brought the world down round her ears.
She knew he couldn’t ever be serious about someone as stupid and unsophisticated as she, but, as they’d gone round the country together, they’d become friends, and now she’d never see him again without Cameron.
‘You were all on your own last night in the dark,’ he said.
‘Who told you?’
‘Mrs Makepiece told the whole village shop.’
‘It was my fault. I read the directions on the fuse box wrong.’ She tried to smile. ‘I seemed to spend the whole night pushing poor Gertrude round the house in front of me. Things seem to creak so much if you’re in the dark.’
Rupert took her hands. ‘Look, next time something awful happens, will you promise to ring me? That’s what I’m across the valley for. It crucifies me to think of you all by yourself and frightened like that.’
She wouldn’t look at him — all he could see was her reddened, swollen eyelids. Reluctantly he let her go.
Outside, the puppy, with its speckled paws on the car ledge, was grinning out through the open window.
‘Oh, how adorable,’ breathed Taggie. ‘What’s he done to his paw?’
‘It’s nearly better. He’s your birthday present. I was going to buy you a guard dog, but I got sidetracked.’
Taggie was in ecstasy. No one had ever given her anything so lovely.
‘Gertrude will be very jealous to begin with,’ warned Rupert, as the puppy rushed off on to the lawn, quartering frantically, pursuing various cat and dog smells. ‘You’ll have to make a lot of fuss of her.
He noticed Taggie was still wearing jeans and an old torn red-and-white-striped shirt of Declan’s.
‘Aren’t you going to change? We’ve booked a table for nine. Patrick can come too. I’ve never met him properly.’
Taggie blushed. ‘It’s terribly kind of you but we’re fine on our own.’
‘Don’t be silly, I’m not having you cooking on your birthday.’
‘Patrick and I haven’t seen each other for ages.’
‘You’ve got the rest of the summer.’
‘He’s going abroad tomorrow. He — er — he—’
‘Yes,’ said Rupert, pulling her down beside him on to the old bench on the side of the lawn.
Taggie blushed even more deeply. ‘He adores Cameron, you see, and he’s absolutely d-d-devastated about her moving in with you.’
‘Ah,’ said Rupert.
Taggie was frantically peeling paint off the bench. As the puppy bounded back to them, she gathered him up, cuddling him for comfort.
‘Patrick could accept her having an affair with Tony because he thought she was doing it for her career, b-but you’re different.’
‘Why?’ said Rupert, suddenly anxious to know the answer.
Taggie buried her crimson face in the puppy’s ginger ears.
‘Because one wouldn’t need any incentive. .’
‘Is that your word for the day?’
‘No.’ She shook her head frantically. ‘. . any incentive to move in with you.’
Inside, Cameron was gazing at Patrick. He’s grown up, she thought. He’s much tougher and more detached and less vulnerable.
‘How did you really get on in your finals?’
‘Got a first.’
‘Have they told you?’
‘No, but I know.’
He got a packet of Marlboro’s out of the duty-free bag and lit himself a cigarette without offering her one. As the match flared she could see the bitterness in his face.
‘I gather you’ve just become our next-door neighbour,’ he said.
‘Aren’t you going to wish me joy?’
‘What joy? He’ll only make you miserable. Christ, you’ve got awful taste in men,’ he added irritably. ‘Tony was a disgusting thug. This man —’ he couldn’t bring himself to say Rupert’s name — ‘is like a foxhound. Can’t you understand? You can’t domesticate him. He’ll always be hunting for something new. It’s in his blood. He’ll get bored with you in a few weeks, and if he doesn’t, you’ll get bored with him; he’s the most ghastly philistine, never read a book in his life.’
‘He’s street-wise.’
‘That expression always seems to me a euphemism for someone with extremely shady morals, which means he’ll dump you sooner or later — and he’ll smash your career. Tony at least encouraged that.’
‘You’re just jealous.’
‘Not any more,’ said Patrick wearily. ‘I am ashes where once I was fire.’
‘He’s very funny. You’ll like him when you get to know him.’
‘I’m not going to give myself the chance. I’m going abroad tomorrow.’
Cameron was put out. She liked talking to Patrick. Now they weren’t hamstrung by Tony’s jealousy, she’d hoped he might grow into a friend, and that his admiration, like Tony’s, would act as a spur to Rupert.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Australia — to work on a sheep farm. I’m not hanging round for the rest of the year seeing you all scrapping over the franchise and watching your relationship with that bastard self-destruct.’
‘He isn’t all bastard. Look how kind he’s been to Taggie.’ Cameron was fishing now.
‘He’s totally fucked her up.’
Cameron’s throat went dry. ‘Has he tried anything?’
‘Nothing according to Tag. Just swans in in his bloody
‘Faberge eggs?’ said Cameron, appalled.
‘Oh, Taggie didn’t know that it was. He brought her that back from Madrid. I don’t know what’s on offer today. A Monet perhaps, or a Henry Moore!’
‘A puppy,’ said Cameron in a frozen voice. ‘This is it.’
The next moment Aengus shot into the kitchen, tail fluffed out like a lavatory brush, growling ferociously, and took refuge under the kitchen dresser. The puppy frolicked after him, trying to join him under the dresser, then let out a piercing shriek as Aengus caught him with a punishing right hook on his pink nose. Instantly Gertrude bustled in, the personification of outrage. The puppy bounced up to her, then let out another shriek as Gertrude bit him sharply on the ear.
‘Oh Christ,’ said Patrick. ‘Not content with disrupting humans, Rupert has to disrupt animals as well.’
‘For Christ’s sake open one of those bottles,’ said Cameron.
‘I don’t want a drink,’ said Patrick sulkily.
‘You’ll need it. We’ve come to take you out to dinner.’
‘Well, we’re not coming. We don’t want any of your fucking charity. Poor little O’Hara kids, eating their hearts out. Let’s throw them a few crumbs of comfort.’
A black lock of hair had fallen over his forehead, a muscle was going in the beautiful pale right cheek. His eyes were as dark and forbidding as the depths of the huge cedar outside the window.
‘Please don’t hate me so much,’ Cameron was amazed to find herself pleading. ‘I really need a friend to talk to.’
They both jumped as the telephone rang. It was Caitlin who was staying with a friend in Newbury, ringing to wish Taggie many happy returns. By the time they had finished talking, Rupert and Cameron had left.
‘How did you get rid of them?’ asked Taggie.
‘I told them both to fuck off and that we didn’t need their charity,’ said Patrick, opening one of Rupert’s bottles. ‘At least we can now get drunk at their expense!’
