Now, the sadness was still there underneath, of course it was, but he’d definitely upped his game looks-wise, helped by his daughter-in-law Nell and encouraged by his attendance at the Reverend Bev’s meetings that had explored what it meant to find true happiness and contentment. Now he was wearing what Beryl classed as a very natty sports jacket over an open-necked white shirt teamed with navy chinos. His shoes were well-polished, and his hair looked as if it had been recently trimmed. Even his bushy eyebrows were neat and tidy.
‘You’re looking very dapper, Frank,’ Beryl said. ‘You’re not such a mess as you used to be.’
‘Thank you, my dear. You say the nicest things,’ he said, laughing. ‘Yes, we both scrub up rather well, don’t we? Shame to waste all this magnificence on a village pub. Shall we run away to Paris and dine by the Seine instead?’
Beryl watched a group of teenagers making their way through the trees and down to the bank of the brook where they were probably going to do all sorts of unmentionable things together. She felt an unaccustomed pang of envy for their carefree life. Frank’s joking comment stirred something inside her and she turned to face him.
‘And why not?’ she said, giving him a wide smile. ‘Why don’t we do just that? Let’s send a message to the others and pop back home for our passports. I’d only need a toothbrush and some clean knickers.’
Frank’s jovial expression now changed to one that looked remarkably like fear. ‘I was j… just kidding,’ he stuttered, blushing to the roots of his wavy grey hair.
‘I know you were. So was I,’ said Beryl, giving his arm a squeeze and setting off down the path again, taking him along with her. ‘But don’t you ever get the urge to do something crazy for once? I like my life here, but now and again, I want to…’
She broke off, not actually sure what it was shedidwant to do. Going on holiday with her two friends was all well and good and had been perfectly fine for years, but they always did the same sort of thing. Package deals in hotel rooms with ground-floor access, without any steep hills around them and with entertainment suitable for holidaymakers who still loved to party but didn’t want to be woken up at four in the morning by noisy revellers returning, vomiting into the flower beds and waste bins on their way back to base.
‘Don’t you ever feel as if life’s passing you by?’ Beryl asked as they reached the pub and paused by the door.
‘I’m in my eighties. I think most of it already has,’ he said, smiling down at her.
Beryl looked back up at him and her heart missed a beat. Why had she never noticed what beautiful blue eyes Frank had? They shone with kindness and good humour. There were many wrinkles and laughter lines around them but that only seemed to add to his charm.
‘I reckon you’re wrong,’ said Beryl. ‘It’s my view that we’ve still got quite a bit of living to do, and I have a plan.’
‘Why does that sentence fill me with terror?’ Frank answered, but he was still smiling.
Beryl didn’t reply. She stood back so that Frank could perform his usual gentlemanly act of opening the door for her and then led him towards the table in the corner where Anthea and Winnie were sitting. They waved, and Beryl waved back.
‘Are these two lovely ladies part of your mysterious plan?’ asked Frank, pulling a chair out for Beryl to sit on.
‘Oh, yes, they certainly are,’ she said. ‘And so are you, Frank, my friend. So are you.’
11
Back at the house, Vee kicked off her trainers and headed for the stairs. Rick watched her go up with mixed feelings. The suggestion that she might want to come to the pub with him had been a spur-of-the-moment one. He was half-disappointed not to be able to introduce her to his friends but also somewhat relieved that they were going to have a break from each other. The last two days at Dragonfly Cottage and their evenings together had been intense.
It had been a long time since Rick had spent so much time alone with another person. His marriage break-up had left him vulnerable and reluctant to form close friendships with women, although he’d thought for a while that he and the Reverend Bev could have something going for them. She was a great character, and they’d seemed on the same wavelength, but it turned out that she was still emotionally bruised from a disastrous marriage of her own and wasn’t anywhere near ready for another relationship. Neither was he, for that matter.
