Читать книгу Sweet Home Summer: A heartwarming romcom perfect for curling up with - Michelle Vernal - Страница 11

‘Isla? Hi, wow, it’s been a while. I heard you were back.’

‘Ben, hey. How’s it going?’ Awkward, awkward, awkward and not just because this man had seen her naked. She knew he’d seen her yesterday when she’d sat with her nose in the air in the passenger seat of her dad’s Ute. Isla squirmed in her seat wishing she could press a button on her phone and transport herself anywhere but here. Instead, she began rearranging the little packets of sweetener and sugar in the pot on the table for want of something to do with her twitchy hands.

‘Yeah, pretty good actually. I don’t know if you heard, but I took over the garage last year.’

He was in his overalls, and his strong, familiar hands were resting on the back of the chair opposite her. His face had thinned out with age, and a light stubble decorated his jawline. He looked good, far too bloody good. Don’t go there, Isla Brookes. ‘Mm yes, Dad told me that your parents have retired. They’ve become cruising fanatics I hear. Good for them and you. It’s what you always wanted, so I hope business is booming.’

‘I can’t complain. There’s never any shortage of cars to fix, and people always need petrol. And yeah, the folks are hardly ever home these days. When they are, Dad’s started to talk in “cruise” speak, and Mum dresses for dinner.’

Isla forgot to be uncomfortable as she laughed at the image of Mrs Robson in formal attire, serving up steak, egg, and chips. ‘What’s cruise speak?’

‘Oh, things like “shall we have a cocktail or head up to the buffet for a bite?” I have to remind Dad that in Bibury its head up to the Pit for a pint of beer and a pie. They’re probably in Indonesian waters now as we speak, having High Tea or something.’

‘Good for them.’ She sounded like a jolly-them-along Girl Guides Leader.

‘Yeah, they’ve earned it.’

‘Do you still live at home then?’

‘God no!’ He laughed, and Isla was suddenly very aware that she was a thirty-year-old woman who’d just moved in with her grandmother.

‘I bought a house a few years back; it’s an old villa tucked down a back section off River Road. She’s a labour of love, but she’s home. So are you back for a holiday?’

‘No, I’m home for good.’

‘Really? I had you down as a big city girl these days.’

‘I’d had enough of big,’ she said shrugging. She wasn’t giving away any more than that. Or at least she hadn’t planned to. He was waiting for her to elaborate, and she couldn’t be doing with an awkward silence. ‘It was just time to come home and do something different and, well, Gran’s not getting any younger.’

‘I heard about her fall. That would’ve been a bit of a scare for her and you all. She’s a tough old bird though, nothing broken. So you’re staying with her?’

‘Yes, for the time being. It seemed like a good idea for me to be around to make sure there’s no repeat performance of her lying on the kitchen floor for hours in pain.’ She shuddered at the thought of her poor, dear grandmother helpless like that. ‘Besides Gran and I rub along well together whereas Mum, and I are great for the first couple of days and then it’s as if I revert to being a teenager, and she reverts to being a menopausal maniac. It’s not fair on Dad to put him through that again.’

Ben laughed. ‘I remember you and your mum used to have some real ding dongs.’

‘Oh yeah, our house was hormonal hell for a few years there.’

‘Hiya Ben, the usual?’

‘Hey Annie, yes ta.’

Isla felt a sharp pang of something she couldn’t quite pinpoint as his gaze flickered over to the counter. Once upon a time she’d have known what his usual was, now she wouldn’t have a clue.

‘What are you going to do with yourself then? I wouldn’t have thought there’d be much call for a high-flying interior decorator in Bibury.’

‘Oh I don’t know about that, people’s houses always need redecorating at some point.’

He smiled at her.

Annie popped the ginormous savoury scroll, cheese oozing out of its sides, down on the table.

‘Peckish then?’ Ben raised an eyebrow, and Isla felt her face flush. ‘How’s Kris settling in at the school, Annie?’ Ben was looking back at Annie.

‘Great, he’s enjoying it. A country school like Bibury Area is a big change to teaching at an urban Athens high school, but so far it’s all good. He says teenagers are the same the world over!’ She turned her attention to Isla. ‘Kristofr, or Kris as he likes to be called now he’s living in New Zealand, is my boyfriend.’ She frowned. ‘No that doesn’t sound right, I’m too old to call him that. Um, partner … ugh I hate that term.’

‘At least you didn’t say life partner that’s the most cringe-worthy term of them all.’

The two women grinned at each other in silent understanding as Ben filled in the blanks. ‘How about just calling him by his name? You women always have to over complicate everything.’

