Read an Excerpt

Kate's Progress

Severn House Publishers Ltd

The May sunshine was warm in the sheltered spot between the cottage and the garden wall. Kate was peacefully rubbing down a window frame with sandpaper and enjoying the warmth on her back when she was interrupted by a stern male voice behind her.

'Hey, you! You boy! What the hell d'you think you're doing?'

It's perhaps not the worst thing in the world to be taken for a boy, especially from the back. It suggests you have the slim boyish figure models aspire to; and to be fair, she was wearing androgynous jeans-and-sweatshirt, and had her hair tucked up in a beanie to keep the dust out of it. Kate, however, had often felt chagrined by her small size and lack of distinguishing frontal furniture (32B, hardly enough to make a cleavage), so it was with a scowl that she turned to see who was shouting at her.

She could only see the top half of the intruder over the garden wall as he stood in the road beyond. It was a tall man, in his thirties, well-built about the shoulders, with wavy dark hair. He was wearing the local uniform of a battered wax jacket, and held one of those tall walking-sticks that serious yompers carry, which Kate thought just plain pretentious.

Instead of answering, she walked towards him, flourishing the sandpaper. She saw the exact moment when he realized she was female, because his mouth made a soundless, 'Oh!' and he blushed a little under his all-weather tan.

'I thought you were trying to break in,' he said. 'We've had a lot of trouble with empty properties round here being vandalized.'

As an explanation it was pretty good – neighbourliness and good citizenship combined. Nothing one could object to. And beyond him, across the road, a black lab and an Italian greyhound were sniffing around on the grass verge, while two other dogs she couldn't see properly were running about in the bracken. Kate loved dogs and was always ready to give dog-owners the benefit of the doubt.

On the other hand, as an apology it lacked a certain tone. He didn't sound a bit sorry, actually, for having bellowed at her. In fact, he sounded almost indignant, as though she had deliberately tricked him, tried to make a fool of him. And his scowl hadn't abated.

He went on impatiently, as if he had the right to know, 'So what are you doing?'

None of your business, she thought. Instead of thanking him for his public-spirited concern, she said, somewhat snarkily, 'I own the place. Good enough for you, or must I break out some ID?'

'You most certainly do not own it,' he snapped. 'And I can tell you we don't tolerate squatters in these parts.'

'Squatters!' she exclaimed. 'You've got a cheek. I bought the place. Bought it, paid for it, got the deeds. If it's any of your business.'

He was staring at her as if he had never seen a girl before. Well, who knew, out here in the wilds of the country? These days she was pretty much a townie, used to a shortage of men: perhaps in the boonies there was the opposite problem. She stared back. His eyes, she noticed, were very blue. He wouldn't be bad looking, if he ever ran to any expression warmer than a frown.

He broke the eye-hold almost with a jerk, looking away over her shoulder at the cottage, and said, 'I don't believe you.'

'Are you calling me a liar?' she said indignantly.

'You obviously don't realize who I am,' he said.

'Why should I?' she snapped. 'What difference would that make?'

His eyes returned to her, and he gave her a grim, ironic quirk of the lips. 'Everyone knows everyone else in a country community like this. And I know you don't own this cottage.'

Why would I be rubbing down the windows if I didn't own the place? she thought. But she didn't say it. It was such a stupid argument that she tired of it suddenly. 'Well, much as I enjoy being insulted by complete strangers in my own garden,' she said, 'I have work to do. I suggest you continue this conversation with Stinner and Huxtable in Taunton.'

That got him. The mention of the estate agents evidently gave him pause. His glare became less certain. 'I shall check up, you know,' he said.

'Be my guest,' she said. She turned away and headed for her window again.

'Wait!' he said. And then, a little less imperiously, 'Look here —'

She turned and looked at him. He seemed puzzled now, rather than angry, which was a distinct improvement, and – just by the way – she noticed that he was, indeed, very handsome. From his posh accent, he was probably some local squirelet, used to the yokels tugging their forelocks, and county girls chasing him for his fortune.

'What?' she said impatiently.

'We seem to have got off on the wrong foot,' he began.

'You did,' she said.

He flushed a little. 'You must admit it looks fishy. I've heard nothing about Little's Cottage being for sale. And suddenly here you are, with a London accent —'

Oh, that was it, was it? The old 'incomer' phobia rearing its horrid head. 'So you conclude I'm a squatter,' she finished for him. 'Of course, all Londoners are criminals, it's a well-known fact. Or, just possibly, everyone in Somerset doesn't tell you everything. You haven't considered that possibility, have you?'

