Читать книгу: «Lessons in Love»

Chapter One

‘Dear Ms J. Mills, we are delighted to inform you…’ Jane Mills read the letter again. Apparently she had won an all-expenses-paid trip-of-a-lifetime for two to a destination of her choice from one of the following…

Or at least she would have done if the letter had been delivered to the right Ms J. Mills at the correct address. It had arrived, along with a new cheque book and card, three store-card bills—the other J. Mills appeared to have a penchant for shoes and handbags, so they did also have that in common—and a dental appointment for two fifteen, Thursday week.

Jane hadn’t meant to open them. The post had arrived first thing Saturday morning, while Milo and Boris, her cats, had been mugging her with a mixture of impatience, persistence and some very overdone fawning, and she had been caught in the no man’s land between a can of Felix, the kettle and tea bag dunking, and most certainly not within striking distance of her glasses. So, while the kettle was boiling she’d opened the letters with a paper knife. Someone else’s letters. All of them.

The paper knife, with its plump little kissy Cupid for a handle, and a blade meant to represent his bow and arrow, had been a Christmas present from Steve and still had a phoney evidence tag tied to it with white string. It read:

Steve Burney, in the library with the dagger.

Merry Christmas, Sweetie.

I will love you for ever. S. xxx

Which he had to have given to her at around the same time he had been sleeping with Lucy Stroud and Carol what’s-her-face from Requisitions, and very possibly Anna, although nobody was quite sure if that was just Steve’s wishful thinking, and as Anna had now moved to Shrewsbury they might never find out. It had occurred to Jane that he had probably bought the knives as a job lot and had the evidence tags photocopied to save time.

She glanced down at the paper knife on the kitchen table. Damned shame she hadn’t stabbed him in the library.

She had found out about Steve a couple of weeks ago, actually 11 days, 18 hours and 51 minutes ago, when Lucy had taken her to one side at work, and said, ‘Actually, Jane, there is something I think that you ought to know,’ in a way that Jane knew wasn’t about paperclip allocation. Apparently everyone already knew about Steve, from the man on the mop in Janitorial Services, right through to the heads of departments. Humiliating didn’t even come close.

Steve had probably been rolling around on the natural cream wool carpet in front of his bloody woodburner with one of them while Jane’s perfectly wrapped present sat there, all innocent and unaware, under Steve’s delightfully decked, colour-coordinated, non-shedding lodge-pole pine. The bastard.

Steven James Burney—Jane let the name roll around her mouth even though the sound of it made her feel sick. They had been together almost a year and in quiet moments she had got to the point of trying out her name with his: ‘Mrs Jane Burney, Mr and Mrs Burney Mills, Mr and Mrs Mills Burney. Mrs Jane Burney-Mills’—although she had drawn the line at actually practising her signature, at least in public where anyone might see her. There was still a photo of them on a weekend break in Rome tucked under a magnet on the fridge door. Side by side at the Trevi Fountain. She couldn’t bring herself to take it down. Not yet.

Moving to Buckbourne had meant to be her bright new start. Her mother had suggested it a couple of years ago when Jane’s life had seemed to have lost direction.

‘Janey, what you need is a change, darling. Take a new job, rent your house out, sell your house—do something, anything. Go travelling, be feckless. You need to go wild, get drunk, let your hair down while it’s still your natural colour. You know what your trouble is, don’t you? You’ve always been too good, too steady, too bloody sensible. I really don’t know where I went wrong.’ At which point her mother had paused and looked at herself in the glass door of the kitchen dresser, turning to try to catch herself in profile. Then she said, ‘I’m thinking of getting my nose pierced, what do you think?’

‘Don’t,’ said Jane, not looking up from her lunch. ‘They look like you haven’t wiped your nose, and besides, you fainted when they gave the cat its injections.’

