Sitting Pretty Page 8

  I was going over in my head, again, what to say to Davina when the woman herself turned up – a vision in red today – looking surprised but happy to see me.

  ‘Beth! Oh I’m so glad you’re here early. That’s absolutely perfect.’ She clapped her hands together as if she’d just heard she’d been offered a knighthood or whatever the female version is. ‘I was just about to call you. Henry Halliday rang me first thing, he’s had to change his schedule as there’s some problem at one of his hotels and only he can sort it out. So I’ll need you to feed Talisker, probably for the rest of the week – he wasn’t sure how long he would need to be away for – but with it being Bonfire Night tomorrow you’ll need to stay there tomorrow night. That’s all right, isn’t it? I told him it would be.’

  Yes, of course she did – that was typical of Davina – and right at that moment I couldn’t have been happier about it. I could have kissed her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  It seemed that every time I was at my lowest ebb, Talisker – that beautiful, gorgeous knight in furry armour of a cat – came to my rescue. I could have kissed that beautiful creature. In fact, I did, several times on the top of his velvety, smoky-grey head. He seemed to take that as no more than his due and rubbed his forehead against my chin by way of telling me that I was more than welcome, and that any further such displays of gratitude would be accepted with equal pleasure.

  I knew I’d have to come clean eventually about Alex – hadn’t I just been about to do that very thing until fate intervened? But just this one final week doing the job I loved and getting to spend time with my favourite cat – I couldn’t turn that down, could I? Henry Halliday had asked specifically for me to stay with Talisker, I couldn’t let him down. And there I was again, doing the old dieter justifying the biscuit routine, but this really would be the last time.

  It felt wonderful to be able to legitimately leave my things there in the spare room. OK, so I was a day early – it was tomorrow night I was officially staying, but a lot of people let fireworks off in the days running up to and after Guy Fawkes’ Night, so it would be comforting for Talisker to have me there tonight too. And if I was supposed to be there tomorrow, I could make myself cheese on toast for dinner! Whoever would have thought that the notion of making myself cheese on toast would get me so excited! Of course I’d have to do a very thorough clean-up afterwards.

  There were indeed a few odd fireworks going off that night – not here in Netley Parva, of course, where I would imagine the average resident was probably in bed with a mug of cocoa by half past nine. No, they seemed to be coming from the far end of Netley Common, the end closest to Wintertown, so their whizzes and bangs were quite muted by the time the airwaves brought them as far as us.

  In any case, Talisker wasn’t bothered in the slightest. He was far more interested in what I was having for my dinner and how many tasty morsels would be coming his way than anything going on outside. We snuggled up together on the sofa in the back room, watching television and sharing my cheese on toast before having an early night – also together – to make up for last night.

  I told Talisker all about last night’s cats and I must say, he did look indignant on my behalf. But after a while he leaned over on his side and started licking his nether regions with a great deal of concentration, before lying down and going to sleep. I got the distinct impression that he thought he’d done his duty by showing an interest, but the conversation was now over.

  So he’d welcomed me, eaten my food, invited himself into my bed, and now I wanted more than a few seconds of attention he was snoring his little head off. Typical male.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The next day was the fifth of November and we were being extra vigilant on our dog walks in case some idiot let off an early rocket or something. I was relieved to get Bubbles home as, if he’d been spooked by a big bang, I don’t know how I’d have managed to keep hold of him.

  Daisy and Nick were going to a fireworks party in Winchester in the evening. She had invited me before it turned out I was looking after Talisker.

  ‘Tal! I’m back!’ I called as I arrived that evening. He padded down the stairs and wound himself around my ankles, closing and opening his eyes in little cat smiles. ‘Right, what shall we watch tonight? Something noisy to block out the bangs?’

