reddened. Lousy timing.
Jack stood back to admire the newly laid table. ‘There yer go, fit for a king. Matt is great company – they reckon that Alex, his partner, was a complete and utter pig to him. Everyone says the same thing about those two, chalk and cheese. Matt’s a really sound guy, Alex was pure poison – broke his heart, took him for a fortune and then buggered off with someone else.’
Susie paused. ‘Alex?’
‘Yeah, Alex Dawson – Matt’s partner – something significant in civil engineering or something. We didn’t ever meet but he opens up a bit about Alex when he’s had a few. Matt was really cut up. Alex was a bit, well – you know – liked to play the field. Matt comes home early from a conference one weekend and there is Alex in bed with another guy. Not what you want –’
‘No, not what you want at all.’ Susie shook her head.
She thought about Matt standing in the hallway door with his good tan, nice hands, great hair, immaculate clothes and being worried about getting emulsion on her table.
Mind you, maybe it was for the best after all. Shame, though – Matt Peters was really easy on the eye.
‘He said I can stay there with him if I like. Till I get myself sorted out. I thought maybe we could go cruising together.’ Jack laughed. ‘I mean, why not – we’re both footloose and fancy free.’
Susie opened her mouth to say something when, right on cue, Matt jogged down the stairs, wearing well-worn khaki chinos, another clean shirt, his thick grey hair still damp from the shower and pushed back off his face.
‘Come on, Mum, I mean you’ve got to admit Matt’s not bad looking for an old bloke,’ said Jack.
‘I heard that,’ said Matt. He stretched. ‘God, I needed that shower. It feels so much better – and that looks great,’ he said appreciatively, surveying the spread Susie and Jack had set out on the kitchen table. ‘I could eat a horse – country air and hard work is an amazing combination.’
‘Sorry, no horse, no steak and no onion gravy either,’ she said, indicating that he should sit down, wondering whether she ought to have a quiet word with Jack. ‘But please feel free to help yourself to everything else. I’m sure you’ll be able to find something to stave off the hunger pangs.’
Susie handed him the wine. ‘Do you want to open this while I get the potatoes?’
He looked over the label and nodded appreciatively. ‘Is the Pope Catholic?’
‘Last time I heard,’ said Jack, offering him the corkscrew.
As Matt undid the bottle, Susie watched his long, strong fingers and sighed. The nails were clean, trimmed short and looked manicured. No straight guy ever took that much trouble over his cuticles.
She pushed her glass across the table towards him. Matt looked up at her quizzically. ‘Been a long day; make mine a large one,’ she said as he filled it up. As he poured Matt started to whistle something that sounded suspiciously like something from Oklahoma.
The following morning Susie took Milo out for his early-morning walk. Today Susie walked slowly, letting Milo linger over new smells by the stile while she sniffed back tears of pain and self-pity, hoping that no one would be out this early to see her.
And so maybe this was it – game over, hunkering down to a life of singledom and solitude, with Jack moving into the spare room and his gay friend popping over from time to time to help with the decorating. She rubbed her eyes and sniffed again. Life could be such a pig sometimes, especially when you were feeling sorry for yourself.
It was just before seven, the morning still misty and slightly damp, sunlight glittering in the dewy, diamond-strung cobwebs. Over on the far side of the common other early-bird dog walkers were out beating the bounds around the well-worn paths. Today Susie made a point of avoiding them.
The common was surrounded by a single-track road on three sides. One end of the rough grassland was framed by cottages, with a bench and a seat and the village sign overlooking the village pond, while the other petered out into rolling scrub, farmland and woods, crisscrossed with rights of way and tracks, all eventually leading down to the river. If you picked your route you could walk for hours and barely see a soul. The road out led onto the bypass, the A10, and beyond that, a couple of miles north, Denham Market.
One well-worn path led right past Robert’s front door – it was the way Susie had walked most mornings for the last three years, and from where she was standing now she could see the roof of his house and the chimneys, the pantiles and the dark red ridge caught on the skyline between the trees. In the past, two or three times a week she’d drop in and they’d have a cup of tea together first thing, or hot chocolate in the winter. Sometimes he’d ring to see when she was leaving for her walk, then catch up with her and accompany her round part of the way before he left for work. There had been lots of mornings when she hadn’t needed to go into work so they had sneaked back to bed, leaving Milo dozing by the Aga, and there had been the odd, glorious, over-the-kitchen-table mornings. But not this morning, not any morning, not ever again.
The trouble was that whatever happened next with Robert, it was going to happen right under her nose. How was she going to feel when she met Robert walking hand in hand across the common with some other woman? Worse still, how would it feel when she met them bumping a buggy over the grass?
Susie could see them now, all tousled and Sunday Times beautiful, dressed in matching Aran sweaters. Robert with a toddler on his shoulders, the child amusing himself by giggling at his reflection in Robert’s bald spot, while whatever-her-name-was – who, in Susie’s imagination, had become a leggy blonde from one of the shampoo ads, and not a day over twenty-five – pushed a designer buggy with a plump blonde baby in it, the family Labrador trotting placidly alongside them.
Susie sniffed. Knowing Robert he’d probably invite her to the christening as a consolation prize, ask her to be little Tarquin Oliver’s godmother, so she’d end up having to go round at Christmas, and turn up on sports day to cheer him on, and have him for the weekend while Blondie and Robert caught a West End show for their anniversary.
Susie sighed. Some days, having a vivid imagination could be a real pain in the arse.
‘Susie? Wait –’
Oh no. She closed her eyes and braced herself for whatever was to follow. Maybe Robert had been laying in wait for her; maybe he’d been loitering over by the bushes, anxious not to look too desperate. Maybe he was planning to introduce her to Blondie right this minute? Or maybe he missed her –
What was she going to say to him? What was there to say that hadn’t already been said? Susie tacked on a smile and swung round, only to discover Matt jogging up the track towards her.
‘Hi,’ he said breathlessly, leaning forward, hands on knees to catch his breath. ‘God, I’m so out of shape. Fancy a bit of company? I’m not sure how much longer I can pretend that Jack’s snoring isn’t keeping me awake. On site I have to keep waking him up and telling him to turn over – I mean, my god, how did Ellie cope?’ Straightening up and not waiting for an answer he fell into step alongside her. ‘You okay?’ he asked.
‘Yes, fine thanks. Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘Well, for a start you look like shit; and Jack was telling me all about you and Robert last night.’
‘How
