Chapter 10

Wonder what the weather’s like in New Zealand, Emily tried not to wonder as the car heater blasted tingles up and down her frozen legs.  Beneath her coat she was in the Alveley Manor livery of white blouse and short black skirt – not the most weatherproof apparel for a mid-January mid-morning this side of the equator.  Oh well, plans change – New Zealand will just have to wait.

‘Morning Sylv,’ she greeted her chauffeur.  ‘This is ever so kind of you.’

‘No trouble, love.  Be daft going to the same place in separate cars.  Now have you ever done the old silver service before?’

Sylvia Cooper was the female stem of Lower B’s grapevine; she and the vicar had the village covered – and, not being of the cloth, Sylv was free from the compunction that curbed Ellery transmitting spicier rumours.

She lived in Tibbetts Gardens at the top of the village, with her husband Keith – a placid man with an inverse lack of fascination in others’ lives – and dog Barney.  Her idolised son Paul had escaped to London, doing something she didn’t quite understand In The City.  Emily stayed tactfully mute during maternal burblings about The Wonderful Paul, with whom she’d gone to school and recalled as a spoilt, strange boy fixated with peering up Robyn’s skirt.

A veteran waitress at Alveley Manor, Sylv learned of Emily’s new part-time position before Emily herself, and was on the phone the same evening.  ‘Now you’ll be needing transport – just give me a bell on the days you’re working.  Be nice to have some company on me journeys.’

Someone to talk at, more like.  Still, Sylv was fun and warm, Emily had known her forever and enjoyed being of an age where she was considered a confidante to uncensored yarns.  As a beady youngster doing colouring during Mom’s get-togethers, she had to crane when Aunty Sylv muted her narrative at the tantalising crux.  Sometimes Sylv used to illustrate these monologues – which were always about villagers or dubious hotel guests – with brisk hand actions that engrossed Emily more than any words. 

Now that she was twenty-two, Mom’s agog friends no longer had to suddenly remember she was present and start admiring her drawings in ostentatious voices.

‘So what did Thel and Brian say about you knocking your travelling on the head?’ 

They were two miles away now, on to the sylvan zigzags of Enville, and Sylv turned right by the golf course, into Morfe Lane, towards Alveley.  In those two miles she’d covered the principles of silver service waiting – and managed to crowbar in a reference to ‘our Paul.’

‘Well it’s not knocked on the head for good.  I’ll squeeze in another trip before September, I’m sure.  It’s just that right now I’d rather be here and see how things develop with Dominic.’  Emily twiddled with the hem of her skirt, but dropped it as though it annoyed her as she added: ‘They’re not over the moon, though, to put it mildly.’

‘No, they haven’t exactly taken a shine to that young chap of yours, have they?’

‘They took an instant dislike to him at Crimbo, and haven’t bothered to revise their opinion since.’

‘I thought he looked pleasant enough from the glimpse I got on Christmas Day.’

‘You saw us?  Trust you, Sylv!’

‘I was taking Barney a walk while Keith and Paul snoozed off their dinner.  I waved as you were coming up off the canal but the pair of you only had eyes for each other.’

Emily grinned at the memory – then rewound last night’s battle with her parents and flexed her hands into the strangulation of an imaginary neck.  ‘It’s my life, for me to conduct how I wish.  I was taking a year out anyway – what’s it to them if I spend it backpacking or living at home, waitressing and seeing my boyfriend?’

‘The bloke’s a nonentity,’ was Dad’s Dom-damnation, ‘an eternal student, cutting himself off from reality.  What’s he got to offer you?  He can’t support you.’

‘Support me?  I’m not going to marry him.’

‘You could have fooled us, the way you carry on at times.’

‘Well I do like him.  Very much.  And if I hop off to Oz or back to Asia now, I’ll miss him.  This year is mine; a blank canvas.  What’s the point putting myself in a position where I’d spend it miserable and pining?’

‘You wouldn’t have time to get miserable or pine.’

‘He might find someone else then.’

‘Well if he does he’s no loss.  A decent type would wait – zip fastened!  In fact how do you know he hasn’t already got someone else?  You sure isn’t married?’

