Predictably, the Fen bush telegraph had been in full swing since I’d walked out of the pub. It turned out that Jim had been keeping a close eye on proceedings and, having seen me leave, had then found Gavin and dragged him out of the gents and back to the bar with his trousers around his ankles.
Anna, pale and wide-eyed, with Jamie at her side, enlightened me about all of this before I was even properly out of Gabe’s truck.
‘Jim phoned here in a right state,’ she said, her tone a mix of anger and shock, ‘and as Mick had just managed to get the Land Rover battery sorted, he headed off to find you.’
‘But I didn’t need finding,’ I said, rubbing her back to calm her down. ‘I had my guardian angel on standby.’
Gabe looked over at me and winked before releasing Bran from the confines of the back seat. His unexpected appearance had really saved the day, as well as what little dignity I had left.
‘But are you really all right?’ Jamie frowned.
‘Yes,’ I swallowed, with a nod to Gabe, ‘I’ve been well looked after.’
‘Gabe!’ shouted Jamie, only just realising who I was referring to. He rushed around and pulled his pal into a heartfelt man-hug. ‘I might have known you’d be on-hand to rescue a damsel in distress.’
I wasn’t sure I would have assigned myself that particular label, especially now the old Hayley was back out of her box, but I was willing to let him off – for now.
‘But what on earth are you doing here so early?’ Jamie continued. ‘And who is this?’ he said gesturing to Bran.
‘You didn’t get my letter, then?’ Gabe asked, after introducing his canine friend.
‘Letter?’ Jamie frowned, roughly rubbing the dog’s ginormous head.
‘Hayley didn’t think it had been delivered.’
‘Come on,’ said Anna, taking me tenderly by the hand and leading me back to the hall. ‘Let’s leave them to it while you fill us in on what’s happened.’
‘Us?’ I asked doubtfully.
I wasn’t sure I was up to a full inquisition.
‘Just Molly and Dorothy,’ she elaborated. ‘We’ve been worried sick ever since Jim called.’
‘Hayley!’ Jamie called after us before we had moved all that far.
‘Yeah?’
‘Are you absolutely sure you feel all right?’
‘Yes,’ I swallowed, clearing my throat. ‘I’m OK. You boys can go into town and castrate him tomorrow.’
He gave me the double thumbs up and turned back to Gabe.
‘Catherine and Angus went up to bed ages ago,’ Anna carried on. ‘We didn’t think we should wake them until we had all the facts and you were home safe and sound.’
‘There’s no point waking them at all,’ I told her. ‘What’s done is done.’
Once inside, Molly enveloped me in another incense-scented hug, and Dorothy went into cocoa-and-crumpet overdrive.
‘So,’ she said, once she’d made sure we all had something to eat and drink, irrespective of whether we wanted it or not. ‘What on earth happened?’
‘Jim’s phone call was a little on the confusing side,’ frowned Anna.
I warmed my hands around the mug and took a deep breath. I knew there was no point in explaining only what had happened at the party. The other rumours, which I had tried so hard to ignore, were bound to make their way out to the hall eventually, so rather than pretending they didn’t exist, I thought I’d get it over with all at once.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘as you know, Gavin and I have – had – been dating since the spring. But according to local gossip, he’s managed to sleep with at least one other woman during that time, and tonight, in the gents’ loos at the pub, he decided to go for the double. In fact, given what I had the misfortune of overhearing, I now know it wasn’t the first time he’d been with this woman since we’d got together, either.’
My three friends sat in silence and I reached for the chocolate spread.
For a few seconds, I entertained the idea that Gavin’s need to slake his sexual thirst elsewhere was because I didn’t know how to satisfy him, but I quickly banished that thought. This was Gavin’s problem, not some failing on my part. Had I been less convinced of that I probably would have fallen completely apart, undone by what I would have imagined was my own inadequacy. But I knew what I was doing in the bedroom department.
‘Well, I for one . . .’ Anna eventually began before stopping herself.
Her furious expression suggested that perhaps the rumours had reached further than the edges of the town after all, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to tell me.
‘How long have you known about these rumours, Hayley?’ Molly asked.
