A sigh escapes me as I get out of the car. ‘Thank you for today.’
Jake raises a hand in response. ‘I meant it about wanting to read your book.’
I smile as I lean back in. ‘Okay. But you’d better be kind.’ Then I shake my head. ‘Actually, no. I don’t mean that. I want to know the truth about my writing. Be as horrible as you like.’
He gives me a full-on smile and my stomach flips over. ‘Okay. I’ll be really mean and nasty. I promise.’
I pull a funny nervous face and, with a wave, he drives off.
I watch the car until it disappears behind the trees, then I straighten up, paste on a smile and walk over to our tent, aware that my heart feels strangely heavy.
Toby pops his head out of the door before I get there. ‘I’ve brought dinner,’ he says, beaming.
‘Have you? How lovely and thoughtful of you,’ I say, taken completely by surprise. Toby flushes a little and shrugs it off.
As I’m stepping inside, there’s a big crash from the next tent. It sounds like someone’s dropped a pile of plates from a height. I exchange a horrified glance with Toby, just as the man, Dane, charges out of the tent, turning the air blue with a string of expletives. We pop our heads out just in time to see Dane striding over to his car, with Chantelle running after him, begging him to stop.
Dane totally ignores her, gets into his car and drives off with a screech of his wheels on the tarmac. Poor Chantelle stares after the car, then turns and walks slowly back to the tent. Luckily she hasn’t spotted us spying on them.
‘Oh dear, she’s crying.’ My heart goes out to her. Dane seems a bit of a bully. ‘I’m going over there to make sure she’s all right.’ I pause at the entrance. ‘Do you think I should invite her over for dinner?’
‘Really? Are you having a laugh, Daisy? They’re probably the sort of couple who exist purely on burgers and chips.’ He pulls open the fridge door and brandishes a packet. ‘I doubt the lovely Chantelle will be a huge fan of beef kofta with Mediterranean vegetables.’
‘Toby!’ I gasp. ‘Don’t be such a snob.’
He shrugs, looking a bit red in the face. ‘Invite her if you want. I don’t care.’
I stare at him, puzzled. ‘She’ll probably say no.’
‘Fine. Whatever.’ Avoiding my gaze, he walks through to the bathroom and flicks the lock.
Poor Chantelle is distraught and already halfway down a bottle of red by the time I go over. Apparently Dane has left for good. She seems pleased at the invitation, though, and takes me up on it straight away.
I wait while she changes and she emerges in a short floral dress and a pair of vertiginous heels that aren’t hugely suitable for stumbling across the grass to the next tent. I glance at her outfit warily, knowing it’s bound to irritate Toby. He’ll turn his nose up at that low-cut neckline for a start! I just hope he’s polite to her.
I’ve never seen this intolerant side to Toby’s character before and I can’t say I like it.
‘Oh, what’s happened to your arm?’ Chantelle asks as soon as we walk in.
‘Bee sting,’ says Toby.
Chantelle looks horrified. ‘Oh, poor you! I hate bees! And wasps. And flies. And moths. And spiders.’ She gives an exaggerated shiver of disgust.
‘They are pretty disgusting,’ Toby agrees. ‘Especially the way they invade our space. I mean, what other living thing does that?’
She nods as I usher her into a seat. ‘Precisely. Even bears keep their distance normally. And you’d never see a squirrel just wandering in and getting into bed with you. But insects – they get everywhere!’
‘Can I get you a drink, Chantelle?’ I offer. ‘Wine?’
‘Yes, it’s their total lack of boundaries that disturbs me,’ says Toby. ‘You’re right about squirrels. They’d never dream of invading your house but bloody flies just barge in and take over the place.’
I pour Chantelle some wine and leave them to it while I go through to the kitchen to make dinner.
When I return and we sit down to eat, they’re discussing the countryside as if it’s an alien land to be avoided at all costs. But I’m happy that at least they seem to have found some common ground. The only thing I find a little disconcerting is the extent to which Toby is appreciating Chantelle’s low-cut dress. The more wine he drinks, the more he’s talking to her cleavage instead of her actual face, which seems quite disrespectful to me.
‘Toby, will you stop staring at her boobs?’ I hiss, when she goes to the loo.
He shoots me a bemused look. ‘But I’m not.’
I sigh. ‘You might not be aware of it, but you’ve just basically conducted an entire conversation about the evils of cows with her breasts. It’s embarrassing, Toby. And she’s definitely noticed.’
He’s looking at me as if I’m a chicken fillet short of an E-cup. ‘Honestly, Daisy, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I happen to think she’s got ridiculously large mammaries. Not my thing at all.’ He frowns. ‘I think you spend far too much time in your imagination. But then, I suppose that’s part of trying to be a writer. Making up stuff.’
‘I’m not making up stuff,’ I whisper angrily. ‘I saw you with my own eyes. My real eyes, not my made-up ones!’
Out of nowhere, I’m on the verge of tears. I lurch from the table on the pretence of fetching something from the kitchen.
