Penny Vincenzi - The Best Of Times

Jonathan still felt he was living in a nightmare.

Even a call from that old goat Freeman, telling him that there was evidence that the crash appeared to have been due in large part to the lorry sustaining a shattered windscreen-why couldn’t these people speak proper English?-but that they were still gathering evidence, failed to make him feel much better. If they were still gathering evidence, then it could even now be seen as important that he’d been on the phone, and God knew where that could land him.

He looked back on his old life-years ago, as it seemed, rather than weeks-with its easy, pleasant patterns, with something near disbelief. He was often depressed, frequently nervous, his professional confidence shaken, his smooth charm roughened by weariness and self-doubt.

The whole household seemed on tenterhooks, no one easy, even the children; Charlie was edgy, less trustful, almost wary of him, the little girls awkward and fractious. Taking their emotional cues from their mother, he supposed, without realising it.

Laura had moved away from him; she was oddly self-contained, less hostile, but far from warm. They were sharing the marital bed once more, but it was as if she had drawn a barrier down it, holding him from her by sheer force of will. He felt she was biding her time, waiting for something to happen-she knew not what, only that she would recognise its significance and therefore whether or not their marriage was still viable.

And he could see that the danger of that something, while as yet nameless and formless, was still extremely real.

Abi had never been so happy. Day after day it went on, like some wonderful, long, golden summer. An absurd, sweet happiness, born of this absurd, sweet love affair. Absurd and so extremely unsuitable. For both of them…

It had begun in earnest that night in the farm office. Adjacent to the lambing shed.

Not many people had sex in farm offices adjacent to a lambing shed. Or not many people she knew, anyway. Well, nobody she knew. Maybe they did in the country. Life was certainly different there.

They’d met in the pub and he’d suggested they go to another one a couple of miles away: “Too many people here I know.”

“Are you ashamed to be seen with me, William?” she’d said.

And he’d blushed and said, “Of course not,” in tones of such horror that she’d laughed. “It’s just that we’ll be… well, you know, interrupted all the time.” And they’d driven to the other one in the Land Rover, and she’d had two vodkas and he’d had two beers and it had straightaway begun to get out of hand. Or rather she’d got out of hand. She just couldn’t stand it, sitting there, looking at him, with those bloody great feet of his, and his ridiculously sexy mouth… and she’d savoured that mouth now that she knew what it could do… and his eyes moving over her, looking at her cleavage and her legs… and she’d shifted her chair nearer him, and pushed one of her legs up against his, just because she wanted to touch him, even through those ridiculous trousers he’d worn-what were they called, cavalry twill or something? Really grossly old-fashioned-and then he’d said would she like another drink, and she’d said, “No, William, not really, thank you very much,” and he’d looked a bit nonplussed, and she’d said, “I tell you what I would like, William,” and he’d said, “What’s that?” looking slightly nervous, and she’d said, “I’d like to go out to the car,” and they’d sat in it and snogged rather deliciously for a while, and then she’d said… after he’d made it clear he wanted what she wanted, every bit as much, possibly even more, “I’d like to go back to your house. To your room,” and he’d been so horrified it had been quite funny.

“Abi, we can’t do that. I’m sorry. We just can’t. You’ve met my parents; can you really imagine them sitting calmly watching TV if they thought… if they knew… we were… Well, it just doesn’t happen. Honestly, if I tried, I’d be so… so… well, I wouldn’t be able to do it.”

She decided not to ask him what he’d done in the past, simply said, “Well, we have to find somewhere, William. I’d suggest going back to mine, but I don’t think I can wait that long…”

That was when he’d suggested the office.

It hadn’t been too bad, the office. It was away from the house, quite far away; they’d gone in his car down a long track, to part of what he called the lambing shed. Which was hardly a shed, but a huge building that could have housed half a dozen families. They went into it; the office was at the far end, a surprisingly clean, warm pair of rooms… “This is my bit, mine and Dad’s; the other’s for the farm secretary. She-”

“William, I don’t want to know about the farm secretary… Oh, God, can we just get on with it?”

He started to kiss her: that incredible style of kissing he had, slow and hard and sort of thoughtful; and while he did so, she managed to pull her dress off: all she was wearing under it was a pair of pants.

And then he’d started kissing her breasts in the same way, and then she’d pushed him down onto a sort of large couch thing, and… well, then it had all been totally incredible.

It seemed to go on for hours, wonderful, wild, noisy hours, as he worked on her body, made its sensations rise and fall, ease and tauten, as he moved slowly, then fast, then slowly again, pushed her to the edge, then pulled her back, as she felt everything with her head and her heart as well as her body, as he invaded every aspect of her, every capacity for pleasure she had, as she came, yelling with triumph, and then again and then, yes, yet again.

And now, nearly two weeks later, it was… well, it was absolutely great. They alternated between her place and one of the empty holiday cottages on the farm… He said he hadn’t thought of them before, and they were certainly more comfortable than the farm office. She didn’t mind William’s insistence that they only use candles in case his mother or the cowman who lived quite near them noticed the lights on and came to investigate; it seemed rather romantic. They cooked Ready Meals, usually curry, on the time-warp electric stoves, and drank some very indifferent wine and then had a lot of wonderful sex. She didn’t even mind the drive home at some point in the night; in fact, she rather liked it: the roads were clear, and she could play the radio and sing loudly along with it, and think about William and how sweet and funny he was and how much she loved being with him, and not just for the sex. Her only fear, and it was truly dark and dreadful, was that William would find out what she was really like.

Incredibly pushy, what that woman had done: calling the hospital, asking for his secretary, leaving a message, and then calling again before he’d even begun to think what to do about it. And then just… asking him out. No excuses, no, “I wanted to hear more about the Connells,” or, “I wondered if Georgia had helped as much as we hoped.” Simply, “This is Linda Di-Marcello here.”

He’d been completely taken aback just hearing from her.

“It was very nice meeting you on Sunday. I’ve been hearing so much about you from Georgia. Well, from Maeve Connell, really. And I wondered if you’d like to go to a show one night. I get tickets for pretty well everything, and I don’t know what sort of thing you like, but there’s a new musical previewing, based on The Canterbury Tales, supposed to be good, or there’s yet another Macbeth; take your pick. Oh, and what sounds huge fun at Sadler’s Wells if you like dance, sort of flamenco crossed with tap.”