‘Show me again.’ While Bill took his turn, Ella took hold of Bets’ arm and elbow.
‘Like this, feel it.’
This time when Bets threw her dart, she scored a far more respectable eighteen, a one and a twelve.
‘Yay!’ She swivelled her hips, chanting, ‘Go me. Go me. Go me.’
Stepping up and skirting around her smartly, Fred made short work of three throws scoring twenty, twenty, twenty.
Bets, her face a picture of petulance, muttered, ‘Show off,’ as Devon, Ella and Richard burst out laughing.
Ella noticed how quickly she cheered up when Richard’s improved throw delivered three darts, all of which hit the board. Despite the fact none of them scored anything he received a hearty round of applause from the group of ladies sipping drinks behind them. Maybe she should take a few lessons from the ever-cheerful Bets. Nothing seemed to slow her down for long. In fact, now she was very unsubtly celebrating John’s surprisingly inept score of three.
‘Not very sporting,’ teased Devon, nudging Bets.
‘I know, but it makes me feel a lot better.’ She smirked and rubbed her hands, waggling her eyebrows in pretend villainy. Ella smiled and tried not to laugh at her silliness. It was very childish, but it was impossible not to laugh when she realised the vicar, who should never ever play poker, was doing his utmost to look suitably disapproving while distinctly unholy glee danced in his eyes. Bets’ unsportsmanlike delight was infectious.
‘Right, my turn again. Let’s see if Miss Midas here can give me the darts touch.’ With his dark brows screwed in concentration, almost meeting in the middle, Devon stepped up and took his time, mirroring Ella’s technique. Letting his darts fly, he scored two twentys and a twelve.
Bets leapt to her feet and high-fived him with a loud whoop. ‘Yee-ha!’
Ella took a deep breath as she stepped out of the pub into the chilly night, immediately aware of the quiet. Ahead, her solitary shadow loomed tall and thin in contrast to the bright lights behind her. When she looked back she could see everyone inside, laughing and smiling, action and noise, in ambers and golds. With a leap of her heart she stood stock-still, taking note of the angles and planes of faces, the light and shadow between, the colour and shapes coalescing in her head.
She turned sharply and crossed the street in quick, impatient strides. Devon had offered to walk her home but she’d refused. The place was so tiny compared to London, any hint of danger was laughable unless she was likely to be mauled by a passing hedgehog.
When she opened the front door, the dog bounced up and down in the hall with her usual ridiculous excitement. You’d have thought she’d been gone for three days instead of three hours. With a small sigh, which might almost have been contentment, Ella hung up her coat.
The dog butted her head at her legs gently as if to say,hello, remember me. I’m still here. The evening had turned out far better than she’d expected. She’d had fun. Bets had been a lot less irritating than she remembered. The vicar rather sweet and Devon, well, he wasn’t so bad after all, but one to steer clear of – she couldn’t cope with another lost soul.
Chapter Nine
Spring sunshine dappled the route as Ella made a sudden decision to head for the reservoir.
She walked along the road, Tess trotting alongside, her paws pitter-pattering on the Tarmac.
Once she and Tess had left the road, crossing at the right bend, she followed the footpath through to the reservoir and let Tess off the lead. Her tail wagged joyfully as nose down, she zigzagged back and forth across the gravel path, in hot pursuit of some exciting scent.
Ella followed slowly and stopped on the bank high above the water, unexpectedly charmed by the moorhens who pootled this way and that, their legs scurrying madly beneath the water with no obvious aim or direction. She watched them go round and round in circles. They seemed happy enough. Her mouth crumpled in a bitter smile. That’s what Patrick had accused her of – losing her direction, her artistic ambition, of wanting to settle down. But what was wrong with wanting what other people had. Families? Children? Wanting those things didn’t have to be at the expense of art, did it?
A heron swooped by on impossibly long wings, its body and legs a long straight line at odds with the curving sweep of its flight. She followed its progress, the huge wings dipping and rising with mechanical precision. Sunlight sparkled on the water like glitter and the trees at the water’s edge arched with the grace of ballerinas in front of an audience of brilliant green reeds. She studied the arcs and curls of the foliage and the rainbow of greens before being distracted by a gaggle of ducks over toher right who turned up-tail in quick succession in a feverish hunt for breakfast. That would make a picture. She stood for a moment. Looked closer at the trees, Degas’ dancers emerging from the shadows. She looked deeper. There it was.
The idea grew like unfurling blossom, spreading out. Her heart soared. Acrylic paint to give it texture. Brilliant spring greens lit with gold. Intense white and silver. Ideas raced and for once it was easy to grasp them. Hold fast to them. A long slender canvas mirroring the elongation of the water, the trees and their reflection.
She blinked. It wasn’t her style at all. Could she even do it? The ideas were there but could she ever capture them properly?
She looked round for Tess. But what if she could? There was something that called to her, elemental and insistent. It brought back a wave of emotion, a dizzy headiness of excitement. Ella picked up her pace. She needed to get home. Needed to paint. Now.
Where had Tess got to? She’d forgotten all about her. There was no sign of the wagging tail scything through the undergrowth.
‘Tess!’ She pitched her tone a little higher, the way Bets had told her.
She stood at the top of the reservoir wall, her eyes casting left and right, looking for any sign of the dog. Below her the water lapped at a gravel beach. Had Tess wandered down there or off the path around the corner into the trees?
‘TESS.’ Now she bellowed. Bloody typical when she wanted to get back. Where was the damn dog? ‘Tess!’
Suddenly there was an aggrieved yell from one of the fishermen’s tents pitched on the water’s edge. Tess galloped towards her as a man strode out, his gait wide and awkward in waders, shouting and red-faced. Oh God, what had she done?
With Tess dancing around her heels, looking particularly pleased with herself, Ella had nowhere to hide. She grabbed the dog’s collar and tried to put herself between the man and the dog.
