“Jaimie! What are you doing here?”
He caught me in his arms. “Well, it turns out it doesn’t take as long to fit a spiral staircase as I thought it did. Also, I’ve felt wretched all day, wishing I were here with you. So I came.”
“Well,” I said, grinning, “I’m very glad you did.” As I sank into his arms, I saw Grace smiling at us over Mark’s shoulder. And for once, I didn’t mind her smug expression.
10
One of my favourite things about Jaimie’s garden—my garden now too—was the hammock suspended between two trees at the bottom of it. On a sunny day, it was sheer bliss to lie there with the sun filtering through the leaves. If you swung it very gently, you travelled from full sun to dappled shade and back again to the accompaniment of birdsong and softly rustling leaves. Apart from the odd car in the close and the occasional thwack of a golf ball being struck on the golf course next door, there was perfect peace. At least there was on the weekends when the girls were with their mother, anyway.
Jaimie sometimes had to pop over to the property he was renovating or to a DIY emporium for supplies at weekends, and at times like those, I whisked round the house with the Hoover before rewarding myself with half an hour of sheer bliss in the hammock if the weather was sunny. Just me and my dreamy thoughts and the sounds of nature.
This morning the hammock seemed particularly blissful, since we’d eaten out the previous evening and had a bit of a late night, so I soon slipped into a doze, only to be woken by a persistent draft blowing on my neck. Without opening my eyes, I pulled my T-shirt up to cover it. But the persistent draft moved onto my face, and I fidgeted, wondering whether it was about to rain. Then I heard a rumble of laughter close by and opened my eyes to see Jaimie.
“How long have you been there?” I asked, realising he must have been blowing on me.
“Long enough to see what you get up to while I’m gone, lazy lugs.”
“I’m only having five minutes before I put a wash on,” I said. “I’ve done the Hoovering.”
“Hey, I’m just teasing,” he said. “It’s the weekend. Why shouldn’t you be lazy? Budge up. There’s room on there for two.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, gingerly trying to move without falling out.
“I’m sure.”
Of course he was. He’d probably been in here with Harriet. And the girls.
Seconds later we were lying face-to-face, so close he’d probably be able to count the freckles the spring sunshine had no doubt brought out on my face.
He was smiling, little lines of happiness radiating from the corners of his eyes, and I smiled back, feeling as if I were in a bubble of contentment. Last night, when we’d got back from the restaurant, we’d made sleepy love, as gorgeous and rich as the chocolate sauce that had been drizzled onto my dessert. Now Jaimie’s hand was stroking its way down my side to my hip, and the whole tingling cycle was starting up again, flickers of desire prickling my thighs to pool between my legs. I pressed myself into him, stroking his back, and we kissed—lazily at first, then with gathering urgency.
I expected him to speak, to say we should go inside, up to the bedroom, but he didn’t. Instead, he swung himself off the hammock and bent to undress me right there in the garden.
“Someone might see us,” I said, hiding my bare breasts with my hands.
“Nobody can see,” he said, indicating the neighbour’s house. “We’re not overlooked.”
“The postman might bring a parcel round the side gate,” I said, but my protests were weakened by the way Jaimie was pulling my shorts down, placing kisses along my thighs as he did so. Besides, the hammock was swinging a bit now, and I needed to concentrate so I wouldn’t fall off.
“No one’s going to come,” he said. “No one, that is, except for you.”
And before I knew it, my knickers had gone too, and Jaimie was doing incredible things to me with his mouth.
A while later, we were both sated and lying side by side in the hammock again.
“God,” I said. “That was good.”
“Wasn’t it?” Jaimie said, swinging the hammock.
My body felt like liquid—as if it could easily pour through the strings of the hammock onto the grass. But if I’d thought Jaimie might fall asleep, I was mistaken.
“Come on,” he said after a few minutes. “Get up. I thought we could go into Cambridge and go punting.”
“Punting?”
“Yeah, you know, one of those flat-bottomed boats you propel along with a pole?”
I whacked him on the arm, knowing he was being sarcastic. “I know what a punt is, silly. You just took me by surprise, that’s all.”
He laughed. “Well, anyway, I thought we could punt to Grantchester to have tea. There’s a tea shop with tables in the old orchard. You’ll love it.”
It sounded wonderful. But did we have to go today? Right now?
Apparently, we did, because Jaimie was soon in full waggy-tailed golden retriever mode, tipping me out of the hammock, chasing me indoors, and booking both the punt and the tea on the internet while I showered and got changed.
It was a glorious afternoon, and as Jaimie punted us along the river, plunging the pole confidently into the water to propel us past the magnificent architecture of the famous colleges, I admired his muscular arms, watched the ducks and swans, and smiled at the antics of the punts filled with university students. One young lad, clearly trying to impress his girlfriend, pushed his pole into the riverbed a little too hard and almost left himself dangling from it when it wouldn’t immediately come free. “Take care, Freddie,” his girlfriend laughed. “I don’t want to have to rescue you.”
I smiled, struck by a chord of memory. Hadn’t Mark fallen into the river when he was punting once? Yes, he had. I could distinctly remember his girlfriend at the time—had it been Sue? Mary?—telling us about it over dinner at Richard and Sylvia’s. How Mark had had to climb out onto the bank because he couldn’t get back into the punt, and had emerged covered in slimy green duckweed.
“What’s funny?” Jaimie asked me.
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m just having a good time, that’s all.”
“Another ten minutes and we’ll be eating strawberries and cream in the orchard at the tearooms.”
“Sounds utterly blissful,” I said, tucking the memory about Mark and his slimy duckweed away and settling down to enjoy the view.
I didn’t see Mark until early June, when he came up—with Grace, of course—for the Ely Folk Festival. The Folk Festival was an annual event held in the field where Milo liked to chase the trains. Apparently, Grace was a big folk fan and had been coming to the festival for years. I wasn’t so keen on folk music myself, but Jaimie liked it, so I didn’t mind.
“Jaimie!” said Grace as she got out of the car at ten o’clock on the dot, arms spread wide.
“Hello, Grace,” Jaimie said, beaming, giving her a hug. “Hi, Mark. Great to see you.”
When he emerged, he had Grace’s red lipstick on his cheek, and she made a show of wiping it off for him before she turned my way.