Creature Comforts - Trisha Ashley

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what I was wearing – or not wearing. My old and modest one-piece swimsuit appeared to have vanished in my absence, so I’d grabbed the first alternative that came to hand, the white bikini I’d bought years before when going on holiday to Corfu with Lulu and her parents. It hadn’t looked particularly skimpy when I was a skinny teenager, but I’d acquired a few curves since then and I have to admit it had been a struggle to fasten the top …

      I crossed my arms over my chest defensively. ‘I’m local, so I’ve got a token to get through the turnstile and Tom doesn’t mind my having a swim whenever I want one.’

      ‘So, who are you?’

      ‘I’m Izzy,’ I said reluctantly. ‘Isabella Dane.’

      He took a sudden step back, as if I’d offered him a poisoned chalice and suggested he take a tiny sip for his health’s sake.

      ‘You’re Izzy Dane? Dan Clew told me all about you, but he said you lived abroad.’

      ‘I bet he’s told you all about me,’ I said bitterly. ‘And I was living and working abroad, but now I’m back. For good. And we didn’t even know you existed till a few weeks ago. Debo thinks you’re probably an impostor,’ I added, even though I’d known straight away that he wasn’t.

      ‘Then she’s wrong,’ he snapped. ‘You think I wanted to discover the man I’d thought was my father all my life, wasn’t?’

      We stared at each other, and then I shivered violently.

      ‘Presumably even pixies can get pneumonia,’ he said. ‘Hadn’t you better get changed? Or do you walk around the woods like that?’

      I gave him a look and stalked off across the grass to the changing hut, slamming the door after me. The sun was well down now, one stray beam shining through the heart-shaped cut-out high in the door, like a celestial message. I only wished I knew what it was saying.

      When I came out, towelling my urchin crop into an even more pixie state, he was still there, dripping gently onto the short turf.

      He’d taken his fleecy blue sweatshirt off and was wringing it out, revealing a broad-shouldered frame tapering to a narrow waist. He wasn’t heavily muscled, but either he worked out, or wrestling heavy bits of garden antiquities about was more strenuous than I’d imagined.

      With some difficulty, he put the garment back on again. ‘I’m not sure that’s an improvement,’ he said.

      ‘I thought you’d have gone home: you’re going to catch your death, hanging about in wet clothes,’ I said, and this actually seemed a good idea to me, so I didn’t offer him my towel to dry his hair with.

      ‘We’re presumably going the same way, since I expect you walked through the estate from the Lodge?’

      ‘It’s actually an ancient right of way,’ I said defensively, wondering how it was that he constantly made me feel in the wrong. ‘It goes all the way from Middlemoss, across the main road at the bottom of the hill, and then up behind the pub to here. Then it cuts through the corner of your estate and comes out by the Sweetwell gates. That’s why there’s that wooden door in the wall just there.’

      He frowned. ‘Which door?’

      ‘You probably didn’t notice it because it’s painted the same green as the ivy. But most people just walk up to your drive and then go through the gates, because they’re always open.’

      ‘Dan said the path wasn’t a right of way above the Spring; it ends here.’

      ‘Dan says a lot of stupid things,’ I remarked, pushing through the turnstile and setting off home. He followed suit and then fell into step beside me, squelching.

      ‘So, it wasn’t true when he said you’d killed my half-brother, Harry, drink-driving?’

      I stopped and glared at him. ‘I may have been driving, but I certainly wasn’t drunk – and it was an accident!’

      ‘Oh, well, that’s all right then,’ he said sarcastically.

      ‘Look, I don’t even remember what happened, because I had a head injury,’ I said angrily.

      ‘That’s lucky,’ he remarked. He seemed to be a very bitter and nasty person and I strongly felt I could do without his company.

      ‘Well, that’s good, coming from the son of the woman responsible for the death of my mother!’ I snapped furiously, without thinking what I was saying. ‘I bet she didn’t tell you that when she found out Debo was living at the Lodge.’

      ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ He gazed at me in astonishment. ‘My mother’s done a lot of crazy things, but at least, unlike you, she’s never killed anyone.’

      My fists clenched and goodness knew what I would have said to him next if my attention hadn’t been distracted by a sudden loud crashing noise in the bushes. A vast, black hairy creature bounded out and threw itself at me and I fell flat on my back.

      The monster landed on top of me with all four giant feet, and then started licking my face with a tongue like a sheet of wet sandpaper.

      ‘Get off, Babybelle!’ I ordered crossly, when I’d managed to gasp some air into my lungs, and tried to push her away, to no avail.

      ‘And you –’ I said to the man – ‘don’t just stand there, but this time do something useful, before she suffocates me. Haul her off!’

      Obediently, he took hold of Belle’s collar and pulled. She resisted, but eventually gave in, so he must be pretty strong. I got up gingerly, picking leaves out of my hair. ‘I’m bruised all over, you stupid creature!’

      ‘Which one of us?’ he asked, though through lips so tight he could have started a new career as a ventriloquist.

      ‘Both,’ I said shortly, then threading the belt of my jeans through her collar, I hauled Belle off towards home. She followed me like a lamb … as did Rufus Carlyle – or so I thought, until I reached the drive and turned to find he’d vanished silently, presumably up the side path.

      I tried not to wish pneumonia on him … just a teeny, but very snotty, running cold.

      Judy was standing on the drive and looked relieved when she spotted us.

      ‘Oh, you’ve got her! Debo headed up towards the house, because Sandy saw her go that way.’

      ‘The daft creature suddenly jumped on me while I was walking back and knocked me flat.’

      Babybelle took the opportunity to sit down, mostly on my feet, and pant in a pleased sort of way, as if she’d rescued me from mortal peril.

      ‘I’m bruised all over, though actually some of that was from being manhandled by Rufus Carlyle.’

      ‘What on earth do you mean?’

      ‘He thought I was drowning in the pool and rescued me. He’s a horrible man, because when he found out who I was, he said Dan had told him I’d killed his half-brother, by driving while drunk.’

      ‘That Dan Clew is poison,’ Judy said. ‘I’ll give him a piece of my mind next time I see him.’

      Debo appeared round the bend and we waved before heading for the Lodge, Babybelle plodding after us.

      ‘I told him that was rich, considering his mother had killed mine,’ I confessed to Judy. ‘I didn’t mean to, he just made me angry.’

      ‘Well … possibly that was slightly rash, considering he has the power to make our lives difficult if he wants to,’ she said, ‘but it was probably irresistible, given the provocation. And Debo’s just as likely to speak her mind when she finally meets him – you know what she’s like.’

      And it was true: Debo was prone to saying exactly what was in her head, sometimes with disastrous consequences.

      ‘Let’s

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