Simply Heaven Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Serena Mackesy

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One: The Proverbial Thunderbolt

  Chapter Two: Rufus

  Chapter Three: Truth Game

  Chapter Four: Marry in Haste

  Chapter Five: Cold Feet

  Chapter Six: The Vanishing

  Chapter Seven: In at the Deep End

  Chapter Eight: How’s it Going?

  Chapter Nine: The Upstart

  Chapter Ten: Calling Home

  Chapter Eleven: Brave New World

  Chapter Twelve: Dead Birds

  Chapter Thirteen: Simply Heaven

  Chapter Fourteen: Neighbours

  Chapter Fifteen: The Maze

  Chapter Sixteen: The Painted Hussy

  Chapter Seventeen: Bedtime

  Chapter Eighteen: The Earth Moves

  Chapter Nineteen: Meet the Family

  Chapter Twenty: Welcome to Bourton Allhallows

  Chapter Twenty-One: Up on the Roof

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Papering Over the Cracks

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Eavesdropping

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Drinkies

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Packing

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Clompy Shoes

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Brief Encounter

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: A Conversation

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Stranded

  Chapter Thirty: The Fortress

  Chapter Thirty-One: In the Deep Woods

  Chapter Thirty-Two: No Dogs

  Chapter Thirty-Three: The Maven

  Chapter Thirty-Four: Jesus Bloody Christ on a Bike

  Chapter Thirty-Five: Brekkie

  Chapter Thirty-Six: A Bit of a Rub-Down

  Chapter Thirty-Seven: Barbara Cartland

  Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Mummydaddy

  Chapter Thirty-Nine: Could Do with a Dusting

  Chapter Forty: Delilah

  Chapter Forty-One: Crack in the Earth

  Chapter Forty-Two: Dad’s Big Gesture

  Chapter Forty-Three: Contains Sexual Content That Some Might Find Disturbing

  Chapter Forty-Four: Happy Crimbo

  Chapter Forty-Five: Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts

  Chapter Forty-Six: Dad of the Year

  Chapter Forty-Seven: Mum’s Opinion

  Chapter Forty-Eight: Daddy’s Girl

  Chapter Forty-Nine: The Meet

  Chapter Fifty: The Immortal Stain

  Chapter Fifty-One: The First Mrs Wattestone

  Chapter Fifty-Two: Souvenirs of the Apocalypse

  Chapter Fifty-Three: To Think of What We’ve Done for You

  Chapter Fifty-Four: What Did You Do …?

  Chapter Fifty-Five: And on Your Children’s Children

  Chapter Fifty-Six: Sorry, Sorry, Sorry

  Chapter Fifty-Seven: Hatstand

  Chapter Fifty-Eight: I’m Just Saying …

  Chapter Fifty-Nine: Under the Doctor

  Chapter Sixty: A Medical Opinion

  Chapter Sixty-One: The Fall of the House of Wattestone

  Chapter Sixty-Two: Selling off the Silver

  Chapter Sixty-Three: Losing Rufus

  Chapter Sixty-Four: False Spring

  Chapter Sixty-Five: A Deciding Moment

  Chapter Sixty-Six: I Kneel Before You

  Chapter Sixty-Seven: Don’t You Ever Knock?

  Chapter Sixty-Eight: Cataclysm

  Chapter Sixty-Nine: The Unspeakable in Pursuit of the Uneatable

  Chapter Seventy: Gone to Ground

  Chapter Seventy-One: Priest Hole

  Chapter Seventy-Two: Mummy

  Chapter Seventy-Three: What Happened in Between

  Chapter Seventy-Four: Choices

  Chapter Seventy-Five: Precious Life

  Chapter Seventy-Six: The Polyester Angels

  Chapter Seventy-Seven: Saved by the Cell

  Chapter Seventy-Eight: Contact

  Chapter Seventy-Nine: Two Can Play at that Game

  Chapter Eighty: In the Dark

  Chapter Eighty-One: The Nearest Equivalent

  Chapter Eighty-Two: The Last Heir

  Chapter Eighty-Three: All For You

  Chapter Eighty-Four: Chasm

  Epilogue: A Beginning

  Copyright

  About the Book

  When Mel, an Australian abroad, falls in love with Rufus, the archetypal Englishman, she has no idea what she’s letting herself in for. But it is only when their azure Mediterranean courtship is transported to the green fields of England that Melody’s doubts set in. For Rufus is heir to the thousand-year-old Bourton Allhallows estate, and Melody is soon painfully aware that, in his family’s eyes, an antipodean backpacker is far from the ideal wife.

