The Vintage Ice Cream Van Road Trip (Cherry Pie Island - Book 2) (10 page)

‘What are you doing?’ Holly hissed at Wilf.

‘She said it was a shame that you weren’t buying the dress that made you look beautiful.’

‘No! It’s too expensive.’

‘Sometimes, Holly, you just can’t get your own way.’ He nodded for the woman to carry on folding the dress in tissue. ‘It’s as simple as that. And,’ He handed over his credit card. ‘I like the idea of you looking beautiful.’

Holly narrowed her eyes, ‘You don’t think I look beautiful?’ she said, looking down at her dirty jeans and top, her hair in need of a wash.

Wilf laughed. ‘Right now you’re probably not at your best.’

Holly thwacked him on the arm and the sales assistant obviously asked Wilf what he’d said because when he replied she said, ‘
Oh l
à
l
à
!
’ and frowned in horror.

That night, Holly wore the black maxi dress down to dinner. Wilf was waiting for her in the plush bar, wearing jeans and the new Lacoste shirt, the pale-blue doubling the impact of his tan. Holly felt a bit nervous in the dress, she didn’t really wear dresses, but there was nothing else in her bag that suited the hotel restaurant so she went for it. Hair washed and bunched up on top of her head, make-up done, feet in black flip flops, she perched herself on the bar stool.

‘Blimey,’ Wilf said, pausing as he sipped his beer, ‘the other dress must be off the scale. You look amazing.’

‘Yeah?’ Holly asked, a bit shy.

Wilf laughed, ‘Yeah.’

They had a really lovely dinner and then went up to their separate bedrooms. As she was getting into bed, Holly heard a floorboard creak outside her room and then a quiet knock on the door. She pulled on a hotel robe and went to answer it.

Wilf was standing in his shorts and no top on. ‘I just wanted to check you were OK,’ he said. ‘Had everything you need.’

Holly half smiled. ‘Yeah, I’m fine thanks.’

‘Good.’ Wilf nodded but didn’t make a move to leave.

Invite him in, Holly
, her brain was saying.
Invite him in, it’ll be fun
.

She was about to agree, about to push the door open that bit wider, there was a fraction of a second opportunity but, just before she did, she glanced back to check that her room wasn’t a bit of a mess and she saw the elephant comforter that she’d bought from the Intermarche. And she realised that this wasn’t about fun any more, it was about making sure someone else’s future would be happy.

Messing about with Wilf was a risk to that future. One that, at the moment, was strengthened because they were becoming friends.

She turned back to where he was standing, expectantly, in the corridor. ‘I’ll see you in the morning then,’ she said and Wilf took it without even a flinch.

‘Absolutely, not too bright and early though,’ he said with a laugh and headed back to his room.

Chapter Sixteen

They set off mid-morning after croissants and coffee in the hotel courtyard. It was much cooler than the day before. The clouds, rather than burning off, got thicker as the day went on, and by the time they pulled off the motorway to the winding mountain roads it had started to rain.

A tiny pitter-patter at first. A few specks on the windscreen. But, as the clouds darkened, soon they were driving into a proper rain storm. Water cascaded over the windscreen as what was left of the sun disappeared behind a mass of blackened cloud and a dense thicket of pine trees. Wilf drove in silence, concentrating hard on the barely visible road. The only sound was the monotonous thumping of the windscreen wipers. Holly looked out the window at the hairpin bends and sheer drops. She pulled her scarf out from her bag and wrapped it round her shoulders, wishing that they’d invested in new rubber for the wipers, because they were old and crap and hardly getting rid of the rain, just smearing it back and forth. They passed craggy rock faces held back with chicken wire, rain-splattered earth and yellow grass. Cyclists caught in the shower were struggling up the wet hills. Above them, birds of prey circled and then the trees closed in over the top of them, the branches meeting from one side of the road to the other like a grotto, blocking out the sky.

It rained and rained and rained and neither of them spoke.

Holly rested her hands on her tiny bump.

Wilf glanced at her and then back at the road. It was treacherous conditions and even when a lorry whooshed past them and Wilf had to swerve into the gravelly wasteland at the side of the road, braking sharply, making Holly flinch, she couldn’t think of anyone else she’d rather was driving. She realised then that she had started to trust him.

He ran his tongue over his bottom lip and paused before pulling back out onto the road. The rain hit the roof like popcorn popping.

