‘Perhaps I’d better give you some time alone.’ White and shaken, Harold climbed to his feet.
Gareth lifted his eyes to his father. ‘You bloody stay where you are and meet your granddaughter. Bryony, this is Harold Myers, my father.’ Diane heard the pride in his voice.
Theatrically, Bryony sprang up, wiping her eyes. ‘Oh. My. God!’ And she flung herself around the bed and into Harold’s arms as if she’d known him all her life.
After a startled moment, Harold beamed. ‘Hello, young lady,’ he said, quietly.
Gareth looked up at Diane and she saw the pride of parenthood in his gaze. They still shared Bryony.
Chapter Nineteen
Tamzin rang Diane. ‘Can I come over, today? Or do you want to be left alone with Bryony? I understand, if you do. But if I do come, can I bring George? He’s got no exams this morning so he said he’d pick me up and bring me over.’
She heard the smile in Diane’s voice. ‘Yes, come. Bryony won’t wake until afternoon, I’ll bet. She’s shattered.’
The journey to Purtenon St. Paul took twenty-five minutes. Thirty-five if you counted the initial ten minutes spent kissing in the car, slewed around and scrunched over to avoid the hand brake. It was George who broke it up, golden-brown eyes regretful. ‘I could do this all day but I suppose we’d better hit the road or I won’t get back for uni.’
After they’d cleared Crowland and turned right off the main road he picked up her hand from where it lay on the seat and placed it just above his knee. Whenever his left hand wasn’t occupied on the gear stick or the steering wheel, he dropped it casually on hers. His flesh was warm and firm through the fabric of his jeans and she went suddenly breathless and shy.
George treated her like a proper girlfriend and his friends had made themselves her friends, too, slicing through the distrust for groups and gangs that the Coven had given her.
‘The others want to see a film tomorrow night at The Showcase. I said I’d see if you were up for it.’
‘Yes!’ she squeaked, before she could think about being cool or laid back. ‘What are we seeing?’
George glanced in his mirror, indicated and turned left. ‘Erica and Marty are still bickering about it. What’s your sort of thing?’
‘Not horror, not cowboys.’
‘You’re such a girl.’
Tamzin giggled. ‘It seems a while since anyone noticed.’
She thought about being alongside George in the darkness of the cinema. Probably holding hands. About the way their relationship was going. How long it would be before he went for it, sex-wise. Her heart bumped, uncertainly. Sex hadn’t happened for her until uni. Was that what had marked her out to the Coven as different?
Certain that all she had to do to be accepted was bin her virginity like a dress in last year’s colour she’d thrown herself into bed with Lucas – until Lucas began referring to her as his ‘fuck buddy’. Pathetically, hoping he thought she didn’t care, she moved on from unprotected sex with Lucas to unprotected sex with others. She’d been so lucky not to get herpes or chlamydia.
At least she’d guarded against pregnancy with the pill. Some days, it had been her only solid food.
Since then, she’d discovered that counsellors link casual sex with depression, risky behaviour and low self-esteem. A counsellor wouldn’t demand, ‘What were youthinking? That letting boys you hardly knew inside your body would solve something?’ But, instead, would explore good-for-me and bad-for-me relationships, carefully avoiding passing judgement.
But Lucas had been bad for her. So had all the others. She didn’t need anyone to tell her that.
Tamzin hadn’t had sex since she’d left university. Sexual opportunity didn’t leap out at you when you lay alone in bed or on the floor or hung out with your mum and dad.
But it could be pretty important to the girlfriend of a funky young god who was something of a local hero.
‘Diane, this is amazing!’
Diane beamed as Tamzin stroked the ivory fabric of the first top. The slightly boxy style made her appear slender rather than thin. And maybe she was putting on just a pound or two? She looked miles better, with a flush on her cheeks and her hair brushed into a corn-coloured sheet.
While Bryony slept the sleep of the jet-lagged upstairs they’d indulged in a cosy half hour around the kitchen table with coffee and a biscuit tin and Tamzin had eaten two biscuits that George selected for her. She was certainly going through what James termed a good patch. Diane let her mind linger on James: his smiling eyes, his brushy hair. She’d received a text from him this morning:Thinking of u. Want 2 b with u.
She had still been considering her reply when her text alert beeped again.Can u come here alone? Would like 2 talk.
But it was from Gareth.
She’d flushed with guilt, as if Gareth’s text could somehow look into her inbox and scurry back to him to report. She’d returned,OK, will have 2 b 2morro. Fittings 2day.Perhaps, by then, she would have decided on a path to dance through the marital minefield. She really didn’t see that she was going to be able to bring herself to have a relationship with James without distancing herself from Gareth, but Bryony wanting to play Happy Families made that difficult.
