‘Oh, come on. Those were bad times. You can’t have been more than a baby then.’
‘I was toddling, I think.’
So he was younger than her, but only a year or so.
‘Funny how our lives have been shaped by something that happened before we could possibly understand it,’ she said.
‘I think that’s the human condition,’ said Harville. ‘What can we do?’
‘Our best,’ said Jenna with a nod. ‘That’s what we can do.’
He closed his hand around the banister with a rueful little burst of something that was not quite laughter.
‘You made your fortune,’ he said. ‘And now, here we are. Who would have predicted this over our cradles, eh?’
Jenna bit her lip. ‘I’ll take care of this place,’ she said. ‘I promise.’
‘Thanks. Listen, here are the keys.’ He took them from his pocket and handed them over. ‘That one for the front door, that one for the kitchen door – well, I’ve labelled them anyway. I ought to get back to town.’
She followed his determined move towards the stairs, watching his pea-coated back and broad shoulders in descent.
‘If you’re passing,’ she said, once he was at the door. ‘Do call in.’
He turned, and gave her a long look.
‘I’d love to,’ he said, taking a mobile phone from his satchel. ‘Give me your number. I’ll call.’
Much later, after the van had delivered a rudimentary complement of furniture – all of it old and sturdy, from reclamation yards – and Jenna had finished her dialled-in Thai takeaway and got the butane gas heater on in the front parlour, she got out her phone and looked at the number she had been given.
She was sitting on a mattress in her temporary encampment. Once the house was done up and sparkling, she would have her half of the furniture from the LA house shipped over. It wasn’t easy to picture it here, in this faded room, but she was sure its beauty and suitability would amaze her, when everything was in order.
Lawrence Harville, though. She lay back on the mattress and let out a long, loud laugh. Imagine what Deano would think if he heard about that. Everyone in Bledburn had hated the Harvilles, after they sold everyone out in the strike, but Deano most of all. He had even written a song about them. ‘Lord of Plenty’, track four on the Bleeding Hearts album. Jenna began to sing the chorus to herself:
‘Fine clothes, fine house
Fine words, fine wine
And it’s all paid for
By the men in the mine.’
It had been quite an anthem, at the time.
Yes, a few careless snaps of her with Harville in the sidebar of shame would be enough to get Deano launched into orbit. If he asked her out, she’d see that they went somewhere extremely and unavoidably public. To begin with.
She betted he was a charmer, a smoothie, a fast worker. She’d met enough of his type, over the years of glitz and glam. He’d be experienced, and probably decent in bed, even if he would have his hand up your skirt by the time the entrées were taken from the table.
Selfish, though. An egotist, probably. Just like Deano.
It was still worth the wind-up. If
he called her, she would definitely show an interest.
And why wouldn’t he call her? She might be a bit older than him, might be taking a sabbatical from her high-profile, high-pressure career in music promotion, but she was at her physical peak.
She was toned, honed, perma-tanned, coiffed, Botoxed, groomed, plucked, buffed and styled within an inch of her life. She was never going to be featured in one of those magazine spreads with a photoshopped circle around some less-than-perfect feature. She only wore tracksuits at the gym and she was only seen without make-up in bed. Sometimes not even then.
True, it wasn’t going to be easy without her retinue of staff, all devoted to the greater glory of Jenna Myatt’s image, but there was no need to let things slide. This house was evidence enough of that.