‘Don’t think that thought hadn’t occurred to me, in fact.  Where was his wife Christmas Day, though?  No woman is likely to be understanding or unsuspicious of her husband’s wish to spend it away from home, are they?’

‘Point taken.  But come on Emmy, you were the girl who wanted to see the world.  You’ve been planning this gap year since you were eighteen.  Those nights you were all over atlases, plotting your routes.  “It’s Columbus all over again,” I used to say to your mother.  It’s heartbreaking to see you scuppering your own opportunities for…him.’

Emily despised the way Dad couldn’t say ‘Dominic’ and flapped his hand about as though choking on an expletive.  However, his ‘Columbus’ remarks smarted.  Not only because his naffly Dad-ish language could be touching, but also because it wasn’t so long since those maps and Lonely Planet guides took animated shape through her dreams, seductive and colourful.  The best bit was they were nothing to the reality.  ‘You had to be there’ was a phrase she’d found herself reciting to friends as she attempted doing justice to the sights.

Well Dominic Osbourne happened to be one of the sights – and he was seductive and compelling at bedtime too. 

‘I’m staying.  For the time being at least.  You talk about opportunities – well I’m seizing the opportunity to be with Dom.’

Thelma shook her head despondently.  ‘You haven’t known him five minutes.’

‘And I won’t get to know him unless we spend time together.  Anyway, by that token, you’ve known him less than five minutes, but that doesn’t stop the judgmental comments.  Something tells me this is meant to be.  I travel that many thousands of miles and meet someone local – that seems like a sign.’

‘You and your signs!’

‘I just love our conversations, Dad – about literature and films and stuff.  His company is so inspiring.’

‘Seriously?  He hardly dazzled on Christmas Day.’

‘I won’t labour the point about him missing his parents.  I imagine such a thing would render you a touch subdued, don’t you?’

‘Your father and I have both been there, sweetheart.  We’re not unsympathetic.  Just don’t let him milk that line with you; use it to hold you back.’

‘I’m not, and he doesn’t.’  Emily suppressed the thought that he did mention it often, for a subject allegedly too raw for discussion.

‘There’s just – I don’t know – something about him, makes me want you to be careful.  Are you quite sure he’s worth sacrificing your ambitions for?’

‘I’m sacrificing nothing.  I thought you’d be pleased I’m not going anywhere – you had major reservations about me travelling in the first place.  You did your fruit when I told you I’d be going alone.’

Dom’s admired eyebrows had shot up too, when learning in Singapore that she was a solo backpacker.  ‘Well all my uni mates were either finding jobs or starting their LPCs, so I thought sod it, I want my gap year, I’ll just go by myself.  My parents know how resolute I am once I’ve got a mind to do something, and they never stood in my way.  I phone them every few days – to reassure them I haven’t been kidnapped by cannibals, that my head’s not being used as an ornamental soup bowl, that kinda thing – though that gets a bit costly, especially the rate I rattle on.  They trust me, though.  I really think being an only child teaches you to be self-reliant, and confident with your own company – don’t you find that, Dom?’

‘Well you read such horrific stories about young girls,’ Brian was saying, ‘but Mom and me are proud of how independent and streetwise you’ve been.  And you had such passion for the places you visited – we could feel that coming over in your postcards and e-mails.  Now you’re throwing all that away to become a waitress.’

‘No, Dad, I’m going to become a solicitor.  This job at Alveley Manor’s just a stopgap so that I won’t be a sponge to you while I’m at home.  I’ve always paid my way, as you well know.  While I’m home, I can also swot up on my law books and look for work placements at solicitors practices.  And, as I keep saying, I’m not “giving up” on my travelling.  I shall do at least one more trip later in the year – hopefully with the “nonentity,” as you so charmingly describe him.’

‘How does he hope to fund that?  He seems to lead a very nice lifestyle on his student grant.  Where is it you’re off to tonight?  Not Burger King, I bet.’

‘Talking of which,’ Emily gathered up her handbag – sidestepping admitting they were ‘off to’ the rather elegant Thornemill, or that it was her turn to pay – ‘he’ll be here soon, I’ll go wait outside for him.’

