ILLUMINATION BOOK CHAPTERS (UPDATED LIST OF CHAPTERS HERE) … ROMANTIC COMEDY — QUIRKY ROMP — CO-STARS MOOCHER THE DOG
‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ — Chapter Twenty-Six
Biscuits? Who needs biscuits?
Hugh didn’t get in touch with Liz for seven weeks. Maybe he was waiting for his collar bone to heal. Maybe he was waiting for her to regain her equilibrium. Maybe he was afraid. Maybe, though, he was simply waiting for everything to be in place. That is, when he did finally get in touch, he’d bought and moved into the house next door to hers — into what had been Clive’s house.
And Liz didn’t get in touch with him, either, and she had forbidden his only remaining mole — Melanie — from ringing him up and reporting on her movements. That had to stop. They had to sort this out themselves.
After that seven weeks she was in full possession of everything required to rent out rooms in Lydia’s house. The commission from this, plus the rents from her own lodgers enabled her to be independent of any other demands. And she had a full house again, only awaiting one more lodger. She still managed all this and her accounting from her eyrie in the roof. Any accounting clients she had she chose to have — she didn’t have to have them. She could now settle back and take her time choosing just exactly what she did want to do with her life. She’d been unable to decide so far — there were so many interesting directions she could take.
So, when Hugh emailed her she was already completely independent of him, and he knew she would be. Of course, that was why he emailed her when he did. He knew her so well. He was actually, despite the Charity business, quite a bright chap.
Obviously, she knew he hadn’t chosen death over life with her. Of course, she knew that, unthinkingly, he’d tried to save her grief over Moocher by sacrificing himself. But, honestly, there were limits. And she had just made the most complex statement she would ever make in her life — choosing a man over her dog. And to have him chuck himself in front of a bullet at that stage — well… Well — it was downright careless!
He was just too trusting. If she was a Charity-type-person or a Tortoise-woman-person or a Julie or a Tony, Hugh would be easy money. He would play into their hands so gullibly he wouldn’t stand a chance. He really needed her around to keep him unhurt and unfleeced. Whether he realised it or not — it was her duty to look after him.
If he wanted to believe it was his duty to look after her — well, there was such a thing as give and take in these relationships and what harm could it do for her to let him believe it was that way round?
It was clear that they were made for each other. She’d sacrificed her dog for him and he’d sacrificed his life for her. Yes, they were equal partners in each other’s future.
So when his email showed up in her inbox it was to arrange a meeting at his house next door. To which she agreed.
He kept her waiting five days from the email. He knew she was hopeless at waiting. He knew she was boiling up something the whole time she had to wait.
When the day finally arrived after what seemed like a few years, she rang what used to be Git-Next-Door’s doorbell. Hugh answered it. The two of them stood there, motionless, for what seemed like a fortnight and then he held out his arms. She simply walked into them. She belonged in them. No one else should be in them but her.
How they made it up the stairs without breaking any other bones she didn’t know. But they did. Only to discover that Hugh had imported an enormous bed into the front bedroom, luxuriously draped in shiny, slippery sheets and throws. On the floor were fur rugs so deep that as clothes were thrown around in frenzied haste they sank out of sight to be lost in their depths. Along the side, lit by shimmering lamps, were plates of every conceivable biscuit to be found in a supermarket’s repertoire. Freesias crowded the room delicately scenting the air. He’d even obtained some Bonzo Dog vintage postcards from somewhere to replace the ones she’d had nicked by an errant lodger. What a man! What a hero!
Not that she really noticed this lot beforehand. Things were way too rampant and thrilling for an inventory at that stage.
Hugh took her breath away. This time when he murmured, “Now, Liz…” into her ear her every fibre trembled with anticipation. He held her, body and soul, in his capable, piano-player-crossed-with-a-surgeon’s hands and, there was no mistake, she held him, body and soul, in hers.
