Master of the House. Justine Elyot
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for real?’
‘No, thanks,’ I said.
Joss and his friends spent the next ten minutes trying to persuade me but I held out.
‘Well, we’ll walk you home, anyway,’ he decreed. ‘Come on, gents.’
They walked ahead with Minna while Joss hung back, not letting me away from his side.
‘I can understand why you don’t want to,’ he said.
‘Good.’
He looked up at the darkening sky. He was carrying a stick, broken off from a hazel bush, and he whacked it into the hedgerow as we walked, as if it helped release some nameless tension.
‘I’ve grown-up, you know, Lucy. I’m not the same person.’
‘Congratulations.’
A sigh and a pause.
‘How’s your mother?’
‘Same as ever. Don’t you see her, at the Hall?’
‘Oh, I don’t get up till midday. She’s long gone by then.’
‘Well, next time, get up a bit earlier and ask her yourself.’
‘Perhaps I will.’ We were walking along the edge of the caravan park now, in crepuscular light. ‘“She dwelt among the untrodden ways/Beside the springs of Dove,/A Maid whom there were none to praise/And very few to love.”’
‘Shut up,’ I said. ‘Don’t quote those poems to me.’
‘Why not? When we read them at school, I always thought of you.’
‘You had no right.’ We were at the entrance of the park. Minna was snogging one of the toffs, laughing as he slid his hand under her vest top.
‘No, I didn’t, you’re right, but Lucy, can’t we start afresh? As friends?’
‘Fuck off.’
I ran away from the lot of them – from the braying laughter of some of his chums, the smacking sound of Minna and the toff joined at the lips, the sickening memories in my head and most of all the desire to fall horribly in love with Joss for no better reason than that he knew a few lines of poetry and could use them like a deadly weapon.
‘You cheap fucking date,’ I railed at myself, slamming the van door behind it all. ‘He’s a bastard and a bully and you hate him, and you’ll always hate him.’
I fell on the bed and cried myself to sleep.
* * *
I was hoping, then, for a less traumatic encounter when I got out of the car and made a cautious way over the Feathers’ gravel.
His back was to me as I entered; he was talking to one of the villagers. Of course, they all fawned over him. Lord of the Manor and all that. He was broader, perhaps a little weightier than he had been. Nearly thirty with swept-back hair and one of those uncommitted beards that don’t know whether to be stubble or full-on growth. It looked good, all the same. He looked good. The sight of him made me feel ill and I had to clench everything to stay upright.
The villager had seen me, and Joss took his cue from the shift in his gaze and turned around.
‘Lucy,’ he said, very warmly, too warmly, holding out his hands.
‘Did you book?’ I asked, looking past him to what was once the Lounge Bar, now the restaurant.
‘No need. They always fit me in. Come on, let’s go and sit down.’
He nodded a goodbye at the villager and led me out to the patio tables, overlooking the newly landscaped garden. No more rusty old swing set. Now there was a pretty pond full of koi carp, and a fountain. Overhead was a trellis gazebo festooned with climbing roses and each table held scented candles in artisan-decorated glass jars.
‘I bet they don’t even serve Vimto any more,’ I said, pulling out my own chair before he could try and do it for me. ‘All bloody elderflower cordial and cloudy pink lemonade now.’
‘You haven’t lost that chip on your shoulder, then?’ he said, quite politely but with a glint of challenge in his eye. ‘Always ranting against anything remotely poncey or posh.’
‘Actually, I’ve developed a few poncey, posh tastes over the years,’ I confessed, fidgeting with the menu. ‘I’m very snobby about sausages now, for example, having lived in Hungary where the sausage is taken very seriously.’
Joss chuckled, his eyes brightening.
‘You have to be snobby about your sausages,’ he said. ‘Inferior sausages are quite intolerable.’
‘Well, yes.’
We ordered drinks and then sat, looking at each other until the tension almost cracked the artisan glass candle-holder.
‘So,’ he said, at the same time as I said, ‘Well.’
I looked away.
‘You aren’t here to reminisce about old times, are you, Lucy?’ he said softly, drawing my attention straight back to him.
‘My memories aren’t exactly fond,’ I snapped.
‘No. So why are you here?’
‘It’s been nine years. Perhaps it’s time to let bygones be –’
‘You’re a journalist, aren’t you?’ It was so abrupt, I started.
‘Cut to the chase, why don’t you?’ I said.
‘I didn’t want all that bygones crap to drag on,’ he said, accepting his champagne cocktail from the waiter while I took my, yes, elderflower fizz. ‘I know why you’re here.’
‘Do you? Please enlighten me.’
‘You’ve scented a story and you want to use your old connection with me to get at the heart of it.’
Very nicely deduced. I had to hand it to him, along with his scalpel of truth.
‘You’re not denying it,’ he said after a pause.
‘Why bother?’ I said. ‘If that’s what you want to think.’
‘It isn’t, actually. What I want to think is completely different.’
‘What, that I’ve come running back into your arms, ready for you to stab me in the back again? What do you take me for?’
‘Are you ready to order?’ the waiter asked.
We pinched our lips and muttered our food orders with flaming cheeks.
‘So you heard about somebody leasing the Hall,’ said Joss once the waiter was out of earshot.
‘Everybody’s talking about it. Of course I did.’
‘And you want to know who?’
‘And why.’
‘Of course, why. Lots of rumours out there, I hear.’
‘Tons. Are you going to put a stop to them? By telling me the truth of it?’
I sipped at my elderflower fizz, waiting for Joss to pull one of his trademark petulant strops. I guessed we’d be going Dutch on the meal now a shag was out of the question.
Instead he surprised me. After stroking his beard-thing for a moment or two, he said, ‘I can do better than that.’
‘Really?’
‘I can get you in there. Exclusive access to the Hall – and its mysterious lessee. And he’s a big fish, Lucy, a very big fish. This’ll be the scoop of your life.’
‘Who is he?’
Joss shook his head, peering fearfully around as if scouting for eavesdroppers.
‘If