More to Life Than This Read online

  ‘Yes, thank you for that brilliant deduction, Ms Poirot,’ Ben said with a huff.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Fi looked puzzled. ‘You’re young, free and single.’ She gave him a guarded smile. ‘And not bad-looking.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He folded his arms.

  ‘ so?’

  ‘She isn’t.’ Ben gave her a tired smile glance. ‘Free and single that is.’

  ‘Ah.’

  The food arrived and Fiona prodded hers tentatively as if she had uncovered an unexploded bomb. ‘Emotional baggage?’ she queried.

  Ben rubbed his hands over his eyes. ‘A full matching set.’ The Teriyaki salmon that had been placed in front of him had suddenly lost its appeal. His stomach had gone into involuntary shutdown. No one had ever put him off his food before. ‘One very sturdy suitcase of a husband and two lovely little holdalls.’

  ‘Fuck.’ Fiona breathed.

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘How far has it gone?’

  ‘It hasn’t gone anywhere.’

  ‘So what’s the problem?’

  ‘I want it to.’

  ‘Oh, Ben.’

  ‘I know.’ He held his hands up. ‘You don’t need to “Oh, Ben” me.’

  ‘I thought I was supposed to be the emotional mess?’

  ‘I’m just trying to keep you company,’ he said sulkily. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘There’s nothing much to say.’

  They both pushed their food aimlessly round their plates, Fiona still regarding her goat’s cheese suspiciously. Eventually, they’d both made such a mess of it that it looked like they’d eaten some.

  Fiona edged her plate away. ‘Do you want another drink?’

  Ben shook his head.

  ‘So, what now?’ Fiona asked. ‘We’ve pretended to look at the work I trailed all the way out here with for no good reason, we’ve done the food, neither of us want another drink—although I would recommend, from vast personal experience, that you get completely and utterly slaughtered.’

  ‘It’s not my way,’ he said. ‘You of all people should know that.’ Ben pushed away from the table. ‘I think we’d better leave.’

  ‘We could go back to your place and have a sociable shag,’ she said with forced lightness. ‘I don’t have to go home tonight.’

  Ben looked at her sadly. Fiona’s unrequited crush on him never seemed to show signs of fading. It would be so easy if he could just throw a switch somewhere and make himself return her feeling. But it never happened.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ she laughed bitterly. ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’

  ‘Oh, Fi.’ He took her hand and squeezed it firmly.

  ‘It was a stupid suggestion,’ she said, pulling her hand away and grabbing her briefcase. ‘I couldn’t possibly stay out here, the atmosphere is too rarefied. I need to feel the drag of carbon monoxide in my lungs. Let’s go and get Old Faithful revved up.’

  chapter 26

  Old Faithful was being mutinous. A string of expletives came from Fiona as the engine caught, chugged a bit and then faded to an abrupt nothing. ‘Fucking car,’ she shouted, banging her hand violently on the dashboard. ‘You faithless bastard! What have I ever done to you?’ She stamped her feet on the pedals and rammed the gear stick back and forth.

  Then, sagging with resignation, she turned to Ben. ‘I don’t think it’s going to start,’ she said quietly. There were tears in her eyes and he wanted to hold her, but it didn’t seem an appropriate time.

  ‘Open the bonnet,’ he instructed. ‘Let me have a look at it.’ She turned on him. ‘And what do you know about bloody cars?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he admitted helplessly.

  Fiona sniffed. ‘It’s probably the thingamagig that’s gone.’ A tear rolled down her cheek. ‘It’s a very common fault. Do you think there’s a garage open round here?’

  ‘I think it’s highly unlikely,’ he told her.

  Fiona looked like she was going to cry in earnest. ‘Look—’ he took her hand ‘—why don’t we go back into the pub and get the number of a taxi firm? You can take my car back to town for the rest of the week and I’ll arrange to get Old Faithful fixed.’ He tried to keep the irony out of his voice. ‘Then you can come back on Saturday when the course ends and pick me up.’

  ‘I might be busy.’ Fiona sniffled.

  He forced her to look at him. ‘Doing what?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I need time to think of something.’

  ‘The course finishes mid-morning. We can spend the afternoon together,’ he cajoled. ‘I’ll take you to Hampstead, buy you some lunch and you can pose with the rest of the beautiful people.’

