Cross Check: The second Posh Hits story Read online

  Cross Check

  by

  Caron Allan

  Copyright 2013 Caron Allan

  Kindle edition – license to readers

  The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the owner of this work.

  All rights reserved. This eBook is licensed for your personal use only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you are reading this book but did not purchase it, you are requested to buy your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Dedication

  For all those lovely people who have encouraged and supported me: Alan, Aaron, Alana, Lin, Wen, Bronwen, Fiona, Karen, Amanda, and Debaleena, to name the most heroic.

  Cross Check

  Tuesday 24 June

  Here you are Gorgeous, Happy Birthday! I know it’s not as fancy as the one your husband gave you last year, but hopefully you’ll still like it – there should be enough room to do all your plotting! Love ya! Matt. XXXX

  Wednesday 25 June – 4.30pm

  A simply wonderful birthday! Felt a bit teary first thing, I kept thinking about last year, and how Thomas was still here and we were happy. And I was thinking about what we did, how he looked, what he said, everything. So had a little weep, wishing I could go back and change just a few simple things which would mean he would still be here with me.

  But then I remembered my baby and my baby’s father, and this new journal and everything it represented, so had another little weep all over again. Feeling very silly, but can’t stop the blubbing either, must be my hormones.

  We can’t go back, can we? We can’t change things. Felt so guilty and muddled and happy and sad as I thought about how my life has worked out and how there’s not much point in pining for a past I can’t regain. But poor darling Thomas! If only he were here! But then I shouldn’t be with Matt – OMG my head is swimming, and it’s just one of those useless, circular arguments you torment yourself with. What might have been. Must try to stop crying. It’s all over now, I can’t go back. And Matt! He’s so sweet and pretty and I adore him. What a mess! Lord, what fools we mortals are!

  Also – interestingly – felt a teeny bit queasy this morning! But Lill made me some toast then forced me to drink bucketfuls of apple juice and immediately I felt a lot better but my tummy’s so tender I can’t bear to wear any tight trousers. I really am pregnant! Yay! So will have to schlep around in jive pants or yoga pants or something equally hideous and unflattering for the next eight months. So unglamorous. And just a teensy bit working class.

  OMG! Have just realised! This means I will be spending the next six or seven months dressed like a woman from a council estate. I will end up buying groceries from a budget supermarket, will probably take up smoking right at the crucial time when I should be taking care of my health and I’ll probably buy gin in plastic bottles and drink it in the park or will sit eating pasties out of paper bags on a bus. OMG I will be huge! And everyone knows the extra hormones from all the fat make you grow chin hairs! Eek - I’m going to become one of those fat, hairy-faced women who live in jeggings or jog bottoms with the go-faster stripes down the side, only they never do (go faster). I see them on Jeremy Kyle all the time! By the time I’m four months pregnant I’ll be like a beached whale! My life is over! And Matt – who quite clearly is the guilty party here, which I hardly need point out – Matt will look at me with that same curled lip of disgust his singlet-wearing father Sid does when served pasta with julienned vegetables instead of four-cheese sauce and minced beef. Oh - My - God!!!! I am doomed to become grotesque. And walrus-like. And I’m only thirty-three! Help, I need a tissue! Have a nose-bubble. Where are those effing tissues?

  Half an hour later!

  Okay. Feeling slightly better. Had a massive blub, what is wrong with me? Oh yes, am knocked up! I imagine this is what they mean in the books when they vaguely waffle on about hormones. Really would it kill them to be a bit more specific? If you’re going to turn into a weepy hairy blob they should say so, then you know you’re normal. Ish. But weighed myself and felt heaps better when I found I’d only put on a pound – if it stays like that, things won’t be too bad. Even I should be able to shed one solitary pound.

  My tummy hurts, though. I can’t sit around in jeans with the zip undone. Will have a bit of a rummage through my wardrobes and see if I’ve got any slightly more-forgiving waistlines, you never know! If not there’s every chance I will need to go shopping. Ooh goody! There’s my silver lining! But right now, obviously, before I do anything else, I need to have a bit of a rest. Mustn’t overdo things.

