You And Me, Always(41)

His name was Kevin Lester, Patsy learned. He was thirty-six years old,  lived in Slough and owned a small engineering company. He was divorced,  keen on mountaineering and partial to eating out in nice restaurants. In  his spare time he helped to raise funds for animal charities. If he  didn't work such long hours, he'd definitely have a dog. And the reason  for his presence in Stanton Langley was because his eccentric Aunt Ethel  had announced that she wanted to meet him here today.

‘She's as mad as a box of frogs,' he explained. ‘Keeps changing her  surname, so we don't even know where she's living now. But every year or  two she gets in touch and tells me where to come so we can catch up and  I can make sure she's OK. She phoned me the other evening and said I  should be here this afternoon, that she'd arrive on the bus. Except she  didn't specify which bus. Par for the course with Ethel.

‘But she'll definitely turn up?' said Patsy.

Kevin shrugged. ‘Might, might not. You never can tell. One time, after  she didn't arrive, she wrote to let me know she'd decided on a whim to  visit Longleat instead to see if Lord Bath wanted another wifelet.'

‘Oh God. And did he?'

‘Apparently not. Anyway, tell me all about you.'

And so she did. He was a good listener, genuinely interested and asking  lots of questions. Patsy told him about her unfortunate past history  with boyfriends, but was careful to make it fun and amusing so she  didn't sound like too much of a tragic loser. She talked about her  hairdressing job in Cheltenham, the people she worked with in the salon  and her friends here in the village. And as the minutes slid by, she  found herself warming to Kevin Lester more and more.

At four o'clock, they went outside at Patsy's insistence and waited for  the next bus to arrive, because if he wasn't standing out there on the  pavement, she explained, Aunt Ethel might just decide to stay on the  bus.                       
       
           



       

‘My brother'll be on this one,' she added, ‘coming home from school.  Just warning you now, if he sees us together and makes a smart comment,  don't take any notice.'

Five minutes later, the bus trundled into view. It pulled up with a discordant shriek of brakes and the doors concertinaed open.

‘Fingers crossed,' said Patsy as Kevin put on a pair of dark-rimmed  spectacles. ‘I know, crazy,' he said, catching her look of surprise.  ‘But if I'm not wearing them, Ethel won't recognise me.'

Except there was no Aunt Ethel on the bus. Patsy was disappointed  –   she'd been looking forward to seeing what a seventy-something rejected  wifelet looked like. Several of the older villagers, back from a day of  Christmas shopping, climbed carefully down the steps with their  collections of carrier bags. Then the schoolchildren bounced off the  bus, in high spirits because it was almost the end of term and normal  lessons had given way to having fun.

‘Hiya!' Lily greeted Patsy with enthusiasm. ‘Not catching the bus, are you? What's up, has your car broken down?'

Patsy shook her head. ‘This is Kevin, I was just keeping him company  while he waited for his aunt, but she isn't on this bus. Look at the two  of you,' she added, tutting at Lily and Dan. ‘Not even wearing coats.'

‘It isn't cold,' Lily protested, arms spread wide to prove just how uncold it was.

Patsy smiled, because as a teenager she'd been exactly the same, and as  if to prove that it was cold, snowflakes had begun to spiral lazily down  from the darkening grey sky. ‘You two are a lost cause.' Turning to  Kevin, she explained, ‘That's my little brother Dan.' Little brother was  a joke  –  at fifteen he was already taller than her. ‘And this is Lily,  who I used to babysit.'

Kevin nodded briefly and said, ‘Hi,' in a vague kind of way. Pausing to adjust his glasses, he added, ‘Been to school, then?'

Which was possibly one of the most redundant questions of all time, but some men simply didn't know how to speak to teenagers.

‘No.' Dan glanced down at his white school shirt, loosened school tie  and grey school trousers. ‘I've been scuba diving.' He jerked a thumb at  Lily. ‘And she's been to a fancy dress party.'