  There was going to be a big firework display at Hetherin Hall, the fancy country house hotel whose grounds were so big that they seemed to touch on the outskirts of each of the Netley villages. They didn’t do anything there by halves and it wasn’t that far away, so tonight would be a hell of a lot louder than last night. I switched Henry Halliday’s television on and sat down on the sofa. Talisker immediately jumped up onto my lap, kneading my thighs until he got himself comfortable. I’d been into the village shop and seen Eleanor so she knew I was staying here tonight, which made it safe to leave the curtains open a little so I could see some of the firework display which, knowing the Hetherins, was bound to be extravagant and very, very impressive.

  And it was. I could actually see most of the biggest ones, exploding in bursts of silver, red, gold, and green, up above the trees, lighting up the sky. Out of the window I watched enormous multi-coloured rockets jetting up into the air, little silvery things shooting up and then bursting into a multitude of colourful sparkles, dazzling rainbows shooting through the night sky seemingly out of nowhere, fountains of whooshing flare-type things – I didn’t know what most of them were called but they looked spectacular. On the sofa, Talisker was curled up with his head on one paw. While I stood and watched the whole thing, he couldn’t have been less bothered, even when the bangs were loud enough to be heard here.

  I called Mum before I went to bed. She’d been out watching the fireworks on Primrose Hill with friends and had brought them home and made them all hot chocolate to warm up afterwards. They’d only just left. I told her I wouldn’t come up this weekend as I’d be on duty, but that I’d be up to see her the following one and she seemed fine with that. I didn’t tell her yet that I’d be coming up for more than just the weekend. There was no need to worry her any earlier than was strictly necessary.

  When I rang off, Talisker had moved himself from the sofa and was stretched out, fast asleep, with his head on my pillow, snoring his little cat snores. It would take more than a few silly whizzes and whooshes to disturb his equilibrium.

  I wondered if there were any fireworks in Dubai. There were a lot of British expats, or so I’d read. Would Alex have gone to some fancy, expensive display? He’d never been much for that kind of thing, but he might have gone to something with his new work colleagues. I wondered what they were like and what he told them when, or if, any of them asked why his wife hadn’t come out with him.

  My traitorous fingers itched to pick up the phone, but what would be the point? I had already heard that ‘The number you have dialled is not in service’ message more times than any one person should have to in a life time. So I picked up the cat instead. If Alex Petropoulos couldn’t be bothered with his wife any more then that was his loss.

  Of course my knee-jerk reaction to carry on working at Sitting Pretty was more to do with enjoying my job than sticking two fingers up at Alex. But there had been an element of that too. There was that stubborn streak in me that refused to just slink back to London with my tail between my legs. Staying here had been my typically quiet way of telling him to shove it. But the reality was that I couldn’t afford to live here on what I was earning, and unless I took on an evening job, this was never going to have worked out.

  ‘Make the most of me while you’ve got me, Tal,’ I whispered into his furry head, ‘because as soon as your dad comes back, I’m afraid you and I are going to have to part company.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  My dreams took on a different turn that night, propelling me to a strange land full of tall, shiny buildings, fountains and fireworks, and elegant, happy, dancing people.

  There wa
s a party I was invited to and I was anxious to get there, but my taxi must have taken me to the wrong one because they didn’t want to let me in. I didn’t know anybody there, so I took another taxi to a different one. The same thing happened there. And the next one, and the one after that.

  I was just about to give up and ask the driver of the taxi I was currently in to take me back to where I started from when we finally arrived at a party where I was allowed in. Someone showed me to a room, a huge kitchen. Someone else put a tray full of cocktails and glasses of champagne into my hands and pushed me back out to where the people were. I looked down and saw I was wearing a white shirt with a black bow tie, a black skirt, and a long black apron.

  People were grabbing the glasses off the tray but it wasn’t getting any emptier. Round and round I walked with it, supplying a never-ending round of drinks, until I spotted another door and went through it. There was a line of taxis waiting and my tray disappeared as I jumped into one.