Her mother sniffed. ‘You should be living with someone by now, married even. I’d like to be a grandma some day.’ She’d paused. ‘Obviously not for a while yet but I’d like to at least have the chance. What is it with you and men? Give you a room full of men to choose from and you’ll pick the bastard every time. What about the one who was married with five kids? Will we ever forget Edward and that wife of his and those little ginger mop-tops chasing you through Debenhams, screaming, “That woman is sleeping with my daddy”?’

‘He told me he was separated,’ Jane had said, while attacking a big bowl of nachos, sour cream and guacamole.

‘Shame that he hadn’t mentioned it to his wife.’

‘Oh, right, and you’re so successful with men. What about André?’

Her mother had sniffed and topped up their wine glasses. ‘Which of us truly knows our own minds at twenty? And he was terribly sweet.’

‘His mum came round to help collect his things when he moved out.’

‘Charming woman. I’ve still got one of his Airfix kits somewhere.’

‘And Geno? The transvestite kleptomaniac?’

‘That’s the trouble with you, Jane, you’ve always been so damned judgemental; he was lovely—fabulous taste in shoes, and look at the sitting room. I’d never have put those colours together. He still sends me letters from San Francisco. He’s in an open prison now, which is so much nicer for him. They let them shop on the Internet and everything. He bought the most fabulous ball gown on eBay—although the UV is playing havoc with his skin, apparently. I’ve been sending him Nivea.’

‘We are talking successful relationships here, Mum, not skin care. You know, years of fidelity, Mrs and Mrs Right wandering off arm in arm, sharing their golden years, shuffling round garden centres, blocking the roads with touring caravans. Happy ever after.’

Jane’s mum had sniffed. ‘At least my relationships are colourful. If you’re going to have your heart broken at least do it with some panache, some élan. It’s time you got a life.’

‘Mum, I’m twenty-seven. I’ve got a few good years left in me yet.’

‘Um, that’s what we all say,’ said her mum, topping up her wine glass again.

And so, for once Jane had taken her advice, sold her house, got a new job in a half-decent town, had a makeover at Curl Up and Dye, and voilà here she was, back to square one with a good haircut.

Within three months of moving to Buckbourne, billed as an up-and-coming market town on the edge of the fen by the estate agents, Steve Burney—six foot something, with broad shoulders and a big crinkly smile—had dropped into the library. He worked at County Hall in Human Resources and had come to check up on how she was settling in. Fifteen minutes later he asked her out for coffee and the rest was history.

She glanced up at the clock, trying to ignore the great raw pain in her chest: 11 days, 18 hours and 56 minutes of history. Apparently he was notorious, Lucy said.

‘Look, I’m really sorry to be the one who tells you this, Jane, but everybody knows about Steve,’ she’d explained, handing Jane a tissue. ‘Really.’

Today Jane and Steve had planned to have lunch at the pub in Holkham and then walk his Labrador, Sandy, on the beach to Wells. That was a proper relationship. Lunch, long walks, Labradors.

Jane sniffed back another volley of tears. Bastard. And then she turned the letter over and took another look at the address on the prize offer. It read: ‘Ms J. Mills, 9 Creswell Close.’

It was an easy mistake to make. Jane lived at 9 Creswell Road, which was about two miles away from Creswell Close, a new exclusive executive housing development being built right on the edge of town, in the mature park-lands surrounding Creswell House, and about two million miles away in terms of income and aspiration.

Creswell Close boasted elegant, architect-designed town houses, integral garages and individually landscaped gardens, solid granite worktops and en suite everything, while Creswell Road boasted about how hard it was and how it could burp the national anthem after eight pints of Stella, and had a man who slept in the end terrace, the burned-out one with boarded-up windows, who could be found most mornings eating out of wheelie bins.

Jane, totally house-detailed out, having gone round and round looking for somewhere to live on endless cold wet days the previous year, had bought number 9 after the man at the estate agents had bandied about words like ‘undiscovered treasure’, ‘colourful’, ‘bohemian’, ‘urban renewal’ and ‘ripe for gentrification’. Which her mum pointed out, after she’d exchanged contracts, meant shabby as hell and dirt cheap.

