Learning to Love Read online

  ‘Oh, you know, gathering momentum,’ Andrea said, a lie she couldn’t hope to get past Miss Bunting, her very own beady-eyed headmistress as a child.

  ‘Momentum, my eye,’ Dee muttered to Andrea’s dismay. ‘Like a blooming bicycle without wheels, if you ask me.’

  Andrea sighed and swapped Chloe to her other arm. She’d spotted Eva’s sooty black cat padding along the pavement and was in serious wriggle mode.

  ‘Sorry, Deirdre, I’m not quite sure I understand.’ Eva laced her fingers under her ample bosom and eyed Dee patiently over her glasses. And managed to look rather superior, Andrea noticed, which would be bound to get Dee’s goat up.

  ‘The townsfolk couldn’t be arsed to turn up,’ Dee clarified, the emphasis on ‘arsed’ no doubt for maximum shock effect.

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Eva arched an eyebrow and looked disdainfully down her nose. ‘In which case, we’ll have to see if we can offer them a little incentive, won’t we? I think perhaps trying to give them a sense of pride in their community might work, don’t you?’ she suggested, her tone now definitely patronising.

  ‘Yes. We could start by insisting on eyesores being removed from front gardens.’ Dee looked Eva pointedly up and down.

  ‘Wonderful idea,’ Andrea interjected, before there were fisticuffs on the street. ‘The community pride thing, I mean. If the planning permission goes ahead, maybe we could enlist some help turning part of the playground into a garden area?’

  Eva looked delighted. ‘Marvellous idea, my dear,’ she said, reaching out to give Chloe’s baby-plump cheek an over affectionate pinch, which would probably have the child apoplectic in a flash. ‘Isn’t it, my little munchkin?’ Eva went on, producing a peapod in a mysterious manner from her pocket as Chloe looked on, obviously too surprised for spontaneous shrieking.

  ‘It’s magic,’ Eva said of her peapod. ‘It has jewels in it, see?’ She unzipped it, popped a pea in her mouth and ate it. ‘Ooh, yummy, scrummy in my tummy,’ she sang.

  Dee looked at Eva as if something had gone wrong, like her head. ‘Would you like it?’ Eva asked, holding the pod out to Chloe. ‘It’s a very special peapod but we can grow some more with lots of love and magic, can’t we?’

  Chloe, who had ‘magically’ ceased all fidgeting, glanced uncertainly at Eva, then shyly reached out, took the pod, popped a pea in her mouth and gleefully chewed on it.

  ‘Unbelievable.’ Andrea laughed. ‘That must be the first time she’s eaten a whole vegetable, albeit a little one. Thank you, Eva. You’re a star.’

  Eva glowed. ‘It’s all in the presentation, my dear,’ she imparted, turning to cross the road back to her garden.

  ‘Yes.’ Dee glanced at the seat of Eva’s yellow gardening trousers as she walked away, which had obviously had a close encounter with the fruits of her labours. ‘Beautifully presented, my dear,’ Dee observed – loudly – as she eyed the splotched tomatoes thereon smugly.

  ‘Mum, stop it,’ Andrea hissed, then almost disappeared inside her shoes as Eva turned back. ‘Oh, Andrea …?’

  Oh, Lord, she’d heard. ‘Yes, Eva?’ Andrea answered lightly.

  ‘Do you think you could remind Jonathan to give me a call about my investment portfolio? Or drop by sometime? I need to make a withdrawal as soon as possible in regard to the works on the shop, you see.’

  ‘Sorry, Eva. He was tied up in meetings I think.’ Guessing he was under pressure, Andrea covered for Jonathan. ‘I did mention it again this morning and he said he’d do it today.’ Andrea smiled and steered Dee on, before she felt obliged to comment, no doubt inappropriately.

  Dee didn’t disappoint. ‘As in a withdrawal from her account and straight into his, more likely.’

  ‘Mum …’ Andrea despaired. ‘Her son’s not that bad. Honestly, talk about lack of community spirit. Can’t you two bury the hatchet and just get along?’

  ‘Me?’ Dee gasped, affronted. ‘It was Hibberton’s sad answer to Charlie Dimmock who started it, thinking she’s an authority on everything just because she was a headmistress. Never missed an opportunity to tell me how to bring up my children.’ Dee stuck out her chin indignantly. ‘And look how her perfect son turned out. Only ever bothers to turn up when he’s short of cash. Humph.’