  The next party we arrived at was even fancier and in even fuller swing than the last. I walked in and a couple of girls appeared, one on either side of me, offering me a choice of drinks from their trays. I picked up a glass of something long and pink and carried on further into the room. Men with trays of canapés wandered around, but none of them stopped long enough near me for me to take one.

  When I reached the centre of the room, a spotlight suddenly shone on me and everybody stopped and turned to look at me. People started pointing and sniggering. Some were laughing out loud. Was I still wearing that waitress outfit?

  Looking down I saw I was in my pyjamas, my scruffiest, bobbliest, oldest pair. And they had childish pictures of kittens and puppies on them. With everybody’s laughter ringing in my ears, I turned and ran for the door, but I couldn’t find it. I couldn’t see a door anywhere, so I just kept running.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  In the office the next day, the girls were all swapping stories of how frightened, or not, their pets had been last night. I was very proud of Talisker, he’d certainly been the bravest and I told him so when I got back that evening. He slowly closed and opened his eyes in his perfect cat smile as if thanking me for the compliment, while also saying that he had, of course, expected nothing less.

  I was quite sad that once Henry Halliday came back from his problem-solving trip, I wouldn’t see this lovely creature any more. Then it would be time to hand in my notice properly at Sitting Pretty. And when Davina asked why – well, she didn’t need to know the whole truth, just the edited version.

  So I’d bought Talisker some cheap treats and a couple of toys to play with, and we had a lovely evening while he humoured me by pretending to love his new catnip-infused mouse on elastic, batting it about with his paws as if it was the best thing ever. Once he’d got bored with it, he snuggled up on my lap while we fell asleep watching an old black and white film. And of course, we both woke up, stretched, and yawned as soon as the film had finished, neither of us having a clue what it had been about.

  ‘Come on, Tal,’ I stroked his head, ‘up the wooden hill. We won’t be able to do this for much longer, will we?’ I watched him trot up the stairs ahead of me with his tail in the air and a complete lack of concern in the matter. Maybe, like Davina, he didn’t really believe that I would go away and leave him.

  I went to brush my teeth then came back to the spare room. I’d just moved Talisker from where he’d stretched himself out along both pillows, given myself the one his bottom hadn’t been on, got into bed, and was about to turn the bedside light off when I heard a noise. It sounded like the front door opening and closing.

  Oh my God! I swung my legs back down and froze, my ears straining. Was Henry Halliday going to catch me here? Or was there a burglar downstairs?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  ‘And who might you be?’ asked the man standing in the middle of the stairs, a rucksack slung over one shoulder and a very puzzled expression on his face, after I’d opened the bedroom door to investigate.

  My heart was pounding so hard I couldn’t understand how it didn’t burst. I didn’t know whether to slam the bedroom door shut and start barricading it with furniture or scream and run at him, hoping he’d turn tail and make his escape back down the stairs and out of the front door. My feet, however, wouldn’t move and no sound came out of my mouth.

  He seemed very calm and sure of himself for a potential burglar. And, for some inexplicable reason, vaguely amused.

  We just stood there, staring at each other for what felt like hours, until he carried on, ‘You know, when I spoke to my brother about half an hour ago. He was in a hotel in Geneva, sacking Swiss chalet maids or something, and he’s probably going to be there over the weekend and into next week. He didn’t say anything about having a house guest. The crafty old beggar! So, how long’s he been keeping you a secret?’

  ‘Your brother?’ I squeaked, finding part of my voice and wishing the rest of it would hurry back too.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. I’m Marvin.’

  ‘Marvin?’

  ‘Is there a high-pitched echo in here?’ he grinned. ‘I’m Marvin Halliday. And you would be …’

  ‘You’re Mr Halliday’s brother?’