  ‘You’re a bastard, Ben Mahler.’ Fiona wiped her nose. ‘I hate you as much as I hate this car.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Come on. Let’s go and ring for a taxi.’

  The taxi dropped them at the priory. Ben paid the fare and they wandered over to his car in silence.

  ‘Here.’ He handed over his keys to Fi. His car was fast, sporty and ferociously expensive. And, as he’d only recently acquired it, he rather wanted it back in one piece. And he’d seen what Fiona could do to cars. ‘You can play with my new toy until Saturday,’ he said, trying to quell the anxiety that was swirling in his stomach. ‘Will that cheer you up?’

  ‘It might do,’ she said, but she sounded doubtful. ‘What about Old Faithful?’

  ‘Against my better judgement to send it to the knacker’s yard, I’ll arrange to have it towed in tomorrow and fixed.’

  Fiona smiled reluctantly. ‘You’re quite sweet, really,’ she said. ‘For a bastard.’

  ‘I’m not a bastard, just because I won’t sleep with you.’

  ‘I know.’ Fiona sighed wearily.

  ‘I’ll phone you and let you know about the junker. We can arrange a time for you to collect me then. Is that okay?’

  ‘Fine,’ she said.

  She slipped into the driver’s seat. ‘Ooo!’ His friend patted the plush black leather steering wheel in open admiration. ‘I could get used to this.’

  ‘Drive carefully!’

  ‘Do you want to check it for dents before I leave?’

  ‘No. I trust you.’

  ‘Yeah, and I trust you, Ben Mahler. About as far as I can throw you.’ She got in the car.

  ‘I mean it,’ Ben said. ‘Be careful.’

  ‘I’ll see you Saturday,’ she called out. Fiona blipped the throttle making the car roar throatily. Then she crunched it into gear and roared off into the night.

  Ben smiled to himself as he watched her leave. He shook his head. She was irrepressible. It would be a miracle if she didn’t end up in a ditch somewhere.

  He was fond of Fi. Very. In some ways he loved her, but he wasn’t in love with her. It would be easier if he was. She was a good friend to him, but then perhaps that was the worst thing you could say to a woman who wanted more from you.

  The night was clear, the sky filled with stars and the air sharp against his cheeks after the fuggy warmth of the pub.

  Ben glanced at his watch. It was late, but he might still catch the rest of the class in the bar. Should he go for a drink? Would Kate still be there? He checked her room, but it was in darkness. Perhaps she had already gone to bed. He should do the same. It was the safe and sensible thing to do. And he had never felt less safe or sensible in his life.

  chapter 27

  Sonia was smoking. Heavily. But not quite as heavily as she was drinking.

  ‘Sonia,’ Kate warned. ‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough?’

  The bar at the priory was called ‘The Cloisters’ but it was one area where the muted monastery theme had gone awry and had been replaced by a frenzy of orange chairs and the same shade of carpet. In one corner an out-of-tune piano sat unloved and unplayed, in another the four elderly ladies from Fun with Fur Fabric snoozed over empty glasses that had, some time earlier, contained Harvey’s Bristol Cream sherry. It was how Kate had always imagined the wai
ting room to Hell would be.

  ‘Don’t nag me,’ her friend objected. ‘I’ve hardly had a cigarette all week and I haven’t lost an ounce.’

  ‘I don’t think there are that many calories in cigarettes, Sonia.’

  ‘There must be,’ she retorted, ‘because I hardly eat a thing. Very little else passes my lips. Ho ho.’ She laughed bitterly, took another swallow of wine and tucked into her third bag of salt and vinegar crisps. ‘See, I only have to inhale near a chocolate eclair and that’s two inches on my hips. I have a morbidly slow metabolism.’

  Sonia leaned forward unsteadily. ‘I’m going to let you into a little secret,’ she said.

  ‘Oh grief, I do wish you wouldn’t,’ Kate said.

  Sonia lowered her voice until only those living in the surrounding three counties could hear her. ‘I am going to use all my feminine wiles to lure sexy Sam into my bed tonight.’ She gave Kate a gleeful confirming nod. ‘Then I’m going to have my wicked way with him until dawn.’

  ‘This is not a good idea, Sonia,’ Kate advised. ‘In fact, it’s one of the worst ideas you’ve ever had.’

  ‘I have my heart set on it.’

