Over You Read online

  There was no time for her to tell him what she’d always thought because all of a sudden he was kissing her, his lips stopping the words.

  She leaned right into him, his warm, solid body, and then she was kissing him too, sliding a hand around his back, feeling the muscles in his shoulders, and how smooth his skin was under his shirt …

  ‘Josie,’ he murmured, tracing the side of her face with almost unbearable gentleness. Then his hand was moving around the back of her neck and under her hair, and she was kissing him harder, passionately, as if she’d been waiting all those years for this moment. And now his hands were moving down her back, and under her T-shirt, and …

  She opened her eyes, and there was Pete standing watching, his lip curled in a sneer. ‘You slag,’he said. ‘What about me?’

  ‘Oh!’ Josie gasped, and then her voice rose to a scream. ‘No! No!’

  And then she woke up, panting, a cold sweat down her back.

  She swung round at a noise beside her but it was only Nell, fast asleep, the duvet pulled up around her ears, breath sighing out across the pillow.

  Only a dream. Of course. Only a dream.

  Her heart was hammering, her mouth dry. Just a silly dream. Too much booze. She was going to pay for it in the morning, she could tell already.

  She lay down heavily and stared up at the darkness, feeling a huge rush of disappointment. Only a dream.

  The disappointment evaporated, and gave way to a burning feeling of embarrassment. God, what was she like? So desperate for a man that she was having horny dreams about Nell’s brother, just days after Pete had walked out on her!

  Stupid cow. Stupid, desperate, drunken cow. Thank goodness dreams were private. Thank goodness Rob never had to know she’d just fantasized about him like that!

  Her cheeks flamed against the pillow and she squeezed her eyes shut. Then she put her arms around herself and tried to get back to sleep, but it eluded her for a long time.

  ‘Mum! Mummy!’

  Nell was still motionless next to her, blond head just poking out of the top of the duvet as Josie sat up and rubbed her eyes. A little voice from the next room was calling for her, and she tiptoed out to see which boy it was who’d woken up, and whether she had any chance of persuading him to go for another half-hour’s sleep. It was six-thirty and the sun was up, though. Probably not.

  She and the boys had breakfast together. The sun shone into the little kitchen and Josie held her mug of tea with both hands, enjoying the feeling of warmth as it spread through her fingers. Soon the weather would be fine enough to have breakfast in the garden. She always loved the first day of the year when they ate it outside. Such a nice way to start the day. It was strange to think that Pete wouldn’t be there to share it with them this year.

  Her eyes misted over. Such a shame.

  ‘Where are we going today, Mum?’ Sam asked, interrupting her thoughts.

  She blinked away the tears and smiled at him over her steaming mug. ‘To the seaside, sweetheart. To a little place called Hope.’

  Is that in Australia?’ he asked eagerly.

  She shook her head. ‘No, love,’ she said. ‘Devon.’ She sniffed quickly as she heard Rob whistling, and got up to flick the kettle on again for him. She felt faintly embarrassed as a flash of last night came into her head – her leaning against Rob like that in the garden, pissed and wittering about The Duke of Edinburgh. Then the colour surged into her face as she remembered her raunchy dream about him. God! What was she like? Like a dog on heat, that was what. Thank Christ nothing had actually happened. Thank goodness it had all stayed in her head.

  It had stayed in her head, hadn’t it? She hadn’t said anything too awful, had she?

  ‘Coffee?’ she asked, deliberately busying herself at the kettle as he came into the kitchen, wet-haired from the shower.

  He smiled. ‘Please. Morning, boys! Sleep all right?’

  They nodded at him over their cereal bowls, shy again.

  ‘Seagulls didn’t wake you up, did they?’ he went on, sawing at a loaf with a bread knife. ‘Noisy bunch, they are. Still, this time next week I could be getting woken up by a bunch of hungry lions, so I shouldn’t complain.’

  ‘Lions?’ Sam echoed, sitting up in his chair.

  Toby gave Rob a wary look before turning to his brother. ‘He’s tricking us,’ he said authoritatively. ‘There aren’t no lions in this country. Except in zoos.’

  Rob jammed his bread down in the toaster. ‘Ahh, but that’s the thing. I’m not going to be in this country. I’m going to be in Zambia. Know where that is?’

