Mum’s the Word

‘Why don’t you come outside, Robert; we can talk on the terrace?’ she said quickly, guiding him back out into the sunshine. Somewhat reluctantly, Robert followed. They left Matt whistling in the kitchen, busy ransacking the shopping bags and throwing open the cupboard doors.

‘Would you like me to bring your tea out there, babe?’ he asked as a parting shot. Susie glared at him.

As soon as they were outside, Robert rounded on her. ‘Who the hell is that?’

Susie held her hands up in front of her chest, palms towards him. ‘Calm down, Robert. It’s nothing. He’s nothing. He’s a friend of Jack’s.’

‘Nothing, nothing? It didn’t look like nothing to me. How long have you known him? What exactly is your relationship with that man?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Have you been seeing him behind my back?’

‘Oh Robert, for god’s sake, don’t be so melodramatic,’ Susie said, but even as she was trying to pacify him she could feel her own temper rising. How dare he be possessive?

‘Well, have you?’ he demanded.

‘No, of course I haven’t.’ She stared at him. He had no right to take that tone with her, no right at all. Or was it that accusing her of cheating made Robert feel better about behaving so badly, now that he had scrambled up onto what he seemed to think was some sort of moral high ground?

‘I haven’t been seeing anyone; Matt is a friend of Jack’s. When I came home from work today he was here decorating. I’ve never met him before.’ For some reason, said aloud it sounded like a lie.

‘He seems very chummy for a complete stranger,’ countered Robert. ‘He’d got his shirt off.’

‘Oh for goodness’ sake, I don’t see why I should have to explain myself to you, but if you must know it was because he’d got wet paint all over his tee shirt.’ Susie sighed. ‘Look, never mind about him, Robert, why did you come round?’

‘As I said, I was worried about you and I just wanted to say that I was – well, I am very sorry,’ he said, shoulders slumping, his expression softening as he tried out his whipped-puppy face on her. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I didn’t know how else to tell you. Please try and understand – it’s not you, it’s me.’ He smiled at her, all big eyes and bald patch, and against all the odds Susie felt herself mellowing.

‘And I wanted to talk; I wanted to let you know that our friendship is really very important to me, that I value you very much – and that I still love you even if we can’t be together. And I want you, I need you in my life.’ His voice cracked a little. ‘I wanted – I wanted to give you a big hug, Susie, I wanted –’ He paused, and with a concerted effort to look both contrite and cute, dark eyes twinkling, held the bunch of cellophane-wrapped, wilted and late-in-the-day flowers out towards her, taking a step forward as he did so, all kissy lips and lust.

And then the penny dropped. ‘You wanted a leg-over?’ Susie suggested, half-joking.

The horrified expression on Robert’s face suggested she had got him bang to rights. His mouth opened but no words came out.

‘Fancy a Pimms, anyone?’ called Matt from the kitchen doorway.

Susie slapped Robert’s flowers back across his chest. It was all she could do not to beat him around the head with them.

‘Don’t mind if I do,’ she said, and headed back inside.

‘Susie? Susie, wait, come back,’ Robert said, hastily recovering his composure. ‘Please. We need to talk …’

Chapter 5 (#ulink_ba956a2a-2964-5a1b-94c2-6a06c423e784)

‘Next time you’re going to invite strangers into my house, Jack, I would really appreciate a little bit of warning if you don’t mind. You’re lucky I didn’t panic and call the police. Here –’ Susie said, thrusting a bowl of salad and a dish of prawns at him. ‘Frightened the bloody life out of me.’

‘Oh come on, Mum, Matt’s not a stranger. I work with him. He’s my boss.’

‘One man’s boss is another woman’s armed intruder,’ she snapped. ‘Now can you put those on the table, and then get the cutlery out of the drawer.’

‘For god’s sake, chill out, Mum, you said yourself when I got here that the spare room was a work in progress. Well it’ll just be progressing a lot faster now. The way we’re going, it will be all done and dusted by the end of the week, if not before. We’re doing a great job up there. And besides, let’s face it, Matt’s in the same boat as me. As us, really.’

Susie’s eyes narrowed. ‘Which is what exactly?’

‘The SS Nowhere to go and no one to love us. He’s just split up with his partner – actually, to be fair it was a few months ago now, but it’s not going well. They’re still wrangling over property and money and custody of the cat from what I can gather. All very messy, apparently. Anyway, the college have let him have a flat on campus, but it’s really grim. Circa 1963, lots of concrete and metal-framed windows and some very nasty carpets.’

