Page 76 of The Price of Love
‘What?’
‘You’re starting to sound like a romance novel.’
‘Sorry. All right then. But together, we can spend all our spare time arguing over where to plant parsley. Better?’
‘There’s no point arguing with you. It’s like trying to juggle jelly.’
‘Ha. Come on. Let’s go and walk the acres and you can tell me about your plans. And don’t try telling me that you haven’t made any. I know what you’re like, Willow. You’ll have been drawing up little planting maps since the first time you saw the place.’
Maybe Ash had told him about the magazines.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Sunday afternoon, down by the river. The air was humid and heavy, lying over us like a damp flannel as the band set up the equipment. They’d brought a portable generator and a kind of small marquee, all paid for by Jazz, whose job, doing something unspecified and probably unspecific in an accountant’s office, seemed to have paid some kind of bonus.
I lay on the grass and sweated like a horse. Ash was helping to hump speakers around, wearing a tiny vest and shorts and probably, knowing Ash, a film of baby oil just in case a tasty punter should wander by. Even Flint had been dragged away from his great allotment plans for the afternoon, with the promise of free beer (in a cool box under the shade of the marquee, again courtesy of Jazz, I wasdefinitelyin the wrong job) and Ocean was somewhere on the periphery, trying not to catch anyone’s eye.
I had a kind of fizz of anticipation in my stomach that owed nothing to my forthcoming performance. Yesterday, while Cal was occupied with some technical stuff, I’d browsed through some of the files we’d copied from Luke’s laptop, reminding myself what a complete louse the man was, with his mass-produced I’ll-love-you-forever letters and his varying accounts of what his job actually entailed. He’d been everything, from a hair-stylist-to-the-stars in LA (only needing the money to open his own salon over here) to a racehorse syndicate manager (just needing the money to buy his own dead cert horse and put it through training). Whilst I was surfing through the emails, sniggering at some of the more flowery phrases, I’d found a record of an email conversation he probably hadn’t even known had been archived. I wouldn’t have taken much notice, except that the date was familiar.
At first I hadn’t known why, then it dawned. The twenty-seventh of May had been the first day of our weekend in Cornwall. The weekend that Luke had sent me off out to enjoy myself while he stayed in our room and ‘worked’.
Worked, my arse. He’d been hooked up to the internet, trawling dating sites for his next target, and it looked as though he’d found her. Argento was (or so she said, wouldn’t it be great if it turned out that she was ahe?) living in Bristol, had recently broken up with her boyfriend of seven years and was beginning to put her life back together again. Luke had sent, the archive told me, twenty-five emails to her and received nearly the same number in reply from her. Perhaps ‘grooming’ would be a more accurate description of how he’d spent his time. He’d told her that he was newly single (his wife had, apparently, ‘left him for his best friend’ and he was finding it hard to trust again), from Wales, and a personal fitness instructor. He’d obviously picked up on her clues. She felt ‘fat and undervalued’ and was sure ‘her weight was what drove her boyfriend away in the end’. But she also mentioned owning her own home and having a private income . . . and he’d talked about being in Bristol soon.
Bloody hell, Luke Fry was good at what he did.
My name, shouted over a power chord, pulled me to my feet and onto the stage. The crowd wasn’t large, mostly families dotting the grass, enjoying the sunshine and ice creams. As we drove into the first number, others joined in until, nearing the end of the set, there were about a hundred people singing and clapping along with ‘Waterloo’. Spreadeagled on a bank beside the river, Ash, Ocean and Flint were sharing a beer. It was only then that it occurred to me to wonder where Bree was. Was it too hot for Grace to be out and about?
An instrumental break allowed me a drink of water and a longer look over the crowd. I could see Cal leaning against the van that had brought the equipment, moving lazily in time withthe music, drinking wine from the bottle. He saw me notice him and raised the bottle in salute. In answer I stuck my tongue out, then the band changed song and I hurried back to the front of the makeshift stage, picking up my microphone.
Feedback hummed in the air, as Jazz flipped a switch, turning off my mike and grabbing his own. ‘Just something, um, yeah, to wrap up the set, a song for my favourite girl in the world,’ he announced. The rest of the band and I exchanged a look — this definitely hadn’t featured in rehearsals — and Jazz began to play alone, picking a tune out on his keyboard.
When it dawned on everyone what he was playing, they all joined in, bass first, then drums, then lead guitar. It was an old song, one we’d performed when we’d first got together, but was now so old-fashioned that we’d discarded it from the act in favour of The Human League and some of the less complicated Spandau Ballet. As I swung into backing lyrics, with Jazz fronting up, I saw what had triggered it. Bree was pushing the three-wheeled, all-terrain buggy over the grass, Booter and Snag on either side like overweight dwarf huskies pulling a sledge. We were singing ‘Miss Grace’ — satin, French perfume and lace indeed. Bree stopped pushing, staring up at the stage, up atJazz, with an almost awestruck expression. She pulled Grace free of her restraining straps and held her against her shoulder, swaying her in time to the song. I was sure she was singing along. When the song finished, Jazz brought his mike up again.
‘I’d like to introduce you to Grace.’ He held out a hand. As one, the crowd swivelled until everyone was looking at Bree and the baby. ‘And her mother, the most fabulous woman in the world. And I know it’s soon, and I know you’re not divorced yet, and I know everything’s complicated but, Breeze, would you marry me?’
And the crowd, as they say, went wild.
I used the tumult to cover my escape, slipping off the stage sweaty and hoarse, and finding my brothers waiting for me.
‘That went well.’ Flint pressed a beer into my hand and I rolled the chilled can around my hot forehead.
‘All to plan, anyway.’ Ash shaded his eyes and looked over the crowd. ‘What’s she doing now?’
‘Crying, I think.’
‘Stupid bloody woman, doesn’t know when she’s well off. He’s a billion times better than that prick she was married to.’
‘Excuse me? Whatplan? Did you and Jazz cook all this up between you?’
Even Ocean smiled at that. ‘It was the best way. She needs romance.’
I looked over at Jazz, his hair standing away from his head with the static in the air and the heat, holding Grace against him with one hand, and Bree with the other. They were surrounded by people, and they were both smiling. It looked perfect, even though sweat was dripping from the ends of Jazz’s hair and Grace was making a face which indicated that a full nappy was on the cards.
‘Well, I guess being proposed to from a stage in front of a crowd isprettyromantic,’ I said grudgingly.
Ash blew a raspberry. ‘Hark at her.’
‘How about cliffs at midnight?’ Cal strolled up alongside us. ‘Would that be more your style?’
