Polly Read online

  So Miss Fenton went through the motions of being a teacher that night. She knew the film well, having seen it many times at university, and knew what to heckle and when to sing. But though she did so at all the opportune moments, gaining much admiration from the students in the process, there was no passion behind it and she felt no fun. She could have talked to Lorna, really she could. Really talked. She’d have liked that; Lorna too, hopefully. But she couldn’t because it was so noisy. And she was on duty.

  What is it, Polly? What, exactly, has unnerved you so?

  It feels too far to be safe.

  How do you mean?

  It’s new. I’ve never not been near him. We’ve rarely done things apart. ‘While the cat’s away’, hey?

  How about ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’, surely?

  More like ‘out of sight, out of mind’. I must be losing mine. I don’t know, do you know I just feel – uneasy. All of a sudden. I suppose I just presumed all to be so secure. After five years, you slip into an easy routine. Or is it complacency? I’m not going to say ‘yes’. I’d better not. Not for a while.

  Power game?

  Safety net.

  Fighting sleep, Polly forced images of Max to assault her instead. Max drunk. Max stoned. Max having a brilliant time without her. Max necking someone, tall and blonde. Max’s mind being utterly devoid of Polly.

  She’d never done this to herself before.

  She’d never seen Max like that.

  What are you doing, Fenton? That’s not Max – not Max at all.

  Look what Sunday has brought – a breathtakingly beautiful morning. Polly slept well, eventually, and her fears that smiling would elude her entire stay have proven unfounded: she grins broadly at the morning. Dew covers the lawn in a sweeping kiss and the very tips of just one or two leaves on each maple tree wink a crimson preview to Polly. New England. Vermont. Fall. How lucky.

  Trading Old for New.

  ‘Just you wait,’ says Kate, pushing a mug of erbal tea (most definitely no ‘h’) into Polly’s hands, ‘another four weeks and man, you’ll weep!’ They sip and sigh awhile.

  ‘All set?’ Kate asks.

  ‘Won’t I need a hammer?’ asks Polly. Kate laughs and gives her a quick, spontaneous hug.

  ‘Nope!’ she declares, ‘that’s for the guys. You know there won’t be one nail or screw used, just oak pegs?’

  How could Polly know? She’s never been to a house raising before.

  Can a scent be deafening? Technically, probably not; grammatically, debatable too. However, it occurs to Polly, as she and Kate stride towards the site, that it is the most appropriate word to use.

  The scent of pine is deafening.

  Definitely; it is deafening and divine.

  The pine, not yet seen, has been felled, planed and is ready to be made into a house.

  From the right-hand fork at the end of Main Street, a small, well-maintained lane leads off it to the right. It continues severely up hill; over the petticoats and on to the very skirt of Mount Hubbardtons. Not that John Hubbardton was a cross-dresser, of course; it’s merely the price he must pay for having a mountain previously known as Sister Mountain renamed in his honour. After half a mile, a dirt track leads off the lane and it is here that we catch up with Polly and Kate. Kate is telling her all about Jojo Baxter but Polly can hardly hear her for the scent of pine. She closes her eyes and breathes deeply. It’s so heady. She stumbles as she goes. Kate links arms with her. For support.

  ‘Are these my Queens of Tarts?’

  ‘Hey Jojo!’ Kate sang, loading all the tarts on to Polly’s already laden arms so she could embrace Jojo. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Good, good. You must be Polly? Hi there, I’m Jojo. I’m starving and we’ve hardly gotten started. Save my soul and send me to heaven: blueberry, cherry and apple? Queens of Tarts, queens!’

  Polly fell for Jojo immediately and knew instinctively that they’d see eye to eye – not least because they were absolutely the same height.

  There were people and pine everywhere. By the time Polly had laid the pies on one of three trestles set up in a rambling shack on the edge of the clearing, the population on Jojo’s site seemed to have doubled. What a crowd! Adults and children and most ages represented therein. The site for the house had already been prepared in the form of a large, rectangular platform; children were scampering over it; women were pacing it, imagining the kitchen and my! what an awesome bedroom; men were analysing it with tape measures, spirit levels and the failsafe eye. There were three enormous wooden ‘A’ frames; one lay on the platform, the other two at either end. Nearby, stacks of pine in differing configurations were planked up in neat piles six foot high. A single sheet of white paper, tacked to one plank, had a list of ten, polite points. This was how you raised a house. As easy as apple pie.

  This is America, thought Polly, venturing nearer to the platform and absorbing all surrounding her as she went, not just the pine and the fact that folk build houses for their friends in a day. No; alongside the pies and pumpernickel, the accents and the stunning scenery, this enormous sense of spirit embodies America, surely.

  Wasn’t all of this a film? Harrison Ford?

