‘So,’ Nisha said into the uncomfortable silence, which was punctuated only by the brief slap of Sam’s debit card on the machine. ‘Seems you twoaren’told friends after all. My bad.’ She made a comedy wince face, and Amy laughed.
‘We’re mortal enemies,’ she explained.
‘More like frenemies,’ Sam countered. ‘There were definitelysomemoments where we got on.’
‘None that I can recall,’ Amy said, entirely dishonestly.
‘We must remember things differently then,’ Sam said, and there was an edge to his voice– a pointedness that sounded dangerously close to flirtatious.
‘I’d better get back,’ said Amy, suddenly feeling like her skin was too tight. ‘It was great to meet you, Nisha.’
‘You too, Amy!’ Nisha gushed. ‘I’ll text you. We’ll do something soon, yeah?’
‘Sure,’ Amy nodded, smiling. It was a long time since anyone had so innocently invited her to be their friend.
‘I’m off too,’ Sam said. ‘See you later, Nish.’
He and Amy both moved towards the shop’s exit, shoulders and shopping bags colliding awkwardly as they tried to move down the same narrow gap between shelves.
Briefly, they were so close that Amy caught the scent of him: clean, but somehow deep and woodsy, too. It was like cedar and citrus fruit cut with herbs.
Amy felt heat rush up her neck again, and this time it flooded her cheeks before she could calm herself. She wanted the shop floor to rise up and consume her–anythingto prevent Sam from noticing that a second’s proximity to him had left her so flustered. Ever the well-bred gentleman, he merely gestured for her to go in front of him, then held the shop door open so she could leave first.
Back on the high street, he looked down at her– probably a whole foot down, since she was in flats. Determined not to appear cowed, she lifted her still-pink face to look right back at him.
‘It was … nice to see you, Amy,’ Sam said, sounding gentler and less testy than before. He raised a hand in farewell and turned to walk away.
Amy stood still for a few seconds, breathing hard and trying to regain her composure. For the briefest, most infinitesimally small moment, she found herself wondering if he’d meant it.
Chapter 9
Over the following fortnight, Barbara made good on her threat to claim Amy’s help with several upcoming events. In between establishing contact with agents, reading the manuscripts they submitted and trying to source potential sponsors for the launch event that would celebrate her as yet unnamed imprint, Amy was corralled into taking part in a Sunday-afternoon litter pickandgiving up the following Saturday morning to man a stall at the village bake sale.
The very idea of a highly organised, people-powered clean-up event was bizarre to Amy, who’d lived for so long in a busy city that she’d become inured to a constant low level of outdoor mess. The notion that streets, hedgerows and watersides could be pristine and rubbish-free almost didn’t compute– and she was similarly confused by her neighbours’ willingness to clear up other people’s trash. It seemed Rowton’s engaged, enthusiastic villagers were a breed apart from the tunnel-visioned Londoners who thought nothing of discarding a half-readEvening Standard, McDonald’s wrapper or takeaway coffee cup on the steps down to Baker Street Tube.
While Amy wasn’t what Barbara would have called a ‘litter critter’ herself, neither was she particularly keen on collecting the mangy detritus of other people’s day-to-day lives. And yet, the previous weekend she had wandered around the village armed with a black sack and a metal grabber, plus instructions to focus her efforts on a specific stretch of the grassy banks either side of the stream.
Grace, who wasn’t fit to collect litter herself, helped to co-ordinate other people’s efforts from the sidelines, ensuring that tea and coffee were available for volunteers and supplying replacement rubbish bags as and when they were needed. Barbara, of course, was commander-in-chief of the army of villagers who’d turned up to help– and to Amy’s eyes, itwasan army: somewhere between twenty and thirty people of all ages, none of whom were afraid to get their hands dirty in pursuit of keeping Rowton tidy. Several individuals, Barbara’s long-suffering husband Dave among them, were even sporting waders– presumably so they could walk into the stream and pluck errant crisp packets, Coke cans and fish and chip papers from the water should this prove necessary.
