The Mini-Break Read online

  You would think after all the books I’ve written and all the bestsellers I’d be immune to it but I’m not. I bet even J.K. Rowling is pleased to see her books in the window in Waterstones.

  Then a load of emails landed on my phone so I did what a lot of other people seemed to be doing and went to the supermarket café for a cup of rather unsatisfactory coffee and a slice of cake.

  I went and bought a few more things I didn’t need and some stuff for washing delicate woollens in the hope that I would ever get the crusty soup deposits out of my cashmere sweater. And then I saw a stand full of Ordnance Survey maps and I bought the one that covers the area of Sally’s house. This isn’t in any way the sort of thing I would normally do. I don’t quite know what was coming over me. I even flicked through a glossy magazine dedicated to all the local attractions of Dartmoor and Devon in general and was almost seduced into buying it when I saw an article about artisan bread making in Tavistock. Then I started looking around for binoculars. Binoculars? I mean really, do stop it.

  I was past the checkout when my phone rang.

  ‘What are you doing? Where are you? You do realise you’ve missed that do at the National Portrait Gallery you were so keen on going to?’

  ‘Hi, Jassy, everything okay?’ I said, steering my trolley past a small boy having a tantrum because his mother wouldn’t let him have a go in the coin-operated fire engine.

  ‘No actually. No, everything is not okay. I’ve had Benedict on the phone every evening since you left London. He’s really upset. He says he just had a friend round to his home and you got the hump.’

  ‘I didn’t, I just reacted as anyone else would have when I found him entertaining a scantily dressed blonde in my frigging kitchen and tried to pass her off as just a friend.’

  ‘So why did you just shoot off like that? What’s the matter with you? Chuck him out, for God’s sake! You could stay here if you want time to cool off. I mean now you’re miles from anywhere. I’ve been ringing you and emailing you and you never answer.’

  ‘And by the way it’s not Benedict’s home, it’s mine and perhaps he needs to be reminded of it.’

  ‘Then even more reason why you’d better come back. Leaving him to get on with it isn’t really the best way of teaching him a lesson. What on earth’s the matter?’ Jassy said in an eye-rolling tone of voice.

  ‘No, okay, right. Look, I found him with a strange woman in my kitchen. I think I have a perfect right to be annoyed. Don’t you?’

  ‘He just said he had a friend round and you flew off the handle.’

  ‘A friend? Yes right! She was wearing my frigging apron – the one I bought in New York as a joke – and chopping up onions with my knife too. And Benedict knows I hate anyone cooking in my kitchen. I’ve lived there for nearly three years and never so much as turned the grill on. And there she was wobbling her breast implants all over my granite worktops!’

  ‘Yuk! That’s not a nice image!’

  ‘Look, Jassy, that’s not the point. The point is that I went back to my home, as I’m fully entitled to do, and Benedict had some tart in the kitchen.’

  ‘Oh he said that was Tess. I can’t remember her last name. She’s on that late-night chat show with thingy with the beard. She gives out the drinks. You know, where the guests are sitting there talking about their latest book or film or husband. She’s the one who comes round with a tray of champagne and not much on.’

  ‘Well she had even less on when I saw her! Trollop!’ I shouted.

  Two people looked round and steered their trolleys pointedly away from me.

  ‘Well no wonder you were mad with him,’ Jassy said soothingly, ‘but why didn’t you show him the door instead of going off on holiday?’

  ‘I just need to get away, okay? I needed some time to think.’ I closed my eyes for a moment. I hadn’t been thinking straight for quite some time.

  ‘It’s not the same without you here. The Gang are all missing you.’

  The Gang.

  I could just imagine them all sitting around our favourite table in our favourite wine bar with an eclectic clutter of bottles and glasses in front of them. All of them partying like they were still in their twenties, even though so many of our other friends had already married and had kids. The very thought of seeing the Gang was suddenly rather exhausting.

  I tucked the phone under my chin, got to my car, opened the boot and started putting my shopping in.

  ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘Yes, Jassy, calm down. I’m not having a holiday; it’s more of a working mini-break. I’ve been writing and it’s been going well. I just want to finish off a couple of things. What day is it?’

