Page 22 of The Price of Love
‘Oh. Yes.’
‘And stop sounding like Jazz. Luke wants me for me. It’s nothing to do with the money. He’s not a gigolo, you know.’
‘What’s a gigolo?’ asked Clive, looming into sight over the top of the filing cabinet.
‘Musical instrument, innit?’ Neil replied.
‘Don’t you two ever do anything independently?’ Katie looked up from her typing. ‘Wills, phone call for you.’
I waited until the boys had gone before I took the receiver from her. ‘Is there really, or did you just want to get shot of them?’
‘No, there really is. A man. Not Luke either, before you ask.’
‘Hey there.’
‘Hello, Cal.’ I sensed Katie pricking up her ears, so I mouthed ‘Ash’s boyfriend’ at her and she shrugged and went back to typing. ‘What’s up?’
‘Ah, nothing. Just got the megrims, that’s all. I had to perform a tracheotomy on a Powerbook and things aren’t good, although I have to admit that I do looksensationalin scrubs. How are you?’
‘I’m good.’
‘Right. Deep breath here, Cal, and try not to dribble, the lady doesn’t want to hear the sound of your bodily fluids trickling down the line. Thing is, Will, I wondered if you’d come down to the old house with me at the weekend.’
‘The farm?’
‘That’s the baby. I need to make a few decisions and, well, you seemed to like looking round and, all right, I admit it, I need someone to handle the goat for me. She’s out in the orchard and a neighbour is keeping an eye on her, but I’m going to have to shift her over into the big paddock and she scares the shit out of me if you want the truth. The goat. You didn’t think I meant the neighbour, did you?’
‘Er.’
‘She’s got an evil temper on her and she’s got the hang of knocking me over.’
‘This is still the goat.’
‘Yeah, right. So, just wondering, you know, if I pick you up? Thought I’d check now in case you were planning to be away again?’
‘No. No, I wasn’t. Sounds like . . . I don’t suppose “fun” is really the word.’
‘Well, it’saword. But so is “cantankerous”. And “evil”. And, incidentally, “quadrumanous”, but that’s irrelevant. Oh, and she smells completely vile. Thatisthe neighbour. Bye.’
‘He isso weird,’ I said, staring at the phone as though I expected Cal to come bursting out of the mouthpiece at any moment.
‘Oho.’ Katie turned her chair to face me. ‘I sense story time.’
‘I told you about him. Ash’s boyfriend. Or, probably, ex-boyfriend, if Ash is laying himself down for his country in Slovenia or wherever Prague is these days. Unless they have an open relationship, which I really hope they don’t. Cal deserves way,waybetter than Ash. He’s really cute, Katie, tall and dark and funny.’
‘The good ones are always gay, aren’t they?’
‘Luke isn’t gay. Fact.’
Katie merely raised her eyebrows at me and went back to typing.
Later that morning, on the pretext of picking up some milk, I popped over to the Roads Department again. Vivienne Parry, Bread Woman, was manning the desk this time and there was no sight of the lachrymose Nadine.
‘Hello. I’m—’
‘Willow Cayton, yes, I remember.’
‘I just wondered if—?’