  Trapped in a way of life she assumed had long vanished – awash in a stew of formal meals, unhampered snobbery, incomprehensible rules and crumbling masonry – Melody begins to fear for the future of her marriage. And when ancient and not-so-ancient secrets begin to emerge, she faces the disturbing realization that the stakes are far, far higher than she’d imagined . . .

  About the Author

  Serena Mackesy is a novelist, journalist and travel writer. Both her bestselling first novel, The Temp, and her second novel, Virtue, were published by Arrow to great critical acclaim. She lives in London.

  Also by Serena Mackesy

  The Temp

  Virtue

  SIMPLY HEAVEN

  Serena Mackesy

  For Anne Shore. Thank you, sweetheart.

  Acknowledgements

  The period of writing this book hasn’t been the easiest time and has left me critically aware of just how much of a team effort both writing and life are. As ever, I am indebted to Jane Conway-Gordon, who has yet again gone way beyond the remit of an agent in terms of support, encouragement, friendship and patience in the face of rampant self-pity: I honestly don’t know what I’d do without her. As I am, too, to each individual at Century and Arrow who has contributed their knowledge, skill and professionalism to the final product and beyond, but particularly to Kate Elton, whose judgement is unerring even if my acceptance of that is sometimes grudging. And to Henry Wickham and Sakis Tsikas for their Greek translation services, ancient and modern. And to Antonia Willis, Steve Delia, and Joe and Janet Camilleri for showing me the joys of Malta and the ecstatic weirdness that is the Birzebuggia Festa. The kids on the Block – you are crucial, and brilliant: may the froth on your cappuccino be always dusted with chocolate. To the following people: Ali M, Anne S, Beverley L, Bottomley (M), Brian D, Cathy F, Charlie H, Charlie S, Chloe S, Chris M, Claire G, Daddy, Diana B, Dido P, James O’B, Jo J-S, Joce M, Jonny L, Lucy McD, Mum, Matt W, Nik D, Venetia P, Will M: thank you, each of you, from the bottom of my heart. Finally, to Evil Princess Fifi: boing!

  Chapter One

  The Proverbial Thunderbolt

  People always ask us how we got together, and I suppose you would wonder, him being so conspicuously equipped with silver spoons and me your average ockerina – all thighs and vowels – and we always make a joke of it, say: ‘Oh, you know: I fished him out of the sea and he swept me off my feet.’ But you know? That was what actually happened. Only, you can’t describe that sudden rush of knowing in cocktail language. You can’t say to people: I was ripping my knees apart on this pockmarked limestone beach and I’d just given this guy mouth-to-mouth and, once he’d thrown up a couple of gallons of seawater, he touched me on the arm, just a gesture of gratitude, a simple touch, and it was like someone had attached electrodes to us and switched them on at the mains. It would have knocked me off my feet, for sure, if I’d been on them: I�
�ve never felt anything like it before, and I doubt I’ll ever feel it again. Not with anyone else, anyway.

  It was the same for him. We leaped apart like scalded sea-monkeys and crouched – well, huddled in his case – five or six feet apart, trying to make sense of what had just happened. And after a bit, once he’d done with the panting and the looking lean and glisteny with his dark hair dripping down over his suntan, he said: ‘Jesus. What the hell was that?’

  I said: ‘I think I just saved your life, mate?’ trying, you know, to make light of the situation, and he said: ‘No, I know. But what was that?’

  And I was doing a bit of panting of my own, I’ll tell you, and I wasn’t concentrating too well, because I was getting a rush similar to the one you get when you’re hanging over the edge of an extremely high cliff without a safety rope, so I said: ‘I don’t know. It’s got me beat. You mean you …?’ And he said: ‘Yes.’

  And then we looked a bit longer.