  ‘Um, um, Tuesday.’

  ‘Right well I’ll come back at the weekend. If you see Benedict—’

  ‘He’s bound to drop in.’

  ‘—tell him I’m still furious and he’d better not have any more friends like that in.’

  ‘Okay, stop shouting. You can always come and stay with me you know. You’re very welcome.’

  I thought about it. Remembering Ralphie’s lascivious growling at my sister ‘Come here, you, I’m going to bowl a maiden over,’ in the next room was not something I wanted to repeat.

  ‘Look I’m probably over-reacting. Let me think about it. I’m a bit messed up at the moment,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll say! Where are you anyway?’

  ‘In the supermarket car park.’

  ‘Look, just come back. Otherwise Benedict is going to drive me mad.’

  ‘So it’s okay if he drives me mad?’

  ‘Well he’s your boyfriend. Stop being so difficult! Get rid of him. Hang on, Ralphie’s just got back. He’s been out to fetch his dry cleaning.’ She giggled. ‘We got chocolate body paint on his DJ trousers. You would have howled. We’d been—’

  ‘Please, Jassy, I don’t want to know.’

  ‘Promise me you’ll be back at the weekend? And by the way we’ve got an invite from Penguin for Samira’s book launch. Waterstones. Piccadilly.’

  ‘Yes I promise.’

  *

  I got back to Barracane House as dusk was falling, and for the first time the dark shadows of the little outhouse and the stunted trees looked a bit forbidding. I hurried inside and put some lights on. As I brought the last bag of shopping in I saw a handwritten note had been pushed through the letterbox. Now this was rather exciting.

  ‘Sorry to have missed you – I wondered if you would like to meet up for a drink in the Cat and Convict. They do good food too. It’s only a couple of miles down the road. I’ve drawn a map for you. If so, I’ll see you there about seven. Joe Field.’

  I hadn’t expected that. What a marvellous idea! And after my spectacular cooking failure, eating out would be a great alternative. But what should I wear?

  In London I would have fished out some spiky shoes and something from the latest go-to designer. There was always a bit of jostling for position with that in the Gang. The men seemed to get away with the usual shirt/chinos/jacket/stupid knotted scarf combo, but for we girls it was always a tense little moment when we saw what the other girls were wearing and whether we had scored more points on the cool/trendy/sexy/enviable … Oh boy, all of a sudden even the thought of it sounded draining.

  I just chose some simple jeans (7 for all Mankind – I mean I do have standards) and a pale blue sweater (Brora – cashmere) and left Barracane House just before seven. I was feeling quite chilled out but I still wasn’t going to arrive first. I mean I wasn’t desperate or anything.

  I’d done a bit of remedial work on my hair (on the cusp of complete chaos) and my incipient black eye (not as bad as I’d feared) and set off for the Cat and Convict.

  *

  It sounded like a lot of modern pubs that take on a silly combination of names in order to sound whacky and end up being pretentious and tiresome, but I was pleasantly surprised. A framed notice in the hallway told the tale of a convict who had escaped from Dartmoor Prison in the nin
eteenth century and escaped capture because he hid in the barn with the pub cat.

  Inside, the place was already quite full with a lot of country tweeds and waxed jackets heaped up on the coat stand by the door. You wouldn’t do that in Notting Hill.

  There was a preponderance of low beams, dark furniture and what looked like half a small tree burning in a massive inglenook fireplace. The successor to the cat of legend was asleep on the lintel above it, surrounded by pewter tankards and brass candlesticks. As I walked in, every head turned to look at me. Not in a threatening or unfriendly way, just sort of naturally curious.

  ‘There you are.’

  Joe was at my side, and he led me over to a table that was close enough to the fire to be warm without singeing my clothing. He already had a pewter tankard of beer with his name engraved on the side. Evidently he was a local in every sense of the word. I sat down as relaxed as a first-time buyer asking their bank manager for a mortgage.

  ‘What can I get you?’

  ‘Red wine would be lovely.’