Sam Ainsworth had appeared shortly after Amy’s arrival, not bothering to hide his amusement at the sight of her in a pair of borrowed, bright purple wellies with turquoise polka dots all over them. Not only were they the least stylish things she’d ever had on her feet, they were also a good two sizes too large– and she rapidly discovered it was pretty difficult to maintain an air of elegant disdain in footwear fit for a circus clown.
‘You look as though you’re in costume,’ Sam had said, his face lit up by a wry grin. ‘About to act in a play about the sort of person who helps out at community events.’
Eyeing his mud-spattered Hunters and lightly weathered Barbour jacket, Amy had seethed, ‘What are you evendoinghere, picking up after the commoners? Isn’t there a hunt that you could join? A gentlemen’s club you should be propping up the bar in?’ She’d stopped short of folding her arms and scowling like a stroppy teenager, but reigning in the gesture had been a Herculean effort.
‘You’re the newbie here, Amy, not me,’ Sam said, supremely self-assured and unbothered by her sarcasm. ‘I’ve attended almost every litter pick Barbara has organised in the past five years. And let me tell you, just in case you’re in any doubt: that isa lotof litter picks.’
Amy resisted the urge to laugh at this, first because he was infuriating, and secondly because she felt stung by this evidence of his genuine involvement in village life. She still hadn’t forgiven herself for allowing video calls to take the place of actual visits to her grandmother for months on end, or Grace’s subsequent reluctance to tell the truth about her hip. Sam’s clear confidence that he belonged here also needled an old, long-dormant feeling of not fitting in– the sense of being different that had made running off to London appealing, but which was really borne out of being the awkward, introverted new kid with an absent mum and a dying father.
‘Whatever,’ had been Amy’s rather weak retort, after which Sam had slunk away to join his sister– as well as a young girl of around seven, who Amy assumed must be an extended family member. She was blonde and sweet-looking, sporting a mischievous grin that Amy couldn’t help warming to.
Meg was tall and slender, just as Amy remembered, with hair a few shades lighter than Sam’s: it was long, poker straight and a strawberry blonde colour, its paleness shot through with natural streaks of copper here and there. Where his skin was beige in tone, hers was peachy– the sort of complexion that seemed designed to blush prettily at compliments. She had hazel eyes– a different tone to Sam’s, but the same shape, with the same ‘don’t need mascara, unlike you mere mortals’ lashes. Like her brother, Meg had enviable bone structure and full, pink lips. In short, she still looked every inch as though she were destined for a terribly tasteful, terribly expensive society wedding– yet she, too, was wearing wellies and a somewhat scrappy jacket, and had a bin bag in her long-fingered hand.
Meg had nodded at Amy and thrown her a smile when their eyes met. Why were she and Samhere, Amy couldn’t help wondering as she returned her smile, rather than living in smart London apartments or lofts in New York? From what she could remember, their parents were hardly the sort that grown-up children would rush to spend time with.
Cool, distant, snobbish and old-fashioned, Roger and Pamela Ainsworth were generally unpopular in Rowton– particularly Roger, the current Viscount. Perhaps this held the key to Sam and Meg’s regular appearances at events like this, Amy thought. Maybe, in exchange for whatever obscene sum of money each of them was advanced to live on every year, they were required to do a little fence-mending with the villagers– obtain some positive PR for the family so its senior members could carry on in the same, blasé manner they always had.
Once Barbara’s volunteers had all received their instructions and the litter pick began, Amy had filled her refuse sack with rubbish as cheerfully as possible– though she was followed for much of the morning by Simon, the village postman. He was a history buff with no off-switch: a man whose enthusiasm for discussing World War Two, the development of Britain’s canal network or the downfall of Napoleon knew no bounds, and whose ability to talk at length to a disengaged listener was legendary.As Amy discovered during the course of the morning, he also seemed to have appointed himself Rowton’s most eligible bachelor.
