Carole was bored, though again that was something she wouldn’t admit to herself. In her lexicon the only people who got bored were those who ‘lacked resources’ and Carole Seddon wasn’t the kind of woman to lack resources. When resources ran low, people like her just went out and found some more of them.
There was such a profusion of things that could be done by a healthy retiree in her fifties. Carole knew of a great many women locally who volunteered for charity work and got a great charge out of patronizing those less privileged than themselves. Then Fethering had no lack of clubs and societies for the ‘active senior’ to join. Perhaps she should offer her services as a prompter to the FADS (the Fethering Amateur Dramatic Society)? A monthly Book Group meeting was held in the local library – might she enjoy that? Or the Fethering Flower Club met on the afternoon of the second Wednesday each month, ‘sometimes with guest speakers shedding light on hitherto hidden nooks and crannies of flower arranging’.
Or perhaps she should take on something that would ‘improve’ her by learning a new skill? Carole had heard about Fethering women of her age who’d enrolled in part-time courses at the University of Clincham, studying such diverse subjects as Fine Art, Creative Writing and Animal Management.
Then again, if she didn’t want to make such a major commitment, The Edward James Foundation at West Dean offered short courses in skills like Woodworking and Furniture Making, Metalwork . . . or even Basket-making, Chair Seating and Willow Work.
Closer to home, the glass-fronted notice board outside the local supermarket, Allinstore, displayed cards offering further variety of short courses. Maybe Carole would like to learn how to dance the salsa? Or improve her fitness with Zumba classes? Then there was a lady glorying in the name of Heliotrope Smith who offered bridge lessons, quoting the line that ‘it is a brave person who enters into old age unable to play bridge’. Or might she enjoy ‘sharing Spanish conversation over tapas with Carmelita Jones’?
The possibilities were truly infinite. Given such multiplicity of choice, how could a retired person in the Fethering area ever find time to fit in the basics of life like eating and sleeping?
Carole Seddon didn’t want to do any of them. The Times crossword provided her with all the mental stimulus she required. She’d never had a problem, she told herself, with enjoying her own company. Besides, she had Gulliver. If she were to go for a walk on Fethering Beach on her own . . . well, people might think she was a lonely, embittered divorcee. Nobody would think that about someone with a dog.
In fact, Carole hoped they wouldn’t think anything about her. She courted anonymity, choosing her clothes, almost always from Marks & Spencer, so as not to draw attention to herself. She was thin and in her fifties. Her grey hair was cut into the shape of a helmet with very straight edges. Pale blue eyes peered beadily through rimless glasses. She didn’t try to look discouraging, but she wasn’t the kind of person with whom strangers would naturally initiate conversations. Which suited her very well.
When Carole Seddon did set out that Monday morning for her walk with Gulliver, she studiously didn’t look at the house next door, Woodside Cottage.
About the same time, in Bayswater, Jude announced, ‘I must get back to Fethering.’
They were sitting in the bay window of Piers Targett’s second-floor flat, looking through the trees of the central square to the matching terrace of tall, white-painted Victorian villas opposite. The room they sat in ran the whole width of the building, had a kitchen area at the back, separated by a free-standing work surface from an apparently artless collection of armchairs and sofas and the dining table in the window. It had undergone the careful attention of an expensive interior designer and, thanks to the daily ministrations of Piers’ Lithuanian cleaner, every surface was immaculately dust-free.
The flat had an air of anonymity about it, particularly to the eyes of someone like Jude, whose front room at Woodside Cottage was a messy assemblage of furniture, each item draped with a rug or throw, and shelves cluttered with an apparently random collection of bric-a-brac from many countries. And yet every item there held a memory for Jude.
In Piers’ flat every prompt to recollection seemed to have been hygienically removed. His kitchen looked as if it had never undergone the indignity of having food cooked in it. He ate out all the time, and his fridge played host only to bottles of champagne and white wine. A floor-to-ceiling rack next to it offered a comparable selection of reds.
And though the walls in the living room and bedroom featured some very well-chosen paintings, Jude got the impression that they reflected the taste of the interior designer rather than the flat’s tenant. If Piers Targett were to move out the next day, the incoming resident would find no clue to the fact that he had ever lived there.
It struck Jude yet again that she knew very little about her lover’s past and background, but this did not cause her any anxiety. She recognized in Piers a kindred spirit. Nobody knew much about her past or background either. That gave them both a sense of freedom. If their relationship developed in the long term, then some filling in of their backstories would inevitably be required, but that could wait. For the moment they were both enjoying the present too much to care about the past. Or indeed the future.
‘What, today?’ asked Piers. He looked up from texting on his beloved iPhone. ‘You want to go back to Fethering today?’
‘I think I’d better.’
‘Well, that’s fine . . . so long as you promise you’ll be back here pretty damned quick.’
‘I promise . . . though I will have to keep going back to Fethering.’
‘To enjoy the pleasures of –’ Piers shuddered – ‘country life.’
‘Not that so much. Just to catch up with my clients . . . and friends,’ said Jude, again thinking of one friend in particular. She had kept meaning to ring Carole over the last two weeks, but the more time went on, the more difficult she knew the eventual conversation would be. So, uncharacteristically, she shirked it. And of course she had been very preoccupied by falling in love with Piers.
‘Anyway, as I say, no problem,’ said Piers. ‘In fact, I’ve got some meetings today.’
‘Work?’
He nodded, but didn’t volunteer anything else. Piers Targett hadn’t actually been evasive about what he did for a living. He had talked – ‘airily’ again – about being ‘semi-retired’ and having ‘fingers in lots of pies’, but he hadn’t specified what fillings those pies might have. Wherever his money came from, he didn’t seem to lack for it. Decades had passed since Jude had been to as many expensive restaurants as she had in the previous fortnight.
‘Well, look, Piers, I think I should certainly stay down in Fethering tonight . . .’
‘OK. But give me a call this evening. Let me know your plans.’ He abandoned his iPhone as his reassuringly large hand encompassed her chubby one. ‘I don’t think I’ll react well to being apart from you.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll call.’
‘I hope you haven’t regarded your time as being wasted . . .’
Jude leant across impulsively and kissed Piers’ deliciously fleshy lips. ‘Far from it,’ she murmured.
‘Apart from anything else, you have been introduced to the arcane mysteries of real tennis . . .’
‘True.’
‘. . . of which you now have a complete and total understanding.’
‘Rather less true, I’m afraid.’
‘Only a matter of time.’
‘Look, I’m an overweight woman in my fifties . . .’
‘Nonsense! You are a perfectly rounded, wonderfully sensual woman whose age is entirely irrelevant. You, as the French would put it, “fit your skin”.’