  ‘It’s not your heart I’m worried about. There are other parts of your anatomy that are in far more immediate danger. Please don’t do this.’

  ‘I want some romance in my life, Katie,’ Sonia said firmly. ‘In all the telephone conversations I’ve had with Tim this week, not once has he said he loves me. Where has all the passion gone?’ she asked, before she threw the rest of her wine down her throat.

  ‘An affair is never the answer,’ Kate cautioned.

  ‘And what is?’ Sonia snapped. ‘I’m bloody sure that a week’s T’ai Chi in monastic splendour isn’t.’ She rounded on her friend. ‘Have you found the answer to your problems yet?’

  ‘No,’ Kate admitted quietly.

  In fact, she was now more confused than she had been when she arrived. She had missed Ben desperately tonight. Every time the bar door opened—and it wasn’t that often—she had turned round to see whether it was him. One night without his presence and she was ragged with nerves. What was she going to be like at the end of the week, when the course was over and there was no chance of her ever seeing him walk through a door again? Even the thought of it was unbearable. And she still couldn’t find the sodding where-withal to soar like a crane! Everyone else was flying majestically over the lush carpet of rolling hills and fields, and she was still firmly attached by feet of clay to the croquet lawn.

  ‘I’ve tried everything I can think of to get Tim interested,’ Sonia said morosely, ‘with the exception of prancing round the bedroom naked with a rose stuck up my bum, and nothing does the trick. Now I just want to have some fun and damn the consequences.’ She slammed her empty wineglass down on the table, jolting awake the Fun with Fur Fabric quartet. ‘I need a proper drink.’

  A proper drink, it would seem, was half a bottle of Sambuca purchased from the barman, who had been obliged to polish an inch of dust from the label just to locate it. Sambuca, it appeared, was not a strong favourite at Northwood Priory.

  Sonia brought it back to the table and poured them each a measure of the lethal clear liquid. Then she flicked her cigarette lighter over the glasses and with an exuberant rush of pale blue flame, the Sambuca set itself on fire.

  ‘Sonia!’ Kate leapt back.

  ‘I’m practising my fire element,’ her friend insisted. ‘Which has been sadly neglected this week, I must say.’

  Kate laughed and they blew the flames out together. Kate puckered her lips as she tasted the aniseed flavour strong and warming in the back of her throat; Sonia swallowed hers in one. she set her glass down with a faint watering of her eyes. ‘Another?’ she croaked.

  ‘Hang on—I’ve hardly started this one.’

  ‘You always were a slow drinker.’

  Sonia was downing her fourth glass by the time Kate had finished her first. There would be tears in the morning, as sure as hangovers are hangovers.

  ‘You are being too boring for words, Kate Lewis,’ Sonia said drunkenly. ‘When have you ever done anything daring?’

  When indeed?

  ‘Watch this,’ Sonia invited. She took a mouthful of Sambuca, gargled it noisily and then spat it out in a steady stream while holding her cigarette lighter under it. Tongues of flame shot across the table, licking fiercely at the droplets that had splashed on its surface.

  ‘Heavens above!’ Kate said, unsure whether to be shocked or admiring. As party tricks go it was quite a show-stopper.

  Sonia giggled uproariously. The Fun with Fur Fabric Four, now fully awake, decided that Fun with Flamethrowers was too much for them and, clutching their handbags to their chests, they left hurriedly. Thank goodness the barman’s back had been turned, thought Kate.

  ‘Sonia,’ she hissed. ‘We’ve come here for spiritual enlightenment, in case you’ve forgotten. I don’t think a Sambuca spitting contest is quite what we need.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it,’ Sonia slurred. ‘I’ve had more spiritual enlightenment through the bottom of a flaming glass—’ Sonia stabbed a drunken finger ‘—than you’ve had hot dinners.’

  ‘Or hot alcohol.’

  ‘Loosen up, Katie.’ Sonia’s eyes were beginning to point in different directions.

  Sam chose that moment to enter the bar, grinning all over his cherubic face. Kate prayed he would sit somewhere else, but Sonia saw him and lurched at the poor man, pulling him down to the seat next to her.

  ‘Some Sambuca, Sam?’ Sonia lisped.

  ‘Well…’

  ‘Kate, get Sammy some Sambuca.’ She screeched with laughter. ‘Some Sambuca for Sammy.’

