A Summer Of Secrets. Alice Ross

He’d definitely find a gap in his schedule for a woman like that.

      Removing his sandwich from its paper bag, a sudden thought struck him. God! Was that how he viewed women these days? As mere objects to add to his round? Just what sort of arrogant, sexist pig had he become? Up until his split with Gina, he’d never thought of women like that. And he’d never thought of Gina as anything other than a goddess – one he’d worshipped, adored and showered with love.

      He shoved the sandwich back in the wrapper. He’d suddenly lost his appetite.

      In more ways than one.

      His phone beeped with a text from Penelope:

      Ready when you are x

      Joe had never been less ready for anything in his entire life.

      Penelope Fleeting was one of Joe’s favourite clients. Her womanly figure included a magnificent pair of breasts and a firm butt that came with clocking up years in the saddle. Heavily involved with the local church, these sexy assets were generally hidden under unflattering knee-length skirts and high-buttoned blouses, her mane of red hair pinned up in a sensible French pleat. Joe had witnessed her many times in the street collecting for various charities. He found her prim and proper exterior a turn-on, being fully conversant with exactly what lay beneath those clothes, and exactly how to entertain her in the bedroom. Something successful barrister Mr Fleeting – a weedy, balding individual, sporting specs that made Hans Moleman’s look trendy – evidently came nowhere near to achieving.

      Usually up for a bit of role-play – Penelope’s guilty pleasure - it was with a heavy heart and weary body that Joe made his way up the Fleetings’ drive that afternoon. Ladder on shoulder, bucket in hand, he headed directly to the back of the large, mock-Tudor residence.

      ‘Good afternoon, sir.’ Penelope’s usual cut-glass accent had been replaced by a west-country burr as she lounged against the open French doors. Her lustrous titian hair hanging loose, she put Joe in mind of one of those pre-Raphaelite beauties. The image further enhanced by her sexy maid’s outfit: short, frilly skirt not quite reaching the top of her black stockings; voluptuous breasts spilling out of her white blouse.

      Despite his dark mood, Joe’s groin stirred.

      ‘I’m very sorry, sir,’ she continued. ‘But I was doing the dusting and I’ve gone and broken a vase. A very expensive vase, sir. Mistress’s favourite.’

      Right. So that was it, was it? Master of the house punishes incompetent servant. Well, Joe supposed he might be able to rise to the occasion. After all, she was obviously well up for it, and it wasn’t her fault he’d had a sudden attack of conscience.

      ‘Well, now. I’m afraid that just won’t do,’ he said, setting down his ladder and bucket against the wall and placing both hands on his hips. ‘Didn’t I warn you last week that there would be serious repercussions if you broke anything else?’

      ‘Yes, sir,’ she replied, obviously doing her utmost not to giggle.

      ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to punish you,’ continued Joe, ardour rising as Penelope wiggled her hips and ran her tongue over her pouting lips. ‘And the best place to do that is the bedroom.’

      ‘Oh, please don’t spank me, sir,’ she pleaded coyly, velvety cheeks flushed with excitement.

      ‘I’m sorry, madam, but there is nothing else for it. Now enough of this prattling. Get up those stairs. Now.’

      At which point a tittering Penelope shot off at an Olympic pace. With Joe not far behind.

      A short while later, the “maid” having stoically received her “punishment”, Joe knuckled down to the main business of the day, as Penelope wriggled and moaned beneath him.

      Suddenly he stopped.

      He heard a sound. Downstairs.

      The sound of a door opening and closing.

      Followed by a male voice. ‘Pen? You there?’

      Joe leapt up as quickly as if he’d been electrified.

      ‘Shit,’ exclaimed Penelope, her plummy accent making a dramatic return. ‘It’s my bloody husband.’

      ***

      ‘And make sure you get red crysanths. Not yellow ones. Can’t abide anything yellow.’

      ‘Really? You’ve never said,’ muttered Jenny under her breath, as she tugged on her linen jacket in the hall. In truth, her mother recited the same spiel every Wednesday afternoon as Jenny prepared for her shopping trip to the village.

      ‘What did you say?’

      ‘Only that I won’t be long, Mother.’

      Stepping out of the front door, Jenny closed it behind her and heaved a sigh of relief. Indeed, every time she stepped out of the front door she heaved a sigh of relief. Because any interlude away from Phyllis was a relief.

      The thatched cottage, in which Jenny had lived every one of her forty-nine years, and in which Phyllis had spent her entire married, and widowed, life, huddled at the end of a secluded lane. Compared with the village’s more desirable residences, “cosy abode” would most aptly describe it.

      Taking the twelve steps necessary to reach the end of the garden path, Jenny clambered into her car – a battered old Fiat Panda she’d had for as long as she could remember – and headed down to the village. She did a big shop once a month at the huge hypermarket on the retail estate outside Harrogate. But in-between, she preferred to use the village shops which, between them, supplied just about everything.

      Normally Jenny looked forward to her Wednesday afternoon jaunt, but today she really wasn’t in the mood. She felt unsettled, restless, and – dare she say it? – unsatisfied with her life. Not like her at all. She’d long since accepted her lot and got on with it. Of course she knew that still living with her mother at her age wasn’t ideal. But, on the positive side, she loved Buttersley. The strong sense of community there made her feel safe, secure, wanted. And she also loved her job. It wasn’t teaching history, which had been her dream of old, but, robbed of her university education, she had, she believed, achieved the next best thing: working part-time as a teaching assistant in the local primary school.

      And it was at school that morning that this seed of discontentment had first taken root. As Bethany Stevens proudly wrote the date on the whiteboard, it occurred to Jenny that, in exactly six months’ time, she would have completed her fiftieth year on the planet. The terrifying thought sent ripples of fear ricocheting around her body, followed by a desperate urge for a custard-cream – or six. Escaping to the staff room as soon as she could, she’d been stuffing one of the aforementioned biscuits into her mouth when she’d overheard a colleague recounting how her husband had whisked her away to Rome for a surprise birthday trip. Envy not being a state in which Jenny generally loitered, the more she heard, the more envious she became. Frantically jamming biscuits into her mouth, her longing for such an Italian experience soared by the second. Heavens. What she wouldn’t give to experience such a dreamy city, oozing with incredible history, fabulous restaurants and baking sunshine. Of course, the chances of anyone surprising her with a romantic break there were as likely as her mother enrolling in a hip-hop class, but there was nothing to stop her going on her own to celebrate her landmark birthday. Nothing, apart from the obvious: Phyllis Rutter’s reaction to her daughter jetting off for a few days – fiftieth birthday or not – would be so cataclysmic it might well make the evening news. And the aftershocks would reverberate far longer than those of any exploding volcano. All of which resulted in Jenny feeling not only restless, but also a tad resentful.

      Reaching the high street, she parked and headed straight for the newsagent’s. Although scornful of her mother’s rigid routines, Jenny had long since slithered into a Wednesday afternoon one of her own, including purchasing a weekly woman’s magazine and packet of liquorice allsorts for her mother; and a history magazine and packet of pear drops for herself. Today, though, an unaccustomed surge of recklessness swirling about her,