  I saw a man somewhere around my age and maybe a couple of inches shorter, which is pretty tall for the male population. And he had these deep brown eyes flecked with gold, and fringed with heavy, wet lashes that were so long they brushed his full, black eyebrows as he looked up. And he had a beaky nose and sharp cheekbones and a mouth that – I don’t know – looked brave. Like he’d been hurt a lot, but wasn’t going to give up, you know?

  Right now, those lips were slightly parted, revealing flashes of the even, not-so-white-you-don’t-believe-it teeth behind, the lower one starting to jut forward in the manner of one who wants to be kissed, and I knew it was an unconscious imitation of my own expression. I know. Crazy, isn’t it? But of course, I already had a pretty clear memory of what those lips felt like, having had my own pressed pretty firmly against them, and believe me, they’d felt pretty good. And, Jesus, the guy wasn’t even what you’d exactly call awake at the time, either.

  Eventually, he spoke.

  ‘Shall we try it again?’ he asked.

  ‘OK,’ I said. I reckoned that if we set off some sort of spontaneous human combustion scenario, at least we had the Med to jump into. And besides, now I’d got over the surprise, that electrical thing was something I wanted to feel again. Possibly for ever.

  ‘OK,’ he said, and sat up. I was suddenly, painfully, aware of just how, well, naked we both were – me in a bikini (I’d thrown my sundress and hat off sometime between dropping my sketchpad and diving headlong into the briny) and him in those baggy shorts English guys think of as swimming gear – and how surprisingly alone we seemed to be. You’d have thought that, Gozo being an island twelve kilometres one way and six the other, that maybe someone would have been around to witness it, but the golden desert landscape remained empty. And we each reached out and grasped the other by the upper arm, and – kablamm! – it happened again.

  Only, this time, we didn’t let go. The surge of electricity ran from his fingertips, up my arm – bang! – through my brain, down – wham! – through my torso, over the old Mappa Tassie, sizzled down my thighs and calves to the very ends of my toes and – zap! – straight back up and out through my fingers into him. And he was kneeling bolt upright, eyes half closed, and shaking as he felt it too. And I swear, each of us had developed those anti-gravity hairstyles you see on people walking past a supercomputer.

  Eventually, he opened his eyes and reached forward with his spare hand and cupped my face – crackle – and the back of my neck, and pulled me towards him. And my skin fizzed with pleasure at the touch, and I swear, if you’d been there you’d have seen St Elmo’s fire dance up and down our spines when our mouths touched.

  The next time I remember seeing beyond our bubble, the sun had dropped to almost the edge of the horizon, flushing the foreshore a thousand shades of scarlet, and the sea had turned to quicksilver. And there was the two of us, caked in sweat and salt and crumbled sandstone, each gazing with shock at the other and touching the other’s skin as though it was precious silk. This was way more than lust. I know about lust – I’m from Queensland, after all – and this was something else. The erotic charge of the near-death experience? Maybe. Or perhaps the proverbial thunderbolt.

  ‘Come home with me,’ he said, ‘please. You must come.’

  I followed him in a dream. Left everything on the beach, damnit – clothes, paints, sketchbook, hat, sarong, towel, everything. I barely remembered to snatch up my purse before I trailed in his wake, one hand still clasped loosely in another, up rough steps hacked into great sandstone breakers carved by the sea, across the wind-bleached tarmac to his 4WD, parked immediately in front of my own battered little hire car.

  We didn’t talk much. I think we were both still in shock. And speechless at the discovery that such urgent change can come upon you out of a blue summer day. I was thinking: either this is the craziest thing that’s ever happened to me, or the most romantic, or maybe both – and despite the heat pumping off the darkening landscape, I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself.

  He drove quickly and surely, brown arms and strong hands caressing the steering wheel, eyes fixed on the road. There was a sort of shyness between us – not embarrassment, not awkwardness – an unwillingness to look at each other. I put my heels up on the seat, stared at mellow stone walls, at stone-carved, shuttered balconies, at red plaster onion domes and grand carved doorways, at caper bushes and great trees of prickly pear. I must remember this, I thought, for ever: this is the night I found love. Love, or an unmarked grave. Only time will tell.

  ‘Where are you staying?’ he asked.

  ‘Xlendi,’ I replied. ‘You?’