  This evening we’ve got a dinner party planned – Madison Maxwell-Billings and her hubby Sacha (can you believe it???), and the vicar and his wife, can’t remember her name, begins with a B I’m almost certain. And Irish I think – Bridget? No, but something like that. Bronia? Anyway, I thought it would be nice to have a few people round, become part of the community.

  Ooh phone!

  Another half an hour later!

  How exciting! That was Nadina. Do I want to go to Monica’s memorial service? Of course I do, I said, I loved her, I said, she was my bestest pal, I said. Plus I want to make she really is dead, not that I said that to Nadina, the tragic event only took place yesterday, and Nadina is so upset. I’m not a monster, after all! I do have some consideration for other people’s feelings, even if it is only that whiny little drip Nadina.

  Anyway, she told me the funeral is arranged for tomorrow week but will be in Lancashire of all places, and close family only so hence the memorial thingy, which will be on the 1st July, next Tuesday, at nine-thirty at the church, she’s sending me the link, then afterwards a buffet brunch at Monica’s house. Which will be a bit weird as she is the only one who won’t be there! Bit tasteless actually??? And who will have the key to let us all in? Presumably the memorial will be presided over by some relative or another but I forgot to ask. Besides couldn’t risk asking too many questions, as afraid Nadina would break out blubbing yet again. Honestly where is her backbone?

  It seems the post-mortem is set for tomorrow but obviously no one else is expecting any nasty surprises hence the arrangements already going ahead. Thank God. Clearly the fact that my Newly Beloved had to go over there and personally shove her down her own stairs means that all my hard work insinuating ethylene glycol into her OJ and Perrier and whatnot was a total waste of time. But it’s still a bit of a worry. I’m hoping the post-mortem results will be squeaky clean and nothing dodgy shows up. For my sake, I do hope the p.m is all plain sailing and no awkward questions get asked.

  I can’t believe she didn’t eat or drink any of the things in her fridge that I contaminated with the anti-freeze. It’s so galling! And after all the effort I went to.

  Ooh! Have just realised I referred to Matt as my Beloved! (She said, drawing little hearts and writing his name in the margin like a twelve year old!) I mean, I knew I fancied him – obviously, as am pregnant (hate that word preggers, it makes me feel a bit sick) – so telling, aren’t they, these little slips – clearly my subconscious is hard at work. To be confronted with one’s own inner feelings just out of nowhere like that … it must be my hormones. Again. Have a feeling that particular phrase is going to crop up quite a bit over the next few months.

  Oh yes, so, Madison and Sacha, Rev Steve plus one, myself obviously. I don’t know what to do about Matt. I mean, it is a bit odd to be pregnant by a man one still treats as the odd-job chappie, but not really sure he will want to socialise like this and I don’t think he has even met any of these people yet, so am finding it difficult to find the right pigeonhole for him.

  GOD!!! I know nothing about this m
an! How am I ...?

  OMG look at the time!!! ARRGGHH!!!!

  Same day - 11.30pm

  What a nice evening! I had worried it would be a bit awkward – one never knows what to say to new friends and there’s always a concern that the conversation might dry up and everyone sit there fiddling with their napkins and willing the clock to speed up a bit.

  Matt did join us. He looked very nice in a posh shirt and clean jeans, with his stupid trendy hair looking rather good too, what with the gel in it and the little squiffy bit at the front sticking up ever so slightly, and his hair is such a nice colour anyway. And I was so relieved to have an ally as it were, someone by my side, when entertaining for the first time in my new village, and he was so easy-going and sweet and chatty, he just made the whole evening go with a swing. He charmed everyone. All our guests seemed to like him, and for some reason they seemed to like me too, thank God. Just as well, really, as we will probably have to socialise with them quite a bit due to the complete lack of anyone else in the way of nice or interesting people in this tiny, tiny place. I suspect our dinner parties here will become a bit incestuous.