  ‘Don’t Mum.’ Andrea glanced back to Eva, now hard at work in the soil, which was, Andrea knew, Eva’s way of filling the long lonely hours since her layabout son had moved out, only ever paying her a visit when he wanted something. ‘It’s not Eva’s fault her son’s like he is. We can’t blame everything on our parents, can we?’

  Dee opened her mouth, and then closed it again.

  Her charges finally despatched, Chloe at the nursery and Dee at the drop-in centre at the village hall –which Dee, on first attendance, had promptly re-named drop-dead-in centre – Andrea headed back to pick up Sally before heading off in the opposite direction to the school.

  Sally had said she was running late as well when Andrea rang. No surprise there. True, Andrea was late herself today, but she wasn’t generally if she could avoid it. Sally, on the other hand … Well, as an example to the children regarding timekeeping, teaching assistant Sally Anderson was not a good one.

  Andrea tried not to mind though. Sally and she had hit it off immediately when she and her then fiancé, Nick, had moved to the village, in search of rural tranquillity and a cleaner, safer place to bring up her children, Sally had confided. Also confiding that she’d invited practically the whole village to her wedding because she was scared of being alienated in a community where everyone knew everyone.

  Andrea smiled as she remembered how Sally had set about winning the locals over, the men with fluttery eyes and the women with compliments on their dress sense, as she walked up the path to Sally’s cottage.

  She knocked on Sally’s front door, mulling over an idea as she did. Inviting Eva’s participation might actually be a way to solve her playground garden problem. If the green space went, the children would definitely need some kind of alternative, and what better than a ‘magic garden’ where flowers and vegetables, rather than the current weeds, thrived? Andrea would love to see that underway before she left.

  No answer from Sally. Andrea checked her watch, and then knocked again. And waited.

  ‘Coming,’ Sally finally called.

  ‘Lord! Sally?’ Andrea balked as Sally swung her door wide, her normally perfectly made-up face looking more like Eva’s tomato-blotched bottom.

  ‘Sally, what on earth …? Has something happened? Are you sick?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sally said in a little voice, her bottom lip quivering. ‘Of men!’

  Oh, dear. Another couple at loggerheads, it seemed. Andrea ushered her tearful friend inside. ‘Come on, tell me all about it,’ she said, wrapping an arm around Sally’s shoulders as she guided her to the kitchen.

  ‘He’s left me,’ Sally blurted, once seated at her recycled and lovingly waxed farmhouse table.

  ‘What?’ Andrea’s mouth fell open. ‘When?’

  ‘Before I went to my mother’s. We had a terrible argument and …’ She stopped, and swallowed.

  ‘But I thought you were—’

  ‘Trying for another baby?’ Sally gulped back another sob. ‘I was. He wasn’t so keen on the idea. Had a narrow escape the first time, obviously.’

  That was awful! Sally had lost her baby at five months. She’d been desperate to get pregnant again. ‘Oh, Sally …’ No wonder the poor woman had taken off when she should have been at work. She’d obviously needed some space to try to come to terms with the end of her marriage. Andrea reached across the table to squeeze her friend’s hand. ‘I’m so sorry, sweetie.’

  Sally nodded and dragged a tissue under her nose. ‘He, um, did want one though, it turns out.’

  ‘What?’ Andrea stared at her friend, disbelieving. The man hadn’t got someone else pregnant, had he? That would be too cruel.

  Twisting her tortured tissue into a rope, Sally enlightened her. ‘Well, a babe anyway. He’
s been bedding one on a regular basis,’ she said, quite still now, apart from a slow tear sliding down her cheek. ‘It started when I was pregnant. He denied it at first, of course, but … Well, you just know, don’t you?’

  ‘I, um …’ Shit, Andrea reached again for Sally’s hand – and quietly cursed Nick to damnation. How could he? Why would he? Sally was beautiful, elegant, talented. Andrea glanced around at Sally’s also elegant home, individually and tastefully decorated with rescued pieces. What was the matter with the man?

  Andrea tightened her grip on Sally’s hand and waited, every conceivable curse wedged in her windpipe. It would do no good to voice them. Sally had probably thought and said them all. She didn’t need anyone else reinforcing what a lowlife her husband was.

