It had been Richard’s suggestion that they meet on neutral territory, somewhere without distractions, where they could
get to know each other in depth. He could afford to hire anywhere, but he didn’t want to show off in front of Rob, which Lucy thought was rather sweet of him. There was a sensitivity that he kept hidden behind his layers of mannered strictness and prestige but, when it flashed a glint now and again, Lucy was deeply grateful for it. After all, Rob could be a bit chippy sometimes. So they had paid equal thirds for the rental cottage, and nobody could claim to be the biggest stakeholder in the experience.
It was raining sincerely, and Lucy had pulled the curtains against the gathering gloom when a flare of rounded light shone through the patterned calico. A car headlamp. She put down her mug and hurried to the front door, peering out of the porch, avoiding the heavy drips from the roof.
It wasn’t Richard’s Mercedes, but that wasn’t really the right car to be driving around here, anyway. It was a large, expensive-looking Range Rover, powering through the mud on the drive until it came to a halt in the side yard. Luckily the resident chickens were all sheltering in the coops, so this didn’t cause a problem.
Richard jumped out, dressed for the countryside in waxed jacket and waterproof trousers, and took his bags from the boot.
The rain flattened his dark hair and dripped off the end of his rather prominent nose, but he was smiling as he approached Lucy.
‘You were expecting this weather?’ she said, watching him pull off wellington boots and put them in a rack on the porch. His feet were cocooned in thick woollen socks. He had to duck to get through the front door, and he filled the tiny front room of the cottage like a giant, making all the furniture look miniature.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘It’s Wales.’ He looked around the room. ‘Cosy,’ he said with a laugh.
‘I don’t suppose it compares with your country estate, my Lord. I hope you didn’t forget your shooting stick.’
‘Don’t cheek me, or it’ll be a different kind of stick for you.’
He put down his bags, which occupied most of the floor.
‘No sign of our friend yet?’ he asked, peering through the open door to the kitchen.
‘No, not yet. I hope he’s OK. His car’s more or less clapped-out. I did offer to give him a lift but he said he wanted to drive himself. In case he needed a quick getaway, I think. I’d try and phone him but there’s no signal here.’
‘No landline?’
‘No. Look, you’re soaked through. Take your coat off and I’ll get a towel.’
Lucy ran up the wooden stairs to the big bedroom with its huge four-post bed. Not for the first time, she wondered about sleeping arrangements. There was only one other bedroom, more like a box room, tiny and narrow with a candlewick-covered single divan. They could, in theory, all fit into the four-poster, but would that be acceptable to all parties? Lucy rather hoped so.
Her phone bleeped and she took it out of her pocket, bemused.
It seemed that a weak signal was available in the upstairs rooms.
Rob had texted her.
‘Punto wdnt start, abandoned at mway services, have caught train from Swindon. Can u pick up from rway station? Prob won’t get there till 10/half past.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Lucy out loud.
‘What’s up?’ shouted Richard from downstairs. The cottage was too small for secrets, apparently.
‘Rob’s having to take the train,’ she called down. ‘We’ll have to get him from the station. But he’s going to be at least another three hours.’
She texted him back, ‘OK c u l8r xxx’ and headed back down with the towel.
‘Three hours?’ Richard had shed his waterproofs and sat on the sofa in a chunky jumper and jeans. It seemed so wrong to see him out of his suits. Well, obviously she had seen him naked, too, but this casual, informal Richard was alien to her. ‘What are we going to do until then?’
‘Eat, I guess. The owners left us some ingredients – all locally sourced, I think. Some lamb shanks, potatoes, onions, garlic, veg. Kind of an emergency ration. Just as well. I’m not sure takeaways would deliver all the way down here. There’s an Aga in the kitchen, so it’ll probably take three hours to cook it. And a wood-burner. You and Rob will have to chop logs. Mmm. Preferably without shirts.’
Richard chuckled. ‘Rustic porn, eh?’ he said, getting up. ‘I’ll give you a hand in the kitchen.’
‘Can you cook?’
‘Yes. You didn’t know that, did you?’
‘You’ve never cooked for me.’
‘We usually have other things on our minds, don’t we?’
Lucy wanted to sigh. But she didn’t.