  Madison and Sacha were a bit intrigued, I could tell, as I simply introduced him as ‘my friend Matt’ to begin with (believing quite rightly that they were unlikely to recognise him as the chauffeur who drove me home from theirs the other night) but when I ended up confessing I was pregnant (due to some stupid slip-up in the conversation), it was immediately clear that he was more than a mere friend (unless they think I’m a slut that is, and I suppose that’s vaguely possible). Anyway, everyone toasted the baby-to-come and I was, as always just lately, a bit teary but then I looked across the table and saw Matt had that soppy besotted look that made me want to slap him out of it and all the others thought we were so sweet together. It’s thoroughly sickening.

  Rev Steve’s wife is Vanessa (horrid name – and nothing like Bridget, can’t think where I got that from. Or Bronia.) She’s all right I suppose, a bit earnest and inclined to pick over one’s sentence with the tenacity of a Marxist-feminist literary critic. So I found I had to think about everything I was about to say, scanning it for lack of precision or ungrammaticality or ideological shilly-shallying, which made me nervous as hell and horribly stilted. What a pain in the arse! But I suppose she was all right. I mean, it’s not the kind of thing you can kill someone for, is it? I’m not putting her on my little list, let’s put it that way.

  Rev Steve is nothing to look at, poor fellow, medium hair, medium height, medium skin, eyes a kind of browny colour. He’s a bit ordinary and a bit inclined to be long-winded and bookish. I bet he collects things. I bet it’s something ridiculous like chalk-heath moths or some such. Or maybe he collects 19th century hassocks. He’s a bit dull, to put it mildly, but again, hardly a hanging offence. And it’s not Rev Steve, it has to be Stephen, or The Reverend Stephen Monk. My little pun about his name fell on the introductions like a pall. Must remember to be solemn and bookish too, next time they come. Don’t want them to think I’m a brainless idiot. But must remember to glug some sherry or vodka or something too, before they next come. That might make the whole experience a lot less painful. Though obviously cannot be completely blitzed in case of possible faux pas. Also am pregnant so consumption of alcohol strictly on a life-dependent basis. Matt will see to that.

  Madison’s husband Sacha was rather dull too. Beginning to think it’s living in a village that has dimmed their conversation skills and blunted their wit. Sacha just seemed to enjoy listening to everyone else – he hardly ever ventured his own opinions. But somehow I don’t think he’s really on the same social par as Madison, she’s quite the bright little chatterbox, although not very interesting as she says a great deal and at the same time, rather like Nadina, she says nothing, so I don’t know, maybe they are well-suited after all. I get the impression he’s still a bit surprised that he managed to snag her to begin with. He looks like he’s still trying to take it all in, even though she said they’ve been married for nearly seven years (oh-oh the dodgy seven year mark!).

  And then, there were a couple of old biddies I hadn’t met before – Madison had brought them along hoping it would be all right, which of course it was, Mrs H - I mean Lill - always does simply masses of food.

  When one of the old girls, Mavis, said she plays the organ at the church and also does the flowers, I began to feel I’d strayed into the middle of an Agatha Christie story. Fortunately no one suggested playing bridge or charades.

  Mavis’ pal was her next-door neighbour, Henrietta – never shortened! Mavis has the look of a terrified mouse on the run from an angry bear. Henrietta looks like a school governess from the 1930s, long, hard-wearing and sensible skirt-and-blouse combo, iron-grey hair carefully curled, reading-glasses on a beaded thingy round her neck, you know the type.

  But from the little snippets they shared and the few comments they made, I’d love to get to know them better – they sound like they were a devastating duo back in the day. So many stories to tell. I bet they laid the male population waste for miles during the war.

  And so to bed.

  Poor old Matt was giving me what he clearly thought were seductive glances all evening. But I have hardened my heart and he is now reposing in his bachelor pad down the hall. He can damned well wait until I’m ready.

