One Summer at Deer’s Leap. Elizabeth Elgin

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СКАЧАТЬ said you were frantically busy,’ I’d hedged.

      ‘Never too busy for you, darling. Come to my place, instead?’

      Why didn’t he and I shack up down there, he’d said, throwing the two-can-live-as-cheaply-as-one cliché at me.

      And iron shirts and do the cooking, I’d thought, and be back to writing odd half-hours again. Besides, Piers wasn’t my soulmate. I didn’t see us ever making a proper go of it. If my ego hadn’t balked at being manless our relationship could well have ended ages ago.

      We’d made love, of course. Piers was good to look at; dark and lean and somehow always tanned. His designer stubble suited him, too, though I wished sometimes it wasn’t so hard on my face – afterwards.

      And that was something else about him and me: the afterwards bit. It never felt quite right for me. When it was over I found myself not liking him as much as I ought to, and to love a man you’ve got to like him – afterwards. Even I knew that.

      ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ I’d said. ‘I can’t call it off now, and anyway my editor will be there. It isn’t just a weekend party; it’s business.’ Sometimes I tell lies to Piers. ‘More to the point, when are you coming north to see me?’

      I’d thrown the ball back into his court and he was just coming up with a perfectly reasonable excuse when I heard his bell chimes, quite clearly.

      ‘OK, Cassie. Some other time? Soon?’

      He’d put the phone down then and I wondered whose fingertip had pressed his doorbell and wasn’t surprised to find I didn’t much care.

      ‘Forget Piers for two days and get some living in,’ I said to the girl in the rear-view mirror. No time like tonight for dipping a toe in the water, I thought, and to hell with the lily-down-the-cleavage bit!

      I wound up the window and set out, smiling, on my way again. Above me the sky was blue, with only little puffs of very white cloud. Around me, and as far as I could see, were fields and hedgerows and grass verges that really had wild flowers growing in them. I was going to a party tonight and I would be a lily of the field and have a wicked time. I wasn’t in any hurry to settle down because I’d already decided there would be all the time in the world, after the third novel. And wouldn’t I know when I met the right man; the man I would love and like – afterwards?

      Oh, concentrate, Cassandra! The crossroads, then a couple of hundred yards and Jeannie will be there at the front gate of Deer’s Leap, wondering where you’ve got to!

      The engine revs changed from their usual sweet-natured purr to an agitated growl so I dropped a gear, put my foot down and concentrated on the lane ahead. I was just beginning to wonder how the house had got its name when I saw a man ahead. He was smiling, his thumb jutted and he was in fancy dress.

      All the things Dad dinned into me about never stopping for anyone, much less for a man, went out of my head. He was undoubtedly a fellow guest, who for some reason was standing at the side of the lane and in need of a lift. I slowed and stopped, then leaned over to slip the nearside door catch.

      ‘Want a lift?’

      ‘Please. Could you? I’ve got to get to Deer’s Leap.’

      ‘Hop in!’

      He arranged himself in the passenger seat, one long leg at a time. Then he pulled his knees almost up to his chin and balanced his khaki bag on them.

      ‘You can push the seat back.’ I lifted the catch to my left. ‘Shove with your feet.’

      The seat slipped backwards and he stretched his legs, relief on his face. Well, six foot two at least, isn’t Mini size.

      ‘That’s a World War Two respirator, isn’t it?’ I envied his fancy dress. So real-looking.

      ‘They’re usually called gas masks,’ he smiled, and that smile was really something across a crowded Mini.

      ‘You already dressed for tonight, then?’ I turned the key in the ignition.

      ‘We-e-ll, sort of,’ he shrugged, ‘and anyway, I’m only on standby.’

      ‘Damn!’ A slow-moving flock of sheep ahead put paid to the question, ‘What’s standby?’

      I slowed to keep well back. The lambs were well grown; almost as big as the ewes and obviously not used to being driven. If one of them panicked in the narrow road, we’d all be in trouble.

      My passenger stared ahead, intent on the sheep and the black and white sheepdog that watched and nosed and slunk behind and to the side of them, and I was able to get a good look at him.

      Fair, rather thin. His hands lay still on his lap though his fingers moved constantly. He’d had his hair cut short, too, just as if he’d been the pilot whose uniform he wore. Three stripes on his sleeve; wings above his top left-hand pocket. His shoes were altogether of another era.

      The sheep were behaving. I hoped they would turn left at the crossroads. He was still watching them intently so I read the number stamped in black on the flap of his gas mask and thought my lily of the field would look a bit botched alongside his authentic uniform. He’d obviously gone to a lot of trouble, so with future fancy dress parties in mind I asked where he’d got it.

      ‘Oh – the usual place. They throw them at you …’

      ‘Really? I’d have thought that get-up would’ve been difficult to get hold of.’

      ‘Only the wings,’ he said absently, his eyes still on the sheep.

      I realized he wasn’t going to be very forthcoming and hoped for better luck tonight when my lily-gilded cleavage might just get me noticed.

      I looked at his gas mask again. On the underside of the webbing strap were the initials S. S. and a tiny heart, and I wondered who had put them there. The original long-ago owner, I supposed, the author in me supplying Sydney Snow, Stefan Stravinsky, Sam Snodgrass.

      ‘I’m Cassandra,’ I said. ‘Cassie.’

      ‘John,’ he smiled, ‘but I usually get Jack.’

      The flock began to push and surge to the left. The dog nipped the leg of a ewe that wanted to turn right and it got the message.

      ‘Soon be there. Been here before?’ We’d turned right onto what really was a dirt road.

      ‘Mm. Quite a bit …’

      The lane was rutted and I slowed, driving carefully, eyes fixed ahead for potholes.

      ‘There it is.’ He pointed to the tiles of a roof above a row of beeches.

      ‘Seems a nice place …’ Bigger than I’d expected and not so northernly rugged.

      ‘It’s very nice. Look – mind if I get out here? I usually go in the back way.’ He seemed in a hurry, his hand already on the door handle. ‘Thanks for the lift. See you.’

      He swung his legs out first, then gripped the side to heave himself clear. Then he straightened his jacket with a sharp downward pull, СКАЧАТЬ