I couldn’t be sure if she had heard them before or not.
‘For a while,’ I sighed. ‘Although, until tonight, I’d tried to convince myself it was all just idle gossip.’
‘But it isn’t,’ said Anna bitterly. ‘Is it?’
‘Nope,’ I said. ‘Afraid not. The lap dancer came first – no pun intended. I found that out courtesy of the Facebook page his mate created to share the more sordid details of his stag do. I thought it was just silly boys’ banter at the time, but after what I heard tonight, I’m certain it was true.’
Dorothy tutted and blew her nose noisily on the cotton hanky she always carried in her apron pocket.
‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ She sniffed. ‘And more to the point, why did you put up with it?’
‘Yes,’ I sighed, ‘I was in love. You know as well as I do that I’d fallen for him, hook, line and sinker. I had hoped he was the dramatic love Molly had predicted and, in a way, I suppose he was.’
Truth be told, I couldn’t believe my luck when he’d hung back at the hall that day to ask me out. The fittest guy in Wynbridge had shown an interest in me and I was flattered. I had fallen headfirst out of three-month flings and straight into what I thought was a committed relationship. Dad had never stopped reminding me how lucky I was to have landed someone like Gavin, given my reputation, and I had believed him. I had clung to my good fortune and waved goodbye to rational common sense.
‘And we thought he felt the same way about you,’ Molly said severely. ‘The way he carried on, we thought he worshipped the ground you walked on.’
I had thought that myself. He had made me feel Disney-princess worthy. The clever, cunning sod.
‘I never would have encouraged you to go out with him if I’d known,’ said Anna. ‘I had no idea what sort of man he really is, until . . .’
I knew she was going to say until she’d heard the rumours but I didn’t want her blaming herself so I stopped her.
‘You can’t blame yourself,’ I told her firmly. ‘I was the one who started up with him. I was the one who believed he had grown out of playing the field and was ready to settle down.’
Given that he’d whisked me away for a romantic weekend by the sea with the sole intention of proposing, and had slipped a diamond on my finger under the light of the full moon, it was hardly surprising that I had believed him when he looked deep into my eyes and told me he wanted to commit.
Had he worked out by then exactly when his cock-wandering cut-off point would be? I wondered. Probably not.
Faced with the cold, hard facts, I daresay he was as addicted to having risky sex in public places as my father was to his online roulette wheel.
‘I suppose,’ I carried on. ‘I suppose I imagined that my relationship with Gavin was destined to be as wonderful as yours and Jamie’s, Anna. I’d watched the pair of you together and made the mistake of thinking I was heading for the same place. I just ended up trusting the wrong bloke to make the journey with, that’s all.’
Anna blinked away her tears and I leant across the table and squeezed her hand. It wasn’t her fault that I had tried to re-create something for myself that she had so successfully managed. Perhaps my father was right, perhaps given my reputation, the terrible things I had allowed to happen in the past were destined to dog me for ever. This time I’d been well and truly bitten on the backside.
‘Better luck next time, hey?’ said Jamie as he, Gabe and Mick, who had been called home before he had a chance to fell my ex-fiancé, filed in, catching the tail-end of the conversation.
‘No way,’ I said firmly, releasing Anna’s hand and sitting up straighter. ‘That’s me done. I’m not setting myself up to be some bloke’s doormat again.’
‘We aren’t all like that,’ said Gabe.
‘Well, I’ve been publicly chewed up and spat out now,’ I snapped. ‘So, I’d be an idiot to risk it happening again, wouldn’t I?’
‘Sorry,’ he said, his shoulders hunched. ‘I didn’t mean—’
‘No,’ I sighed, ‘I’m sorry. I know not all men are cockwombles, I just seem to have an uncanny knack of attracting the ones who are. Thank you for the lift, by the way, and thank you, Mick, for rushing to town to look for me.’
‘No problem,’ he shrugged.
I knew, had he found me, it would have been an awkward drive back to the hall. Mick was a man of few words when it came to affairs of the heart, but I was sure he would have found it nigh on impossible not to mention the concerns he had always had about Gavin.