‘Thank you, Ben. Yes, Kris.’ Annie sniggered. ‘My man friend teaches history at the high school.’

‘He’s a good bloke, your man friend.’ Ben winked at Annie as he gave her ‘man friend’ the seal of approval.

‘I think so.’ A silly look drifted over her face.

‘They met in Greece,’ Ben said. ‘It was front page news in the Bibury Times that the school was employing a foreign senior history teacher.’

‘I can imagine it would’ve been, just like Violet McDougall retiring.’ She couldn’t help herself.

Ben didn’t take the bait to mention his new girlfriend, though. ‘Miss Seastrand’s gone too, a bloke called Callum Packer’s replaced her.’

‘Not before time.’ Isla recalled the Deputy Head, a grey-haired harridan. She was convinced the woman had it in for her. ‘I caught her smoking cigarettes on the school field again,’ Miss Seastrand announce to Principal Bishop as though she had just collared a criminal mastermind and was awaiting her reward.

‘She was a holy terror that woman.’

Ben laughed. ‘Yeah, she was. I remember the time she caught Ryan and me down the Four Square trying to buy cigarettes when we were supposed to be in Science class.’

‘Oh, I remember that! Gosh, I would’ve been about twelve, and you guys were fourteen. Dad brought home a pack of Benson and Hedges and made Ryan smoke the lot. He was green; it was more entertaining than watching The Sopranos.’

‘Ah, they don’t do good TV like that anymore.’ They smiled at each other until Isla became aware of Annie’s hovering presence.

‘So how did you meet Kris, Annie?’

‘We met at the Acropolis in Athens. He was on a day trip with some of his students.’

‘Oh, how romantic! I was in Athens a few years ago. The Acropolis blew me away. To be able to walk amongst all that history was amazing. He’s Greek then, your man friend?’ She smiled.

‘Yes, he’s from Naxos, and it was romantic apart from my friend Carl who I was travelling with coming down with the traveller’s trots. He’s a bit of a drama queen at the best of times. Anyway, it’s a long story, and I’ll tell you it when we know each other better, but the gist of it is that Carl had stampeded off to find a loo and I was sitting admiring the view when Kris left his students and came over to say hi. I’m Annie Rivers by the way. It’s nice to meet you.’

‘Isla Brookes and it’s nice to meet you too.’ They smiled at each other before Annie headed back behind the counter to fill the coffee plunger.

Isla was pleased Annie thought that they would get to know each other better, and she watched her potential new friend as she busied herself filling Ben’s order. He was staring at her, she realized, and she felt the need to babble bubbling up in her throat. She swallowed it back down when he broke the silence.

‘You don’t want to let that get cold.’

‘No,’ she said picking up her knife. ‘Yum, it looks good.’

‘Here you go Ben, coffee to go, white with one sugar and a sausage roll.’

‘Cheers Annie.’ He took the takeaway cup and the paper bag through which the grease from his sausage roll was already seeping and hovered, watching as Isla cut into the pinwheel. ‘It’s good to see you again Isla; I’ll see you around then.’

‘Yeah, it was good to see you too. See you around.’ She kept her gaze fixed on her plate until she heard the door bang shut behind him.

‘Well, that last goodbye was like a scene from a Nicholas Sparks movie. All the two of you needed to look the part was a cowboy hat each.’

Isla looked up at Annie, startled.

‘You obviously have a history.’

‘You could say that, yes and I know where I can get hold of a cowboy hat.’

Annie grinned, pulling the chair out opposite Isla, where a few seconds ago Ben’s hands had been resting. ‘So come on then, spill.’

‘I will when I know you better,’ Isla said smiling before she stuffed in as much scroll as she could fit in her mouth.

‘Touché.’

‘Yum.’ Isla could hear her gran telling her not to talk with her mouthful. ‘What’s in this? It’s divine.’

Annie was only too pleased to share her recipe secret, it was all in the relish apparently, and the two women whiled away an uninterrupted half an hour chatting about food. Annie told Isla how she’d fallen in love with cooking while staying with a Greek family who ran a guest house in Crete. ‘All the produce they cooked with was picked fresh straight from their garden.’

Just then, a middle-aged man who looked like he’d just crawled out of the bush after a week-long tramp barrelled into the tearooms, and greeted Annie cheerily nodding in Isla’s direction. Annie excused herself, taking herself around to the business side of the counter as he inquired loudly as to whether the toasted cheese rolls were any good. Left to her own devices, Isla found her mind drifting back as she recalled the pleasure she got from gardening during her stay at Break-Free Haven. She could almost feel the arable soil running through her fingers and the Californian sun warming her back.