Even so, it all fitted in with her plan for a bright sparkly new life, although despite numerous attempts and an Arts Council grant to paint a mural on the bus shelter Creswell Road remained resolutely feral.

As had her life.

The house in Creswell Road and the job as community project development manager in the new regional library were meant to mark a brave bold new beginning, not another dead end.

Jane glanced out of the kitchen window across the towpath that backed on to Creswell Road. On the far side of the river, out beyond the galvanised iron railings topped with razor wire, and the skip full of brick rubble and shopping trolleys, lay the municipal playing fields, mature trees, the cricket pavilion—almost the open uninterrupted views promised on the estate agent’s brochure. The one notable interruption was Gladstone, the tramp who was currently sitting on her garden wall, humming a medley from Cats while unwrapping the ham roll Jane had left in tinfoil on the top of her wheelie bin for him. OK, so one could reason it only encouraged him to be feckless but it was so much less stressful than seeing him sift through the detritus of her life to find a square meal.

He’d already told her she ought to eat more fruit and vegetables. ‘Those ready meals, they’re all additives and E-numbers, you know. Tartrazine, monosodium glutamate,’ Gladstone lingered lovingly over the words like jewels in a box, ‘and Lord only knows what else they put in there. And you realise that that isn’t real meat, don’t you? They shape it out of all the stuff they scrape and blast off the carcasses with a power washer,’ he’d said cheerily one morning, as she passed him on the way to catch the bus to work. ‘Meat slurry.’

It had come to something when tramps commented on your dietary habits. Especially when they spent the rest of their time talking to God and any number of imaginary friends.

Jane glanced down at Ms J. Mills’ post. She could hardly just put it back in the post box now it had been opened, could she? How did that look? Maybe she ought to nip down to the post office and explain.

‘So, you’ve opened them all, have you?’ asked an imaginary clerk suspiciously. ‘Would you care to explain exactly why you did that? Make a habit of opening other people’s post, do you?’ Jane turned the letters over; opening someone else’s mail was probably illegal as well.

Who was going to believe she had opened Ms J. Mills’ post by accident? There had to be—she counted—eight letters here. They’d take one look at the new credit card and assume Jane had already booked a holiday, bought a sofa and had her legs waxed.

The other Ms J. Mills was ex-directory, which really left only one option: Jane would have to drive over to Creswell Close to deliver the post herself. She would explain, and then grovel and laugh and make light of it—possibly.

‘You see, it was all just a silly mistake,’ she’d twitter in a gushy falsetto to a woman who looked uncannily like the clerk in her previous fantasy encounter. Jane paused; even her imagination was cutting corners. What hope was there?

She went upstairs, peeled off her jarmies, had a quick shower and slipped on jeans and a shirt. From the landing window Jane could see that Gladstone had already moved on to number 5. (The people at number 7 were away, possibly on holiday, possibly on remand. Jane had heard a lot of banging and shouting a few nights earlier but hadn’t liked to look.) Number 5 usually put out a couple of slices of fruit cake and an apple. Why Gladstone wasn’t the size of a barrage balloon God alone knew.

Balanced on top of the bin behind number 3 were a large carton of orange juice, an overripe banana and a bag of crisps. Beyond that, down past number 1 where Creswell Road turned abruptly into Lower East Row, it was hard to tell. Jane screwed up her eyes. It crossed her mind that what she really needed was a pair of binoculars. The leafy suburbs had badger watch, while out here on the towpath behind Creswell Road they had tramp watch. Right on cue Gladstone shuffled slowly downstream on his dining foray. He appeared to be singing and grooming his whiskers. Bill Oddie would have been so proud.

Jane picked up her handbag and the letters, and then as an afterthought clipped her library security pass to her top pocket. At the very least it would help prove she was who she said she was.