  Thursday 26 June – 9.30am

  Felt decidedly gippy this morning. Surely it shouldn’t be like this so soon?

  Couldn’t face any of Lill’s breakfast suggestions this morning, so sat hunched up in the garden-room with a cup of herbal tea and wrapped in one of Thomas’ old jumpers, glaring at the birds. Darcy and Bingley snuggled up with me. I must admit the warmth from them and the sound of their little snuffly snores was very soothing. Once I’d sat there for about an hour I was ready to tackle some toast with the merest hint of butter and just the vaguest suggestion of marmalade – have had no coffee at all for five days (still headachey to prove it!) I would never have thought I could give up my morning caffeine for anyone and now it’s happened almost without me realising. I think I may have been a saint in a former life. Since learning of my impending motherhood, I have felt very holy, somehow, as if I am on a righteous path, carrying out my sacred little part in the universe’s great plan, and ... Oh bugger, I have spilt marmalade down my top! Arse! Now I’ve got to run upstairs and change it.

  I left the kittens snoozing on Thomas’ jumper and went for a potter in the garden. Sid and Matt are making a formal herb garden – all box and germander hedges and cartwheel-shaped plantings – it’s going to look wonderful when it’s finished, though am beginning to suspect it’s more for Lill’s benefit than mine! Plus it’s in place of the old kitchen garden, so really the best view of it will be from the kitchen, from what the estate agent’s details described as the ‘breakfast nook’. But nevertheless it will be amazing when it’s all finished.

  Plus there are now a couple of large clumps of catnip that have appeared from somewhere at some point. Not that I mind – the tiny purple flowers are smothered with bees and Tetley was lying underneath one rich clump, zonked out and dreamy. I wonder if the stuff is any good for humans?

  There is also going to be a pond, with a couple of little waterfalls leading down to it. This was my idea. For once I was permitted to have some input into the design of my own garden. Again, there is a pond already, right at the bottom of the garden, it’s a nice feature for when you’re out and about or having a cocktail in the summerhouse, but I really wanted a lovely water feature at the top of the garden, something that would be visible from the house. I mean, one only needs so much lawn, and if there is one thing this place is not short of, it’s grass. I only hope my baby won’t fall in the pond – am beginning to be paranoid about safety! There are hazards absolutely everywhere one looks! It’s a miracle any children survive their early years.

  Later same day – 6.30pm

  Decided to abandon the ‘boys’ to their work and wander into the village. I checke
d in with Lill before I left to see if there was anything she needed. There wasn’t. After all she has both ‘boys’ and all three cats. What else could she possibly need? Our Lill is the most contented woman I know.

  Today was the first day I’ve ever been into the village properly and on my own. Once or twice we’ve been on the way to somewhere or on our way back from somewhere and we’ve stopped the car in the village so that Lill can nip into the only shop for some trifling item or another, but that’s been it so far for me.

  There wasn’t really anything I needed but I could hardly just stand there in the middle of the one village shop without making a purchase of some kind, so I nabbed a pot of locally-produced honey, and some local eggs, and a cabbage. One has a duty to support local businesses. As I always say, shop locally – use it or lose it!

  Anyway, rather surly old chap behind the counter so no opp. to chat and glean any insider knowledge of the village. V. disappointing! But at least have done my bit for local industry.

  Next stop – the church!

  St-John-the-Something is a very pretty little Norman church, so obviously hundreds of years old, set in lovely sunny grounds like a country meadow, and all lichen-covered slanting gravestones. The churchyard itself was flowery and villagey and the birds were singing, and butterflies just flopped about drunkenly, it was lovely. The perfect country churchyard. The perfect spot to relax for a few mins. I sat on a bench and just soaked it all up, then suddenly at my side, Henrietta materialised.

  She asked if I minded, and of course I didn’t, so I scooched up a bit to make room for the poor old dear.

  “Gorgeous, isn’t it? The peace and quiet of the country.” I said, feeling very chatty and at one with the world.