  ‘Xewkija,’ he said. And took his hand off the gear stick and put it on my leg. Stroked the sensitive skin at the top of my thigh with his thumb and set off another paroxysm of shivering. He smiled, said: ‘There’s a jacket on the back seat.’

  I found it, pulled it on. Dirty cream linen with a gold silk lining and that peculiar smell that Englishmen’s jackets have: sort of sheep and rain and Granddad’s pipe tobacco. The lining felt good against my naked back. I hugged it round myself as we passed through Victoria, wound up through newly active evening streets. Hole-in-the-wall shops spilled tiny figures, dwarfed by the meat-fed tourists around them.

  Xewkija was quiet and cool, front doors thrown open to the evening air. He pulled in, creaked on the handbrake and turned to me. And the electricity jumped the gap between us.

  ‘You can turn back now,’ he said. ‘It’s OK. I’ll take you back …’

  I shook my head, no, ran a thumb down his cheek. He closed his eyes for a moment, butted against my hand.

  ‘Oh Jesus,’ he said, ‘if I don’t … I’ll …’

  I was out of the car like a scalded cat, leaning against the bonnet, jutting my hips, with my hands in the jacket pockets. And he was after me like a fox. Grabbed me round the waist and pulled me up an alleyway: blank sandstone walls and weeds growing bravely up from dusty cart-ruts. And he got me up against a wall, grinding into me, both of us all hands and mouths and fast, hot breaths, and I had my leg wrapped round his backside and he had a grip on my buttocks like a sheep-shearer on a ram. And I was going, ‘No, look, we can’t do it here, someone might …’ and thinking: ‘oh, God, this is … will you just FUCK ME NOW, YOU BASTARD? Can’t you see I’m DYING here?’

  And eventually, in a voice that was choked and hoarse, he said, come on, come on, and hauled me to a rough, studded wooden door in the wall. And he’s fumbling with keys and fumbling with me all at once, and I’m tearing at the tie on his shorts with my fingernails, and then the door suddenly falls open and we burst through it and I briefly catch sight of a courtyard and a couple of glass doors and some pots of bougainvillaea and geraniums, and a stone staircase leading up to the purple sky, and a huge stone table surrounded by large teak chairs, and then to be honest, I don’t see anything much but stars for a while.

  Chapter Two

  Rufus

  I come to in the small hours because someone somewhere has let off a fire
work. Which is fairly much par for the course. Making things explode is the Maltese national pastime. Peer in through a few garage doors here of a summer evening, and you’ll find at least one set of men huddled over a tub of gunpowder, cigs dangling from lower lips, scratching hairy backs in off-white vests as they plan some festa mayhem.

  I find myself curled up under a sheet in a huge room with a barrel-vaulted stone ceiling and a dozen niches, some the size of cupboards, some the size of shoeboxes, in the walls, the only bits of the room that have been plastered. And there’s this stranger, Rufus – I know that much – sleeping beside me, back pressed against my side and feet entangled with my own, breathing softly against his pillow.

  And my first thought is: strewth, Melody, girl, what have you got yourself into this time? He could have been an axe murderer for all you knew. And my next thought is: is this for real? Because, obviously, the backpacking experience has to involve some level of promiscuity if you like your naughties and have set out without a playmate, but this was way beyond naughties. This was, like, supersex. I feel stretched and pummelled and blissfully, dreamily washed over with satisfaction like someone’s come along and given me a lovely big shot of morphine.

  So my next thought is: I wonder how long it’s polite to leave him to sleep before I wake him up and see if he’s up for a spot more universe-expansion? But he looks so happy snuffling away there, and I suddenly feel shy. I mean. It makes you think, when you’ve spent half an hour with your ankles wrapped around someone’s neck before you’ve even learned their name.

  So then I realise that the inside of my mouth is as dry as a bone. Because, though we took time out for a ‘swim’ in the emerald-painted pool in the walled garden at the back of the house, and swallowed a fair amount of water in the process, neither of us has actually thought to rehydrate in any serious way since we got back. And in 40 degrees of heat, at that.

  My stranger-lover shifts slightly in his sleep, presses his face closer into the pillow and unwinds his leg from mine where the contact is making the both of us sweat like brumbies. I decide to take advantage of the opportunity, and very slowly, very quietly, lift my side of the sheet off my body and swing my feet to the floor.