Читать книгу The Weekender - Fay Keenan - Страница 12

After their initial encounter in the shop, Holly’s path didn’t cross with Charlie’s for a few weeks. She’d heard through the grapevine that, like a lot of Members of Parliament, he was spending Monday to Thursday in Westminster every week, with Friday as his constituency day, although she’d spent enough time learning about politics in her teens to know that this was often a moveable feast. She wasn’t surprised he hadn’t sought her out on his constituency days, really – she realised he must be absolutely up to his neck in work, establishing himself and setting out his stall as the new MP. All the same, now she’d remembered their one brief evening of history all those years ago, she was curious to encounter him again. Would she be able to talk to him and not mention their previous meeting? He probably wouldn’t even remember her if she did bring it up.

On a sunny Friday afternoon, after a successful day’s sales and a meditation class, Holly was just about to flip the sign on the shop’s door when she was jolted to see Charlie ambling up the High Street. Taking a moment to observe him from the vantage point behind a display of altar candles in her shop window, she noticed that he was rubbing his neck, slipping a hand underneath the collar of his white shirt, which he’d unbuttoned a notch when he’d loosened his tie. His waistcoat was also unbuttoned. Holly smiled to herself. Since Gareth Southgate had worn waistcoats all through the last World Cup tournament, they were having a bit of a resurgence. Obviously Charlie thought he should tap into this. She did have to admit, he wore them rather well. Presumably straight off the train, his laptop bag was slung across his body and his hair was dishevelled. With a start, Holly realised her eyes had followed him all the way down the street, and any minute now he’d pass her shop, then turn off the High Street and into Wells Close, where he lived. The location of his house had become common knowledge since he’d moved in, so she didn’t feel like too much of a stalker by mentally plotting his route home.

As if she had no control over them, Holly found her feet stepping out of the front door of the shop and her eyes inspecting the terracotta pots of rosemary and thyme that adorned the doorway, testing the soil for dryness and rubbing the spiny leaves of the rosemary between her fingers, that suddenly itched for something to do. As if it was the most natural thing in the world, when she sensed Charlie was close enough to talk to, she raised her eyes from the plants and smiled.

‘Hi,’ Charlie said, pausing as he reached Holly, who straightened up and turned around just at the right moment. ‘How are you?’

‘Not bad, thanks,’ Holly replied, carefully and neutrally, as if this was just any other exchange with any other passing local.

Charlie’s eyes were friendly, and he was smiling, which was definitely a good sign. He obviously didn’t hold grudges.

‘Have you had a good week?’ he said, glancing towards the open shop door as if checking out if there were any other customers still browsing and buying.

‘Oh, same old, same old,’ Holly smiled, flattered that he’d stopped and not just said hello and moved on. ‘I’ve sold a lot of Himalayan salt crystals this week – I think it’s the spring-cleaning vibe that everyone gets this time of year – people are determined to do a bit of polishing of their auras as well as their houses!’

‘And an aura is…?’ Charlie tried, and failed, not to look amused.

‘The light that surrounds you,’ Holly replied. ‘Skilled readers can work out a lot from the colour of your aura – your thoughts, your emotions and your preoccupations.’

‘Really?’ Charlie tried, and once more failed, to affect a more serious expression, and Holly knew he was taking what she said with a rather large pinch of salt, Himalayan or otherwise.

‘Oh yeah,’ she continued, remembering what Mariad O’Flaherty, who owned the shop a couple of doors down from hers and made a living from reading and cleansing auras, had told her the last time they’d had a conversation. ‘A dark one might indicate health issues, or things on your mind, an inability to let go of something, for instance. It’s a good idea to spring-clean it once in a while.’

‘I’m not sure I want to know how you spring-clean an aura!’ Charlie laughed. ‘Although I’m sure the inhabitants of the Palace of Westminster could provide all kinds of shapes and colours that a reader of such things would have a very interesting time with.’

Holly laughed as well. ‘I can’t see them, personally, but if you were ever interested in having yours read, I can refer you to our local practitioner, Mariad.’ She fingered the sprig of rosemary she’d picked from the pot by the shop door. ‘But enough of that. How are you settling in to life as an MP?’

‘Pretty well, thanks,’ Charlie replied, ‘although the weather’s making us all very sleepy. I dread to think what we’ve agreed to this week in the chamber, and all for lack of air conditioning!’

‘If Willowbury gets a new retail park slap in the middle of it, we know who to blame!’ Holly joked. Then she paused, looking at Charlie properly for the first time since he’d stopped. He still had a hand up to his neck, and now he was up close, Holly noticed his shoulders were tensed. ‘Are you OK? Is your neck sore?’

‘Just a little bit,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve not been sleeping too well, and the train was busy on the way back tonight, so three hours from London Paddington crammed against the door did nothing for my neck. I really should get a new desk chair for what passes for an office in London, too.’