  I sat and enjoyed the warmth of the fire for a few minutes until he returned with my drink and two menus.

  ‘Hungry? They do some great food here if you are. Especially the pies.’

  ‘I haven’t had a pie since I left school!’ I said, slightly faint with the thought.

  ‘Then this would be a good time to try one,’ he said. ‘The steak and ale is a house speciality.’

  I thought about eating a pie in front of him. I get a bit funny about eating in front of people, in case they think I’m greedy I suppose. Stupid.

  I looked down the menu for something less fattening. A salad or a light bite. There wasn’t anything. There were, however, a lot of things I absolutely love: proper comfort food, like cottage pie and fish and chips. Chilli and lasagne. Things I’d not had for a very long time. I’ve been on a diet for about twenty-five years, if I think about it.

  ‘I’ll have the cottage pie,’ I said at last.

  Joe nodded approvingly and went to order.

  I saw him exchanging a joke with a man behind the bar who was as wide as he was tall and they both turned and glanced at me. I looked away and watched as the cat got down from the mantelpiece by a circuitous route involving a plate rack, a shelf, a bookcase and an armchair before it stopped on the hearth and washed its paws.

  Joe came and sat down again and the cat strolled over to wind itself round his legs. He reached down to scratch its ears.

  ‘Friend of yours?’

  Joe grinned. ‘I like most animals, don’t you?’

  ‘I suppose so, but there aren’t many in my life if I’m honest. The occasional designer dog maybe?’

  ‘Designer dog.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘So you’re a writer?’

  I nodded and sipped my wine.

  ‘And what do you write?’

  ‘Romance. Some chick lit. I’ve done some medical and some psychological as well. And dabbled in erotica …’

  Damn, why did I have to say that? Why did I say the word erotica?

  Would he have read Housemistress and Headmaster?

  Bloody hell, I hope not. My publisher had put a particularly suggestive cover on that one. A close-up of glossy red lips and very white teeth biting a man’s hand. It had done brilliantly in America; they couldn’t get hold of it fast enough.

  He grinned. ‘Really? That’s fascinating.’

  Quick, change the subject.

  ‘And you’re a farmer. A sheep farmer? That’s hard work I bet.’

  ‘It is.’ He leaned back in his chair next to the fire and sipped his beer. ‘My father and grandfather before me too. Although these days a lot of the hard graft is done by my farm manager and his brother. And my mother and my stepfather are still at the big farmhouse and Will does a lot. When I get a bit of free time I sometimes write freelance magazine articles. So what are you writing at the moment?’

  ‘I’m working on a book called Choose Yes. I finished the first draft last year and now I’m editing. My editor wanted me to tweak some changes to the plot by the end of last December and I’m nowhere near finishing. I keep having to put her off with different excuses.’

  ‘What’s it about?’

  This was embarrassing because I kept reworking it and now even I wasn’t entirely sure.

  ‘It’s about a woman who swaps houses for the summer with a doctor. She was single then I made her a jilted bride and now she’s a widow. My editor thought it would work better. The hero is a paediatrician – terribly noble and altogether wonderful. When they eventually meet up of course it’s love at first sight, whoop de do and happy ever after. All that bollocks.’

  He laughed. ‘You sound rather jaded about it if you don’t mind me saying.’

  ‘Well, life’s not like that is it?’

  At that moment the barman came over with two massive meals and placed one in front of me. Then there was the required exchange about cutlery, sauces and did we need more drinks.

  ‘Not seen you in here before,’ he said, wiping his hands on a tea towel before offering me a meaty paw to shake. ‘Pete Skinner, pleasure to meet you. Friend of Joe’s are you? That’s nice.’

  ‘Otherwise why would she be sitting with me?’ Joe laughed.

  Pete raised his bushy eyebrows and tilted his head. ‘I’m just saying; bit of a surprise though if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Thanks for that, Pete,’ Joe said.

  Pete wound the tea towel between his hands and then flicked it gently at the cat to shoo it off. ‘I mean there’ll be some that will have summat to say, I’ll bet.’