  ‘Mister Halliday? We’re a bit formal,’ he laughed, as something clanged in my head. I often picked up the post from the doormat when I came to feed Talisker. A postcard, picture side down, wafted into my mind –hadn’t that been from a Marvin? Something along the lines of ‘Don’t you wish you were here?’ Not that I’d read it of course, but there had only been those few words and the handwriting had been big. And now I’d had a chance to look at him, he did have a look of a younger, plumper, more tousled, less tie-wearing version of his brother. As if to rubber stamp his identity, Talisker padded past me, trotted down the top few stairs, meowed a greeting, and rubbed his head against the man’s shin.

  ‘Tally! Hello, old fella! How’s my favourite furry friend?’ He bent over and scratched the top of the cat’s head with his knuckles, while Talisker went into a frenzy of purring. ‘So.’ Henry Halliday’s brother looked back up at me expectantly, as well he might, given that I wasn’t even supposed to be here. ‘We’ve established who I am, now it’s your turn, lady I’ve never met before who’s wearing pyjamas in Henry’s house while Henry’s away.’

  My mind had already started going into overdrive. This was the brother of the man who had no idea I was squatting in his house. Should I try and bluff my way out of this? Should I throw myself on his mercy? Should I …?

  ‘Tally!’ he turned back to the cat. ‘Have you got this young lady’s tongue? Where have you put it? ’Cos I think you should give it back to her so she can tell me what’s going on, don’t you?’ He looked up at me again but carried on talking to the cat. ‘Because if your dad had gone and found himself a new lady friend, I don’t think she’d be calling him Mister Halliday, do you?’

  ‘I’m the pet sitter, ’I blurted out before I’d managed to follow any chain of thought as to what I’d say next.

  ‘The pet sitter?’ He looked bemused. ‘At,’ he pulled back his sleeve and glanced at his watch, ‘twenty-five past one in the morning? That’s a bit over-conscientious, isn’t it?’

  ‘I … I thought Talisker seemed a bit … a bit …’

  ‘What? Lonely?’ He looked at me as if he thought I was mad. ‘He’s a cat! Have you got someone up there with you? Have you been using my brother’s house while he’s away to meet your boyfriend?’

  ‘I’m a married woman!’ I yelped, holding up my left hand which still bore my wedding and engagement rings.

  ‘So that’s your game? You’re using your clients’ houses to conduct an illicit affair! You’re …’

  ‘I am doing no such thing,’ I interrupted him, but with slightly less conviction. After all, take away the ‘conducting an illicit affair’ bit and he’d pretty much got me banged to rights. I just prayed that my face wasn’t giving me away.

 
‘I’m afraid I don’t believe you.’ He took a couple of steps further up the stairs. ‘Come on out of there!’ Marvin commanded in the direction of the open door behind me.

  ‘There’s nobody else here!’ I stood aside as he carried on up to the landing, marched into the room, and quickly looked round it. What was he going to do next, search the bathroom? Look in the wardrobe? Under the bed?

  ‘Hiding in the bathroom, is he? Come out of there, you coward! What sort of man leaves a woman to face the music on her own? You should be ashamed of yourself!’ The en-suite wasn’t that big and it only took him a second to swish back the shower curtain and see that there was no cowardly lover concealed behind it. Would he lift the toilet seat or peer down the sink’s plug hole, thinking my mystery man might be some kind of tiny contortionist who specialised in u-bends? No, he didn’t actually do that. Instead, he marched towards the wardrobe and pulled the door open. This was turning into something out of the Benny Hill Show. He seemed quite disappointed to be confronted with half a dozen empty wooden hangers, equally spaced from each other – as they would be in Henry Halliday’s house –hanging from the rail, along with one of those lavender scented, anti-moth pouches on a plastic hook. Underneath was an empty shoe rack and above them, on the top shelf, were a couple of spare hypoallergenic pillows in special hazmat-style laundry bags. But no hidden man. I was half expecting him to pull out the pillows, assuming it was a character from The Hobbit that I was conducting this affair with, when he ducked down and started peering under the bed. For heaven’s sake!