Rebecca Pugh - Down on Daffodil Lane

‘Yeah, go on then. Why not? One more won’t hurt.’ And she was having a wonderful time sat there with Millie as the sun continued to grace everything within its reach.

‘Great. Back in a mo.’

Millie disappeared inside the pub, leaving Maria alone. It was then she noticed how many tables had been taken up around them. An elderly couple sat together at one, enjoying dinner accompanied with a glass of wine each. To her right, she could hear low laughter from a group of men, their table was littered with beer bottles and a couple of mobile phones.

One of the men in particular caught her eye and she watched him a little more closely. Perhaps it was the unruly, dark hair, or how out of place he looked compared to the others. While they were dressed in smart jeans and shirts, his jeans had rips in the knees and his t-shirt looked muddied as if he’d been rolling around in a field all afternoon. As if aware of Maria’s gaze, he glanced in her direction. He looked mean, scary almost, with frown lines between his brows that were firm and unyielding.

Maria looked away immediately. She hoped he didn’t think she’d been checking him out. How mortifying that would be. Thankfully, Millie returned with two fresh pints and placed them down onto the wooden table, giving her something to distract herself with. After taking a quick sip, Maria reached for her bag to get her purse but Millie shook her head.

‘No way, these are on me, as a thank you for the company this evening. Cheers!’

‘Cheers,’ Maria grinned, clinking her pint glass with Millie’s. She took a long sip, her senses already blurring from the beer and then, secretly, she glanced in the man’s direction again with the cold glass still raised to her lips. It was an effective object to hide behind. He was chatting to the blond-haired man sat beside him. His jaw was sharp and angular, she noticed, as he ran a hand along the side of it. He could cut ice with a jaw like that, although she doubted the need to do so would ever arise.

‘Who are you looking at?’ Mille leant to the side to see if she could locate Maria’s point of interest. ‘Oh, I see,’ she said slowly, her voice light with amusement.

‘No one!’ Maria shook her head quickly. ‘I’m just taking a look about the place. That’s all. It’s a completely new area to me. It’s only normal that I’m interested to see what’s what.’

Millie smirked. ‘It was Brad you were eyeing up, wasn’t it?’ She wore an all-knowing expression as she spoke.

‘Of course it wasn’t! I don’t even know who Brad is.’ Maria did her best to appear confused. So, his name was Brad, was it? She mentally filed away the information, although for what use she wasn’t entirely sure.

‘Yes, you do,’ giggled Millie. ‘Broad shoulders, messy hair, tattoo peeking out from under his t-shirt. You know exactly who Brad is. He’s the one who looks like he’s been rolling around in the mud and had a blast doing it. The one most women wouldn’t mind rolling around in the mud with .’ Millie said all of this without a hint of surprise evident. Her blue eyes glittered naughtily at her last comment and she smiled. ‘It’s true. A lot of the women around here can be found swooning over him. He doesn’t have any of it though, doesn’t even acknowledge it. I love a man like that, don’t you? Hard to reach. The shell around him impossible to crack.’

‘You know him then?’ Maria tried not to appear too interested in Millie’s answer. She had to admit though, he did look a little untidy but not in an unpleasant way. In quite an appealing way, actually. She wanted to look in his direction again but also didn’t want to risk being caught. The look he’d thrown in her direction minutes ago hadn’t been an inviting one.

‘Vaguely,’ Millie shrugged in reply. ‘He works at Meadow Farm. It’s right up the lane beside the café. He’s not around much, I guess he likes to keep to himself. It looks like he’s had a change of heart this evening though. You don’t see him out and about that often. I wouldn’t blame you if you were admiring him, by the way. Don’t worry, I won’t judge. He’s quite yummy to look at. He’s definitely got that whole rough-and-rugged look going on, hasn’t he?’

Maria took the information in quickly, then rolled her eyes. ‘I was not admiring him. I was merely curious as to who was sat at the table, that’s all. After what I’ve been through, I should be sworn off men for life. How old is he anyway? He looks about your age.’

‘No way. Couple of years older than me. Mid-thirties, I think. He’s got a nerve showing up here though.’ Millie glanced out across the lake and watched the ducks gliding across the surface of the water. It was a pretty scene, but Maria was still thinking about what Millie had just said. She’d always been a curious person, and this man was igniting that curiosity this evening, although she couldn’t put her finger on why. She’d never been the type of woman swayed purely by good looks. She was of the frame of mind that it was what was on the inside that counted. Still, a little admiration never hurt anyone, and coupled with her beer-fuelled mind, she couldn’t seem to help herself.

She hadn’t fancied many men in her lifetime, Maria realised. Sure, there’d been the odd celebrity crush, but they were just a silly fantasy that she’d sometimes entertain. She’d spent her life from the age of sixteen upwards ridiculously devoted to Mike. He could never have done any wrong in Maria’s eyes, and she thought that was another reason why she’d been so shocked by the truth. She’d been under the impression that she’d known her husband inside and out, believed that he’d never keep a secret from her, no matter what. That’s what marriage was about, wasn’t it? Loyalty, honesty and trust? It turned out that they hadn’t had any of those things, and she wondered whether this affair, the one that had broken their marriage apart, had been the first, or one of many? She’d never know now.

‘What do you mean?’ Maria glanced again in Brad’s direction but pulled her gaze away just as quickly. ‘Why would he have a nerve coming here?’ It seemed like an odd thing for Millie to say, and she was interested to know more about the mysterious man across the way.

Millie shrugged. ‘I’m not entirely sure of what happened but apparently, according to local gossip, which I don’t participate in by the way, he used to go out with Sophie, and Sophie’s parents are the people who own this pub. She used to live here with them. I can’t say one hundred percent that what everyone says is true, you know what it’s like in a small place like this. A game of Chinese whispers, and the story grows more outrageous with every mouth that adds to it. But there’s supposedly bad blood between Brad and her parents.’ She made quote marks with her fingers around the words ‘bad blood’. ‘Something happened and ever since, Brad isn’t exactly made to feel welcome.’

‘Does Sophie still live here?’ asked Maria, glancing about foolishly, as if Sophie herself would pop up from out of the bushes and yell ‘surprise!’

‘No, she moved away a good few years ago, I think, and apparently got married last summer. Still, I suppose they can’t stop him from coming to the pub for a pint, can they? Free will and all that. My guess is he broke her heart. Bit of a cliché but that’s all I can come up with on the matter. They were together for years, you know. Stupidly in love. You’d always see them walking by the lake together, feeding the ducks. It was like something out of a movie. Everyone was shocked when they broke up and Brad sort of disappeared from Loland Green for a while. No one knows where he went but when he finally returned, he kept away from everyone, which is why I’m surprised to see him here. And with friends, too! I didn’t even know he had any, he spends that much time on his own.’ She snorted into her glass and Maria realised that the beer was beginning to have its effects on Millie.