Moocher stayed downstairs. He was such a sensitive dog, that one.
And it was like regaining life, like realising that although the world carried on full of deceit and nastiness none of it would matter for as long as they had each other. In fact, if they carried on this way, and other people carried on in a similar way, then the world couldn’t possibly be full of nastiness. There’d be no room for it.
That wouldn’t last long. Just the moment he demanded to know where she’d been or who with, or she reacted angrily, pushing him away and feeling smothered, then they’d be back to hating each other. But this time they’d know it was all part of the game. They’d know it didn’t really matter because they both had their own boltholes, that either of them could invite the other into when they wanted. They were two individuals who could choose to stand together when they wished.
She’d forgotten how wonderful it was to be loved so completely. She could swear they both looked about ten years younger after their second round. She sat up in bed and gazed at the over-the-top décor that no one meeting Hugh would ever imagine he’d put in place. She loved it.
As he’d gone to the trouble and produced such a blinding array, she had to force herself to eat some biscuits with bubbly enjoyment. But she had already discovered that the biscuit thing had only been because of the lack-of-Hugh thing. In the previous seven weeks she’d gone right off biscuits — even custard creams — even those meringue ones dipped in chocolate — and as a consequence had lost half a stone without even trying. That was handy because her smart jeans no longer threatened to cut her in half when she sat down in them.
“My luscious dahlia,” he said. “I have something I want to say.”
“Oh?” she felt her muscles tense in readiness. “Let me guess. The whole thing with Charity was a joke to make me see the error of my ways?”
The way his face darkened and his eyebrows grew together, beetlingly, she surmised that wasn’t it. She would never, ever, mention Charity again. She stuffed a chocolate crispy thing in her mouth to shut herself up.
“No. That’s not it. This is something I’ve given a lot of thought to. I think we belong together, don’t you?”
She nodded her head vigorously, spraying crumbs over the bed. “Yeah, I do. Yeah.”
“But I realise that I’m a bit heavy handed sometimes and it makes you want to leave before you get crushed to death. I wonder if I’m afraid that because you are so special you will, in the end, find me boring.” He dropped his gaze to the throw and started to pull threads from it, which he then tried to push back. Impossible job, of course.
So, he didn’t see her jaw drop so far it nearly bounced off the bed, flying back to cut the end of her tongue off. “What?” she finally managed to squeak out. “Sometimes you’re a bit pompous, but you’re never boring. It’s not just you, you know. It’s a lot to do with my childish urge to resist, on principle, suggestions from other people and go dead against them even if in doing so I’m making life difficult for myself.”
“You’re not childish. Enthusiastic, caring, full of joy, not childish.”
“Stop arguing. I am childish. Sometimes. But anyway, this time we know all this stuff so it won’t happen, will it?”
“No. We’ll be on the watch out so it can’t happen. And we could give each other more space, mentally and physically.”
“And we can make more use of each other’s strengths. Talking of which, would you kindly sit in on the interview for the final lodger to keep my gas bills paid, please?” And so she took the first step to complete coupledom, by asking him to do something she didn’t need him to do.
He looked pleased to be asked but immediately blanked his face to look only business-like. She had her poker face on anyway and signified that she was delighted he’d acquiesced.
And then maybe she could get pregnant soon and move in to his house to be pampered properly. She didn’t say that out loud, but clutched it to herself as a delicious secret. Hugh would be so chuffed to become a father. It would be lovely to produce a child and put it in a Christmas stocking as a surprise for him. He’d make a fabulous Dad and would be so delighted she knew it would keep her in happy tears for a week. Unfortunately, she wasn’t convinced it could be done totally in secret. Damn!
Chapter Twenty-Five of ‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ is here!
Chapter Twenty-Seven — the final chapter — of ‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ will be here next week!
All ‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ chapters to read are here.
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‘White Lies and Stakeouts’ follows on from ‘White Lies and Custard Creams’, although, it too, can stand alone.
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