  Sam shook his head. Is it in Devon?’ he guessed.

  Toby, still narrow-eyed and in sussing-out mode, said nothing.

  Rob sat down at the table while he waited for his toast. It’s in Africa.’

  ‘Like The Lion King,’ Josie put in helpfully, then felt her cheeks flush even hotter. Good one, Jose – teach your children world geography through Disney, she scolded herself. She changed the subject quickly. ‘What are you going to be doing in Zambia, anyway, Rob?’

  ‘District engineer,’ he told her. ‘For the healthcare service. Repairing all their vehicles and biomedical equipment, basically.’ He raised his eyebrows self-deprecatingly. ‘I know what you’re going to say – too glamorous and thrilling for words, eh?’

  ‘I wasn’t going to say that at all,’ Josie protested. ‘I was going to say how brilliant I think that is. How …’ She stopped. How amazing of you, she’d been about to say. Ugh. Naff, Jose. Too much. ‘Good for you,’ she finished instead. ‘Really admirable.’

  ‘What about the lions?’ Toby persisted. ‘Are you really going to see any?’

  Rob gave him a wink. ‘Tell you what, Tobes,’ he said, ‘if I do see any lions, I’ll let you know, OK?’ He got to his feet as his toast popped up, and opened the fridge for butter. ‘Might even send you a postcard, if you’re lucky.’

  Toby’s eyes shone. He practically swelled with awe.

  ‘Can I have one too?’ Sam asked in the next second.

  Rob nodded. ‘Absolutely,’ he replied solemnly. ‘I’ll make it the first thing I do when I get there – lion-spotting for Toby and Sam.’

  Josie watched him spreading butter and Marmite on his toast. Strange, the different paths their lives all took. ‘How about me, do I get a postcard?’ she said, the words coming out before she’d even processed them properly. She laughed, self-conscious at how forlorn she’d sounded.

  ‘Definitely,’ he told her, swinging round to face her. ‘As long as you write back to me, that is.’ He smiled, and Josie felt her heart give a little flip. He was so good. He was so nice. Thank Christ there were people like Rob in the world, when so many others had let her down. For a split second she found herself wishing that he wasn’t going away at all.

  ‘Take care,’ Rob said as he hugged her goodbye later that morning.

  She gave him an impulsive kiss on the cheek. How nice it was, standing there, being held by him. ‘And you. Have fun in Zambia.’

  ‘I’ll do my best. It’s only for six months, this one, so I’ll be home before I know it.’ He let go of her, and she felt a pang of separation. Just hungover, she admonished herself quickly. Being ridiculous. Stop thinking like this!

  ‘Lovely to see you again, Josie, and those boys of yours,’ Rob was saying. ‘I hope things work out with Pete. He must be mad to have gone off with anyone else.’

  Josie gave a wan smile. ‘Certifiable, if you ask me,’ she said, trying to sound nonchalant. She held his gaze for a moment, then dropped her eyes. It felt strange to be talking about Pete with Rob, after her dream last night. She kept forgetting that Rob didn’t know about it. ‘I haven’t a clue what’s going on in his head, but hopefully he’ll be hammering on the door when I get home, wanting to make up.’ She pulled a face. ‘Or something. Thanks anyway. For the hospitality and the chats. It was really nice to see you again.’ She glanced out of the front door to where the boys were in the car, along wi
th their bags. ‘Right – we’d better make tracks. Where’s Nell got to?’

  Nell emerged from the hallway just then, clutching her phone. ‘I did it, so you can stop nagging,’ she said. ‘I phoned Gareth.’

  ‘And?’ Josie and Rob chorused.

  ‘And I said sorry,’ Nell told them.

  ‘God!’ Rob said, pretending to be astonished. ‘And?’

  ‘And I told him I’ll go up to Wales so that we can talk once I’ve finished my Nanny McPhee duty,’ she said.

  ‘Your what?’ asked Rob.

  ‘You don’t have to stay because of me!’ Josie cried. ‘And what did Gareth say, anyway?’

  Nell twisted her mouth uncertainly. ‘Not a lot. He sounded a bit pissed off with me, to be honest. But he said hell meet me to talk, so …’

  ‘He’s probably married somebody else by now,’ Rob said, dodging out of the way as Nell tried to cuff him. ‘He’ll probably want to introduce you to his new bride. Ow!’

