Five Winters(25)

Everybody laughed. Mark raised his glass. “To Mum and Dad, Richard and Sylvia.”

We all raised our glasses.

“Mum and Dad.”

“Richard and Sylvia.”

Giorgio began to clap, and everyone joined in. Richard kissed Sylvia soundly, a cue for all the other couples to kiss, only me and Gary, Richard’s confirmed-bachelor fishing buddy, left on our own with just our wineglasses for company.

“Wasn’t that beautiful?” Josie, their neighbour, said to me after she’d disentangled herself from her husband.

“Really beautiful,” I agreed. Because it had been beautiful. And my feeling miserable had nothing to do with anything.

But then there was the sound of a car pulling up outside. And a short while later, someone called my name. I turned to behold Jaimie walking towards me with the biggest smile on his face. And I felt as if I’d never been so pleased to see someone in my entire life.

“Jaimie! What are you doing here?”

He caught me in his arms. “Well, it turns out it doesn’t take as long to fit a spiral staircase as I thought it did. Also, I’ve felt wretched all day, wishing I were here with you. So I came.”

“Well,” I said, grinning, “I’m very glad you did.” As I sank into his arms, I saw Grace smiling at us over Mark’s shoulder. And for once, I didn’t mind her smug expression.





10


One of my favourite things about Jaimie’s garden—my garden now too—was the hammock suspended between two trees at the bottom of it. On a sunny day, it was sheer bliss to lie there with the sun filtering through the leaves. If you swung it very gently, you travelled from full sun to dappled shade and back again to the accompaniment of birdsong and softly rustling leaves. Apart from the odd car in the close and the occasional thwack of a golf ball being struck on the golf course next door, there was perfect peace. At least there was on the weekends when the girls were with their mother, anyway.

Jaimie sometimes had to pop over to the property he was renovating or to a DIY emporium for supplies at weekends, and at times like those, I whisked round the house with the Hoover before rewarding myself with half an hour of sheer bliss in the hammock if the weather was sunny. Just me and my dreamy thoughts and the sounds of nature.

This morning the hammock seemed particularly blissful, since we’d eaten out the previous evening and had a bit of a late night, so I soon slipped into a doze, only to be woken by a persistent draft blowing on my neck. Without opening my eyes, I pulled my T-shirt up to cover it. But the persistent draft moved onto my face, and I fidgeted, wondering whether it was about to rain. Then I heard a rumble of laughter close by and opened my eyes to see Jaimie.

“How long have you been there?” I asked, realising he must have been blowing on me.

“Long enough to see what you get up to while I’m gone, lazy lugs.”

“I’m only having five minutes before I put a wash on,” I said. “I’ve done the Hoovering.”

“Hey, I’m just teasing,” he said. “It’s the weekend. Why shouldn’t you be lazy? Budge up. There’s room on there for two.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, gingerly trying to move without falling out.

“I’m sure.”

Of course he was. He’d probably been in here with Harriet. And the girls.

Seconds later we were lying face-to-face, so close he’d probably be able to count the freckles the spring sunshine had no doubt brought out on my face.

He was smiling, little lines of happiness radiating from the corners of his eyes, and I smiled back, feeling as if I were in a bubble of contentment. Last night, when we’d got back from the restaurant, we’d made sleepy love, as gorgeous and rich as the chocolate sauce that had been drizzled onto my dessert. Now Jaimie’s hand was stroking its way down my side to my hip, and the whole tingling cycle was starting up again, flickers of desire prickling my thighs to pool between my legs. I pressed myself into him, stroking his back, and we kissed—lazily at first, then with gathering urgency.

I expected him to speak, to say we should go inside, up to the bedroom, but he didn’t. Instead, he swung himself off the hammock and bent to undress me right there in the garden.

“Someone might see us,” I said, hiding my bare breasts with my hands.

“Nobody can see,” he said, indicating the neighbour’s house. “We’re not overlooked.”

“The postman might bring a parcel round the side gate,” I said, but my protests were weakened by the way Jaimie was pulling my shorts down, placing kisses along my thighs as he did so. Besides, the hammock was swinging a bit now, and I needed to concentrate so I wouldn’t fall off.

“No one’s going to come,” he said. “No one, that is, except for you.”

And before I knew it, my knickers had gone too, and Jaimie was doing incredible things to me with his mouth.

A while later, we were both sated and lying side by side in the hammock again.

“God,” I said. “That was good.”

“Wasn’t it?” Jaimie said, swinging the hammock.

My body felt like liquid—as if it could easily pour through the strings of the hammock onto the grass. But if I’d thought Jaimie might fall asleep, I was mistaken.

“Come on,” he said after a few minutes. “Get up. I thought we could go into Cambridge and go punting.”