As Jane drove across town, Buckbourne basked under a cerulean sky. The tightly packed Victorian and Edwardian terraces corralling the town centre rapidly gave way on the far side of the inner ring road to smarter semis and then 1930s detacheds trimmed with trees, then seventies estates and finally nineties and new millennium neo-quaint, with their double-glazed leaded lights, gingerbread-house-style dormers and matching fibreglass chimneys. They in turn opened out on to the new bypass, a series of interlinked mini roundabouts and the out-of-town retail park. Another mile or so round the bypass and Jane was skirting the walled edge of the Creswell Gardens Estate.

She took a left off the next roundabout, down through lush woodland to an impressive set of gates, where a sign printed in swooping copperplate print advertised the development, along with an artist’s impression of the finished area.

Creswell Gardens Elegant Homes, sympathetically created to reflect the Gracious Living of a Bygone Era. Viewing by Appointment only.

Jane drove into the estate. Beyond the sales boards and a row of mature lime trees that scented the morning air with their heady perfume, stood the old manor house. It was a great rambling mongrel pile built from red brick, over-egged with towers and turrets, castellations, crenulations and fabulous Georgian windows, clashing deliciously with Elizabethan chimneys and gothic Victoriana, and had been converted into half a dozen elegant apartments. There was a corporate flag fluttering in the morning breeze from a pole on one of the turrets.

Beyond the main house, the stable block and various outbuildings had also been converted, whilst the rest of the estate was further away, along a tree-lined avenue. The first phase had been completed, show houses and a dozen or so other homes laid out around a wide sweeping crescent, their well-manicured gardens set with planters and wrought-iron railings, and other houses already under construction beyond them, carefully screened by boards. Number 9 was easy to find, an elegant detached town house with a large garage and neatly clipped front lawn, which, even though it was brand new, fitted discreetly into the landscape like a well-cut jigsaw piece, its large windows and carefully chosen brickwork echoing the main house and the stables across the way.

Jane sat for a minute and wondered what it must be like to live somewhere so beautiful. The other J. Mills, whoever she was, couldn’t have chosen a more perfect spot. Beyond the crescent, acres of ancient parkland rolled away to a stream, crossed by a little bridge, trout lake and established woodland. A herd of deer grazed on the far side of the glittering water. The board on the building site offered twenty-five prestige homes for sale, sharing a hundred acres of mature parkland and landscape of a far grander time, all for a small annual service charge.

Jane sighed. All right for some.

‘Hello?’ Someone rapped on her car window. Jane jumped. A slim blonde woman dressed in a smartly tailored navy suit smiled at her, although the smile wasn’t so much a greeting as a barely veiled threat. ‘May I help you?’ the woman mouthed through the glass.

Jane lowered her window. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘I wondered if I might be able to help, only we don’t encourage parking on the roadways. Viewing is strictly by appointment, and I’m afraid these properties have already gone. All these properties along here.’ She gestured at the other houses along the crescent as if selling them was a personal triumph.

‘Ms J. Mills,’ said Jane, picking up the bundle of letters.

The woman stared at her. ‘Sorry?’

‘Number nine. I’ve come to—’

The woman looked at her and then at the badge clipped to her shirt. ‘Jane Mills,’ she said, the smile suddenly warming a degree or two. ‘Jane? Oh, I’m so sorry. Gosh. Well, how very nice to meet you at long last. How are you settling in? Presumably the showerhead in the guest bathroom is OK now? I had Barry pop over and take a look. He’s naturally terribly versatile and, let’s be honest, even in properties of this calibre there are always going to be a few little snags, but anything you need, anything at all…Oh, apologies,’ she said, in response to Jane’s bemused expression, and held out her hand. ‘I’m Miranda Hallsworth. We’ve spoken on the phone a couple of times. I’m only in the show house at weekends—’

Jane took a breath. ‘Actually,’ she began, ‘I’m not J—’ but before she could explain who she wasn’t, a souped-up low-slung Ford Escort, with flames custom-painted onto the metallic blue bodywork, growled to a halt alongside them, bass beat pounding away inside.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ said Miranda. ‘You know we applied to make this a gated community? Why do these people insist on coming in? I mean, honestly, do they look as if they belong in Creswell Close?’