‘You alright?’ he said.

She nodded.

He started driving again, slowly, the wipers thumping, the van struggling up the hills. Holly watched Wilf’s profile, his face set, concentrating.

But as they rounded the next bend, the rain just stopped as quickly as it had started. Wilf turned the wipers off and there was nothing.

No sound.

The smell of the air changed. The scent of pine trees coming in through the battered vents was so strong, so potent, that Holly wound down her window and it infused the van. Wilf was driving so slowly that she could hear the dripping of the rain in the trees. And then in front of them, steam started rising from the road in thick white flames ‒ wisps hanging suspended in the air, buffeting the van, like driving through clouds.

She knew it was nothing more than the heat of the road cooled by the rain, but it made the warm air feel streaked with ghosts.

Eerie and peaceful.

She glanced over at Wilf who looked back at her, his expression surprised, like he’d never seen anything like it and he blew out a breath as if he was suddenly allowed to relax. She smiled and he huffed a laugh and then she let her fingers move really slowly across to where his hand was on the gear stick and she let the back of her hand brush against his.

He lifted his little finger and hooked it round hers so they were locked together for a second before she took her hand away.

‘This is really beautiful,’ she said, pushing her hands under her thighs and sitting forward in her seat to watch the snatches of the winding fog as they kept coming. Like bubble gum stretched into strips.

She wished she could hold onto the moment for ever. No past. No future.

She knew Annie would say
no excitement
and she would reply
no disappointment
.

She remembered standing on the banks of the river at the Royal Henley Regatta, next to an Australian rowing coach who was watching his crew cross the finish line second. He’d looked her way, sworn loudly and said,
‘D’you know some of this lot are so afraid of winning that they don’t even try? That’s the bloody crew I’ve been lumbered with.’

Until this moment, Holly had never quite understood what he was talking about.

And now suddenly it seemed so obvious.

She thought of Enid saying,
For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve never been afraid of anything
.

What was it she was so scared of with Wilf?

The very fact that she might win. That they might win? Or simply how hideous it would be if she let anything happen and they lost?

Two minutes later, the van rounded a bend. Wilf ran his hand through his hair, then sat back with his arms outstretched straight on the wheel and said, ‘This is it. We’re here.’

Chapter Seventeen

‘Bloody hell, what took you so long, we shot down here in a day.’ Emily came in through the open French windows as Holly and Wilf walked into the kitchen. Dressed in a white summer dress and big wide-brimmed hat, she fit the part of rustic French chic perfectly.

‘Wilf had to spend the day in jail,’ Holly said with a smirk as she took in her stunning surroundings.

The drive up to the house was lined with poplars, standing to attention like soldiers. Either side of them were manicured lawns with sprinklers flicking back and forth in the evening shade. Behind them a fingernail’s-width view of the lake was just visible, in front of them the house loomed high with dusty yellow brick, pale-blue shutters, wrought-iron window boxes of white geraniums and steps leading up to the big wooden front doors. Inside, the hall was cool and dark, the floor covered with black and white tiles, the pattern on them like a snail’s trail. Wilf had dumped the bags at the bottom of the
Gone with the Wind
-esque staircase, the bannister rough wood and the steps concrete and bare, and ushered Holly through into the kitchen, where she was standing now.

Emily was giving Wilf the third degree as Alfonso strolled in from the garden, a glass of beer in his hand, dressed in yellow swimming trunks and a red polo shirt that was damp from the water. Beside Holly was a table ‒ a giant piece of stained wood that sliced through the room ‒ scattered with bowls of fruit and plates of food. There was a half-sliced baguette on a board next to a plate of oozing cheese covered with a net cloche, beside that were figs and grapes and a bowl of cherries so dark they rivalled the island ones. Above the table hung a low chandelier that tinkled quietly from the breeze coming through the open windows, the little pieces of crystal clicking softly together. Two cats were draped over the benches on either side of the table and underneath the big armchair at the end was a huge French hunting dog that, at the sound of Wilf’s voice, went into apoplexy.

‘Hey down, boy, down!’ Wilf laughed as the great slobbering brown and white spotted dog crashed up from where he was lying and threw himself at Wilf. ‘Oh you’re lovely, I’ve missed you,’ he said, scratching the beast behind the ears and then, picking up an old tennis ball from the floor, strolled to the open windows and hurled it out onto the lawn. The dog hurtled after it, smashing past the benches and upsetting the cats. Holly flattened herself against the wall, shocked by its speed. Alfonso laughed.

