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‘Want a lift?’
‘Please. Could you? I’ve got to get to Deer’s Leap.’
‘Hop in!’
He arranged himself in the passenger seat, one long leg at a time. Then he pulled his knees almost up to his chin and balanced his khaki bag on them.
‘You can push the seat back.’ I lifted the catch to my left. ‘Shove with your feet.’
The seat slipped backwards and he stretched his legs, relief on his face. Well, six foot two at least, isn’t Mini size.
‘That’s a World War Two respirator, isn’t it?’ I envied his fancy dress. So real-looking.
‘They’re usually called gas masks,’ he smiled, and that smile was really something across a crowded Mini.
‘You already dressed for tonight, then?’ I turned the key in the ignition.
‘We-e-ll, sort of,’ he shrugged, ‘and anyway, I’m only on standby.’
‘Damn!’ A slow-moving flock of sheep ahead put paid to the question, ‘What’s standby?’
I slowed to keep well back. The lambs were well grown; almost as big as the ewes and obviously not used to being driven. If one of them panicked in the narrow road, we’d all be in trouble.
My passenger stared ahead, intent on the sheep and the black and white sheepdog that watched and nosed and slunk behind and to the side of them, and I was able to get a good look at him.
Fair, rather thin. His hands lay still on his lap though his fingers moved constantly. He’d had his hair cut short, too, just as if he’d been the pilot whose uniform he wore. Three stripes on his sleeve; wings above his top left-hand pocket. His shoes were altogether of another era.
The sheep were behaving. I hoped they would turn left at the crossroads. He was still watching them intently so I read the number stamped in black on the flap of his gas mask and thought my lily of the field would look a bit botched alongside his authentic uniform. He’d obviously gone to a lot of trouble, so with future fancy dress parties in mind I asked where he’d got it.
‘Oh – the usual place. They throw them at you …’
‘Really? I’d have thought that get-up would’ve been difficult to get hold of.’
‘Only the wings,’ he said absently, his eyes still on the sheep.
I realized he wasn’t going to be very forthcoming and hoped for better luck tonight when my lily-gilded cleavage might just get me noticed.
I looked at his gas mask again. On the underside of the webbing strap were the initials S. S. and a tiny heart, and I wondered who had put them there. The original long-ago owner, I supposed, the author in me supplying Sydney Snow, Stefan Stravinsky, Sam Snodgrass.
‘I’m Cassandra,’ I said. ‘Cassie.’
‘John,’ he smiled, ‘but I usually get Jack.’
The flock began to push and surge to the left. The dog nipped the leg of a ewe that wanted to turn right and it got the message.
‘Soon be there. Been here before?’ We’d turned right onto what really was a dirt road.
‘Mm. Quite a bit …’
The lane was rutted and I slowed, driving carefully, eyes fixed ahead for potholes.
‘There it is.’ He pointed to the tiles of a roof above a row of beeches.
‘Seems a nice place …’ Bigger than I’d expected and not so northernly rugged.
‘It’s very nice. Look – mind if I get out here? I usually go in the back way.’ He seemed in a hurry, his hand already on the door handle. ‘Thanks for the lift. See you.’
He swung his legs out first, then gripped the side to heave himself clear. Then he straightened his jacket with a sharp downward pull, slung his gas mask on his left shoulder and straightened his cap.
‘Bye, Jack. See you tonight.’
‘Y-yes. Hope so.’ He crossed his fingers, smiled, then made for a rusted iron kissing gate that squeaked as he pushed through it.
He knew his way around, had obviously been to Deer’s Leap before. I too crossed my fingers for tonight because he really interested me.
I wondered if there would be music at the party. He’d be good to dance with – dance properly with, I mean. None of your standing six feet apart, sending signals with your elbows and hips, but moving closely to smoochy music.
I started the car, drove another hundred yards to a set of open white gates with Jeannie leaning against them, waving frantically. I tooted the horn, then drove in past her.
‘Lovely to see you again. Had a good journey? Lovely day for it,’ she said when I’d got out and stretched my back, then kissed her.
‘Fine!’ I grinned. It had been a very interesting journey. I unlocked the boot and took out my case. ‘I’ll tell you about it later, but right now I’d kill for a cup of tea!’
She took my case and I followed with my grip and the large sheaf of flowers I’d brought for her sister. Coals to Newcastle, I thought, looking at the gorgeous garden. Then I thought again about Jack and smiled smugly because already my psychic bits knew he could dance. Beautifully.
‘Where is your sister?’ I asked when we were seated at the kitchen table, drinking tea. Already I was a little in love with Deer’s Leap and its huge kitchen and pantry, and the narrow little back stairs from it that led to my room above. And what I had seen of the hall and its wide, almost-black oak staircase and the sitting room, glimpsed through an open door, were exactly what I had known they would be.
‘Beth and Danny’ll be back any time now. They’ve taken the kids to the village hall. Brownies and Cubs on a weekend camp. That’s why they’re throwing the party this weekend. Not soft, my sister,’ she grinned. ‘Now do you want to unpack or would you like to have a look round?’