Rick was glad they’d found this out about each other before they got in any deeper. He was well aware that some people in the village saw him as a kind of lothario, footloose and fancy free and a bit too ready with the flirtatious chit-chat. This was very far from the truth, but he’d built up that image for himself, along with the blond hair, muscles and tan, so he couldn’t complain. After the mutual non-starter with Bev, he’d been sure that he wasn’t any readier than she was for a new relationship, but being in close proximity with beautiful Vee was making Rick unsettled and full of an uncomfortable longing to get to know her better.
He ambled into the kitchen and got himself a beer from the fridge, flipping the cap off and draining half of it in one go. It was thirsty work gutting a house and the weather had been getting gradually warmer all day. The early-evening sunshine was flooding the room with an almost ethereal glow, lighting up the jewel-coloured tiles that he’d lovingly installed around the worktops and casting beams of sunlight across the floor. Reflecting idly on how long it would take to get to the stage of making a proper kitchen like this one in Dragonfly Cottage, Rick’s thoughts swung back to Vee, and he sighed. Even though they’d got off to a bad start they were on an even keel now, but it was absolutely no good getting any kind of ideas about her. The past was there between them all the time, huge and daunting, even if she didn’t yet realise it. She would though, and when Vee began to remember who Rick really was, their paths would be bound to diverge very quickly.
It had been a nasty moment when Beryl had called him Ricardo, which had been his nickname back then. Not many locals had known him as that, which was lucky. Ricardo had enjoyed graffiti and had become quite a dab hand with the spray can. What he’d seen as his physical deficiencies in those days – a tendency to spots, greasy dark hair, a lot of excess weight and painful shyness – had all seemed unimportant when he was creating his artwork around the more run-down areas of the nearby town of Meadowthorpe.
Rick’s graffiti hadn’t been of the traditional kind. He’d had no tag and no desire to put a name to his art, just an overwhelming urge to make his mark in as dramatic a way as possible. He’d focused on derelict buildings, creating wild landscapes at great speed in vibrant greens and blues. Rick worked alone, and even his closest friends didn’t know how he spent his time after dark, through the small hours of the night. He’d never been caught, he was too savvy for that, but after a while the novelty had worn off, and that’s when he’d joined the Vipers, a gang that changed his life in a very bad way.
The beer was soon finished, and Rick decided to have a quick shower and head to the pub. He could eat there and that would leave the coast clear for his lodger to have a long soak in the bath.
‘Are you okay to get yourself something to eat, Vee?’ Rick called, when he reached the top of the stairs. ‘There’s plenty of bread and you’ll find everything else you need in the fridge if you’re making a sandwich.’
He stepped back as Vee opened the door suddenly. She was wearing her dressing gown, and his feverish imagination told him she probably had nothing on underneath it. He wrenched his gaze away. ‘I’m just going for a shower and then I’ll be out of your way,’ he mumbled.
‘Don’t be silly, it’s your house. And yes, I’ll have a cheese toastie after my bath. I’m too grubby to eat yet, but there’s no rush.’
She retreated into her room and Rick swallowed hard. He was worse than a teenager, thinking steamy thoughts about the woman in the spare bedroom. Stripping off his dirty clothes in the bathroom, he made himself have a cold shower for at least two minutes before he turned the dial to warm. That should do it. No more smutty thoughts. Tonight was for nice innocent card playing.
The volume of chatter seemed unusually loud to Rick as he entered the Fox and Fiddle half an hour later, after a brisk walk through the village and a jog across the green. He’d been ravenously hungry after his shower but determined not to start snacking before he left the house. The obvious ways he’d shifted the pounds when he’d taken stock of his life were exercise and less food. He’d enrolled in a gym, started running and totally reorganised his eating habits. It hadn’t been easy, but Rick had always been up for a challenge. His skin improved gradually, the weight dropped off him and he’d treated himself to his new hair colour when he’d begun to feel better about himself.
‘Over here, mate,’ a voice called as Rick headed for the bar. He turned to see his friend Sam already settled at their favourite table near the biggest window overlooking the village green, where either side of a temporary net, a game of volleyball was already in progress.