Jane turned to look. A large man with a belly like a well-upholstered fireside chair eased himself slowly out of the driver’s seat. He was very tall, and wearing a spotless white singlet, a pair of very shiny navy-blue tracksuit bottoms, and white trainers—all immaculate. His companion was tiny, a pocket Venus, with breasts like ripe melons and a waist that couldn’t have been more than twenty-two inches, above an impressively pert bottom. She had an unmoving burgundy-coloured bob, a tight peach-coloured top, cropped spray-on denims, raffia-heeled espadrilles and an ankle bracelet strung with tiny silver bells. Both of them were tanned the colour of Caramac and both were a long way the other side of fifty

They were tasteless to perfection. Miranda Hallsworth’s outrage was tangible.

‘Number seven, Tone and Lil,’ said the man, extending hand as Miranda glared at them.

‘What?’ snapped Miranda.

‘Number seven.’ He peered myopically at her name badge. ‘Miranda? Oh, right. You’re the bird in the brochure; you don’t look nuffin’ like yer photo,’ he said, catching hold of her fingers in his great hairy paw. ‘“Our well-trained staff will be only too happy to answer any questions.” Pleased to meet you, darling.’

Alongside him Lil nodded. ‘Likewise. It’s lovely, isn’t it? We saw this place on the Internet. And I says to Tone, I says, “you know I’d love a little place like that,” I says. Little place in the country—nothing flash, so’s we can pop over from España. Didn’t I, Tony? I says—’

‘Number seven,’ Miranda managed as Tony continued to pump her hand.

He nodded affably. ‘That’s right. Six beds, three baths, master bedroom, with spa-pool bath en suite. We’ve come to pick up the keys, but there weren’t nobody over in the show house. We wanted to have a little butchers before the furniture van gets here tomorrow. We’re staying at a hotel in town tonight. The Metropole, booked the honeymoon suite, didn’t we, Lil?’ He winked salaciously and when Miranda didn’t instantly react continued, ‘Tony and Lily Butler. Pleased to meet you.’

Miranda almost choked.

‘Seven’s Lil’s lucky number.’

But not apparently Miranda’s. ‘Anthony and Elizabeth Butler?’ Miranda said slowly, her face a picture.

‘That’s right. See, there y’are, you’ve got us now,’ said Tony.

‘We’ve got a lovely place in Spain,’ said Lil, to no one in particular, while pulling a packet of cigarettes out of her handbag and from it, with impossibly long acrylic French-manicured nails, produced a cigarette that had to be six inches long. ‘Great big pool, Jacuzzi, loads of land. I says to Tone, I says, “I reckon there’s room round the back for a pool and a hot tub here.” What do you reckon?’ She lit up, then, looking at Miranda through a rolling boil of cigarette smoke, said, ‘Oh my God, sorry—what am I like?’ And offered her the packet. ‘What must you think?’

Jane didn’t hang around to hear what Miranda thought. Instead she turned the key in the ignition and pulled away, heading through the open front gates up the drive to number 9, her spirits lifted by the encounter.

Number 9 had a dark green wooden door under the lee of an elegant little portico, with brass door furniture and a bell push like a big white chocolate button, set on one side of the wall in a silver and ceramic bowl. Jane rang and waited. She couldn’t hear the bell ring but then maybe the bell was quiet, or the walls were thick, or—she thought about Barry’s natural versatility—maybe it didn’t work at all. She waited a minute more and then pressed the button again. She couldn’t just post the letters and leave them—after all, they were all open. She needed the chance to explain. Across the road Miranda was heading back towards the show house, flanked by Tony and Lil.

Lil was telling Miranda about her plastic surgeon, and asking Miranda if she’d ever thought about having a little lift.