The slight softening hardened again. 'I shall find out what's going on, and then, I warn you, I shall be back.'

'I can't wait,' she muttered.

He called to the dogs and walked on. She watched him out of sight, and then went back to her window, feeling unsettled. She wasn't entirely satisfied with herself. Probably he had been motivated by the best of intentions, and she hadn't exactly been helpful or friendly.

But then, why did he have to go in so hard? He was hostile from the beginning. And he had said to her face that he didn't believe her, which was plain rude.

Yes, but it was important to get on with her neighbours in a place like this. Creating bad blood in a closed community was not the best idea.

But his whole attitude, putting her in her place, the lord looking down on the peasant ... Not to be tolerated!

Nice dogs, though. She'd always wanted a dog.

At this stage of her internal dialogue she addressed her window frame again, but found she'd lost the urge. She had so much to do she oughtn't to skive off, but sanding down is pretty boring work, and it was a fine day – how many of those do you get to the pound in England? Anyway, it was nearly lunchtime. She could walk down to the village and have a pint and a ploughman's at one of the two pubs, and have a chat to whoever was there. In a small community like this, she told herself wisely, it was important that she got to know the locals – in both senses of the word.

It wasn't exactly a mid-life crisis – Kate would hate to think she was halfway through her life already, when she was only twenty-eight. But it had been a turning-point. She just had to get away from the whole awful dating business before it destroyed her sunny personality completely. She and her friends/flatmates Lauren and Jess had been going through it together for years, ever since Kate first arrived wide-eyed in London at the age of twenty-one, and it didn't look like getting any better.

Where had all the good men gone? Her sister Sheila had found one, was married with the standard two children, and seemed to be blissfully happy with Ken – so happy Kate had taken to calling her 'Barbie'. Sheila was eight years older than her, the second eldest of the family (Denise, the eldest, was a nun), and it was tempting to think she had got the last marriageable man before the stocks ran out.

Ursula, the next after her, had dedicated herself to her career in the beauty industry, moved with it to California, and lived a life of high-powered singleness where work took the place of marriage, friends took the place of lovers, sex took the place of relationships, and the only men in her life were Rick, her GBF – Gay Best Friend – and her two male cockerpoos.

Aileen, who came between Kate and Ursula, had been seeing, and intermittently living with, the same man for ten years, since uni days, which Kate found infinitely depressing. Denny was good-looking in a sulky, James Dean sort of way, and amusing company when he was in the mood, but he was unreliable and commitment-phobic. Their relationship was up and down and on and off. They'd move in together and then he'd say he needed space and demand a sabbatical. They would have a period of happiness and then he would do something awful, like getting caught with another woman. Aileen kept taking him back, but Kate could not believe anything would ever come of it. Denny used her; and she let him, so why would he ever marry her? And would she really want to be married to a waster like him anyway?

Aileen apparently answered yes to that question; Kate said no. As soon as she finished university she had upped sticks, fled to London, shortened Kathleen to Kate, got a job and a flat, and breathed a sigh of relief at having escaped. She had thrown herself into the London scene and the dating world, and along with her new friends had experienced the inexplicable vagaries of the men out there.

Gradually she had lowered her expectations, ceased to look for Mr Right and trawled instead for Mr OK-he'd-do. Gradually her wide eyes had narrowed. She and Lauren and Jess had tried, they really had. In between the multiplicity of dates that never got past the first or second meeting, and the endless-seeming fallow patches, and the 'man diets' when the three of them had sworn to give up altogether, she had had three long relationships.

The first had been Oliver, or Mean, Moody and Magnificent as Lauren had dubbed him. He came under the heading of emotionally unavailable: they dated, but he never told her how he felt about her, was sparing of embraces, would never talk about their relationship, could never be brought to make any future plan. If she pressed him for response he grew more distant, punished her by not seeing her or answering her calls for days. She'd be tearful and believe it was all over, and then he'd ring up with a perfectly viable excuse for his silence (usually work-related) and ask her out again.

It went on for the best part of two years, until one day he calmly told her that he was getting married to a girl he had known all his life, the daughter of friends of his parents, whose father, coincidentally, was a partner in the accountancy firm he was hoping to join.

He hadn't even been two-timing her, so she had no excuse for face-saving fury. He had met this woman again by chance, and it had all happened very quickly. He had told Kate as soon as there was anything to tell. There was no deception.

And after all, he and Kate had never discussed marriage or any long-term plans, had they? It had been fun, that was all. He hoped they could remain friends.