  ‘Thanks, Pete,’ Joe said again, his voice carrying a warning.

  Pete laughed and went back off behind the bar.

  The meal looked and smelled delicious and was about three times the amount I would have normally eaten.

  ‘So you don’t believe in love at first sight?’ Joe said after a few minutes.

  ‘Good heavens no,’ I said. ‘I suppose that makes me a bit of a hypocrite. Selling books crammed with love and happy couples when I don’t believe a word of it. Pretending there is a Mr Right out there. That perfect someone. If you just think about it the chances are unlikely and the divorce statistics speak for themselves.’

  He blinked a bit and looked away for a moment. Then he grinned. ‘So you haven’t met Mr Right?’

  ‘Not a chance,’ I said, realising with a surprise that it was true.

  The funny thing was as I said all this I knew I didn’t believe it. Deep down I wanted there to be a particular, special, wonderful person.

  Benedict was nice-looking, well spoken, educated and clever with what my mother would have called ‘good prospects’. He had a lot of positive points. There wasn’t any one thing about him I could violently object to. Even after two years there was nothing terrible. However, recently there had been lots of little things, which were adding up to a series of arguments that got less and less reasoned and more and more heated as I released my irritation about his bike, his hypochondria and his inability to load or unload the dishwasher. And then I’d caught him with a half-dressed woman in my kitchen. I think anyone would find that off-putting.

  ‘This meal is fantastic,’ I said, hoping to change the subject, ‘and this place is everyone’s dream of a country pub. The décor, the look of it. You’d never get anywhere like this in London. It’s all chrome and spindly bar stools and meals served on blocks of wood or bits of slate.’

  ‘I told you it was a nice place. And they brew their own beer in the basement. The building is at least four hundred years old, maybe more. There was a rumour one of the big chains wanted to buy it only recently. There was uproar.’

  ‘I bet.’

  We carried on eating and chatting until eventually I had to concede defeat; in the battle of woman versus food, food had won.

  ‘So, I didn’t think you’d be in tonight, Joe?’

  I looked up as a young woman stopped at our table, one hand on Joe’s shoulder. She watched me wit
h narrow, suspicious eyes.

  Oh heck! The girlfriend? The wife?

  Joe looked up unconcerned.

  ‘Hello, Ellie, how are you?’

  ‘Oh fine, had to get the vet out to Maggie the night before last.’

  ‘Is she okay?’

  ‘I think so. Got the sheep sorted? They say the weather is going to turn.’

  ‘Yes Jim and Ken did that yesterday.’

  Ellie stood looking at me.

  ‘Aren’t you going to introduce me?’

  ‘Of course. This is Louisa. She’s staying in Barracane House for a few weeks. She’s a writer. You might have heard of her.’

  ‘Have I heard of you?’ She looked at me with flinty grey eyes, her antagonism obvious.

  ‘Lulu Darling, I usually write romances. But occasionally some medical or family saga.’

  Too much information; I was prattling.

  Ellie screwed her face up in thought. Even then she was remarkably pretty. She had a thick, blonde plait that hung down over one shoulder and she took hold of the end of it and stroked it against her cheek.

  ‘Nope I don’t think so. Oh hang on I think I might have tried to read one once. It wasn’t quite my thing. I prefer real books.’

  No, I expected you to say something like that.

  ‘Ah well, you can’t please everyone,’ I said cheerfully.

  She gave me a sweet, nose-crinkling smile, pulled out the chair next to mine and sat down.

  ‘You don’t mind do you?’ She leaned across a little bit, just enough to block my view of Joe, and put her pint on the table. ‘How did you get that black eye? Been fighting?’

  I touched my cheekbone defensively. ‘Oh it’s nothing – just a little bump.’

  Ellie turned away to speak to Joe. ‘I was hoping to talk to you about Ivy.’

  ‘Yes, go on,’ Joe said.

  ‘You don’t mind?’ She shot me a look.

  ‘Well …’ Joe said.

  ‘Good. I was talking to Isobel the other day. She says Penny Barron has a grey. Lovely temperament. She wondered if you’d be interested.’