Susie tipped her head to pick up the sounds of Matt padding around upstairs after his shower. ‘Really?’ she said conversationally, dropping wedges of French bread into a basket. ‘I’m surprised; he seems like a nice guy.’

‘He is a nice guy, Mum, but nice guys can still end up all alone with dodgy carpets for company,’ Jack said. ‘Or sleeping on their mother’s spare-room floor, come to that.’

She nodded distractedly, thinking about Matt. He’d been funny and kind about Robert after Robert had left. Lovely eyes.

Susie reddened. Lousy timing.

Jack stood back to admire the newly laid table. ‘There yer go, fit for a king. Matt is great company – they reckon that Alex, his partner, was a complete and utter pig to him. Everyone says the same thing about those two, chalk and cheese. Matt’s a really sound guy, Alex was pure poison – broke his heart, took him for a fortune and then buggered off with someone else.’

Susie paused. ‘Alex?’

‘Yeah, Alex Dawson – Matt’s partner – something significant in civil engineering or something. We didn’t ever meet but he opens up a bit about Alex when he’s had a few. Matt was really cut up. Alex was a bit, well – you know – liked to play the field. Matt comes home early from a conference one weekend and there is Alex in bed with another guy. Not what you want –’

‘No, not what you want at all.’ Susie shook her head.

She thought about Matt standing in the hallway door with his good tan, nice hands, great hair, immaculate clothes and being worried about getting emulsion on her table.

Mind you, maybe it was for the best after all. Shame, though – Matt Peters was really easy on the eye.

‘He said I can stay there with him if I like. Till I get myself sorted out. I thought maybe we could go cruising together.’ Jack laughed. ‘I mean, why not – we’re both footloose and fancy free.’

Susie opened her mouth to say something when, right on cue, Matt jogged down the stairs, wearing well-worn khaki chinos, another clean shirt, his thick grey hair still damp from the shower and pushed back off his face.

‘Come on, Mum, I mean you’ve got to admit Matt’s not bad looking for an old bloke,’ said Jack.

‘I heard that,’ said Matt. He stretched. ‘God, I needed that shower. It feels so much better – and that looks great,’ he said appreciatively, surveying the spread Susie and Jack had set out on the kitchen table. ‘I could eat a horse – country air and hard work is an amazing combination.’

‘Sorry, no horse, no steak and no onion gravy either,’ she said, indicating that he should sit down, wondering whether she ought to have a quiet word with Jack. ‘But please feel free to help yourself to everything else. I’m sure you’ll be able to find something to stave off the hunger pangs.’

Susie handed him the wine. ‘Do you want to open this while I get the potatoes?’

He looked over the label and nodded appreciatively. ‘Is the Pope Catholic?’

‘Last time I heard,’ said Jack, offering him the corkscrew.

As Matt undid the bottle, Susie watched his long, strong fingers and sighed. The nails were clean, trimmed short and looked manicured. No straight guy ever took that much trouble over his cuticles.

She pushed her glass across the table towards him. Matt looked up at her quizzically. ‘Been a long day; make mine a large one,’ she said as he filled it up. As he poured Matt started to whistle something that sounded suspiciously like something from Oklahoma.

The following morning Susie took Milo out for his early-morning walk. Today Susie walked slowly, letting Milo linger over new smells by the stile while she sniffed back tears of pain and self-pity, hoping that no one would be out this early to see her.

And so maybe this was it – game over, hunkering down to a life of singledom and solitude, with Jack moving into the spare room and his gay friend popping over from time to time to help with the decorating. She rubbed her eyes and sniffed again. Life could be such a pig sometimes, especially when you were feeling sorry for yourself.

It was just before seven, the morning still misty and slightly damp, sunlight glittering in the dewy, diamond-strung cobwebs. Over on the far side of the common other early-bird dog walkers were out beating the bounds around the well-worn paths. Today Susie made a point of avoiding them.

The common was surrounded by a single-track road on three sides. One end of the rough grassland was framed by cottages, with a bench and a seat and the village sign overlooking the village pond, while the other petered out into rolling scrub, farmland and woods, crisscrossed with rights of way and tracks, all eventually leading down to the river. If you picked your route you could walk for hours and barely see a soul. The road out led onto the bypass, the A10, and beyond that, a couple of miles north, Denham Market.