‘You should take better care of your back and neck,’ Holly chided. ‘If you hang on a minute, I’ve got some fantastic rosemary and peppermint essential oil. Just get someone to massage it in. It’ll help you sleep, too. Although it sounds like you’re doing enough of that at work!’

‘Er, OK,’ Charlie said.

Holly noted with amusement Charlie’s sudden look of discomfiture that didn’t seem to have anything to do with his professed neck pain. Grinning, she opened the door to her shop. ‘Come in while I dig that oil out.’

As she pushed open the shop door, Holly realised that, much like a lot of her customers, ComIncense seemed to both fascinate and unnerve Charlie. She’d seen it a lot since she’d opened the shop; people were drawn to ComIncense because of its outlandish range of dried herbs, sights and scents, but also terrified that they would do, say or buy something that was wrong or inappropriate, or even break something. Most of the time, she tried to quell these worries with her own friendly presence (it was useful to be approachable to make sales, after all, despite what some of her fellow business owners believed), but for a moment, devilry won with Charlie as she saw him looking around.

‘Of course, the latest thing in relaxation is Shamanic Dolphin Choir music,’ she said as they wandered back through the shop. ‘I’ve sold a lot of CDs of that lately. People find the sixteen-part delphinidae harmonies do wonders for stress.’ She glanced back over her shoulder and was inwardly tickled to see Charlie’s face registering that familiar look of intrigue, discomfort and incomprehension that tended to happen when some of the more reserved clients looked too closely at her stock. ‘Perhaps I can lend you a couple of CDs to try out?’ She paused and pushed her advantage a little, staring into his eyes intently, as if selling Shamanic Dolphin Choir music was her complete raison d’être.

‘Um… yeah, thanks,’ Charlie stammered. ‘Sounds, er, great.’

At his look of stammering incomprehension, Holly burst out laughing, unable to keep up the charade any longer. ‘It would be,’ she smirked. ‘If I hadn’t totally just made it up.’

Charlie, obviously relieved, grinned back. ‘Thank Christ for that. Honestly, you wouldn’t believe the things I’ve had foisted on me to try out since I took this job. I think I can live without the singing dolphins.’

‘Fair enough,’ Holly kept smiling. Turning towards the rack of shelves where she kept her essential oils, she picked up the bottle of rosemary and peppermint infusion. ‘I can mix this with some base oil if you don’t want to faff about with warming up olive oil at home.’

‘That would be great, thanks,’ Charlie replied.

As Holly decanted some of her neutral-scented base oil into a fresh glass bottle and added several drops of the rosemary and peppermint, she was aware of Charlie watching her hands intently. She’d made up this mixture a hundred times, and with cool efficiency she mixed the oils, filled the bottle to the top and then finished it off with a cork stopper. Then, she grabbed her calligraphy pen, wrote the contents and the date on one of her pre-printed ComIncense labels and handed it over to Charlie.

‘Just massage a bit into your neck and shoulders tonight, or, even better, get someone to do it for you, and you will really feel the benefit.’ Was she imagining things, or was Charlie Thorpe actually starting to blush? ‘Did I say something wrong?’ she asked.

‘No, not at all,’ Charlie laughed nervously. ‘It’s just that I don’t really know anyone well enough in Willowbury yet to ask them to get their hands on me!’ Trying to make a joke of it, his laugh faltered.

There was a pause between them, while Charlie stared fixedly at the bottle Holly had just given him and Holly debated within herself.

Eventually, she smiled. ‘I’ll do it for you if you like.’

Charlie’s head snapped back up. ‘Oh, it’s all right, that wasn’t a hint. I’m sure I can see to myself. Oh, Christ…’ At the clearly unintentional innuendo, Charlie really did laugh.

Holly, tickled, joined in. ‘Honestly, I don’t mind. I’ll just close the shop and then we won’t get interrupted. It’s closing time anyway.’ She gestured to the room off the back of the shop. ‘That’s my treatment room. Don’t worry, it’s not as clinical as it sounds. Why don’t you go in and get yourself comfortable and I’ll be with you in a sec. Just slip the top half of your clothes and your shoes off and lie down on the massage bed.’

‘If you’re sure you don’t mind,’ Charlie replied. ‘I thought you needed to take bookings for these sorts of things.’

‘Usually, yes, but for you I’ll make an exception,’ Holly smiled. ‘I’d only be worrying about you if I let you go home with that sore neck.’ She did wonder why she was making a sudden exception and letting Charlie onto her massage table without an appointment, but, she figured, she’d dissect her own reasoning later. She was nothing if not spontaneous.

Charlie smiled. ‘OK, sounds great.’ He ambled towards the small room at the back of the shop while Holly locked the front door.

Turning off the shop floor lights, she went to the counter and scrolled through her phone for some suitably relaxing music to pipe through to the treatment room. Selecting some middle-of-the-road Celtic relaxation music, not wanting to totally freak Charlie out with something more out there, she lit a lavender incense stick and slotted it into the holder just inset into the doorway of the treatment room.

