Pastures New. Julia Williams

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      Who indeed? Saffron already knew this was a big mistake. But, happening to have heard a slot on the Jeremy Vine show about spicing up your sex life, she’d discovered that all she really needed to get her libido going again was to buy some sexy underwear. ‘You will feel sexy, he will feel sexy, and before you know it you’ll be falling all over each other,’ the cheery doctor chatting to Jeremy had promised, and heaven knows there’d been precious little of that in the Cairns household of late. So Saffron had decided that sexy underwear was a must.

      After a first nervous flit into the lingerie department in M&S, where she had spotted three mums from school, Saffron had lost her nerve and nearly called it a day. But the lingerie shop was on her way home, and even the sexy underwear in M&S seemed somewhat on the chaste side. Instinctively, Saffron felt chaste wasn’t what she was after.

      Which was how she’d found herself feeling like a total prat in front of a sneering girl nearly young enough to be her daughter, whose waistline was invisible, although her thong was not, and who oozed sexuality from every pore. Being the age she was, she probably took it for granted. You just wait, Saffron wanted to say, one day you too will turn to blubber.

      ‘Well?’ The girl was not just sneering, but impatient. Jeez, didn’t they send them on customer-care courses – Remember, ninety-five per cent of your customers are going to be embarrassed, so do try to put them at their ease (the other five per cent will be so uninhibited you will be hiding under the table).

      ‘Erm – well, er, canitrythatonplease?’ Saffron pointed to a busty black basque, complete with lacy bits and suspender belt. She hadn’t worn anything like it in years.

      ‘What size are you?’ The girl, who was all of a size eight, looked Saffron up and down in the certain knowledge that she must be at least an eighteen.

      ‘Er – fourteen, I think,’ said Saffron. Once upon a time she would have said ten, and after Becky and Matt she had trimmed back down to size twelve. At the moment she was nearer sixteen, but she was damned if she was going to admit that to this jumped-up ten-year-old.

      ‘Here you are.’ The girl handed over the basque. ‘Do you want anything else?’

      ‘No, that will be all,’ said Saffron, practically pulling the offending item out of the woman’s grasp. She pushed the pram to the changing rooms, and squeezed into a cubicle. She undressed, wincing a little at the sight of her naked body. Why were changing-room mirrors always so unflattering? She blobbed and sagged in places she didn’t know she had.

      She placed the basque over her head, and immediately got entangled in bits of lace and ribbon. She tried to pull it off and realised to her horror it was stuck. She pulled it this way and that, just making out a vision of herself in the mirror, a big fat blob with a bright red face incarcerated in a mesh of black lace. Tugging just that bit harder, she heard a ping, and a button popped off, but it was enough to give her the leeway she needed. She pulled the basque over her head, and panting in disgust she looked at it more closely. On a second glance, she realised she could actually undo the basque at the front, so she duly popped it round her, and tried to do it up again. It was tight going round her tummy, but by the time she had got to her boobs she could barely breathe. It looked like every blobby bit of her was straining to jump out of the bloody thing. Sexy it was not.

      ‘Are you all right in there?’ the ten-year-old called. ‘I can get you a size sixteen if you want.’

      ‘Over my dead body,’ muttered Saffron, before calling, ‘Fine, thanks.’

      Size sixteen? Size sixteen? She was buggered if she was going to buy size sixteen. What did it matter what she looked like anyway? Pete was only going to take the wretched thing off. Well, with any luck he was – that was unless he’d died laughing first. With the last remaining shreds of her dignity just about intact, Saffron swept out of the changing room, saying, ‘I’ll take it’, and in a totally unwarranted spirit of bravado she grabbed two pairs of silk stockings, some Licked Up Love Juice and a bottle of Pump Up Your Volume Potion, while staring the ten-year-old out. The ten-year-old, sensing the change in temperature, sensibly demurred, and if she had been going to point out the missing button, she was quickly stilled by Saffron’s icy look. Saffron grabbed the bag, and shoved it under the pram, before walking out of the shop with her head high. It was only when she rounded the corner that she glanced at the receipt. Christ, she’d spent a fortune. She just hoped Pete would think it was worth it.

      ‘So, you’ve no idea what caused Amy to run off?’ Harry and Ben were sitting in Harry’s shed on the allotments sharing a cup of tea, staring out onto the plots, which were bathed in the cold bright light of a low winter sun. Ben had had a late surgery that morning and had sought Harry out.

      ‘None whatsoever,’ said Ben. ‘One minute we were getting on like a house on fire, the next she’d run off. She seemed to be upset about Josh going on my motorbike.’

      ‘There must be some reason,’ said Harry. ‘Amy doesn’t strike me as the hysterical type. But she has been through a lot. Maybe there are things we don’t know.’

      ‘You might be right,’ Ben conceded. ‘She tore my head off the first time we met because I nearly ran Josh over on the bike.’

      ‘Amy’s very vulnerable,’ said Harry. ‘She could do with the support of a fine young man.’

      ‘Harry, if I didn’t know you better, I’d suspect you of matchmaking,’ said Ben.

      ‘Now would I do a thing like that?’ replied Harry, his eyes twinkling. ‘Mind you, now you come to mention it, you’re a good-looking young chap. She’s a beautiful young woman …’

      ‘A beautiful young woman who is also still grieving,’ said Ben. ‘I doubt very much she’s even thought of me like that.’

      ‘There’s always time,’ Harry reassured him.

      ‘As I haven’t heard from her since Sunday, I think it’s unlikely she’ll be speaking to me again in a hurry,’ said Ben.

      ‘Hmm, that is a pity,’ said Harry. ‘Joking aside, I do think Amy needs help. Maybe you should make the first move?’

      Ben, who had been thinking exactly the same thing, but who had been too anxious about Amy’s reaction if he had called round, shook his head.

      ‘Harry, you’re incorrigible,’ he said. ‘You’re probably right. I’ve got to go and walk Meg before work, but I’ll try and catch her later.’

      ‘Good man,’ Harry replied. ‘Ah, Bill, have you got some elderberries for me?’

      One of Harry’s winemaking buddies was poking his nose round the door, so Ben made his excuses and left. Harry was right. Amy was vulnerable. Something had set her off like that. It wouldn’t do any harm to discover what.

      Amy sat on the bench in the graveyard overlooking town. It was a peaceful spot, high on the only hill in the area, and from her vantage point she could see the River Bourne gleaming brightly in the bright winter sunlight. The graveyard itself was ramshackle and meandering, with old paths winding their way between moss-stained graves. The bench she was sitting on was under an ancient yew. Amy found it restful here, so different from СКАЧАТЬ