I said I wanted to see the house, if that would be all right with Beth, and the outside too. All of it.
‘It’s wonderful,’ I breathed. ‘The air is so – so – well, you can almost taste it!’
‘Mm. After London I always think of it as golden,’ she said. ‘It does something to my lungs that makes me want to puke when I get back to the smoke. Let’s go outside first, then you can stand back from it – get an idea of the layout.
‘Mind, it wasn’t always so roomy. Once, I think, it must have belonged to a yeoman type of farmer, then later owners joined the outbuildings to the house. They connect with a rather modern conservatory. Don’t think it would be allowed now by the planning people, this being a listed house. I reckon even the farm buildings would be listed these days.’
‘It isn’t a farm, then?’
‘Not any more. They’ve only got a paddock now. The rest of the land has been sold off over the years, mostly for grazing. At least some of the farm buildings were saved; Danny uses them as garages now. You can shift your car inside later.’
She closed the kitchen door behind us and I noticed she didn’t bother to lock it.
‘I envy your sister this place,’ I said dreamily. ‘I feel comfortable here already. Sort of déjà vu …’
‘Mm. Beth feels the same way. Pity they’ve got to give it up.’
‘Selling!’ I squeaked, wondering who in her right mind could even think of leaving such a house.
‘No, not them. The lease runs out at the end of the year and the owner is selling. I suppose they could buy but they won’t. The children, you see. They’re a long way from a school. All very well in summer, but in winter this place can be cut off for weeks. Nothing moves: no cars in or out; no mail, and sometimes electricity lines down in high winds. The kids are weekly boarders in Lancaster in winter – come home Friday nights – but even in summer it’s a five-days-a-week job for Beth, getting them to school and back again.
‘She’s cut up about it – they both are – but I reckon she’ll be glad to live nearer a school. Beth has to plan her life round the kids’ comings and goings. She adores Deer’s Leap; she’d transport it stone by stone to somewhere less out of the way if she could. This coming Christmas will be their last here, I’m sorry to say.’
I felt sorry, too, and I’d spent less than an hour in the place. There was something about it that made me feel welcome and wanted. Even the old windows seemed to smile in the morning sun.
We were standing at the white gates when Jeannie said, ‘Let’s go round the back way. The land rises a bit and if you go to the top of the paddock, there’s a lovely view …’
She pushed open the kissing gate, slipping through, waiting for me to do the same, but I just stood there gawping.
‘Is there another gate like this one?’ I frowned. ‘One that squeaks?’
‘No. This is the only one. Why do you ask?’
‘Because I’d have bet good money that this one was in need of a coat of paint and a drop or two of oil.’
‘You sure, Cas?’
I was perfectly sure. It had squeaked not so long ago when Jack pushed through it, I’d swear it had. Yet now it was newly painted and swung so smoothly on its pivot that I knew I could have pushed it open with my little finger.
‘But, Jeannie, I don’t understand it …’ I stammered.
‘Listen, m’dear. This gate was painted about two months ago and to the best of my knowledge it has never squeaked.’
Then she went on to argue that one kissing gate looked much the same as the other, and wasn’t I getting this one mixed up with some other gate? She said it in such reasonable tones that I knew she was humouring me, so I said no more. But tonight, when the airman showed, I was determined to mention it again. I was just about to ask where the other guest was when a car swept into the drive.
‘Thanks be! They’ve got away – eventually – and if you offered me a hundred quid I wouldn’t take that lot of screaming dervishes out for a Sunday afternoon walk, let alone endure them for two days and nights!’ Beth advanced on me, arms outspread. ‘You’ll be Cassie,’ she beamed, then, having introduced Danny, demanded to know if the sun was over the yardarm yet because she was in dire need of a G and T. A large one, she said, because it was probably the last she’d get before the do started tonight!
So when the Labrador that came snuffling up had had its water bowl filled and Danny, bless the dear man, had placed gin and tonics on handy little tables beside us, I said, with the airman in mind, of course, ‘When do you expect everyone to start arriving – and do they all know the way here?’
Danny said of course they did and they all knew to arrive not one minute before seven or Beth would blow her top and how was my second novel coming along?
‘No book talk, Dan!’ Jeannie warned.
‘But we don’t often get a famous author at Deer’s Leap. Come to think of it, apart from a long-haired youth that Jeannie once dragged in, we haven’t had an author at all!’
‘I’m not famous,’ I said very earnestly. ‘I’m what’s known as a one-book author. I was lucky with the first one; Jeannie says it’s only if the next one is any good that people will start taking notice of me.’
‘People as in publishers,’ Jeannie supplied. ‘And they will! But no more book talk, either to Cassie or me. And isn’t the weather just glorious? In summer there’s nowhere to beat these parts.’
‘Jeannie says you’re thinking of moving on,’ I ventured, not knowing what else to say and still feeling a mite stupid over the kissing gate.
‘Sadly, yes.’
‘But it’s so beautiful, Beth. I don’t know how you can leave it.’
