Julia Williams - Pastures New

Not only that, he had nearly run over a kid on the way home from work. He hadn’t been going fast, and the kid had run out in front of him – but still. Inevitably, he thought about Sarah, and as a result he had been more angry with the kid’s mum than he should have been. But then – there had been something about her that touched him. An air of vulnerability that had made him want to protect her. He shook his head. He’d clearly been on his own too long. Perhaps Caroline was right, and he should have chucked it all in for a while and gone travelling with her.

Caroline . Despite his best intentions his thoughts still strayed back to Caroline. Enchanting, infuriating, mercurial Caroline. Why had he let himself get involved with her again? He’d known it would lead to trouble. But it had been hard letting go of the only person he’d ever really talked to about Sarah. Harder than he’d let on to anyone. It was the sympathetic way Caroline had listened when he’d first opened up to her about Sarah that blinded him to her faults in the first place. Caroline seemed to show such intuitive understanding, and when she’d cried about the day her father had left, it seemed their shared pain had given them a lasting bond. However, it hadn’t taken Ben long to realise that although Caroline did genuinely believe herself to be caring and thoughtful, in reality she was too selfish and spoilt to think too hard about anyone but herself.

To a degree, Ben didn’t blame her – her mother had remarried a rich banker, and while Caroline had never wanted for anything materially, her mother and step-father’s lack of emotional support meant she was appallingly needy. Caroline’s response, when she and Ben had split up, had been to flaunt a variety of different men in Ben’s face. To his eternal shame, the ploy had worked, and when she’d announced that she was leaving, he’d found himself back at her place on more than one occasion. He always regretted it, but Caroline just had a way of getting to him.

It had been a great relief when she’d finally gone off travelling, presuming he would follow her. But Ben had just taken up a temporary contract working in practice, and after spending too long kidding himself he was going to be a surgeon he couldn’t afford to lose time now if he was going to make partner in the next few years.

Ben had thought that would be the last he’d hear of Caroline, but a succession of emails meant he was fully apprised of her doings. He had received one this morning, which annoyingly had caused a reaction he really thought he’d got beyond by now.

She was working in a bar in California, having a great time. Too busy to write much, she said. Must dash, C U! And then a casual PS: Attached are some photos of me and Dave behind the bar . There were some jpeg attachments, and he opened them to see photo after photo of Caroline with a tall, brawny bloke who had a deep tan – presumably Dave Behind the Bar.

He knew why she’d sent them. It was to make him jealous. She had always flirted with other people when they’d been together. It was one of the many things about her that had made Ben realise he had to walk away. DBtB was probably nothing to Caroline, and she had only sent the picture to get a reaction. He hated himself for having it.

He dug furiously, trying to shake off unwanted images. He didn’t want Caroline any more. If she were here now, she would drive him mad. The trouble was that Caroline, for all her faults, her selfishness and her ego, was also bewitching and dazzling by degrees. And pathetic as he was, he couldn’t quite get her out from under his skin.

Ben vented his frustration on the ground and dug even harder, while Meg, his black Labrador, sat beside him, panting softly in the late summer heat. It was one of the hottest days of the year so far. Ben stripped off his shirt, and used it to mop his brow. He took a swig of water, and glanced, out of habit as much as anything else, towards Caroline’s garden gate. How many times had he seen her emerge from there, spade in hand, wearing her old gumboots and dressed casually in jeans and T-shirt, effortlessly managing to combine a wild sensuality with an earthy practicality? It was an image that was never far from his thoughts when he came out here.

He was about to turn back to his digging again when the garden gate opened. For a moment his heart leapt – maybe? – before his head kicked in. Caroline was unpredictable, it was true, but even she couldn’t make it back from California in under twenty-four hours. Maybe her rather useless letting agents had rented the place at last.

It wasn’t her. But it was a woman. And an attractive one at that. Her long fair curls tumbled casually over her shoulders. She was slim and wore a plain strappy summer dress and flat sandals. She had a little boy with her. It was the woman from this morning; the woman whose son he had nearly knocked over. Perhaps they were going to move in. He shook his head. He returned to his digging and dismissed them from his mind.

About ten minutes later, he became aware of a rather insistent and annoying buzzing sound. He turned round and suddenly he heard a shout of, ‘Wheee! I’m an aeroplane!’ and a small bundle came flying over, stamping on his carrots and crashing into his runner-bean frame. Meg leapt up and started barking wildly, and the bundle burst into tears.

‘Bloody hell! Can’t you control your son?’

Really! This kid had got in his way twice in one morning. His mother clearly had no authority.

‘He’s only a kid!’ The woman came flying up in a fury. She knelt down and took the bundle of child into her arms, making soothing noises.

‘Then I suggest you take better care of him!’ Ben was still cross, but also a little embarrassed that he might have overreacted.

‘And I suggest you keep your animal under control,’ the woman shouted back, pointing at Meg, who was jumping up and down, still barking excitedly. ‘Josh is terrified of dogs.’

‘If your son hadn’t been trampling over my allotment Meg wouldn’t have barked at all. This isn’t a playground!’

‘I am aware of that,’ the woman retorted in stiff tones. She looked pretty when she was cross, Ben casually thought. ‘I’m sorry that my son trampled on your allotment. He was just playing.’

‘Is he okay?’ Ben felt guilty. The little boy couldn’t be more than five.

The woman looked at him in disgust. ‘He’ll be fine, no thanks to your dog.’

They glared at each other angrily for a moment, Ben furious with her for not taking the olive branch he’d offered.

‘’I think we’ve seen quite enough of each other today. It’s all right, we won’t trouble you any further,’ she said, and walked away.

‘Good!’ retorted Ben, sticking his spade into the ground in disgust, watching her walk back towards Caroline’s house.

Just at that moment, Harry Hartswood emerged from the garden next door, pushing a wheelbarrow containing a spade, a fork and some potato sacks. Harry’s allotment was next-but-one to Ben’s, and they were old friends, their friendship forged by a shared love of growing things, an interest in history and a fascination on Ben’s part with Harry’s plethora of war stories.

‘I see you’re getting a new neighbour,’ said Ben, nodding towards Caroline’s gate.

‘So it would appear,’ said Harry. ‘I heard her telling the estate agent she wanted to take it. I thought she was rather pretty myself.’ There was a familiar twinkle in his eye.

‘She may be pretty, but she’s got a foul temper. Her horrible little son has just trampled over my allotment and she had the cheek to blame me for not keeping Meg under control. So what if she comes to live here? I won’t be getting to know her, that’s for sure.’