “Come on. The motorway’s going to be hell if we don’t get a move on.”

“Shall we take my car?”

“Only if you want me to stay crunched over like a human sausage roll. Otherwise, we’ll take mine.”

“Someone got out of bed the wrong side this morning,” I observe.

“Only if we’re counting bed as being the floor in the lounge.”

My heart sings at the fact that he’s not sleeping with Tim, but I make myself sniff disapprovingly. “Musicians are wild,” I observe and follow him out.

It’s late afternoon by the time Con flicks the indicator and turns down a gravelled drive between two stone posts. The drive curves upwards and out of sight.

“Blimey. Matching your musical instruments to your pants is certainly lucrative,” I observe, breaking the silence that fell a while back.

I tried my best on the drive to fill the usual comfortable silence with chatter, but even I was forced to give up when all I got was monosyllabic grunts. All my work in the lavender field to get him to relax appears to have been useless, and it’s been like travelling with a grumpy caveman. So, half an hour ago, I gave up and read a book on my phone.

Con looks around and huffs. “I’m not looking forward to this.”

“Neither am I,” I say, finally losing hold of my patience. “But it’s got to be done. Just smile and think of the money, for fuck’s sake.”

“You should have that written on a T-shirt.”

“I will, and if Jimmy wants a guitar to match it, you are going to do what?”

He rolls his eyes. “I’m going to make it.”

“Good.”

“For that cultural desert of a man,” he adds.

“I can’t hear you,” I state. “My ears are still ringing from your enthusiastic agreement to my little lecture.”

“ Little lecture? You are to little lectures what Bluebeard was to female emancipation.”

I can’t help my snort of laughter, but it dies as we come out onto a circular drive.

“Jesus Christ,” I breathe.

The house is an old manor house that is positioned next to a river. The last rays of the sun caress the old bricks and dance on the windows.

Con switches off the engine, and I grab his sleeve. “If he wants thirty guitars, Con, what are you going to do?”

“I am making thirty guitars,” he says in an obedient voice that is slightly spoiled by the robotic tone of his following comment. “Whatever my lord and master wants, I will obey.”

“Good,” I say. “I’ll charge him accordingly. Our prices just went up for custom stuff.”

“Ruthless,” he says admiringly.

We both watch as the front door swings open, and the figure of Jimmy appears.

He’s an ex-boy band member who went solo and struck a chord with his sunny personality and perfect face. He’s made a series of chirpy upbeat records that you can’t help humming along to and then feel deeply ashamed. I guess they paid for this house. That means I must own a roof tile or two. Not that I have any intention of telling Con.

Jimmy is in his early twenties and has a lithe frame, probably from all his dancing on stage. His blond hair is artfully tousled, and he’s wearing jeans that are so tight they might cut off his circulation and a sleeveless shirt that shows off two sleeves of colourful tattoos that he had done as soon as he walked out of the band. He’s also leaning heavily on a walking stick.

“Do you think we should branch out into making designer crutches?” I say consideringly—Con’s head swings around, displaying a face of thunder. “Okay, maybe not,” I say quickly.

I throw my door open. “Mr Fitch,” I say. “Hello. Hope you’re okay.”

He grins at me, and I blink at the powerful smile displaying teeth that are whiter than Lucy’s geraniums in the village show.

“Frankie,” he says. He looks down at his stick. “Oh, this,” he says carelessly. “I sprained my ankle in rehearsals.” He eyes me. “It’s lovely to see you again.”

“We’ve met?” I realise it sounds rude, so I modify my tone. “Oh, of course,” I say vaguely. “Nice to see you again.”

Con comes up next to me and stares as Jimmy gives me the most thorough up and down I’ve had in years. I’m not kidding. He probably knows how many fillings I’ve got.

“It certainly is nice to see you,” Jimmy says, drifting closer to me. I consider hiding behind Con, who has a thunderous look on his face. “Can I just say that the photo on your website does not do you justice, Frankie. You look better in real life, which of course, I already knew.”

“Well, I was having a bad hair day,” I say faintly, ignoring the second part because I have no fucking idea of where I’ve met him before. I gesture at Con. “This is Con. He’s the creative artist behind the business and the man who’ll be making your guitars.”

To my consternation, he gives Con a dismissive smile and turns back to me. “I’ve laid on some dinner. Would you like to eat with me, Frankie?”