‘Come winter when we’ll have to go it’ll be just about bearable, but on days like this I feel lousy about it. Why don’t you buy it with the loot from your next book, Cassie? It’s fine if you don’t have kids – or can afford boarding school fees.’
‘I’ll need to have at least three books behind me before I even begin to think of buying a little place of my own – let alone a house this size,’ I laughed. ‘But I’m going to dislike whoever buys it when you’ve gone.’
‘Me, too,’ Beth sighed, draining her glass. ‘Now, have you unpacked, Cassie? No? Then as soon as you have you can help me with the vol-au-vents. They’re resting in the fridge, ready to go in the oven. As soon as they’re done, you can stick the fillings in for me. And did I hear you say you were doing the dips, Sis?’
‘You didn’t, but I think I’m about to. But let’s get Cassie settled in, then we’ll report for duty.’ She gave me a long, slow wink. ‘My sister’s quite human, really, but at times like this she gets a bit bossy.’
I followed Jeannie up the narrow staircase that led off the kitchen, feeling distinctly light-headed – and it was nothing to do with the gin either. It was all to do with the lovely summer day, a peculiar kissing gate, a guest who seemed to be keeping out of the way until seven, and an old house that held me enchanted.
‘I’ve got a feeling,’ I said as I unlocked my case, ‘that this is going to be one heck of a weekend!’
My green dress lay on the bed with the silk lilies; on the floor my flat, bronze kid sandals. Everything was ready. Food lay on the kitchen table, covered with tea towels, and the second-best glasses were polished and placed upside down on a table on the terrace. Danny had seen to the summer punch, then humped furniture and dotted ashtrays about the conservatory.
‘It’s great now that smoking is antisocial,’ Beth had said as we’d filled the vol-au-vents. ‘If anyone wants to light up there’s only one place they can do it!’
‘And the plants won’t mind.’ I’d dipped into my store of horticultural knowledge. ‘The nicotine in the smoke actually kills certain greenhouse pests.’
‘Really?’ Beth had looked impressed, I thought now as I lay in the bath, the water brackish but soft as silk.
I lathered the baby soap I always use into a froth, stroking it down my legs, my arms, cupping my shoulders, sliding my fingertips over my breasts. I was in the mood for something to happen tonight. I didn’t know what, but a little pulse beat behind my nose whenever I thought about it. Beth had invited eighteen guests and catered for thirty. Surely out of all that number there would be someone interesting.
But did I want that? Didn’t I just want to flirt a little and forget Piers for the time being?
Deer’s Leap got its name, Danny thought, because just above the paddock there was once a little brook and when deer and wolves roamed the area, the shallow curve was where the deer – and maybe predators – crossed. It made sense, I supposed. It was a pretty name and that was all that mattered.
I thought again about the awful person who would be living here next summer and wished it might be me, knowing it wouldn’t be, couldn’t be. So instead, I thought about my novel and whether the publishers would like it when it was finished, reminding myself that an author is only as good as her last novel, vowing to work extra hard when I got home to justify this weekend away.
I told myself that on the count of four I would get out of the bath, drape myself in a towel, then dry my hair – in that order – yet even as I stood at the open window, hairdryer poised, little wayward pulses of excitement at the prospect of the party still beat insistently inside me.
‘Grow up, Cassandra!’ I hissed. ‘Nothing is going to happen tonight – nothing out of the ordinary, anyway! For Pete’s sake, why should it?’
‘Because you want it to!’ came the ready answer.
Beth was testing the summer punch when I got downstairs, ten minutes before seven. She was dressed in layers of lace curtain and muslin and said that later she would put on her yashmak.
‘I’m the Dance of the Seven Veils,’ she grinned, explaining it was the best and coolest way to cover up her avoirdupois, which any day now she intended to do something about.
‘Sorry about my two lilies,’ I said, thinking I should have tried harder. ‘I’m a lily of the field, actually …’
‘You look all right to me!’ Danny, in the costume of a Roman soldier, handed me a glass of punch. ‘This get-up isn’t too revealing, is it? It was all I could borrow from the amateur dramatics that fitted.’
‘I think you look very manly.’
‘You’ve got quite decent legs, Danny.’ Jeannie, in a long robe borrowed from the same source and with a terracotta jug balanced on one bare shoulder, said she was a vestal virgin and the first one to make a snide remark was in for trouble!
Beth said she wasn’t at all sure about the punch, and helped herself to another glass just as the first car arrived, followed closely by four more in convoy – sort of as if they’d all been waiting at the crossroads until seven.
The table with the upturned glasses began to fill up with assorted bottles; there were shouts of laughter and snorts of derision at the various costumes. Someone who was old enough to know better said I could come into his field any time I liked!
Danny put on a Clayderman tape and said there’d be music for smooching later, when everybody had had one or two. Jeannie put down her jug and floated around with trays of food. I followed behind with plates and folded paper serviettes, looking for a pilot with short fair hair by the name of John or Jack. He wasn’t there.
‘He wasn’t there,’ I said later when everyone had gone and we were sitting on the terrace, saying what a great party it had been. ‘He didn’t show …’