‘Don't worry, just ignore him.' Lily shook her head sympathetically at Kevin. ‘He thinks he's hilarious.'

‘Er, excuse me, I am hilarious.' Dan deftly snatched the open packet of  fruit pastilles from her left hand and removed the top one, holding it  between his finger and thumb as if it were a priceless diamond. ‘Ooh, my  favourite  … '

‘Not that one! Give it back. You can take a green one, but you're not having the red!'

And that was it, they were off, Lily chasing Dan across the road and  along the pavement on the other side as he darted around her, staying  just out of reach. Lily's blond curls bounced around her shoulders as  she took an almighty swing at him with her heavy school rucksack and  finally managed to grab the fruit pastilles back.

‘Help, dial nine nine nine, call the police.' Dan was doubled up with laughter. ‘I'm being attacked by a lunatic  … '

‘They're like that all the time,' Patsy rolled her eyes fondly. ‘It never stops.'

When Lily and Dan had disappeared through the gates of Goldstone House,  she said, ‘What are you going to do now? Wait for the next bus?'

‘I have to. Just one more. Honestly, Aunt Ethel does my head in.' Kevin  paused, his smile rueful. ‘Although on the bright side, I've met you.'

They gazed at each other for several seconds as the snow gathered pace  and began to fall harder around them. The street lamps were coming on  now, the sky was growing darker by the minute and someone inside the  Star Inn had just switched on the strings of coloured fairy lights that  decorated the front of the pub.

‘I think I've had enough coffee for one day,' said Kevin. ‘I might try that place, just for a change of scenery. It looks nice.'

Patsy nodded, her cold hands shoved deep inside the pockets of her red wool coat. ‘It is nice.'

‘And do you have to be anywhere? I mean, things to do, people to see?'

She had nothing to do, nowhere else she needed to be. Other than Tenerife, obviously. She shook her head. ‘No.'

Snowflakes were landing on the lenses of Kevin's spectacles and sliding  down the glass. She added, ‘You can take those off again now.'

He smiled, did as he was told, then said, ‘Come on, let's go.'                       
       
           



       

As they crossed the rapidly whitening road, a blue Fiesta drove by with  festive music booming out of it. Stealing a glance at Kevin's profile,  Patsy wondered how prophetic it was that the song playing was Mariah  Carey's jaunty classic ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You'.



By nine o'clock in the evening, Patsy's edges were pleasantly blurred.  She wasn't drunk, just happily relaxed. Tucked into a cosy corner of the  pub, she and Kevin had shared a bottle of red wine, eaten chicken  casserole and talked non-stop for hours. And although neither of them  had referred to it, the mutual attraction between them was growing at a  rate of knots. The body language was there, the not-very-accidental  physical contact inescapable. Patsy's cheeks ached from smiling, her  foot beneath the old oak table was resting against Kevin's, and she'd  long since decided that the age gap between them wasn't too great after  all.

Because when you scrolled through her past experiences with boys her own  age  …  well, look how they'd turned out. Maybe an older man was just  what she needed. And it wasn't as if Kevin was ancient. He was  thirty-six, she was twenty-three  …  and the words of the Mariah Carey  song were still playing on a loop in her brain.

All she wanted for Christmas could be sitting in front of her right now.

Needless to say, Aunt Ethel hadn't been on the five o'clock bus.

Thank goodness.

Because if she had been, Kevin would have spent the last few hours with his mad aunt instead of with her.

They ordered another bottle of delicious Barolo and Patsy said, ‘You're not going to be able to drive home tonight.'

Kevin shrugged. ‘I'll just have to sleep in my car.'

He was probably joking, but Patsy said, ‘You can't do that, you'll freeze to death.'

‘This is true.' He peered out through the window at the snow still  falling steadily outside. ‘Would you happen to have a sofa I could spend  the night on?'

Patsy hesitated. She did, but she also had a nosy mother. Not to mention  a smart-alec fifteen-year-old brother. Furthermore, she suspected Kevin  was hoping for more than a sofa.