Rumours

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‘Noted.’

‘And no one too much older or too much younger.’

‘No grandpas, no toyboys.’

‘No facial hair.’

‘No?’

‘No!’

Juliet counted off on her fingers. ‘Mid- to late thirties. Height and weight proportionate. Clean-shaven. Anything else?’

‘No addictions,’ Stella said quietly.

Juliet took her hand and gave it a little squeeze as if to say, you needn’t even think it, let alone say it out loud.

* * *

Siobhan was late, but there again, she’d never been on time. Xander thought about it while he waited – if she’d been a girlfriend, officially, it would be a bone of contention to grind between them; but keeping it casual meant the irritation he felt came also with a sense of relief that no tiresome confrontation was necessary. He hadn’t seen her for a couple of weeks, hadn’t had any contact. But she’d sent him a text which he’d received at lunch-time, alone in the office when Mrs Gregg was taking her hour. Mrs Gregg always took exactly fifty-five minutes so that she had sufficient time to sit back at her desk, pat her hair, wriggle her fingers, look around her desk and then say, ‘So!’ in a bright voice.

The text came through when Xander was thinking, not bloody tuna mayo again, and wondering whether to see what sandwiches Caffe Nero had instead.

Horny. SEx

Siobhan Elliot. Always signed herself SE, the strategically placed kiss turning the whole thing licentious.

I have a cure for that. X

It remained unclear to Siobhan whether that was X for Xander, or a kiss.

They always met at a pub in Standon that neither of them went to at any other time; they always had bar food and a glass of wine, Xander always paid. If they went back to Siobhan’s, Xander left after sex. If Siobhan came to his, she usually stayed the night but not for breakfast. Neither had met the other’s friends nor even knew much of their lives beyond their rendezvous. They’d been seeing each other a couple of times a month for the past six months and the arrangement suited them both.

Her customary lateness was premeditated as it presented her with the opportunity to sashay in, swish her way across to him, sit herself down sinuously. Everything about her was consciously feline. A performance, an act. Everything was about calculated seduction but Xander had done his sums and it all added up. He was therefore a little taken aback at a pair of cold hands covering his eyes when Siobhan came up behind him without him noticing. But there again, a gaggle of women had just come in and he hadn’t thought to look amongst them for her. He encircled her wrists and pulled her hands away from his eyes.

Only it wasn’t Siobhan.

It was Caroline.

At any other time, Xander would have been delighted to see Caroline. But not here, not tonight and not when Siobhan’s arrival was imminent.

‘Hullo, monkey,’ she said.

‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ said Xander.

‘Bloody charming!’ she laughed.

‘Sorry, Cazza, I meant—’

‘You can buy me a pint for that, tosser,’ and Caroline swept her patterned shawl over her shoulder, catching Xander across the cheek with the soft bobble fringing. ‘You’re lucky I don’t give you a slap. Pint, please!’ she said to the barman. ‘He’s paying.’

The landlord gave Xander an odd look as if to say, this isn’t a pick-up joint, you know. And Caroline gave Xander an odd look because she’d never seen him appear so awkward.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

‘Mums’ Night Out,’ Caroline said. ‘We’re bored of Dansbury pubs and your dad’s probably playing dominoes in Little Dee. Pet – are you feeling all right?’ Caroline placed the back of her hand across his brow before stroking his cheek. And that’s what Siobhan saw when she walked in. And that was the moment Caroline clocked the two glasses of wine in front of Xander. She grabbed her pint and look a long drink. ‘Bloody hell – you’re on a date!’

‘Xander?’ Siobhan was here.

Neither Siobhan nor Caroline had ever known Xander to redden nor heard him tongue-tied. Caroline thought it most amusing. Siobhan didn’t.

‘I’m Caroline,’ and she offered her hand, slightly wet with beer, to Siobhan.

‘Siobhan,’ Siobhan said, declining to take it.

‘Siobhan – Caroline, Caroline – Siobhan,’ Xander said, wearily. Caroline was beaming sunnily at Siobhan, as much as Siobhan was staring unimpressed at Xander. Caroline was just about to ask Siobhan a checklist of questions when one of the other mums called her to take her seat at the table and suddenly Xander didn’t know whether he’d rather she stayed rather than went. Or whether he’d rather he and Siobhan went rather than stayed. He drank his wine and couldn’t think what to say to either of them.

‘Right, well, I’ll be leaving you two lovebirds to enjoy your evening then,’ Caroline said and slipped off the bar stool, offering it theatrically to Siobhan who took the seat without acknowledgement. As Caroline backed away, she pointed from her eyes to Xander and then back again. She winked lasciviously and made a telephone gesture with her hand and, with a big grin, joined her party.

‘Old friend,’ said Xander, though Siobhan hadn’t asked. ‘Best friend, really.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Married, two kids, lives in the village.’

