for Fliss and Libby and their families wonderful, for a few days it’ll let me blank out the terrible bleakness of the mistakes I made that night.
Bill blows out his cheeks. ‘Messages failing is a Cornish thing. Don’t worry, by the time you go home, you’ll be used to it.’
‘You’re saying there’s no signal?’ I can’t believe what I’m hearing, although it’s less of a surprise that he’s shrugging off someone else’s problem. It’s a good thing I skipped the niceties, there’s no time to lose on this. It’s also a relief to have wrenched myself out of my own personal abyss of blackness and get back to the mundanities of other people’s everyday concerns.
‘It’s more that the signal comes and goes, you have to move to find the hot spots. The top of the south tower’s usually your best bet.’ Again, he’s a lot less concerned than he should be.
I let out a snort but I’m not letting him off the hook because I’m feeling really indignant on everyone else’s behalf. ‘I can see why you had peak-time availability. How do you cope living here?’
He pulls one of those perfect-on-a-stick faces. ‘I find the views and the size of the kitchen more than make up for the lack of communication technology.’
Which reminds me, I’ve been so tied up with the unimportant distractions, I missed out saying how wonderful it was to peep out of my bedroom window when I woke up and see the lawns behind the castle running straight out onto a long sandy beach with the sun glinting off the pale blue water beyond. Through the wide kitchen doors there’s a similar vista, out onto the wide sweep of the bay, and a distant cluster of buildings which must be where I saw the lights from my room last night.
I take the long way round the kitchen island to avoid passing him, and end up where I’ve got a better view through the kitchen doors. ‘Is that the nearest town along there, then?’
As Bill’s lips twitch into a smile, for some ridiculous reason I’m reminded of that fragrance ad where the guy walks through and the women all fall down and have orgasms. Which isn’t the best thought to end on when he’s opening his mouth to say something.
‘St Aidan village is just around the bay, and to answer every Londoner’s first questions, it’s fifteen minutes’ walk along the beach, and it has all the bars, fish and chips and surf shops most people need, complete with a double dose of picturesque.’
I ignore the jibe about ‘most people’ and grin down at Merwyn who’s leaning against the legs of my stool. ‘There you go, that’s a date for later this afternoon.’ Merwyn’s got my back here.
As for Bill’s kitchen, it might be short of a microwave, but it’s got two four slice Dualit toasters, a massive Aga, an island unit and a long table as well as some chunky distressed leather sofas. Not forgetting a high slanty ceiling and lashings of characterful beams. Bill’s right – if I were a handyman and this was where I lived, even if my second home was Downton Abbey, I would not be giving my notice. At the same time, if I imagined his house – if I’m honest, I have done every now and again – it wasn’t ever like this. There’s just something very impersonal about what’s here. As I scan the walls and shelves for clues about his life there’s nothing to land on other than the fact he must like toast.
‘So if you’re ready, I could show you around now?’ Now he’s less hidden behind steam clouds I can see his stubble shadow is bordering on a beard, and his brown hair is just as wavy and crumpled as it was last night. When his gaze locks with mine, I’m suddenly so hot I’m wishing I’d saved my polar bear white fluffy polo neck for later.
‘Great idea, I thought you’d never ask.’ I ease myself down to follow him, and as I gather up Merwyn, his lead and our coats and pull down my hat I glance at my phone and see it’s already past ten. ‘It’s lovely to find loaded people in the country really do start work half way through the morning.’
Bill shakes his head then strides out through the hallway and towards the back door. ‘Speak for yourself, some of us have been up since five bottling and dispatching gin.’
‘Yeah right, and I’m a Cornish man.’ Apart from the bullshit, I have to put him right here. ‘Sorry to challenge your view of stereotypes, but not everyone in London is totally obsessed with designer gin.’ When our Daniels’ stylist team voted four years running to have our winter party at an après ski venue, gin palaces weren’t even in the running. We can all personally vouch for the awfulness of a gluwein hangover, but we still go back again and again simply because the memory of drinking it is so warm and cosy.
Bill’s swinging a bunch of keys in his hand and as we go through the hot tub courtyard and around the side of the castle he’s talking over his shoulder. ‘Most people prefer to go in through the front entrance for maximum effect, I take it you won’t mind conforming to that stereotype?’
I’d sort out an equally snarky response. But by the time I catch him up the gigantic front door is already swinging open.
‘Come in, and welcome.’ Lucky for both of us, he’s slipped into ‘castle guide’ mode. ‘Guests usually leave the main door unlocked, and use the key code on the inner door of the porch.’
As he holds the doors open for me I do a big jump to get past him as fast as I can and move through into a huge hallway with a bumpy stone floor and a staircase so huge and chunky that it appears to be hewn from entire trees. For a fleeting moment I’m surprised the giant Christmas tree isn’t here yet, but then we are a day earlier than he expected so I move on to other thoughts. Like how I can’t begin to imagine the size of the chandeliers with a space this enormous. But when I look up to check them out, instead of a cascade of glistening crystal there’s a cluster of large bare hanging light bulbs with glowing yellow filaments, and a tangle of wires looping around above them.
‘I see the light fittings are on-trend rather than traditional.’ Despite half choking with the shock of it being so different from the image in my head I’m trying to see them through Libby’s eyes – and failing. It’s all so much rougher than I was expecting – somehow I hadn’t expected the inside walls to be the same stone as the outside ones.
Bill nods. ‘The electricians went for low impact, low energy solutions throughout.’
At least the shock of what’s here – or what isn’t – is taking my mind off the shadows of his jawline and the women in the perfume ad. Whatever it was I reacted to in Chamonix, he hasn’t lost it, more’s the pity. It doesn’t feel like the right moment to ask where the sumptuous wallpaper is. Even plaster on the walls would have been good. I’m desperately crossing my fingers for a more ‘cosy’ feel in the next room.
‘Come through and see the chill out areas …’
As I look at the back of Bill’s Barbour there’s a niggle of doubt at how wrong that sounds so I’m trying desperately to think back to the pictures Libby sent me. For now I can’t remember any more than the gorgeous outside shots, then close ups of things like cushions and pillow tassels, candlesticks and corners of picture frames. Then Bill steps out of the way and reveals acres more stone flags and rocky walls, and a space like a gallery with some angular leather sofas, a couple of coffee tables, a square alcove off and, if welded steel is your thing, a rather beautiful side console unit. And it’s so pared back, there’s still no clues at all about the guy himself.
He leads the way and I follow him through to more gallery space. Then he turns and says, ‘Okay, that’s your lot, if we go on up to the first floor, I’ll show you the