  ‘Fresh fruit, I suppose.’ Sally shrugged, but looked so desolate Andrea felt her own heart breaking inside her. ‘Early twenties, from what I could see when he was drooling all over her.’

  Andrea frowned.

  ‘I followed him,’ she answered Andrea’s confused expression. ‘He’d said he was away on business. Hah! More like doing the business. They were practically shagging on the street. Not a crow’s foot or droop in sight, the little slut.’

  Thus the Botox, which Andrea had suspected Sally had been having. Sally was desperately trying to iron out her creases to compete with her younger rival. Honestly, did she not know how attractive she was?

  ‘No brain in sight either, presumably,’ Andrea growled.

  ‘Actually, she has a psychology degree,’ Sally said lightly – troublingly lightly. ‘I called her a bimbo and Nick kindly put me right on the subject.’

  ‘She’ll need to use her blooming psychology degree if she’s going out with a deceitful, two-timing, emotion-abusing bastard!’ Andrea fumed, thoughts of not voicing her opinions flown out of the window. ‘Ooh, how I hope he does unto his new not-so-dim young thing what he’s done to you. On the other hand, poetic justice would be if she with the degree reversed the psychology and did unto him, the predictable little twerp!’ Andrea finished on a humph.

  ‘Well, Miss Kelly, I’m shocked.’ Sally widened her eyes and attempted a wobbly smile. ‘You’re to stay after school and write out five hundred times, “I must not use such mild language when talking about adulterous rat-bag husbands”.’

  She squeezed Andrea’s hand back. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, not very convincingly. ‘I’d rather live without him than live a lie with him.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Andrea agreed.

  ‘Don’t be surprised if you see him with half of his flat screen TV under his arm later, though, whilst clutching his vitals with his other hand. I don’t think I’ll be able to do dignified and calm very well.’

  No, nor would Andrea, but … ‘Later?’ she asked, puzzled.

  ‘He rang earlier to say he’s coming back tonight for his share of our belongings, which obviously wasn’t a great start to the day. So I thought I’d be absolutely fair about it and divide them up equal … Oh no, Andrea, your evening out! I forgot all about Chloe and—’

  ‘Sally, it’s all right. I can ask Ryan. He’s fine about watching Chloe, honestly.’

  Sally nodded. ‘Don’t suppose I’d be very good company anyway, would I?’

  ‘You’re always good company,’ Andrea said firmly.

  Sally smiled sadly. ‘Pity Nick didn’t think so.’

  ‘We’ll go out,’ Andrea said, wishing there was something more she could say that would take Sally’s pain away. ‘We’ll organise a girl’s night and—’

  ‘Pull a few men?’ Sally enquired, with a hint of a twinkle back in her eye.

  ‘Um, how about we pull them apart instead?’

  Sally laughed. ‘Sounds like a plan. Thanks, hon, for being there. Now, come on,’ she hoisted up her shoulders and got to her feet. ‘We’ve work to go to and a certain entrepreneurial someone’s Second Chance Designer store to plan at lunchtime. Can’t conquer the world if we’re sitting here contemplating the meaning of men, can we? We have to make sure at least one of our dreams comes true. Talking of which, I have an exquisite Halston Heritage gown for your evening wear section. You can pick it up later. Just in case the adulterer decides he wants half of that, too, along with half of his flat screen.’

  With which, Sally notched up her chin and headed off across her stripped and waxed floor with her head held high, leaving Andrea quite in awe of the strength of the woman.

  Chapter Four

  Running late, having come straight from the surgery, David abandoned the car on double yellow lines and sprinted for the school. He hadn’t bargained on the school run being so stressful in a supposedly sleepy location. It was mayhem. Mothers driving four-by-fours like Formula One racing Ferraris. He could have sworn one came around the corner on two wheels spitting sparks. It would be easier to walk through the woods in future, he decided. At least then he wouldn’t have the hassle of parking.

  Raking a hand through his hair, he walked more calmly into the playground, knowing that Jake wouldn’t be pleased to see him there, even on his first day. The kid had made it obvious he couldn’t bear to be in his company for more than two minutes. David didn’t blame him.