He’d never mentioned Caroline to Siobhan. He didn’t think he’d mentioned anyone in his life to Siobhan, not by name. And, just then, he thought perhaps that was disrespectful – not to Siobhan as much as to Caroline. And then he thought, I’m not here to think.

Siobhan had lasagne with garlic bread and Xander had cottage pie. He’d quite fancied a pudding but the innuendo of spotted dick put him off and he wasn’t keen on anything else. The two of them always arrived and left separately, which made the whole thing slightly detached and clinical but part of their dynamic. No banter in the car, no hand on leg, no sudden eye contact, or sensing the other person’s physical presence. Just a quick look, every now and then, in the rear-view mirror to check that they were still together. And, six months on, together they still were in this ever so liberal, coolly casual way.

They parked and then walked together to Xander’s house in separate silence, Siobhan behind while Xander unlocked the door. She could sense detachment in him – a physical detachment which was not what this whole game was about. The emotional detachment, yes – but hitherto that had enhanced the physical side. Tonight, though, something was different. Usually, they’d be all over each other before the door had closed behind them. Though they always made it into the bedroom, it was having romped and humped their way there from the sitting room, up against all the walls en route and usually a bit of doggy-style halfway up the stairs. But tonight, Xander walked ahead, going straight through to his kitchen, keeping his back to Siobhan, filling a pint glass with water and drinking it down in agitated gulps. He hadn’t let the tap run and the water was unpleasantly tepid. Siobhan stood self-consciously on the boundary of the sitting room and the open-plan kitchen, as if unsure of what came next in this change to the script. Was there to be dialogue? A scene change? There were no stage directions and she felt a little stuck. He was still standing there, his back to her. Did she want a glass of water, she asked herself? No, she didn’t think so. At that moment, it struck her how unnatural all of this was and, just then, she didn’t like the way it made her feel.

Still drinking, Xander turned and faced her and they looked at each other silently. He offered her the glass and she stepped forward to take it. She took a dainty sip and then, locking eyes with Xander, she trickled the rest down her neck where it reached her silk top and spread quickly like ink on blotting paper, turning the silvery tone into gunmetal grey and causing the fabric to cling to her body, her nipples to harden and stand proud. Xander knocked the glass out of her hands and onto the floor where it landed on the rug with a muffled thud. He nudged it away, where it rolled off onto the wooden floor and knocked against the skirting board. And then all was silent again and Siobhan had moved up close to Xander, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt as she reached for his mouth with hers. His hands moved across her body, feeling her flesh through the silk, wet or dry. She was rubbing at his groin where his erection was tantalizingly restricted. Falling onto her knees, she unbuckled his belt, hoicked down the zip and pulled sharply on his jeans and his boxers in one fell swoop. He could feel her breath hot above his cock and could sense how agonizingly close her mouth was, trying to stand steady while the sensation of her caressing his balls with one hand and tracing the crack between his buttocks with the other threatened his balance. And then he was between her lips, deeper into the sucking wet cavity of her mouth; it felt as if she was swallowing him whole.

She pulled away and looked up at him beseechingly. ‘Do you want to come in my mouth? Or my cunt?’

He pulled her to her feet and pressed his tongue into her mouth where it met hers. He grabbed at her skirt and delved his hands up her thighs, foraging through her knickers and into the slippery promise behind. And then he thought, she absolutely reeks of garlic. And then he thought, I don’t have any condoms. And then he thought, oh God, I’m losing my hard-on.

‘In your mouth,’ he whispered as they folded down onto the rug, clawed away the remaining clothing and settled head to toe, tonguing and sucking at each other until they were sated.

Don’t stay the night. Not this time.

‘I’m exhausted,’ Siobhan said. And she headed off to Xander’s bedroom before he could suggest otherwise.

He looked around the sitting room. Strewn clothes. A severely rucked rug. A discarded glass on the floor with a crack now visible. A woman’s shoes – one here, one there. His shirt, in a scrunch and flung onto the kitchen like a wiping-round rag. What had seemed such a good idea had left him with an odd taste in his mouth – akin to feeling nauseous but unable to pinpoint the offending food. Pulling his boxers back up from his ankles, he went to sit in his leather tub chair, taking the phone from his jeans pocket. Two texts. Both from Caroline.

So … you dark horse. Dish the dirt – who is she?

She’d sent another, about ten minutes ago.

Want to come to dinner Fri? With your lady friend?

How to reply? His closest friends – who’d always supported him, who wanted only the best for him and who’d been there for him when his relationship with Laura came to grief. Xander knew, quite categorically, that he didn’t want them to be part of this – this thing – with Siobhan. And that in itself made this thing with Siobhan not quite right.