Toby being in denial about the boob-gazing doesn’t particularly bother me. It’s quite amusing, really. But his remark about how I’m ‘trying to be a writer’ really hurts. It shows, in a nutshell, exactly how seriously Toby views my dearest ambition in life. He still hasn’t bothered to read my story, despite nearly destroying the magazine using it as a fly swat.
I think of Jake, wondering what he’s doing right now. Boiling water on his campfire to make more nettle tea maybe? I smile at the thought. I doubt that will be happening again after the last lot. Instead, I picture Jake lying on the grass, staring up at the stars in the night sky and dreaming up ideas for his next book.
A pang of real longing hits and the thought runs through my head: I want to be there, lying on the grass beside him.
I stand stock still for a moment. Then I wander into the bedroom and subside onto the springy mattress. I’ve been telling myself that it’s our meeting of minds that’s the real draw for me with Jake. But perhaps it’s more than that. A whole lot more …
‘Daisy?’ calls Toby. ‘Can you grab the cream from the fridge? I’m ready to serve up.’
‘Okay.’
Toby pops his head in. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Fine.’ I stand up, pasting on a smile.
He sighs. ‘Look, Dais, I’m really sorry we haven’t spent much time together since we’ve been here.’ He pushes me gently back down on the bed, takes my face in his hands and kisses me ever so softly. ‘And I’m sorry you thought I was distracted by the boob show. But you must admit they’re hard to ignore.’
‘You’re right there,’ I concede, his sheepishly apologetic expression thawing my heart a little.
‘Look, how about we get rid of Chantelle after dessert and have an early night?’
There’s such a hopeful light in his eyes, I find myself nodding. ‘That would be lovely.’
I’ve been feeling really irritated by Toby’s attitude so far this holiday – but on reflection it’s not really fair of me to criticise him. Not when I’ve been spending time in the woods with another man!
It’s been an emotional few days and my head is all over the place.
My encounter with Arabella was so dispiriting, I’ve started to have second thoughts about finding my birth mum. If it turned out to be her – and I can’t see any other possibility just now – I’m not sure Arabella would actually want to know me. Not after her caustic remarks about children. She seems a fairly self-centred sort of person and, if I’m honest, I didn’t warm to her at all. I desperately wanted to, but I just didn’t.
Perhaps if I got to know her properly, I’d feel differently.
And if she found out I was her long-lost daughter, who knows what a difference that might make to her life? She might have buried the sadness of her baby being adopted deep inside her and grown a hard shell as a result – and that buried grief might well have made her into the rather cold, brittle sort of person she is today.
But this is all just speculation; the product of my imagination. Maybe Toby is right and I live in my head far too much. The truth is, I know nothing about Arabella and, the sad thing is, I’m not even sure I want to now.
After we’ve eaten dessert and Chantelle has had two more glasses of wine and is almost falling asleep in her chair, Toby murmurs to me that maybe he should walk her back over to her tent.
I flash him a grateful look. By the looks of her, she wouldn’t make it over there by herself. And while he’s making sure she gets back safely, I’ll carry the plates into the kitchen, leave the dishes for the morning and be in bed waiting when Toby returns. It’s a long time since he’s suggested an early night. Hopefully a romantic night will help revive our flagging relationship …
Clearing away, I hear Toby shout, ‘Careful,’ and Chantelle giggling hysterically as he apparently tries to heave her to her feet. I smile to myself, glad he’s escorting her back and I don’t have to. I run hot water onto the dishes in the sink then I quickly shower, slip into the silky shorts and vest top Toby likes to see me in, then dive into bed. After a second, I leap out again and apply a slick of lip gloss, pouting seductively at myself in the mirror. Back in bed, I wait for Toby to return.
He arrives back twenty minutes later.
‘Is she okay?’ I ask, worried she’s been sick or something and poor Toby has had to clear it up.
He groans, nipping through to the bathroom. ‘You don’t want to know,’ he calls.
I laugh. ‘What happened?’
‘Oh, she kept falling over and then when we finally got back to her tent, she dropped the key to the padlock and we ended up crawling around on the grass trying to find it.’
‘But you managed it in the end?’
‘Sorry?’
‘You did it.’
‘Did what?’
I frown. ‘Opened the tent for her?’
There’s a brief silence. ‘Oh, that. Yes. Yes, of course.’
‘So she’s fine now? All tucked up in bed?’
He appears at the door. ‘Well, I just helped her into the tent and onto the bed. I didn’t exactly tuck her in.’ He looks a bit flushed at the very thought.
I laugh softly and hold my hand out to him. ‘As long as she’s back safely. Are you coming to bed?’
‘Yes. I’m just applying insect repellent. I’m bloody determined those bastard insects aren’t going to get me tonight.’
He returns and slides into bed naked, and I turn towards him with a smile, recalling the early days of our relationship when the sex was really quite good.
He feels a little sticky but I wrap my arms around him anyway, my hands tangled in his chest hair.
‘Thank God for an early night,’ he murmurs. ‘I’m positively knackered.’
Two seconds later, he’s snoring gently …