Jane looked away. Maybe she should just write Ms Mills a note and pop the post through the letter box.

Jane glanced at the door again and wondered if she might have more luck round the back, or maybe knocking. She lifted the brass knocker and, as she did, the door swung open silently on well-oiled hinges.

Jane took a step back in surprise. This wasn’t meant to happen. This was the sort of thing that happened in horror films. People who lived in houses like number 9 Creswell Close most certainly did not leave their doors open. Actually, looking back over her shoulder it struck her as odd that the gates were open too.

The front door opened directly into a large hallway with a wooden floor, a long cream runner emphasising the elegant proportions. A curved staircase rose from the centre of the room to a galleried landing above. There were half-glazed double doors each side of the hall and a corridor heading towards the back of the house. The huge hall was panelled to waist height and, above, the off-white walls were hung with modern abstracts, which looked as if they might be originals. Jane felt her pulse flutter. No, this wasn’t right at all. This kind of house should have alarms and locks and CCTV, not open front doors.

Jane glanced back over her shoulder again, this time to see if she was being watched. Miranda had vanished into the show house.

‘Hello?’ she called self-consciously. ‘Hello?’ Nothing. Jane leaned inside. ‘Hello. Is there anybody in? Hellooooo?’

Zilch. Zip. Nada.

The long hellooooo echoed down past the handsome hall table and the perfectly arranged white lilies, flowing unheard over the floor-length cream drapes and the beautifully designed lighting.

Jane bit her lip. How bad did it look to be standing by the open door of a house that didn’t belong to you, with a handful of opened post that didn’t belong to you either? What the hell was she supposed to do now? Jane looked round and considered her options.

Across the road Tone and Lily were respectively ambling and teetering out of the show house brandishing their keys. Any minute now they would drive up to number 7 and see her standing there on the threshold, maybe Miranda too. Should she get in her car and go? Come back another time? Shut the door behind her and head home?

Jane hesitated. Then again, what if Ms J. Mills was in trouble? What if she had fallen over, slipped while checking the showerhead in the guest room and knocked herself out cold? What if…Before she had really thought about the repercussions Jane stepped inside, pushed the door shut behind her and called hello again as she walked deeper into the house.

The place was fabulous, a handsome modern reinterpretation of Georgian proportions, a mix of English oak, cream walls and huge floor-to-ceiling windows with a stunning view from every one of them. The hallway opened up on the right into an airy sitting room with wooden floors and exquisite rugs, a long navy-blue sofa pulled up in front of a marble fireplace, flanked by matching chairs. French windows overlooked the park. To the left was a dining room with antique furniture and a handsome gilt-framed mirror above an open fireplace. There was a TV and music room, another sitting room and a garden room, again with floor-to-ceiling windows. Beyond that was a state-of-the-art kitchen that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Homes and Gardens,-but there was one thing that was missing. There was no sense at all that this was anyone’s home. Everywhere looked and smelled brand new. Jane had no idea when Ms I. Mills had moved in but surely even after a week there ought to be a cushion or two out of place, or a jacket slung casually over the back of a kitchen chair, a mug on a table or a dirty plate in the sink. Surely there had to be something, anything, to suggest that real people lived real lives there.

Beyond the kitchen was a utility room that adjoined the garage. Inside was a black Mercedes convertible, a silver BMW and a nippy little black 4x4. Nervously, Jane peered inside the cars, half afraid she might come face to face with the other Ms J. Mills, cold and stiff and far from well. But, no—still nothing. The house was like the Marie Celeste with down-lighters and expensive furniture.

Even so, empty or not, with every passing moment Jane was getting more nervous about being discovered exploring, and anxious to find out what the hell was going on—but also aware that the longer she stayed in the house the more suspicious she looked.

In her head an imaginary police officer, with the face of the imaginary Post Office clerk, was saying, ‘So, Ms Mills, you spent ten minutes in the property. Did it never occur to you at any time that you had unlawfully entered the premises and that you were in fact trespassing?