Chapter Ten

Stella arrived back at Longbridge Hall at two minutes before eleven o’clock and sat in her car listening to the radio for the pips on the hour. She imagined that, for people like the Fortescues, it was considered as impudent to turn up early as it was decreed discourteous to turn up late. She rang the bell and gave a lively knock at precisely eleven o’clock.

‘You’re back?’ Mrs Biggins said, as if Stella might not be of sound mind.

‘I’m expected,’ said Stella, taking off her coat and giving it to Mrs Biggins.

‘One moment,’ Mrs Biggins said and Stella thought she could detect a glint of approval.

When Lydia appeared, Stella felt grateful for Paul Smith and high heels because she both looked and felt taller and more imposing than she had the day before and it was obvious that Lady Lydia had noticed. The woman bristled slightly, tipped her chin upwards as if competing for height. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘As you asked – eleven o’clock prompt.’ And then Stella saw a flicker of confusion scuttle across Lydia’s face and settle as dull discomfort behind her eyes. She softened her tone. ‘To see the grounds?’ Stella prompted in her more usual voice, ‘And art?’

Lydia gathered herself. ‘I’ll take you.’

However, the art wasn’t Beckinsford or any other painter remotely connected with Reynolds, nor was it portraits or landscapes or equine backsides. The Art Lydia took Stella to see was short for Arthur, a wizened old man little younger than Lady Lydia. He lived in an apartment in a wing of the stable courtyard which was some way from the main house and cordoned from view by the mighty wall of the kitchen garden. Made from the same rosy-hued bricks as the main house, the buildings ran three sides of a square, with a central archway crowned by a clock tower. The clock face itself was greening, the hands fixed at ten past three as if it had been dredged up from the pond where it had lain for some time and fish had feasted upon a great many of the numbers. The wing to the right had been converted into two dwellings. To the left, above what must have been the coach bays, appeared to be another apartment – Stella noted curtains at the windows but the glass was so dusty she was sure it was derelict.

Lydia rapped on the door. ‘He’s as deaf as a post,’ she said, with the same exasperation she extended to Mrs Biggins. ‘Art,’ she said when he appeared, ‘please be a dear and take Miss Elmfield around.’

‘It’s Miss Hutton,’ said Stella.

‘He doesn’t need to know, he won’t be interested and he won’t remember,’ Lydia said bitingly whilst smiling benevolently to Art, whose eyes shone like small beads of jet. He disappeared back into his home. ‘And you do not mention why you are here.’

Stella was taken aback.

‘You can be an historian, or a writer – something like that. But not an estate agent. Make it up.’ And she walked away, banging down her stick every stride as if expecting to find part of her land hollow.

‘Hullo!’ Stella said loudly. ‘Lovely day!’

‘It is,’ said Art in a soft voice which suggested she really needn’t raise hers. ‘Where would you like to see first?’

‘Everywhere,’ said Stella.

‘Where in Everywhere?’ Art asked measuredly. ‘Longbridge sits in over five hundred acres.’

‘Seriously!’ Stella had assumed the grounds extended to a posh garden and perhaps a paddock or two.

‘Four hundred arable, the rest pasture – used to be for cattle, just for ponies now – also woodland and the grounds around the house. Formal gardens, pool, kitchen garden, orchard, tennis. Which way to Everywhere do you want to go?’

She liked him instantly. She really liked him; the pared-down way he spoke, his shapeless clothing, old boots, unflattering cap and dark little eyes set into a craggy, haphazardly shaven face. She reckoned Art was either spoken at, or ignored, these days. And perhaps in those days too, if the current Lady’s manner was in any way a family trait.

Silently, Stella cursed Paul Smith and her high heels, not least because Art’s stride was surprisingly assertive and fast. He described the lay of the land, took her on a whistle-stop tour of the livery yard, which was modern and spruce, and an area of old barns the least dilapidated of which were now rented out as workshops. She felt herself being peered at – two young geeky-looking guys in one barn, from another a cabinetmaker whose face was the colour of mahogany. The third had an array of tree stumps outside – whether this was a tree surgeon or a sculptor Stella was unsure. All these people will have to find new premises, she thought to herself. And she thought how odd it would be to rent somewhere purpose built, modern, after being treated to barns like these. And Art would need to find somewhere to live too. And he’s been here decades. But she said nothing and just enthused, instead, about all he showed her.

The formal gardens, which ran in a curvaceous swoop around the house, were shielded from the drive by magnificent rhododendrons. They were set out as manicured swathes of lawn plotted and pieced by rolling herbaceous borders and grand specimen trees. There was a pond, which was really too large to be called such but a lake would sound too ostentatious, also a swimming pool which could have been bigger and, Stella noted, cleaner. Garden seats, small stone obelisks and spheres and statuary were positioned here and there, providing either focal points or surprises. All the while, the house itself appeared pompously to survey all that lay around it. The kitchen garden, however, was its own private world, shielded from the house by a long stone building whose purpose Art explained to Stella.