“Oh, erm.” I think of the order and the money for the business. “Yes, of course,” I say briskly. “We’d love to.” Con makes a sound that suggests he’s not falling in line with this, so I add quickly, “Maybe we can discuss your order during it?”

“Lovely,” Jimmy says cheerfully. “Come on in.”

We follow his halting progress into a foyer with a black-and-white tiled floor. The ceiling rises high above us, lit by a huge chandelier. Doors are open off the foyer, and as we follow our host, I glimpse a big lounge, a music room filled with instruments, including a grand piano and with walls lined with gold discs, and a games room.

Con pulls me back. “How the fuck do you know him?” he whispers.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t mind admitting I’m completely mystified.”

“This way,” Jimmy calls back, and we hasten to catch up as he shows us into a library. It’s lined on three walls with floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Bi-folding doors offer a view of an immaculate lawn that stretches down to the river.

“Lucy would be thrilled with this garden,” I whisper.

Jimmy settles onto a large sofa that’s shaped like a pair of lips and gestures Con and me to a couple of carved iron chairs that look like they were last pressed into service during the Spanish Inquisition. I lower myself gingerly into one and watch as Con settles his much taller frame onto the other. It creaks loudly, and we share alarmed looks. Business deals can falter when you break the customer’s furniture. I hold my breath as Con sits back safely and then snort as he shoots me a beleaguered glance.

I turn it into a cough and turn back to Jimmy. “What a lovely room. So many books.”

“Oh, they’re going,” he says carelessly. “I can’t stand them. I only moved in a few weeks ago. The builders are due to start work next week. I’m putting in a retro arcade where the bookcases are, and the other wall will be knocked out so I can put in a bowling lane that’ll run into the old dining room.”

“Lovely,” I say faintly. “Well, you never know when you’re going to be struck with the need to bowl. And who needs to sit down and eat anyway?”

Con coughs as if he’s got something stuck in his throat, and I shoot a glare at him. Luckily, Jimmy seems to be made of sunshine and rainbows because he laughs.

“You’re just as I remember you, Frankie.”

I blink. “And we’ve met, have we?” I say tentatively, aware of Con leaning forwards and listening intently.

“I don’t expect you’d remember,” Jimmy says. “I was with my first band. We were called Tension. We were all only sixteen and at an industry party for the first time. It was at Bob Mitchell’s house. Do you remember him?”

I exchange a confused look with Con and turn back to Jimmy.

“Yes, of course, I remember him. He was Con’s band manager for a while before he went to work for the record company. He ended up running the UK division.”

He was also a wanker, but I’m not mentioning that. I shoot Con a quelling look, and he rolls his eyes.

“So, you were at the party too,” I say wonderingly. “It’s a small world.”

“Yes. You probably don’t recognise me because I had long dark hair then and fewer tattoos.”

I stare at him, and a faint memory stirs. “I do remember you.” I turn to Con. “Con, it was Bob’s summer party. Do you remember?”

He nods, and Jimmy leans forward. “You were very kind to us all at the party, Frankie.”

“I was? That doesn’t sound like me.”

“It sounds exactly like you,” Con says firmly.

Jimmy shrugs. “You talked to us normally. We were all wearing the same clothes. Our manager insisted on it because who doesn’t want a load of young men who appear to bulk buy at H&M.” I laugh, and he smiles. “When someone was rude about it, you told him to fuck off and that it hadn’t done the Von Trapp family any harm.” He furrows his brow. “I always meant to ask. Were they a group in your day?”

“ My day?” I say blankly, and Con can’t help his laughter this time.

Jimmy nods. “Well, you must be in your late thirties now.”

“I’m twenty-eight,” I say, outraged. “I’m hardly ready for my pension.”

He pats my arm. “I like an older man,” he says with an enthusiastic leer.

“Which is fine if you’re talking about Tom Selleck but not me.”

“Who’s Tom Selleck? Is he in the music business?”

“My grandmother was very keen on him. He acted and had a moustache,” I say airily. “I think it was the moustache that did the acting.”

He smiles at me. It’s powerfully bright and happy. “Anyway, I always wanted to say thank you. I fancied you right away, but you had a wedding ring on.”

“Yes, I was married at the time. We were all at the party.”

“I remember you too from the party,” he says, staring at Con. “ You were in a band?”

“Yes, he was,” I say. “They were very famous. Probably before you were born,” I say pettily, getting one back at Con for laughing earlier.

“Wow,” he says. “So, you know the music business, then?”

“I do,” Con says with too much of a query in his voice.