  Kate raised her eyebrows at him. Clearly, it was a six-glass joke.

  ‘Just to be sociable,’ he said hesitantly.

  Kate poured him a sociable amount.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, politely raising his glass in a toast, at which point Sonia flashed her cigarette lighter under his nose and set fire to the Sambuca, only narrowly missing setting fire to Sam.

  Kate closed her eyes.

  Laughing uproariously, Sonia kept her lighter going and lit another cigarette.

  ‘Wanna ciggy?’ she asked Sam, with it bobbing up and down attractively between her lips.

  ‘No, thank you.’ He frowned disapprovingly. ‘I’m afraid I think it’s a filthy habit.’

  ‘It is.’ Sonia smiled seductively and nudged him in the ribs. ‘And I’ve got lots more, too.’ She blew a smoke ring and leaned heavily against Sam’s arm, pinning it to his side. For a fearless martial arts expert, he looked pretty terrified.

  ‘So whaddaya reckon to all of this T’ai Chi malarky, Sammy?’ Sonia asked dreamily.

  ‘Well,’ he stammered, ‘It’s about harmonising your body’s internal energy with the forces of the universe.’

  She slowly wagged her finger at his nose. ‘Yes, but does it work?’

  ‘It takes years of constant practice to attain mastery.’

  ‘You see,’ she said in a very wobbly way, ‘It all sounds just a bit touchy-feely to me. Whereas my friend Kate, here—my very, very, very good friend Katie…’

  ‘Sonia,’ Kate warned.

  ‘She thinks it’s going to solve all her marital problems.’

  ‘Sonia.’

  ‘I, on the other hand, swear by step aerobics.’ She leaned in close to him, smiling drunkenly. ‘You can’t beat a bit of up, down, up, down, up, down and some buttock clenching. What do you think, Sam?’

  ‘Er…’

  Sam’s dark hair framed his face in lazy waves that threatened to turn Shirley Temple-ish when they grew too long; it curled over his collar eschewing the current fashion for Bruce Willis-style baldness. Sonia selected a strand and wound it lazily around her finger.

  She nuzzled closer to him. ‘I find you terribly attractive,’ she confessed girlishly. Her hand stroked his arm through his shirt. ‘You’re very well built, aren’t you?’ she said with
admiration as she squeezed his muscle tentatively. ‘Firm.’ She fixed her eyes on his. ‘Hard men are good to find.’

  Sam coughed uncomfortably.

  ‘Sonia, I think it’s time I took you back to your room,’ Kate suggested.

  ‘When did you turn into my mother?’ Sonia glared at her. ‘Next you’ll be reminding me to wash behind my ears.’

  ‘I just don’t want you saying anything you’ll regret,’ Kate said.

  ‘It’s better to say something you regret, than not to say anything at all,’ Sonia said boldly.

  ‘Actually, it isn’t, Sonia. It’s better to keep your mouth firmly shut, particularly following an excess of Sambuca.’ She tried to look her friend earnestly in the eyes, but Sonia’s pupils had started a slow and steady rotation.

  ‘Do you find me attractive?’ Sonia continued unheeding and almost unconscious.

  ‘Well, I’m engaged to be married,’ Sam said hesitantly. ‘Although we all possess an inner beauty…’

  Sonia’s head snapped up. ‘Is that the same as “Get lost, you fat, ugly dwarf “?’

  He glanced at his watch. ‘My goodness, is that the time?’ he said brightly as he stood up.

  ‘Don’t go!’ Sonia pleaded, clinging to his thigh.

  ‘I’m taking the early morning session. ‘Sam shook his leg in an attempt to dislodge her. ‘I think I’d better be making tracks.’

  ‘Probably wise,’ Kate agreed.

  Sonia let go, allowing Sam to beat a hasty retreat.

  ‘Fattist bastard!’ she shouted after him. ‘I’m not overweight! I’m just undertall!’

  ‘Sonia, you’re showing yourself up. It’s time we went to bed.’

  Her friend shook her fist at the door. ‘So what if I’ve got more chins than the Chinese phone book?’ She began to laugh wildly.

  ‘Look,’ Kate waved the empty bottle at her, ‘there’s nothing left to drink, and the bar—’ thankfully! ‘—is closed for the night. Come on. Let’s go to bed.’