It must have been a sort of rebound from Oliver that had led her to Andy. He was as emotionally available as a large, friendly puppy. He told her all the time that she was gorgeous, that he couldn't believe his luck, was free with his hugs and kisses and compliments, wanted to see her as often as possible and, though he was not a great conversationalist, never minded her phoning him up at work for a chat – a frivolity definitely verboten by Oliver.

The trouble with Andy was that he came in a package with his large, exuberant friends, chief among whom were Steve, Mick, and Scrogger. He was a sports correspondent for a newspaper, and sport was his whole life, particularly football, which he played on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings with the aforesaid trio of mates. When he wasn't playing it, he was attending football matches, or watching it on television or discussing it with his friends at the pub or on the sofa of her flat or his.

She tried to be interested in football, particularly at the beginning, and would stand on touchlines on freezing winter mud or with rain dripping from her nose, cheering as her breath formed clouds in front of her. Afterwards, in the pub, she learned to enjoy pints, and did her best to join in the conversation, comforted by Andy's big, warm arm around her shoulders and his evident pride in having captured her. But it was hard work to sustain an interest in the exclusively male subjects (when it wasn't sport, it was engines of one sort or another) and even harder work to get any comment she might make heard. They were all much taller than her (Andy called her 'Pixie', which she almost managed to like), and even if they did hear her, all the way down there, they would listen with a sort of embarrassed respectfulness, and then carry on as if she hadn't spoken.

It was even harder work when there were four or five of them sprawled around the sitting room, beer cans in hand, watching the footy on the television. They took up so much space. They made so much noise. They were so complete unto themselves. They would say thank you nicely when she brought them snacks or more cans, but otherwise they would hardly have noticed the Second Coming while the match was on, and for a goodish time afterwards as they dissected it.

And the more she saw of it, the more Kate was convinced that soccer was the most boring game ever invented. Every match followed the same pattern as every other one. If it weren't for the different strips, she reckoned the TV companies could have screened the same match over and over and saved themselves money – no-one would notice.

It was the approach of the World Cup that finally defeated her. She knew she could never survive it. And big, lovable, cuddly Andy – did he really distinguish all that much between her and his mates? He quite often said he loved her, but then he would say, 'Love ya, ya big poof,' to Steve and give him a bone-cracking one-armed hug, which was not dissimilar to his gestures of affection to her. He was a happy, friendly, simple soul, and he behaved much the same towards everyone.

And they rarely went out alone together. If they went to the pictures he would fall asleep, waking when the credits rolled to say, 'Fancy a pint? Mick and Scrogger will be down the Red Lion.' He didn't like eating out: restaurant tables and chairs had not been designed for people his size, and he seemed almost ill at ease with cutlery. He was like a trapped bear. They sometimes went for a nice walk, but it always ended at a pub which seemed miraculously to be showing a match on the big screen. Clubbing was sheer cruelty to animals – he was too self-conscious to dance, and hated the noise, standing hunched and miserable by the bar with a beer in his hand saying, 'No, you go on and dance. Don't mind me. I want you to have fun,' until she gave in and took him away. And then he'd say, 'Fancy a pint? Steve'll be down the Three Kings ...'

When she broke it off, he looked puzzled and unhappy, like a puppy or a toddler that doesn't know why it's being scolded, and she'd felt like Cruella de Vil. She even heard herself say, 'I hope we can still be friends.' But she remembered the World Cup, and knew it had to be done.

Which led to Mark, her most recent relationship, and the one that really hurt. Mark was in the same business as her, PR, and she met him at a press conference for a movie in which they both had actors. The attraction had been instant. He was only moderately good-looking – the fact that he was not mega-handsome was somehow reassuring – but he made up for it in charm. He was smartly dressed, intelligent and funny. When he first caught her eye during a particularly dire speech and winked and gave her a great urchin grin, she felt as though they were the only two people in the world who knew what was what. She had taken her eye off him for a moment, and when she looked again he was easing his way through the crowd to get to her side. They watched the rest of the speeches together, and when they had to part, to attend to their own celebs, he had made a date with her with flattering urgency.

He was everything her previous boyfriends were not. He was great company; he made her laugh; more than that, he really listened when she talked to him, and seemed to like as much as she did those long telephone chats that go anywhere and nowhere. He'd send her funny and sometimes mildly obscene emails and texts when she was at work, which made her snort inelegantly, so she'd have to pretend she'd been sneezing.

---

Excerpted from Kate's Progress by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. Copyright © 2013 Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. Excerpted by permission of Severn House Publishers Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---