by Gill.
‘Was art your thing?’ he asked, tackling the main roundabout cautiously.
‘Sorry?’
‘That’s what I heard – that art was your thing.’
‘Oh. Yes. Yes, it was – I studied fine art. And then I had a little – place.’
‘A gallery?’
‘That makes it sound so grand. But yes – in as much as there was art on the walls and people came in to see it.’
‘And to buy?’
‘Not often enough.’
‘It went bust,’ said Geoff.
‘Sorry?’
‘That’s what we – what I was told.’
‘I had to close it, yes. I chose to change career.’
‘And that’s why you’re here?’
‘Yes.’
‘You couldn’t sell art but you think you might be able to sell houses?’ He hadn’t meant it to sound rude. He just couldn’t fathom how someone who wanted a career in art could metamorphose into someone wanting to work as an estate agent. ‘There’s an art to selling houses,’ he said, helpfully, ‘or so we like to lead our clients to believe.’
‘In these crap times – financially speaking – I suppose people don’t want to spend money on art. As much as I like to believe that people need art in their lives, there’s no point splashing out on a painting if you haven’t four walls around you and a roof over your head.’
He looked a little nonplussed and Stella cringed at what she’d said – it sounded like a dictum she might churn out in a job interview.
‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘that was almost two years ago. I love art – but I also really like houses. And I know you probably all think it’s family favouritism – but I did two years at the St Albans branch of Tremberton & Co. It’s just I moved from Watford to Hertford last autumn.’
Geoff looked at her quizzically, as if her move from one side of Hertfordshire to the other and the revelation that the gallery hadn’t gone bust yesterday and nepotism played little part in her change of career, moved her up in his estimation.
‘I have a John Piper etching,’ he told her with an almost-smile.
They had just pulled up outside the Victorian conversion, where the one-bedder was on the second floor.
‘A Piper?’
But Geoff pressed the doorbell before Stella could coax a reply.
Forty minutes later, Geoff really couldn’t fault her – they had a new vendor on their books, her valuation had been spot on. The client had liked her and Geoff had liked Stella’s manner – chatty, enthusiastic, supportive. He sensed if she took a potential purchaser around, they’d be lining up a second viewing just as soon as they’d seen the place. He had to concede that she’d probably sell a place like this faster than he could.
‘Nicely done,’ he said when they headed back to the car.
‘Thank you.’
‘We’d heard all sorts of things about you,’ he said, as if disbelieving that reality could be so very different. She looked aghast. ‘I doubt whether there was much truth in any of them,’ he told her. ‘Ignore them – Those Three, back in the office – they’re harmless.’ He paused. ‘Relatively.’
The trouble with rumours, thought Stella, is that once the seed is planted, roots spread and the whole thing rampages like ground elder. As fast as you pull it up, renegade shoots are already off on tangents.
But then she thought, it’s impossible for something to grow from nothing. However tiny, there’s always a seed of truth that starts it all off.
A bit like Love really.
Chapter Two
Jesus, do I not feel like doing this.
Xander reached over to whack down the alarm clock as if it was a bluebottle that had been bugging him for hours. Lying next to him, Siobhan mumbled in her reverie. He looked at her, naked and so very tempting. Outside, grey and raining. Inside, warm and cosy. Inside Siobhan, downright hot and snug. He lay back on his side of the bed, his hand lolling over his morning erection, trying to persuade himself that he had a true dilemma on his hands. But the truth was, Siobhan wasn’t really the distraction and he wasn’t really all that horny – he just craved any excuse not to go. He didn’t want to do ten miles. Not today. Not in the rain. But it wasn’t a choice; there really was no decision to make. He had to do it. And that was that. Half-marathon at the end of the month, all the won-derful people in his life effervescing on his justgiving.com page, pledging money for his chosen good cause. He dressed, steeled himself and headed out into the rain. More fool him for having believed in all that mad March sunshine yesterday. iPod on, he headed out of his house, past the other estate cottages in his terrace, and headed up Tramfield Lane at a sprint as if to prove wrong the Xander who’d woken thinking he didn’t want to run today.
Within two miles he felt good. Really good. He headed his loop up Bridgeback Hill and through Dansworth Forest, pushing on hard until the gradient levelled out and he was looking down on the Georgian beauty of Longbridge Hall; the arable fields, noble woods, rolling parkland and manicured gardens of the Fortescue estate. The rain had stopped and sudden sunlight elicited caramel tones from the mansion’s brickwork, glints of silver from the expansive slate roof; the high floating hornbeam hedge sparkled like a soft chuckle and the gravel driveway, from this angle, was like a swooping butter-coloured smile. Xander thought, it’s been a while since I saw Lady Lydia. His instinct was still to refer to her thus if he hadn’t seen her recently – though he’d been invited to call her Lydia once he’d graduated from university almost two decades ago.
I must drop her a line. It’s been over a month.
He ran on and laughed out loud – remembering a conversation so clearly she could very well be running alongside him just then.
‘Have you heard of eel mails, Xander?’
‘Email?’
‘What a ghastly notion. Lady Ranchester told me she is now called dorothy at ranchester dot com. All lower case. How preposterous! Dot Common – that’s what she is now.’
‘Handwritten letters are now known as snail mail, Lydia.'
‘Nonsense. If one can write – it’s downright wrong not to.’
Ten miles in sixty-eight minutes. Not bad. Not bad.
‘Xan?’
He wished Siobhan wouldn’t call him that. Laura used to call him Xan. And that experience had shown him how familiarity bred contempt. Also, with his mind now alert and his body charged by endorphins, he just wanted to shower, have a quick, quiet coffee with his bowl of
