miss him?’
‘Adam? I—’
‘No, Tess! I meant the old boyfriend.’
Tess considered for a moment, the only sound around them the dripping rainwater of the recent shower along the driveway, and their steps towards the main gate. ‘Miss him? Not really. I miss the other things.’ She gestured with her hands, rather awkward at saying this to Diana Sayers. ‘You know.’
‘Well,’ said Diana, with her simple, disarming honesty. ‘Isn’t that nice? Not to miss him.’
‘Oh,’ said Tess, taken aback. ‘Yes. I suppose so, yes.’
‘So, how are your parents?’ said Diana, switching topic abruptly. ‘I must ring your mother, it’d be lovely to see them.’
‘I’m going down week after next, that’s funny,’ said Tess. ‘On the Saturday, just for the night.’
‘Isn’t that Adam’s birthday?’ Diana said. ‘He was talking about it the other day. Said he was going to have a barbecue, up at the cottage.’ She cleared her throat. ‘It’s good for him to have people round. I worry he doesn’t…’ She trailed off, wrinkling her forehead.
Tess remembered, with slow horror, that Adam had mentioned the barbecue to her the previous weekend, not once but twice. But, in the way that two sides of your brain can happily know that you’re doing two totally separate things and never does one talk to the other, now she realized with horror she’d booked the train tickets down to Devon, and happily agreed with Francesca that they’d go to Adam’s birthday together…Damn.
‘Oh. God, that’s so annoying,’ Tess exclaimed. ‘The tickets are booked—I have to go—God! Why don’t I think!’ She tapped herself on the forehead.
‘Don’t worry,’ Diana said, in quelling tones. ‘It’s Francesca Adam was worried about, you know.’
‘Yeah…’ Tess began, knowing that her not taking Francesca would be a big deal; he treated her a bit like a child, sometimes. When he wasn’t shagging her, that was, she thought meanly. She opened her mouth to try and explain this but then, from out of nowhere, a black Jaguar drove silently past them. Tess and Diana both craned their necks to see who was in it.
‘Well, I never,’ said Tess. ‘What’s Mrs Mortmain doing in that incredible car with that man?’
He was a large man, sleekly tailored in an effort to hide his burgeoning stomach, and he stroked his black hair back from his face as he leaned forward towards his fellow passenger, smiling ingratiatingly at her. She, however, sat upright, her mouth set.
‘Oh, Tess,’ said Diana, with a sigh. ‘He’s Jon Mitchell, the developer. He’s the one who wants to buy the water meadows. He owns Mitchell’s. That chain of DIY stores.’
‘My goodness!’ cried Tess. ‘That’s him?’ She watched the car disappear, and then said, darkly, ‘I don’t know how she lives with herself, that woman. I really don’t.’
‘It’s easy to have principles when you don’t have to apply them,’ said Diana softly. Tess spun round to look at her.
‘What do you mean? You can’t say you agree with her? With—what she’s trying to do to the town?’
‘Tess, the last new shop to open here was a tea shop, called Ye Tudor Tea Shoppe,’ said Diana, and there was a note of sharpness in her voice.
‘So?’ said Tess, who liked Ye Tudor Tea Shoppe. It had waitresses in old-fashioned uniforms, and everyone spoke to each other in a hush. ‘It’s Langford! What’s wrong with that?’
‘What’s wrong with it is that there’s no community hall here, and it costs four pounds to buy a pint, and if you grew up here and you want to buy a house, forget it, because a two-bed cottage costs about three hundred thousand pounds, and there are coach parties wandering the streets practically twenty-four hours a day,’ said Diana. ‘Look, I run a B&B in the summer, I’m as guilty as the rest of them. But we live in a community, not a heritage site, and I can’t one hundred per cent blame Mrs Mortmain for trying to breathe a bit of life back into the town, even if it is going to end up driving some of the tourists away.’ She paused. ‘Don’t tell the others, but I don’t care if I never see another tourist again.’ She gestured out, towards the water meadows. ‘I’d rather there was a supermarket and a John Lewis out there. I’d be able to get some decent curtains, for starters. And my godson and his friends—they’d have jobs, for another thing.’
Tess had never heard the usually reserved Diana talk like this before. So she thought Adam didn’t have a job because there wasn’t an out-of-town shopping centre here? Tess didn’t know what to say. She looked out towards the disappearing car, the gates of the college. ‘I—I just don’t see why it has to be on the water meadows. And why we can’t act better as a community, that’s all. It’s nice living here,’ she said weakly, thinking of what she’d left behind. ‘It’s safe and cosy and—and nice.’
Diana gave her a strange look. ‘Nice? It’ll be dead in a few years if we’re not careful.’ She shook her head. ‘Forget I spoke. I don’t know what I’m talking about. Just tired, I expect.’ She collected herself, almost as if she was aware she’d said too much, and then got on her bicycle. ‘Bye, Tess,’ she called, leaving Tess in the middle of the driveway, holding her bag of books. She watched her go, bemused, and then set off back to Easter Cottage.
Tess told Francesca about this conversation, as Francesca mashed up the ingredients for mojitos in a large mixing bowl. ‘Well, she’s right, I don’t think all that tourism is good for the town in the long run. But who knows what the future holds,’ Francesca said, licking mint and sugar off her fingers. ‘But I’m telling you, when my six months is up, I’m not going back to work in the City, that’s for sure. Not that there’ll be any jobs there anyway.’
‘No?’ Tess handed her a glass, watching her curiously from the doorway of the kitchen.
‘No way,’ said Francesca. ‘Mmm. That’s nice. I’m staying right here. Trouble is, there’s nothing to do round here if you’re not a tourist or someone who wants to study stupid things like History of Art or Roman Civilization…’ She smiled. ‘I’m joking. But there is nothing else to do. So actually, I did something about it today.’
‘Really?’
‘Yep.’ Francesca’s eyes sparkled. ‘I’m helping Ron and Andrea with the campaign, volunteering. You know I actually trained as a lawyer.’ Tess nodded. ‘Long before I got sucked into the evil world of finance. I’m looking at the legality of what they’re proposing to do, because I’m sure there’s something fishy going on.’
‘Wow.’ Tess clapped. ‘That’s brilliant. Er—have you told Adam?’
‘No. Why?’
‘Don’t know why,’ said Tess. ‘It’s just—he’s so weird about the campaign. Have you noticed?’ She felt as if she were betraying something as she said this, but it was true.
‘He’s weird about it because he’s behaving like an adolescent,’ Francesca sounded firm. She poured a large slug of rum into the bowl. ‘You know, I love Adam.’ She paused. ‘I don’t mean like that. I—’ She smiled, mistily. ‘I really like him. But he’s got to grow up. Fine to stay here all your life, but not fine to use it as a stick to beat other people with when they dare to disagree with you about anything connected with Langford.’
Francesca had a way of saying things which summed up what Tess wanted to say so perfectly but couldn’t articulate without using five times as many words. Tess laughed. ‘I’d love to hear you say that to him.’
‘I have,’ said Francesca, and she smiled her cat-like smile. ‘He knows I’m right, he just doesn’t see it yet. But he will.’ She nodded and for some reason Tess shivered, as if a goose had walked over her grave. ‘I’ve got him where I