“He knows it very well,” I say firmly. “But he’s a brilliant craftsman. You’d be lucky to have him make something for you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jimmy leans forwards. “So, was your husband at the party?” He pauses. “Wait. I thought Con was your husband. He stood by you all night.”

“Well, no,” I say awkwardly. “Con’s my best friend. My husband, David, was the dark-haired singer.”

“Not the man who surfed on a tray through Bob’s new patio doors and ended up in the pool?”

I wince. “That was him,” I say. “He was always the life of the party.”

“That’s epic,” he says, cocking his head on one side. “So, where is he?”

“He’s dead,” Con snaps.

“ Con ,” I gasp. “There are ways to say it.” Then I look at Jimmy. He seems genetically incapable of taking offence. Instead, he’s smiling at me.

“You’re not in a relationship, then? Lovely.” He pauses. “Sorry for your loss.”

I blink. “Thank you, and no, I’m not in a relationship,” I finally say warily. “Why?”

“Because you’re well fit, mate. Maybe you should stay around when Con goes. We could go to a party. There’s one at Cliff Samuel’s house.” He winks. “I promise you there won’t be four other men dressed the same as me.” He winks. “Especially if we get naked.”

I open my mouth, but at that moment, Con stands up. It’s an abrupt motion, and it sets his torture chair wobbling. “He won’t be doing that,” he snaps.

“Con,” I whisper, staring open-mouthed at him. His face is set and cold, but his eyes are tumultuous.

Jimmy stares at him. “Oh, okay, man,” he says in his easygoing manner. “Whatever you say.”

“I do say.” Con’s voice is cold and even. “Now, Frankie and I have a job to do, so how about we go about matching these guitars to your shoes, and then we can fuck off home.”

“Oh my god,” I whisper.“ Con .”

Jimmy widens his eyes and stares at Con in wonder as if he’s witnessing the second coming. “That’s a genius idea, man. I’ve got a new line with Nike. Let’s do that. I bet you fifty grand it trends on Twitter the first time I do it.”

“Let’s hope so,” I say faintly, but my admirer has deserted me. In awe at Con’s genius, which actually was acute sarcasm, he leads Con out of the room, and for the next two hours, he talks happily and extensively to Con.

I sit watching them in Jimmy’s studio. Con is running his fingers along a guitar he picked up as soon as we walked into the room. He’s talking knowledgeably, and Jimmy is hanging on his every word.

How is it that I can say something sarcastic and get told off by Joan for an hour, and Con can vomit snark all over this client and be treated as if he’s the next messiah?

My musing dies abruptly when Con looks up at me. His eyes are dark and mysterious, and despite his easy demeanour, I know he’s still cross at Jimmy. I sigh. I can’t see why. Jimmy is hardly Casanova. He’d never have had that many conquests if he called his partners old before he even got his tongue in their mouths.

I look at Con. He’s bent back over the guitar, and the sun picks out the gold gleams in his hair and shows the vulnerable back of his neck. I feel a sad ache in my belly, a yearning for something I’m never going to have. Because the truth is that Con’s never going to see me as anything other than his best friend’s husband. His ire at Jimmy mentioning David and making a pass makes that very clear. I wonder if I’d met him in some other way, would he have made a pass at me? What would my life be like if I’d gone home with Con that night and not David?

I sigh. I’m never going to know that because the truth is that it was through David that Con met me, and no matter how close I am to him, it will always be through my dead husband.

I look back at the two men. Jimmy has moved closer to Con while I’ve been mired in thought. He’s now practically in Con’s lap, and it’s my turn to frown at the flirtatious twink as he laughs up at Con. Con is watching him, his eyes wickedly amused, and I feel rage run through me. Con chuckles at something Jimmy says, and I’ve abruptly had enough.

“You might want to sit down, Jimmy,” I snap. “We can’t have you straining any more muscles, can we?”

Con looks up at me with a jerk, examining my face intently. Jimmy eyes me and looks puzzled, so I try a smile. Unfortunately, it’s more strained than I’d like. “If you don’t mind, you should sit in your own chair,” I say in what is considered my most charming voice. Unfortunately, it appears to alarm Jimmy, who sits back as quickly as if Con is hosting the Black Death.

My eyes snap to Con, and I blink. All his previous bad temper is gone, and instead, he’s grinning widely. It’s like the sun coming out after all the months of thunderclouds on his face.

I look at him and shake my head in consternation. I will never understand men ,I think sadly.