Penny Vincenzi - The Best Of Times

But now they would be alone together all day and every day, for a while, and she could tell Christine all about it. And hopefully Christine would be really happy about it. Hopefully…

“Abi?” It was William’s calm, deep voice. “Abi, it’s William here. I’ve just had the police on the phone-got to give them an interview, wondered if they’d approached you as well.”

“Oh, William,” said Abi, thinking it would be worth going through any number of police interviews to have William discussing them with her. “William, it’s great to hear from you. Yes, they have. In fact, it’s tonight; I am so not looking forward to it.”

“Oh, it’ll be all right,” he said easily. “You were just a witness, that’s all; nothing to worry about. All you’ve got to do is give them a straightforward account of it.”

She wondered, What on earth would William say if he knew about the real her…? “When are they seeing you, then?”

“Tomorrow morning. I can’t say I’m looking forward to it either; my father’ll be getting involved, probably, telling them the field’s been ruined with their helicopter.”

There was a long silence, then he said: “Look. I was wondering. How would you like to have a drink tomorrow night? We can have a chat, compare notes.”

“William, that’d be great. Really.” Was this for real? Was he actually asking her out? God…

“OK. It’s a date. Where should we meet, Bristol, I s’pose?”

“Well, that’d be nice. Long drive for you, though. And then you won’t be able to drink much.”

“Oh, I’m not a big drinker anyway. Tell me where we can meet. You can show me a few of the bright lights over there; how would that be?”

“Great,” said Abi. “Really great.”

“Good.” He sounded slightly surprised himself. “And meanwhile, don’t worry about the interview. All you’ve got to do is tell the truth.” If only it was as simple as that; if only she hadn’t got to lie and lie, and remember so many crucial things… “It’s no big deal. What about your friend the doctor; I expect they’re seeing him as well?”

“Yes, I believe so,” said Abi, and then: “He’s not a friend, William, just a business connection. I thought I’d told you, I’d never met him before Friday. He gave me a lift from the conference…” This was quite good; she could rehearse her lines.

“Oh, OK. Well, it’ll be interesting to see what they do want to know. Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

She sat thinking about him for a bit after ringing off: sitting there on the tractor, looking tanned and so bloody fit, with those lovely kind, sort of hazelish eyes…

Oh, God. What was she doing fancying a farmer, of all things? And a posh farmer at that. What was she doing seeing him? Where was the sense in that? She should be distancing herself from everyone and everything to do with the crash, not going out with them. She was bound to give the game away, slip up…

She had been genuinely hurt as well as angered by Jonathan’s rejection of her; she had not, of course, ever imagined their affair had any real future, but somehow he had beguiled her-with his generosity, his enjoyment of her company as well as her body, his apparently genuine interest in her-into thinking he did actually care about her as a person. And how stupid had that been? Of course he hadn’t. He was like all the rest of them. He had wanted what he could get out of her, and beyond that-nothing.

Abi took a very dim view of men-not unnaturally, considering what she had endured at their hands. She was aware of being something of a walking cliché: knocked about by her mother’s first boyfriend, after her own father had walked out, seduced by the second, and then forced to listen to his lies that she had seduced him. Which had resulted in her being thrown out of the house at the age of fifteen. There had been a long parade of boyfriends, a few of them permanent. By the time she was twenty-one, Abi had turned into the sort of person she really didn’t like-without being able to see what she could have done about it.

She couldn’t suddenly become marriage material now; she couldn’t wipe out her rather desperate past. No one was going to look after her; she had to do it herself, and part of that seemed to be taking her sexual pleasure where she could, rather as men did. Only it was all right for men. Even married ones like Jonathan. It was all very unfair.

The reports in the Sunday papers had been awful: the lorry driver, who she now knew was called Patrick Connell, “very seriously injured and still in intensive care;” Toby Weston, the bridegroom (the media had latched on to that story in a big way), still “heavily sedated,” his leg with its multiple fractures a “grave cause for concern;” and there were several photographs of the families of people who had died, and of the blond girl in the Golf, taken on some beach the previous year, laughing, holding the hand of her boyfriend. And there were a lot of annoying stories about Jonathan, his courage, and how hard he had worked, how calm he was and how skilful. Although-annoying as they were-they were true. It was one of the reasons she didn’t actually want to drop him in the shit.

What was he getting into? William wondered. It was insane, absolutely ridiculous. But… so what? Who said relationships had to be sensible? Wasn’t that the whole point, that relationships couldn’t necessarily be called to order, that an attraction was uncontrollable and could, if followed, lead to some very pleasant chaos? William would have welcomed a bit of chaos into his life just now. He was too young to be settled into total predictability, too old to have to conform to his parents’ lifestyle. He wanted an adventure-and if not an adventure, at least an excursion to adventure’s perimeter. And Abi had seemed to be leading him towards one, beckoning him with her long, magenta fingernails, luring him with her dark, knowing eyes. OK, she could clearly be troublesome, but God, she was a living, breathing master class in sexiness.

So… what was wrong with that? Absolutely nothing at all. In fact, it looked rather the reverse.

William put the tractor into gear and sent it up the hill feeling suddenly pretty bloody good.

Maeve had been sitting with Patrick for some time, and was beginning to think rather longingly of the coffee shop for what had become her supper, a latte and a cookie, and thinking also that on her way back she’d pop up and see her new friend Mary.

She was absolutely dreading Mary’s going home. She was so wonderfully comforting and cheering, and filled with common sense. Maeve had told her about the dreadful possibility of Patrick’s being paralysed: “It will be so unbearable for him; he’s so active, so strong; he loves haring about; he can carry two of the boys and run at the same time. How will he cope with sitting in a chair for the rest of his life?”

“He will because he’ll have to,” Mary said. “You love him so much, and he loves you so much, and you know, Maeve, it’s a wonderful thing, love. They say faith can move mountains, but to my mind so can love. But you don’t know; he may recover completely-they can do such wonderful things these days…”

Maeve had thought Patrick was getting more with it, as she put it, day by day. It might be a long time before he came home, and the very least he had to face was major abdominal surgery, but he was still alive, which a week ago had seemed far too much to hope for. She was saying all this to Patrick when he reached out for her hand and squeezed it very tightly, and said, “Maeve-I’m beginning to remember.”

“Remember… what?” she said, and there was a band round her chest as tight as his hand round hers.