The Holiday Home Page 0,46
Treviscum Bay. What a stroke of luck that he’d bumped into the Carew girls. Was it really twenty-one summers ago that he’d managed to seduce her? She had been a lovely little maid. Lovely body, but lacking her sister’s fiery passion. He’d soon warmed her up though, when he got her to the fuggee hole. Nice spot that. Warm, dry, romantic and hidden from prying eyes and ears. He wondered whether he could still find it.
*
As he turned his battered van into the drive of Atlantic House he noticed a woman with rosy cheeks, twinkly eyes and golden curly hair worn in a careless up do hanging her washing out in the garden of Dairy Cottage. The thing that really captured his attention was that she was topless. He gave her a long look and pulled the handbrake on stiffly. At the sound she looked up and with no embarrassment smiled. He killed the engine and nonchalantly stepped out on to the gravel. ‘Mornin’.’ He nodded his head and then ignored her as he opened the creaky back doors of his van. He made sure his bottom looked taut and muscular as he reached inside, and when he came out again, slowly peeled off his tight T-shirt to reveal tanned pecs and abs.
‘It’s going to be a hot one today,’ he said, loud enough for her to hear. ‘Things could get rather steamy.’
He allowed himself a glance in Belinda’s direction. She was holding a towel over her breasts flirtatiously. ‘One can only hope,’ she replied, then raised her eyebrows and grinned before turning her back on him and walking towards Dairy Cottage, wobbling her dimpled, bikini’d bottom to great effect.
Suddenly the front door of Atlantic House was thrown open and the sound of raised voices filled the air. As Merlin turned to the source of the noise, Belinda crept back out into the garden and concealed herself behind the dividing hedge so she could watch and listen.
Greg was marching towards Merlin. ‘Where the hell have you been? I’ve turned the stopcock off, but it’s like the bloody Poseidon Adventure in there.’
Merlin looked bemused. ‘What’s happened, G, mate?’
‘Don’t you “G mate” me. The whole house could have flooded, thanks to your incompetence.’
‘You should have called.’
Pru had rushed out now and was squaring up to Merlin. ‘I did, you moron. Don’t you answer your phone?’
‘Terrible coverage round here. Sometimes I don’t get my messages for a week or more.’ He smiled ruefully and started to roll a cigarette. ‘Why don’t we all calm down and I’ll take a look at the damage.’
Pru looked daggers at him and gave a kind of guttural growling sound before turning tail and storming into the house.
Like the figures in a weather house, as she went in, Connie came out. She launched into a tirade aimed at Greg.
‘Greg, we are not spending a penny on this house. Not a penny, or we’ll be paying for Miss High and Mighty and Little Lord Fauntleroy’s future home and seeing no return on our investment.’
‘All I did was what you bloody asked me to do. “Find a plumber,” you said. So I did.’
‘I didn’t mean Merlin Pengelly,’ Connie hurled at him.
Pru had come out of the house again, brandishing a mop and bucket. She rounded on Connie.
‘How dare you call me Miss High and Mighty. And my son is nothing like Little Lord Fauntleroy.’
‘Actually, I was describing your poor henpecked husband,’ screeched Connie.
‘Girls, girls, that is below the belt,’ said Greg. ‘Connie, darling, apologise.’
‘I will not apologise, and thank you so much for backing me up as a husband should,’ Connie replied sarcastically. ‘Furthermore, don’t you “darling” me, you thoughtless ape.’
As Connie was clearly losing control of herself, Pru attempted to claim the moral high ground.
‘Greg, dear, please try to keep your wife under control. She’s always had these temper tantrums. It’s so pathetic.’
Connie rounded on her. ‘You’re the pathetic one. Pretending you have a bad back, getting Francis to do all the dirty work for you, sucking up to Mum and Dad to steal my inheritance.’
As the girls continued venting grievances they’d been storing for decades, Francis appeared on the doorstep with two full buckets of soapy water.
Standing stock-still, listening to the unusually colourful language being employed by his wife and sister-in-law, he looked to Greg for help. Greg shrugged his shoulders.
‘Come on, old man. Leave them to it. This has been brewing all week.’
‘We can’t just leave them.’ Francis put the buckets down and went towards Pru. His