Opening the door, she couldn’t help a sharp intake of breath as she saw Charlie stretched out on her massage table. Naked to the waist, his white shirt, waistcoat and tie slung over the chair in the corner of the room, his dark, slightly dishevelled hair contrasted with the pale skin of his back. Legs encased in his suit trousers stretched tantalisingly down the table, and his muscular arms were stretched out at his sides. He was turned away from the door, but as she came in, he turned his head and just for a moment, his deep, brown eyes looked sleepily in her direction before he remembered himself. He already looked far more relaxed than when he’d entered the shop, and she hadn’t laid a hand on him yet.

‘Are you comfortable?’ Holly asked, once she’d remembered to breathe again. She’d had a few clients since she’d started the massage part of her business a few weeks back, but none of them had affected her in this way, no matter how gorgeous they were. Harriet Meadows, certainly, hadn’t made her catch her breath when she’d given her a massage. She needed to get a grip. An uncomfortable reminder of how attracted she’d been to him all those years ago worried at her memory, until she resolutely pushed it to one side. That was then, this is now, she thought.

‘Really comfortable,’ Charlie said. ‘It feels so good to lie down after three hours crammed in the corridor of the train.’

‘Good,’ Holly said, focusing on the techniques she was about to employ on Charlie’s back in an attempt to keep the professional distance. ‘Well, hopefully after this massage you’ll feel even better. So, I’m going to start off with medium pressure on your neck and shoulder blades. If it feels too hard, or too soft, just let me know and I’ll change it up a bit.’ She rubbed her hands together and then uncorked the freshly prepared massage oil. ‘Likewise, if you think my hands are too cold, let me know and I’ll warm them up a bit.’ She dribbled a little bit of the oil onto her palms and then rubbed them together again. Then, taking a deep breath, she put her hands onto Charlie’s broad, muscular back. Feeling the tension in his neck and shoulders, she began to press and squeeze, working her fingertips into the knots and kinks of his shoulders and neck. ‘Some people like me to talk to them while I do this, but others prefer to be quiet, so let me know if you want me to shut up,’ Holly said. She felt the smooth warmth of Charlie’s skin, in contrast to the tension in his back, and she pressed her fingers deeper into the junctions of his shoulder blades, easing out the very worst of the stiffness she found there.

Charlie groaned as she switched tack and dug her elbow into a particularly stubborn knot between his shoulders.

‘Too hard?’ Holly asked. She was leaning over Charlie’s back and felt a sharp, pinpricking tingle deep within herself as she smelt the remnants of his musky aftershave, underpinned by his own scented warmth, combined with the deeper, more peppery scent of the massage oil. In response to her nearness, she saw her breath lift the hair on the back of his neck when she spoke. She was compelled to pause the movement of her hands for a moment, and drew another deep breath.

‘No…’ Charlie murmured. He was face down, resting his head on the circle of the massage table, so Holly couldn’t see his expression. ‘It feels amazing. I don’t know why I haven’t had one of these before.’

‘You feel quite knotted,’ Holly said, focusing on the vertebrae in his neck. ‘I really would think about getting a new office chair. And booking a seat on the train home.’

‘It’s been a busy few weeks,’ Charlie’s voice, muffled from the position he was in, sounded more relaxed. ‘But this is definitely… helping.’

Holly, who was again using her elbows as well as her hands, felt the warmth of Charlie’s back against her own skin as she pushed deeper into his shoulder blades, feeling him breathing in and out, his chest rising and falling, and then hitching slightly, as she hit another tender spot.

‘Did you want me to work on your lower back a little bit, too?’ Holly asked as she straightened up.

‘If you’ve got time,’ Charlie replied. He sounded as though he was almost dropping off to sleep. Holly took that as a compliment.

‘No problem.’ Shifting down the bed, Holly drizzled some more massage oil onto her palms and began to manipulate Charlie’s lower back. ‘You’ve got a really good, long, straight back,’ she said as she focused on his spine, trying not to notice how attractive it was as it swept into the curve of a very delectable bottom. ‘You should take better care of it.’

‘If it means getting more massages like this, then I definitely will.’

They lapsed into a more comfortable silence as Holly continued to work, to the gentle beat of the relaxation music and the scent of the incense in the air as it burned slowly down. After a few more minutes, Charlie’s breathing seemed to slow, and Holly felt his back muscles relax under her hands, and she knew he was starting to drop off to sleep. This wasn’t unusual with her clients; she’d been told when she took the massage course that this was definitely a sign that she’d been doing her job right.

With a feeling of slight regret that the massage had come to its natural end, Holly wiped the oily residue off her palms with a fluffy white towel and then spread a larger one over Charlie’s back to keep him warm while he lay there. Giving him one last, long, lingering glance, she padded from the treatment room.