‘Yes,’ she said, wondering if all this was a good idea, after all.
Perhaps she shouldn’t be indulging herself in this illusion of an ordinary, loving domestic life with an unattainable man. She had to accept the relationship the way it was – sporadic, ad hoc, futureless. Hot sex for a season. To do otherwise was to doom herself to dashed hopes and heartache.
Richard stepped up to the work surface and began slicing onions in a highly competent manner while Lucy struggled to light the range. Soon enough, a glowing warmth spread through the room, and her bones too, lending a magical air to proceedings. The blatter of rain on the window added to this, much as she sympathised with poor Rob, making his haphazard way through it.
Richard didn’t seem to have much to say, so she switched on Radio Four and let a drama about a 1950s public school take up the conversational slack.
‘Are you nervous?’ she asked, chopping the lamb while Richard sauteed onions and garlic in a frying pan.
‘About what? Meeting Rob? No.’
‘I am. I’m very nervous. I so want you to get on.’
He let go of the frying pan handle briefly, to put a hand on her shoulder.
‘We have one very important thing in common,’ he said. ‘I think we’ll both bear that in mind.’
‘Do you cook often?’ Lucy watched him put together a redcurrant sauce.
‘No. Not often enough.’
She wanted to ask so many questions, but something about his manner held her back. Instead, as they ate, they talked about previous trips to Wales, their days at work, their backwoods survival skills.
This is what lovers do, thought Lucy, watching Richard intently as he shovelled lamb casserole into his mouth. The mouth that commanded her, kissed her, did unimaginably ravishing things to her … She so rarely saw it doing these usual things.
And then, when the meal is over
…
She knew that look on Richard’s face.
‘It seems rude,’ she blurted. ‘To start without him.’
‘I’ve left some in the Aga on a low heat,’ said Richard, deliberately misunderstanding.
‘No, you know what I mean.’
He watched her intently for a moment then sat back.
‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to leave soon anyway. Game of cards, then?’
Lucy shook her head, jittery with nerves again.
‘Tell you what,’ said Richard, clearing away the plates. ‘You might not want to start anything without Rob, but how about you get changed? Put on a dress and nothing else.’
Lucy laughed, her eyes wide with disbelief.
‘Shoes?’
‘Wellington boots. And a little dress and nothing else. You have brought one?’
Lucy blushed. ‘Yes, yes, I have.’ It seemed shameful to be admitting that she was expecting sex this weekend - though why it should be, she couldn’t quite understand.
‘Go on, then.’
He finished the dishes while Lucy bolted upstairs and stripped off her jeans and top and workaday underwear.
In her suitcase she found Rob’s favourite skater dress. Thank goodness all the netball and hockey kept her breasts high and perky, she thought, slipping it over her head. Of course, the minute her nipples hardened, they would telegraph her bralessness to all who cared to look, but hopefully that would be nobody but Richard and Rob. It would only take a tiny gust of wind to raise her skirt and bare all. She was definitely staying in the car. Richard could get out and help Rob with his bags when they got to the station. She would sit on the big front seat of the Range Rover, with her thighs pressed together, and wait.
Her bare feet were light and quiet on the stairs, but
Richard still anticipated her, waiting at the bottom with arms folded and an expression of quiet satisfaction.
‘Just right,’ he said, putting out an arm and reeling her into his chest.
Was it all right to kiss without Rob? Was that cheating?
Lucy dismissed the anxieties and let Richard’s firm mouth close over hers, kissing away everything but her senses and her pleasure receptors.
‘You know, Lucy,’ he whispered, breaking off for a moment, his hand rubbing the small of her back rhythmically and comfortingly, ‘it doesn’t matter if Rob and I don’t get on. It won’t be your fault. We both know what we’ve got in you. I don’t think either of us will forget that.’
‘It’ll be OK,’ she said, for courage, the words acting as talismans.
‘It’ll be OK,’ he repeated after her. ‘Come on. Get your wellies on and get into the car.’
They ran through the rain to the Rover, belted themselves in and headed into the lane. The journey was rough but exciting; the bumpy road jolted Lucy this way and that. Richard made her sit on her bare bottom on the soft leather of the front seat, and the thrill of the journey mixed together with a potent erotic sensation so that, by the time they arrived at the station, she was sticky of thigh and her heart was bumping fast. All the way home, she would be sitting between Rob and Richard, in this tiny dress and no knickers. All the way home.