  Swallowing hard, he tried not to look too obviously like a fish out of water, though he could see from the furtive glances and hushed whispers in the playground that that was exactly what he looked like. What he was: a single father, new to the village, and probably soon to be labelled not very sociable. He doubted he’d be swapping small talk at the village shop anytime soon. If there was one thing he was determined to avoid it was fuelling neighbourhood gossip. He’d done enough of that to last a lifetime, making Michelle’s and Jake’s lives miserable into the bargain. Sighing, David pulled up his collar against the biting wind, and hoped that Jake might at least acknowledge him when he came out of school. Not likely, he realised, after the disastrous start this morning.

  ‘And-ee?’ Nita’s wheedling tone alerted Andrea to the question before it was asked.

  ‘No,’ Andrea replied adamantly, weary after an afternoon that started organising the grand total of two computers for the afternoon skills lesson, and ended in a double lesson of art. She’d grabbed Steph, the PE instructor, as she’d passed by the door and asked her to keep an eye on her class while she located the CD player for tomorrow’s oracy session. With Nita’s help, she’d found it, finally, and now her feet were killing her. The new boots had been a bad idea.

  Grabbing another minute while she could, she plopped down in a chair in the school office to prise off one heel-blistering boot. The art lesson had gone well, though. The mural depicting seasons of the year had been an inspired idea, if Andrea did say so herself. The kids had thought it was cool anyhow, knuckling down to produce templates of bees and birds, foxes, hedgehogs, bugs and spiders against a backdrop of fluffy white cloud and seasonal foliage. It would make an amazing mural for the playground wall beyond the ‘magic garden’, given she did ever manage to turn it into anything other than a patch of weed.

  ‘Pretty please?’

  ‘All right, Nita.’ Andrea sighed, resigned to the task of removal man. ‘I’ll see if I can get Sally to help out and save your bacon, but make sure you bat the beguiling eyes at some of the male members of staff next time desks need moving, hey?’

  ‘I was going to. My eyelashes were poised, honestly.’ Nita fluttered demonstratively. ‘But then my mother rang.’

  ‘Ah.’ Andrea got the gist. Nita’s mother could talk the hind leg off a donkey. Andrea had been in the office the last time she’d rung, watching amused as Nita plopped the phone down on the desk – her mother’s tones still drifting therefrom – and leisurely wheeled her wheelchair over to the filing cabinet for a file.

  ‘And I do try to tell her I’m at work, but there’s just no pause between words. She’s like, “Now-I-know-you’re-busy-sweetie, but …” and off she goes.’ Nita threw her hands in the air in despair. ‘What can I do?’

  Andrea laughed, despite her
sore feet.

  ‘She’s telephoned to remind me my cousin’s coming over this afternoon. I won’t be there, I tell her. Whyevernot? she says. I’m going to be working, I say. Sheesh, she says, you’re only on work experience, Nita. What are they running there? A sweatshop? She’ll stop at nothing to match me up with a suitable young man, I swear.’

  ‘I’m sure she means well,’ Andrea sympathised, with a tolerant smile. ‘I’d better go and find Sally and ask Steph if she wouldn’t mind dismissing my class.’

  ‘Sorry, Andrea. I didn’t mean to bang on. It’s just that you’re such a good listener and I don’t have anyone else, what with two so-good-they’re-golden brothers and a father who popped his clogs rather than risk saying boo to the goose that laid them.’

  ‘There’s nothing else for it, I’m going to have to get me a toyboy.’ Sally sighed, contemplating the three desks they’d been volunteered to haul across the playground to the temporary Terrapin classroom.

  Andrea blinked, astonished. She was all for Sally skipping the self-analysis and going straight for the bulk purchase of impractical raunchy lingerie stage, but wasn’t she being just a teeny bit quick off the mark?

  ‘Well, why shouldn’t I?’ Sally had obviously noted Andrea’s bemused expression. ‘I’m not ready to cast aside my plunge bra and man-trapper shoes for tan tights and fluffy slippers yet, you know?’

  ‘No reason.’ Andrea smiled, doubting Sally would be caught dead in tan tights and slippers, as she positioned herself to grab hold of one end of a desk.

  ‘Precisely.’ Sally positioned herself at the other end. ‘If he can have tender young flesh, then so can I. I don’t need commitment, not any more. It’s too painful. I need a man in his prime. A lean, keen sex machine, with rabbit inclinations in the bedroom.’