  ‘Oi! You can leave that out for starters!’ Nell said, but she was laughing. ‘Thanks for the pep talk, anyway, bro. Write me lots of letters and emails, won’t you?’

  ‘Course, every day, probably,’ Rob said jokily, then pulled her in for a hug. ‘Take care. Good luck with Gareth. And don’t forget my invite to the wedding!’

  ‘Ro-ob!’ Nell moaned, wriggling out of his arms.

  ‘I’ll even get myself a new hat,’ he went on wickedly.

  ‘Oh shut up,’ Nell said, rolling her eyes. ‘See you … sometime. Christmas?’

  ‘Christmas,’ Rob agreed. ‘Bye, Nell. Bye, Josie.’

  They drove for a while in companionable silence, save for the Horrid Henry tape and the occasional shouts from the back seat as they drove past roadworks with particularly impressive-looking diggers and bulldozers. Soon they were winding down towards the coast, the roads getting smaller and smaller until they were single-track lanes with jungly green tunnels where the trees arched over the tarmac. Josie had always hated driving down such roads, dreaded having to squeeze against the high hedgerows to avoid oncoming cars, but to her relief the traffic was light. Great sudsy heads of elderflowers foamed in the hedges, shrieking seagulls dive-bombed through the sky ahead of them and tractors burred in the fields. Josie found she was gripping the wheel less tightly as she slowed to appreciate the bosomy green hills all around them. She almost wanted to curl up in their rounded velvety curves, they looked so comforting.

  ‘Mum, it’s too hot,’ grumbled Toby from the back.

  She glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw how flushed his cheeks were. Then, as she moved into third gear and accelerated along the empty road, she pressed the button to open her window. Zzzzz went the mechanism, as the window lowered obediently. Zzzzz … Clunk.

  ‘What was that noise, Mum?’ Sam asked.

  Josie pressed the window-opening button again. Nothing. She jammed her index finger down on it hard, several times. Still nothing. Bollocks. Oh, bollocks!

  ‘I think the window’s broken,’ she groaned.

  ‘Cool,’ Toby said. ‘Shall we ask Bob the Builder to fix it?’

  Josie didn’t reply. Of all the times for something to go wrong with the car, it had to happen when they were stuck in the middle of nowhere. Car stuff had always been Pete’s job. She didn’t know anything about cars!

  A gust of wind ruffled her hair and she sighed. Typical! Just when she was starting, ever so slowly, to feel remotely cheerful again, this had to happen. In an instant she felt as if she’d been plunged back into despair.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Nell said reassuringly. She was sitting with her bare feet on the dashboard, slim, tanned legs bent at the knee. ‘We’ll probably be able to wedge it shut again with something.’

  ‘And then what?’ Josie wailed.

  Nell looked surprised at the question. ‘Well, go to a garage, I guess. It depends how desperate you are to get it fixed.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s only a window, Josie. It’s not like one of the wheels has fallen off or anything.’

  ‘I know, but …’ She couldn’t explain. It was the loss-of-control thing, that was what was bugging her. It was the wanting Pete to sort it out, and not being able to ask him. Oh, it was just everything all of a sudden!

  ‘There’s the turning,’ Nell said, leaning forward and pointing just then, and Josie jammed on the brake.

  Inner hope, the signpost read, and Josie steered the car into an even smaller lane than they were already on. ‘Inner Hope,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I almost thought you were making it up when you saw it on the map.’

  ‘I’m feeling more hopeful already,’ Nell said, wiggling her toes with a contented air. ‘Right then, who’s going to be first to spot the sea?’

  It had gone past their usual lunchtime, and on any other day the boys would have been clamouring for food. Today, though, they seemed to have forgotten all about lunch, such was their excitement to be approaching the coast. A tense silence fell upon the car as Josie drove down a leafy lane, past a few houses and into a village.

  ‘There!’

  ‘The sea!’

  ‘I saw it first!’

  ‘No, I did!’

  It lay in front of them, the cove: a sparkling bolt of blue sea with a sandy beach sloping up from it, and the headland rising a deep forested green beyond. A couple of sail-boats bobbed up and down on the water, and a dog bounded along the sand, its faint barking carried to them on the breeze.