Richard pulled into the station car park and put on the handbrake.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Go get him.’
Lucy stared.
‘Me?’
‘He doesn’t know me.’
‘I bet he’d recognise you.’
Richard shook his head.
‘He’s your friend. You go and wait for him.’
‘But—’
‘No buts.’
Lucy huffed and sighed and spent a long time trying to make her dress longer, to no avail.
Richard eventually leant over her to open the door and she slid, very carefully and very slowly, along the seat and swung her legs to the side.
How ridiculous she would look, in her flirty little party dress and big green rubber boots. Everyone would stare. Everyone would whisper. And that was without the underwear problem.
She didn’t have to go far, at least. Just a couple of yards up the pavement, under a shelter, and into the ticket office, which was, thankfully, empty. She might have been observed by a couple of taxi drivers waiting in the rank, but that was all.
It was cold on the platform and her thighs felt the worst of it. Her nipples ached and she knew they were visible through the slinky jersey material of the dress. She looked at the digital display board closest to her. Rob’s train was expected in ten minutes.
She didn’t dare look down the platform to see who else was waiting, for fear of catching somebody’s eye. It was fairly obvious, though, that a sprawling group of young people were standing not far away from her, on their way home from a big night out at one of the town’s two pubs.
She listened to their dirty jokes and friendly insults, glad that they were too preoccupied with each other to notice her.
She sank back against the wall and rested her bottom on a ledge in the brickwork, staring down at the rails.
When she looked up, there was a man on the opposite platform, watching her. She looked away immediately, but she heard his footsteps, heading for the footbridge.
She got up, intent on going back to the car until the train was actually in the station, but her way was barred by a pair of girls from the nearby group.
They looked her up and down with undisguised contempt.
‘Funny way of dressing for the weather, don’t you think, Bron?’
They could hardly talk, thought Lucy nervously, with their tiny miniskirts and thick white legs, cut off at the calf by fake Ugg boots.
‘Must be a new thing. Farm whores. I suppose the farmers get lonely. Do you cheer them up, love?’
Some of the boys were slouching up behind them now, amused sneers splitting their spotty faces. One of them wolf-whistled.
‘Leave ’er,’ said another. ‘You should be so lucky to have legs like that, Char.’
‘Fuck off. I’m good enough for you when you want to cop a feel.’
The youngsters reverted to arguing amongst themselves. Lucy took advantage of their distraction to remove herself to the ladies’ toilets – unpleasant enough, but not threatening, at least – until she heard the slow thunder of the train pulling in.
She hurried back to the platform, pleased to see that her former adversaries were safely on the train, and looked about her, seeing nobody.
Then a pair of hands covered her eyes from behind and she jumped, her wellies weighing down her legs.
‘Rob!’ she squealed in strangulated excitement. ‘Is that you?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s the Brecon Beacons Ripper. I have you at my mercy.’
She elbowed his ribs and he coughed, letting go of her. His laughing face was never more welcome.
‘You made it, then?’ she said dryly.
‘By the skin of my teeth,’ he said, picking up his bags and shaking his head. ‘Fucking car. Thanks for coming to pick me up.’
On the station forecourt he looked blankly one way then the other.
‘Where’s your car? Nice shoes, by the way.’
‘Shut up. I hope you’ve brought some wellies too. And if you’re looking for my car, you won’t find it.’
He put the bags down again and stared at her.
She nodded.
‘Shit. I’m not ready for this.’ He had to regain his breath for a moment or two.
He picked up the bags.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Lead on, MacDuff.’
Lucy stomped over to the Range Rover. Rob threw his bags in the back, then climbed up beside Lucy, who sat in the middle of the three, already belted up.
‘You must be Rob,’ drawled Richard, putting out a hand to shake.
‘You must be Richard,’ mimicked Rob, taking it.
Lucy watched the clasp bob up and down in front of her stomach, Richard’s bigger hand, Rob’s longer fingers, an expensive signet ring, a pair of black rubber bracelets.