‘You made it in one piece,’ he said, ‘Wilf did not misbehave?’

‘No.’ Holly shook her head. ‘He was the perfect gentleman.’ She watched as Wilf went further out onto the patio, the intimacy of their journey, their tight closeness, seeming to disappear with every step he took. Like the strands of a web stretched to breaking point.

‘Oh I don’t believe that for a second,’ Emily snorted. ‘Come outside, there’s wine and nibbles and what’s left of a barbecue. Everyone’s out there.’ Emily looped her arm through Holly’s and pulled her towards the window.

Holly swallowed. Suddenly a bit nervous of ‘everyone’. She’d only spoken to Wilf for two days and she could hear him laughingly recounting his hours spent in jail, already boiled down to a soundbite story. She wanted to nip to the loo, put some make-up on, maybe change her top to one that didn’t show her mini-bump quite so obviously.

‘Come on, you’ll be fine. They’re all lovely.’ Emily gave her arm a little squeeze.

As they were heading outside, Alfonso asked, ‘Holly, would you like some water? It has lemons in it,’ he laughed, holding up the crystal jug from the fridge.

‘I’d love some,’ Holly said with a grateful smile, hating herself for wishing that it was Wilf who had asked her.

But Wilf, she realised once she’d stepped outside, was in his element. He was already chatting to a stunning blonde who was dressed in just a white bikini and a white chiffon kaftan over at a table covered in fairy lights. His back to Holly, all she could see were the laughter lines around his eyes as he turned his head a touch to the left. It was a profile she knew so well from sitting next to him for the last two days.

‘Here’s the water,’ Alfonso said, coming up behind her then, clocking her gaze, said, ‘Astrid Donoghue, plays polo at the club, bridesmaid, daughter of one of his mother’s ex-husbands so, technically, a sister.’

Holly spun round to face him. ‘Oh I don’t mind who he talks to,’ she laughed, trying to sound extra casual, ‘There’s nothing between us.’

Alfonso struggled with a sly smile, ‘Of course not,’ he said, ‘I am just telling you who the guests are.’

‘Oh, Holly! There you are!’ At the sound of the voice Holly suddenly found herself enveloped into a huge Estée Lauder hug, held against giant bosoms and arms clamped tight round her. ‘If I could have picked who would have had my first grandchild, you would have been up there at the top of the list. Let me look at you, I haven’t seen you for ages. Don’t you look gorgeous? Always had the most enviable eyes. I’d have died for those eyes. Oh haven’t you just blossomed into a swan? How’s the baby? Can I feel it? People don’t like that nowadays, do they? In my day it was hands everywhere. Every Tom, Dick and Harry giving it a good feel,’ the woman laughed, she had a tiny nick of lipstick on her teeth.

Holly darted Emily a quick glance before she said anything and Emily mouthed, ‘Sorry.’

‘Oh goodness, was I not meant to know? Oh, Emily!’ The woman bashed her daughter on the arm. ‘Why didn’t you tell me it was a secret?’

‘It’s not a secret, Mrs Hunter-Brown,’ Holly said, feeling just a touch shell-shocked that everyone knew and back home she hadn’t even told her dad.

‘Holly!’ she reprimanded, ‘You must call me Diana, please. I haven’t been Hunter-Brown for yonks. Soon to be Beauchene. Means beautiful oak, don’t you think that’s lovely? I think it’s lovely. I can’t wait to see the ice cream van. I’ve bought a churn.’

‘A what?’ Holly choked on her lemon water.

‘A churn,’ said Diana, ‘I thought tomorrow we could make ice cream. Wouldn’t that be lovely?’

Holly glanced at Emily again who scrunched up her nose and nodded.

‘Ah, it is the ice cream girl?’ said a man strolling up to their group, cigar burnt almost to the stub, belly encased in a cream and blue striped shirt, bright-blue trousers rolled up at the ankle and bare feet. His hair was completely white and his eyebrows were enormous. ‘Jean-Paul,’ he said, taking the cigar out of his mouth, holding the stub between his fingers and reaching the same hand out for her to shake. ‘Enchanté,’ he said and kissed the back of her hand. ‘I am going to try the menthe in the ice cream. I think it will be good.’