Читать книгу While I Was Waiting - Georgia Hill - Страница 8

In the village’s only pub, The Plough, Gabe’s late arrival was met with raucous cheers. The gang had been there for well over an hour and were onto their fourth round. Gabe’s first two pints of Stella were downed in swift succession, until he felt he was beginning to catch up.

‘So where’ve you been, then, our Gabriel?’ Kevin, his best mate since school, put an arm around Gabe’s shoulders and peered into his empty pint pot. ‘Oi, Paul,’ he yelled at the man, standing at the bar, trying to chat up Dawn the barmaid. ‘Stop pissin’ about and get us another round in. Boy’s dyin’ of thirst over yere.’

Paul gestured what he thought of Kevin and returned to Dawn.

‘Wanker,’ Kevin said affectionately. ‘He’s got no chance there. She fancies you, though.’

‘Shut up, Kev.’ Gabe shrugged off Kevin’s arm and tore open a bag of crisps with his teeth. It had been a long day and he was starving.

‘No, it’s the truth. Her sister told me. Dawn fancies the pants off yer.’ Kevin grinned myopically. He never wore his glasses for a Friday-night drinking session on account of the times he’d fallen over on the way home from the pub and smashed them. ‘Mind, never met a bird with a heartbeat who didn’t fancy you.’ Kevin’s good mood left him abruptly. ‘Could do with spreading some of that Llewellyn charm around boy, to those of us who ain’t got none.’

Gabe shrank from his mate’s beer breath. God, he hated it when Kev got maudlin like this – a sure sign of too much beer drunk too quickly. He wished, not for the first time, that Kevin would learn to pace himself. For some time he’d felt he was outgrowing his old school friend. They had little in common nowadays. Gabe wanted more than just a pint on a Friday in the local. He wanted some of the big wide world that had blown in with Rachel. He loved his family and the village, but it was beginning to stifle him. If he stayed working for his father much longer, he’d end up stuck here. He frowned. Not much chance of chasing his dreams at the moment, though.

‘So where’ve you been, then?’ Kevin persisted. ‘I rang your old woman and she said you was up at that empty cottage on the ridge.’

‘Yeah, I was.’

‘Doing what, then?’

‘Getting a job costed.’ Gabe wished Paul would hurry up with the drinks. Another pint would keep Kev quiet for the next ten minutes and he was seriously getting on Gabe’s nerves. For some reason he wasn’t ready to talk about Rachel to him. To anyone. Not just yet.

‘I heard as some woman’s moved in. Some toffee-nosed tart from London. Bloody incomers.’

Gabe nodded in agreement. This was an old hobby horse of Kevin’s and the easiest thing to do with him in this mood was to go along with it. ‘Might be a bit of work coming your way though, mate. The place is in hell of a state.’ Kev’s prejudices didn’t extend to him turning down casual labouring when offered.

‘What’s she like, then?’

‘Who?’

Kevin gave a melodramatic sigh. ‘The woman what’s moved in, that’s who.’

Gabe thought back to his first sight of Rachel. He could see her so clearly that, for one mad moment, he thought she’d taken up his invitation after all and joined them in the pub. He remembered how her hair swung over her face and hid those extraordinary grey eyes, the way she hardly ever smiled, but when she did it was worth waiting for, her height and slenderness, her elegance even in dusty jeans and a baggy sweater. She’d felt exotic. There was no one around here quite like her.

She was like a long, cool glass of water, he decided, or more like an icy one, for she hadn’t been that friendly. Far too self-contained. Shame. Still, he could work on that. Kevin had been right about the Llewellyn charm. Girls liked something about him and, although he’d never fathomed out quite what, it had never failed him yet. He gave Kevin a quick glance. ‘Oh she was alright. Bit toffee-nosed, like.’

‘Bet she fancied you.’

‘Oh, shut up, Kev.’