  Josie forgot all about the broken window for a moment as she drank in the view. She could smell the salty sea air through the open window and breathed it in hungrily. It smelled of escape. It smelled wonderful.

  ‘We’re here,’ she said, in a kind of wonder. ‘We made it.’

  The village at Hope Cove was small, not much more than a pub, a shop and a clutch of hotels and B&Bs. It was quiet, too, after the half-term rush of two weeks before, the owner of one of the B&Bs told Josie. She booked them into two rooms for a week, and told them they’d picked a good time to visit. ‘It’s meant to be sunny for the next few days,’ she added with a smile at the boys. ‘I hope you two have got your buckets and spades with you!’

  Ten minutes later they were all down on the beach. The boys, in trunks and sun cream, wasted no time in starting a castle and moat. Josie sat on the warm sand with her arms around her knees, staring at the waves as they crashed to shore. There was something hypnotic about the way the rollers came in relentlessly, their white foaming heads rising and falling in a rhythm of sound and movement ‘I feel really happy,’ she confessed to Nell. Is that awful of me? I can’t explain it. I want Pete to be here too, but I’ve kind of accepted that he isn’t, and won’t be.’ She shifted slightly, feeling the grittiness of the sand underneath her. ‘And at this moment, it’s actually bearable.’

  Nell shuffled closer to Josie and put an arm around her. ‘You deserve better than him, you know,’ she said lightly. ‘He’s not good enough for you.’ She got to her feet and held out a hand. ‘Come on. Those boys are making a right pig’s ear of that castle. Not nearly enough shells for my liking. Let’s go and help.’

  The next few days revolved entirely around beach life. Each morning dawned bright and warm, and the hours sped by in a pleasant haze of paddling, digging, ice lollies, sandy pants and sun cream. They went rockpooling in Thurlestone, the next beach along, catching blennies and red-eyed devil crabs, and even saw a wash of purple-rimmed jellyfish on the sand one day. ‘Come on, you two, who dares pick one up and chuck it at Mummy?’ Nell had teased, causing Josie to squeal and dart away.

  Toby and Sam had barely mentioned Pete now that they were the kings of the cove, with their spades permanent fixtures in their hands. They had peeling noses and freckles, and berry-brown arms and legs. They whooped and yelled from dusk till dawn, and were quiet only when they stopped to eat There were no more wet beds from Sam, and a whole lot less sword-wielding from Toby. Displacement had definitely been the right solution, Josie thought in relief.

  Yes,
the days were easy. It was just the nights that were still long and dismal, as she tossed and turned in the sand-scratchy sheets of the bed. It was hard not to be swamped with thoughts of Pete the whole time. Josie still felt haunted by that scene in The Eagle – it seemed like a horrible dream, now, her marching over to the pair of them like that – and had replayed it countless times in her head. She kept thinking she could smell Sabine’s perfume, a musky, sexy sort of scent, as if it had caught on her somehow. The scent – phantom or not – made her feel nauseous. And whenever she did manage to fall into sleep, Josie dreamed about her rival every night. It was like being bewitched.

  Still. She was glad they were away from home. In fact, she didn’t ever want to go back. Why would she? What did she have to go back for? The boys were busy all day on the beach here, and weren’t winding around her ankles like they did at home, demanding entertainment. And she didn’t have to face all the other mums and their sympathetic faces at playgroup and gym club either.

  ‘Sorry to hear what’s happened …’

  ‘Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help …’

  Is it true, that Pete’s walked out?’

  Yes! Yes! It was true, all right? It was like Chinese whispers, the way her bad news had spread through the neighbourhood, rushing from house to house like the wind, whispering into open windows and gusting through letterboxes. ‘Have you heard? Have you heard? He’s left her. Yes, for some young girl!

  If she was brutally honest with herself, she was frightened of going home again. There. She’d admitted it. Frightened of having to mend all the pieces of her shattered life, jigsaw it all back together somehow, when she knew it would never fit properly again. It would be like a broken pot; you’d always be able to see the cracks, however carefully it was superglued. Any pressure and the whole thing would disintegrate again, implode.

  It was all very well having Nell here, looking after her for the time being, but Nell wouldn’t stick around for ever. She had her own life to sort out. And then, when they drove away from Devon and Nell said goodbye and went up to Wales, it would be down to her, Josie, to soldier on alone. It was terrifying.