‘I’m pleased,’ said Kate. ‘It’s not been much fun being back here in the village, knowing nobody liked me.’
‘Not nobody.’ Maddy shook her head. ‘Jake didn’t care how I felt. He liked you straight away.’
‘Really?’ Flushing with pleasure, Kate said, ‘But I was so prickly with him.’
‘Oh well, that’s Jake for you. Always up for a challenge.’
And thank goodness he had been. Smiling to herself, Kate felt her heart begin to quicken at the memory of their time in bed together this afternoon – and the thought of the next time, tomorrow with any luck. She couldn’t wait for a repeat performance.
‘Coming in for a drink?’
Maddy glanced across the road at the pub, then shook her head. ‘Not tonight. Hey, did you ever see this?’
Kate turned; Maddy was making her way over to the old bench next to the bus stop. Following her, she watched as Maddy searched the wooden slats for a moment before finding what she was looking for.
‘Here we are.’
Peering down to where Maddy was pointing, Kate saw the words gouged into the wood amongst the mass of graffiti carved over the years.
‘Kate T-T is a cow,’ Kate read aloud.
‘I can remember exactly when I did it,’ said Maddy. ‘September. We’d just started back at school after the summer holidays and I was here one morning waiting for the bus. Then you sauntered past with one of your posh friends, on your way to the shop. Bear in mind that you were both wearing stretchy halter-neck tops and tiny skirts, while I was in my six-sizes-too-big maroon school uniform. And you turned to your friend and said, "God, back to school already, who’d be a pleb?
‘I remember that!’ Kate nodded energetically. ‘We still had another ten days of holiday; we fl—’
‘It’s OK,’ said Maddy when Kate stopped abruptly, ‘you can say it. You flew down to the south of France and spent a week on your friend’s dad’s yacht.’ Drily she added, ‘You boasted about it when you got back.’
‘You’re right, I was a cow.’ Kate marvelled that the wonkily carved accusation had been on show all these years, clearly visible to anyone who’d ever sat on this bench waitingfor the bus. Never having caught a bus in her life, she would not have known it was here. ‘What are you doing?’ she exclaimed as Maddy took her Swiss Army knife keyring out of her bag and began energetically digging away at the bench.
‘Changing it. Bringing it up to date.’ Working at speed with the sharp blade, Maddy brushed away the loosened paint flakes and sat back to show Kate the finished job. Instead of Kate T-T is a cow, it now said Kate T-T was a cow.
They gazed at each other in silence for several seconds, then simultaneously burst out laughing.
‘Absolutely disgraceful,’ a male voice barked behind them. Turning, Maddy and Kate saw a couple of middle-aged rambler types in matching baggy khaki shorts and Save the Countryside Tshirts.
‘I know,’ said Kate, ‘it’s outrageous.’
Infuriated, the male rambler boomed, ‘Defacing public property, wanton vandalism. You should be ashamed of yourselves.’
‘I am,’ Kate told the man who was by this time puce in the face, ‘but I’m feeling better now.
Anyway, it isn’t vandalism,’ she added with a sweet smile. ‘It’s local history.’
Fantasy time.
After the best night’s sleep she could remember, Kate was lying in the bath with bubbles up to her ears and a blissful grin on her face that wouldn’t go away. What a magical day yesterday had turned out to be. What a day today would hopefully turn out to be – heavens, from now on anything could happen.
Closing her eyes to make visualising it easier, Kate conjured up a Christmassy picture not dissimilar to the final moments of It’s A Wonderful Life. There was Jake with one arm round her and the other round Sophie – actually, no, because then she and Sophie would be separated; far better to have Sophie in the middle, hugging them both and being hugged in return to show how happy they were. Anyway, so there they were, all together, just like a proper family – and if she and Jake ended up getting married there’d be no problem with warring in-laws because Estelle and Marcella got on brilliantly together, and she and Maddy had put their silly differences behind them. God, this was the best fantasy ever, and it could actually come true- Yeek, phone, that was probably Jake now!
Racing downstairs with bath bubbles cascading down her body and a towel hastily slung round her middle section, Kate skidded breathlessly into the kitchen.
‘Was that for me?’
Estelle, eating toast and compiling a shopping list, looked surprised.
‘No, darling. Will Gifford just rang, he’s coming down this afternoon.’
Wrong answer. Completely wrong answer. Who gave a toss about bumbling Will Gifford?
‘Expecting a call?’ said Estelle.
No wonder she sounds amazed, Kate thought. What with me and my action-packed social life.
‘Not really.’ Realising she was dripping water and foam onto the kitchen floor, Kate said, ‘I’ll go and get dressed.’
‘Darling, I’m so glad you and Maddy are friends again.’
Kate nodded; Estelle had in fact got quite tearful last night at the thought of happy endings all round.
Not that her mother knew yet about the particular happy ending she had in mind for herself and Jake.
Struggling to contain a giveaway smirk, Kate said, ‘Me too.’
By eleven o’clock she was setting off down Gypsy Lanewith a bounce in her step and a fully-fledged plan in her brain. Because basically, why hang about waiting for Jake to ring when she was perfectly capable of making things happen herself? Even Norris seemed more cheerful this morning, jauntily ambling along, exploring the hedgerows and almost – but not quite – breaking into a run when he spotted Bean cavorting outside Jake’ s workshop.
Even our dogs get on, Kate thought joyfully, what could be more perfect than that?
It was cooler than yesterday, with an overcast sky and the threat of rain in the air. Instead of sitting outside his workshop with his shirt off, Jake was inside wearing a pale grey lambswool sweater and jeans. He was working on a casket, painstakingly brushing varnish over a transferred painting of a snowy mountain range.
Looking up as Kate entered the workshop, he flicked his sunstreaked blond hair out of his eyes and flashed his trademark dazzling smile.
‘Hi.’
He loves me.
‘Hi.’ Kate felt herself go fizzy all over; when a man smiled at you like that, you knew that yesterday had meant something extra-special. ‘Listen, what are you doing tonight?’
This was Jake’s cue to do his sparkly-eyed thing and murmur flirtatiously, ‘I don’t know, what am I doing tonight? You tell me.’
Instead he said, ‘I’ve been bullied into taking Sophie to the cinema to see the new Spiderman movie. I must be mad, the last one scared me witless.’ He pulled a face. ‘But that’s Soph for you. What can you do with a girl who has three pairs of Spiderman pyjamas?’
‘Well, it’s my night off,’ said Kate, ‘so why don’t we all go? Then I can hold your hand during the scary bits.’
‘It’s good of you to offer, but it’s Spiderman.’ Jake shrugged good-naturedly. ‘Hardly your kind of thing. You wouldn’t enjoy it.’
Actually, this was a fair point. Not that she wouldn’t enjoy sitting in the darkened cinema holding Jake’s hand, but as a breed, movies starring comic-book heroes left her cold.
‘OK, better idea. I’ll meet up with you after the cinema and we’ll go for a pizza.’ Kate beamed, pleased with herself, then realised that Jake was hesitating and added hurriedly, ‘I meant all of us go for a pizza, you, me and Sophie.’