Emily dropped again the hem she’d resumed her fidgets with, as stitching was at risk.  ‘I’m sick of these conversations, Sylv, and feeling like I constantly have to justify my boyfriend.’

‘Got to follow your heart, that’s what I always say to our Paul.  Be true to yourself, love.  Only you know the right direction to steer your life in.’

Dom too, though, said some funny things at dinner. 

‘Alveley Manor?’  He’d dropped his garlic mushroom.  ‘Oh Em, are you quite sure you want to do this for me?’

‘You sound like my parents.’

‘Sorry – I just don’t want to be responsible for you curtailing your travels.’

‘They’re not on indefinite hold.’  Emily strove for a tone that asserted her independence while subtly probed him, tested whether she had in fact inflated her own importance to him.  Her hors d'oeuvre was minestrone soup, but may as well have been hippo rump for all she could force past the sudden cork in her throat.

‘I’m sorry darling,’ he fingered patterns on the back of her hand, ‘you just overwhelmed me a bit, that’s all.  Of course I’m delighted you’re staying.’

Hunger and dialogue were restored in time for the main course.  Emily finally prised Dom’s address from him, committing it to the Post It she resourcefully whipped out of her bag.  ‘Flat 8, Creighton Court, Logan Lane, Wolverhampton.  Don’t s’pose it’s too far from here then.  Don’t fancy taking me there after, do you?’  She pinched his knee beneath the discreet tablecloth.

‘Bit forward, aren’t you?’  He was laughing, but there was a faint edge to it that made her feel silly and brash.

‘You’re a man of the world, surely you can cope with a girl you’ve been seeing for a couple of months requesting to be taken home?  Not married, are you?’  Her parents had broached that predictable issue with Emily – though not so jestfully.

‘Don’t talk daft.’  His eyes were boyish again.  ‘And you aren’t really forward.  But there is someone there who wouldn’t exactly greet you with open arms, and that’s the landlord.  Bruce.  Vile bloke.  Penny-pinching creep.  Embodiment of all the stereotypes you ever hear about landlords.  Reckons his wife ran off with one of the tenants about twelve years ago.  That’s his reason for hating anyone who dares rent from him.  Or one of them anyway.’

‘He sounds delightful.  Why don’t you move?’

Dom indulged her with one of his kindly, life’s not that simple smiles.  ‘Bruce’s rent isn’t too steep – quite a consideration when you’re a student, obviously.  I could never stretch to a flat in Brum, close to the uni.  More pertinently, it’s close to the churchyard.’  He paused, letting the word sink in.  ‘But we don’t want to dwell on such morbid concerns.’  He squeezed her hand to staunch questions.

They were back on to waitressing during the tiramisu, when Emily enquired ‘So have you got a part-time job?’

‘Ah, you’ll only go out with me if I’ve got money, is that it?  I never knew you were so materialistic, Emily.’ 

‘I’m not.’  Did she just imagine that not entirely humorous laughter in his handsome eyes?  ‘I just wondered if you had any way of financing your way through college.’
‘I’m sorry, sweetie.  My defensive sense of humour.  It’s just that having an inheritance has been known to draw gold-diggers out of the woodwork.  They tend to imagine I’m worth more than I am.  This heart’ – he fanned across it the hand which was not retracing its patterns across Emily’s palm – ‘bears many a chip from women who cared not about its contents but the contents of my wallet.’

‘Well I am no such woman.  You didn’t have to bring me here, you know.  Burger King would have been more than adequate.’

‘Well I happen to think you’re well above ‘Burger King’ league.  Nothing but the most romantic settings for my Emily.  Now are you still OK to pay?’

Good job I’m going to have wages soon, Emily cringed, recalling that bill.

They were virtually at Alveley Manor.  Sylv was still in garrulous flow – something about the Chill Cabinet.

‘Lorraine at the petrol station was telling me a pal of her aunty’s fell on a chip and whacked her head on the edge of a chest freezer.  Concussed herself, there’s some talk about suing.  Right, here we are,’ Sylv ably swept her Corsa into a space at Alveley Manor, and yanked the brake on, ‘ready to go do your bit, love?’