‘And who on earth is this?’ gasped Molly, when she spotted Bran loitering behind his new master.
The next few minutes were swallowed up with introductions and explanations. It was a welcome interruption from the evening’s embarrassing drama, which had changed the course of my future.
I took another look at my phone. Still nothing from Gavin.
Was that because he really didn’t care about what he’d done, or because Jim and his pals had strung him up, naked and tarred, to the nearest tree?
‘It was pandemonium back at the pub,’ said Mick, shaking his head. ‘By the time I got there, Jim had pretty much thrown everyone out on to the street.’
‘Oh dear,’ I said, trying not to imagine how difficult my next trip into town was going to be. With such a rumpus going on, there wouldn’t be a single Wynbridge resident who didn’t know what had happened. ‘Evelyn won’t like that, will she? The bar takings will be down.’
‘Actually,’ said Mick, rubbing his stubbly chin, ‘she seemed to be all for it.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, she was pelting one lot with what looked like eggs.’
I let out a snort of laughter.
‘Hard-boiled,’ Mick went on, encouraged by my reaction.
‘I’m going to take Gabe over to the cottage and get the wood burner going,’ said Jamie, wiping tears of laughter from his face as he reached for the keys which hung on the rack with all the others next to the Aga.
‘In that case,’ I said, standing up, ‘I’ll go and grab the towels and linen.’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Dorothy. ‘You stay where you are. We need to decide what we’re going to do with you tonight before you start worrying about making up beds for anyone else.’
Part of me felt duty bound to go home and explain to Mum what had happened, but Anna’s suggestion was too enticing to turn down. She decided that, given everything I’d been through, I deserved one night of cosseting in the Rose Room, at the very least. This was the prettiest bedroom in the hall, complete with a luxurious en suite, and when she first came to stay, it had been hers. Hanging from the bed were drapes made from the same fabric as the curtains, and the little sofa in front of the open fire gave the room a sophisticated yet cosy finish. The old Hayley would have said it was almost worth catching Gavin mid-shag for a night nestled under its eaves.
‘I’m so so sorry this has happened,’ said Molly, kissing me lightly on the cheek.
‘I was going to say you could have gazed into your crystal ball and warned me,’ I joked, ‘but then I realised that, actually, you sort of had. That last tarot reading you did for me said love was going to feature dramatically in my life this year, didn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ she said, sounding wary, ‘but this isn’t quite the interpretation I had in mind when I read the cards.’
‘Me neither,’ I swallowed.
‘Do you think you’ll give him another chance?’ she surprised me by asking.
‘Well, he did say to the girl he was with tonight that this was going to be the last time.’
‘Hayley!’ gasped Anna. ‘You wouldn’t really go back to him now, would you?’ The outrage in her face almost made me laugh out loud.
‘Not after something like this,’ joined in Molly, wrinkling her pretty nose in disgust. ‘And at your engagement party! You wouldn’t want to be with a man who thinks it’s all right to treat you this way simply because you hadn’t stood up in church yet, would you?’
‘Calm down, you silly pair,’ scolded Dorothy, who had realised I was only teasing, ‘at this rate you’ll wake Catherine and Angus.’
‘Sorry,’ they said together.
‘Not five minutes ago you heard Hayley say that she was eschewing all men, didn’t you?’
The pair nodded and came quietly around the table to escort me upstairs.
‘I bet that if I’d gone through with it, I’d have found Gavin in the vestry on our wedding day giving it one last go with one of the bridesmaids,’ I told them as they led me up to the Rose Room with the promise of a muscle-unclenching bath.
‘Hey!’ said Anna. ‘I was hoping to be one of your bridesmaids.’
‘And me,’ joined in Molly. ‘And believe me, I wouldn’t go near Gavin with his longest scaffolding pole.’
‘Well, never mind,’ I muttered, stifling a yawn. ‘I’m sure I can find other uses for the pair of you.’
‘Maybe,’ Anna suggested, ‘Molly has a spell somewhere that will make his thing . . .’
‘Don’t even go there,’ cut in my craft-loving friend. ‘Revenge is never as sweet as you imagine it will be.’