women. But when he'd met her, he'd seen the light hearted girl that she presented to the world, the fun-loving spirit with a childlike gap between her front teeth. He'd thought, I need someone like this in my life, but he'd been wrong. It hadn't yet been time and it probably never would be, but here he was now with another woman, as unlike Jemima as was humanly possible.
He couldn't say he loved Gina. He knew he ought to love her, as she was certainly worthy of any man's love. When they'd first gone into the hotel in Sway for a drink on the afternoon he'd seen her up in the woods, more than one bloke had looked her over and looked at him and he knew what each of them was thinking because one thought such things about Gina Dickens, one couldn't help it and still be a human male. Gina didn't seem to mind. She looked at him frankly, in a way that said, It's yours if you want it, when you're ready. And when he'd decided that by God he was ready because he couldn't live as he'd been living with Jemima gone, he'd accepted her offer and now here she was and he didn't regret his decision in the least.
She bathed him now. And all the rest. And if he took her forcefully instead of allowing himself to be taken by her, that was fine with Gina. She gave a breathless laugh as he moved her roughly onto her back and her legs spread and then went round him. He found her mouth and it opened to him like the rest of her and he wondered how he'd got lucky just this once and what he would have to pay for his good fortune.
Afterwards, they both were soaking. They separated and laughed at the sucking sound that came from damp skin disengaging from other damp skin. They showered together and she washed his hair and when he became aroused again, she said, "Good lord, Gordon," with a breathless laugh and she dealt with it - with him - again. He said, "Enough," but she said, "Not enough," and she proved it to him. His knees went weak.
He said, "Where'd you learn this, woman?" and she said, "Did Jemima not like sex?"
He said, "Not like this," and by that he meant wanton. For Jemima it had been reassurance. Love me, don't leave me. But she had done the leaving.
It was nearly eight when they went down to the kitchen for breakfast. Gina talked to him about her desire for a garden. He didn't want a garden with all the unnecessary disruption it would bring to his life, not to mention the laying of walks, the arranging of borders, the digging, the planting, the building of sheds or greenhouses or conservatories or whatever. He didn't want any of it. He hadn't told her as much because he liked the look of her as she went on about what a garden would mean to her, to them, and to "her girls" as she called them. But then she also brought up Rob Hastings and what he had told her about the land.
Gordon confirmed this, but that was all he intended to say about Rob. The agister had tracked him down to the Royal Oak pub much as Meredith Powell had done, and just as when Meredith had shown her face, Gordon had told Cliff to take a break so that whatever Rob Hastings had to say could be said out of earshot of anyone. To make sure this was the case, they'd walked up the lane to Eyeworth Pond, which wasn't so much a pond as it was a damming of a long-ago stream upon which ducks now floated placidly and on whose banks willows crowded one upon the other and draped leafy branches into the water. There was a small two-tiered car park nearby, and a path beyond it led into the wood, where the ground was thick with decades of beech and chestnut leaves.
They walked to the edge of the pond. Gordon lit a cigarette and waited. Whatever Rob Hastings had to say, it would be about Jemima, and he had nothing to tell him about Jemima beyond that which Rob obviously already knew.
"She left because of her," Rob said, "didn't she? The one at your house. That's how it was, eh?"
"I see you've been talking to Meredith." Gordon felt weary with the fuss.