  The house raising might well have been staged just for an English tourist. But just as Polly was neither ignored or stared at, nor was she over-welcomed. She felt at ease. She was not a tourist, she was not at the cinema. People allowed her to occupy a space amongst them. She fitted in just fine.

  All America is here: wholesome kids, caring women, buddy-buddy men, Boston beans baking deep in that pit over there, the children’s tree house with the Stars and Stripes. I hear terminology I wrongly thought would irritate me, I smell the gargantuan feast that will revive the pioneers mid-morning. I baked a pie. I smell pine. I’m part of this. I belong.

  The first ‘A’ frame was aligned, hauled and coaxed into its place with little ado.

  ‘Hold it right there, Ed.’

  ‘Easy! Easy!’

  ‘Up she goes. She’s up.’

  ‘Way to go, guys!’

  While the children now played in the trees and by the stream, the women chatted and marvelled and ensured that beakers were overflowing with fruit juice. The builders were all voluntary – Clinton and Jackson and a couple of other Hubbardton teachers amongst them. There were also Jojo’s friends and family who had travelled across the state, some even down from Canada, to be a part of the day. There were Jude and Ed, her hillbilly-looking nephews whose sensitive and polite demeanour was utterly at odds with their thick necks and thatched hair, their calloused, stout hands and seam-stretching thighs. Nearby, a couple of elderly men in great shape (who actually didn’t look silly in their checked shirts and worn jeans), spoke about e-mail and software while they flung ropes about like dab hands. A goofy teenager set up a plumb-line and cried ‘Yo!’ triumphantly while Clinton and Jackson rigged up a ‘come-along’ to secure the correct tautness between struts. A small army of men wore tool belts slung like holsters; whipping out hammers with a speed that would have done John Wayne proud, or twirling their tools with all the flair of a rock-and-roll drummer. Everyone had a job to do, everyone knew their place. Overseeing the entire operation was a small, wiry man, the architect and only paid member of the team, bearded strangely minus a moustache, who darted nimbly around the growing skeleton, heaping praise, advice and instructions with a softly spoken voice. All three ‘A’ frames were now in place and point four on the list had been reached.

  Every strut, joist and plank had a home in either a notch, a wedge or a grip in a neighbouring plank, strut or joist. Corresponding holes in the wood allowed for oak pegs to further secure the bond. A jigsaw puzzle the size and shape of a house. The hillside rang with the song of chatter, of laughter and of knock, knock, knock on wood. Enter two carpenters, father and son: Bob and Mikey McCabe. Polly had a doughnut in one hand and a small offcut of pine in the other and she was intermittently sniffing the two when she first caught sight of Mikey
. Tall and lithe in physique, his dark hair long. He had the most beautiful forearms, ditto his strong, muscled legs with their masculine smattering of dark hairs. His face was so handsome it could well be illegal.

  Polly bit into the wood, hard, and thought to herself that English doughnuts were so much softer and more tasty and who on earth was that scrumptious man and he’s taken his T-shirt off, oh my God.

  She was utterly taken aback. She had no control over her eyes as they darted to and from this figure. Her heart pounded. She was horrified and exhilarated.

  But I don’t look twice at normal men.

  Normal?

  I mean, real-life blokes. Only Max. For the past five years. Apart from film stars – who don’t count.

  She let the doughnut fall to the ground as if it were an off-cut of pine, and she placed the offcut of pine, teethmarks and all, on to a plate of doughnuts.

  Polly Fenton doesn’t look twice. But I can’t keep my eyes off him.

  ‘Isn’t this great!’ squeezed Jojo, at her side.

  ‘Super duper,’ agreed Polly in fine style, half relieved to be led away from this apparent danger zone, half ruing the fact that stirring the beans prevented visual access to Mikey McCabe.

  ‘He’s out of sight,’ she lamented softly to the great saucepan as she sat on her heels over the pit.

  ‘Isn’t he just!’ colluded Kate cautiously but with a skew smile. ‘Outa sight. Totally.’

  ‘I meant,’ fumbled Polly, immensely uncomfortable and almost lost for words, ‘I meant – absolutely nothing. Nothing at all.’

  Kate doffed her head and departed with a smile that was kind. And wise. And something else too.

  Outa sight, Polly twanged to herself.

  Max is out of her mind.

  She is totally engrossed in the sensation of the present.

  SEVEN

  ‘Hey there,’ he said, bowling over to her at lunch-time with an easy smile, ‘I’m Mikey.’

  A warm, firm handshake.

  Look at his neck. His Adam’s apple. Shoulders. Chest.

  No don’t.

  ‘Hullo,’ she responded, ‘I’m Polly.’ Desperate to be demure and disinterested. Failing.

  Fight the smile.

  Failing.

  Am I blushing?

  Yes.

  ‘From England, hey?’

  ‘Yes, from Old Blighty,’ Polly enunciated. He nodded and smiled, displaying perfect white teeth behind full, deep red lips. The morning’s exertion had had superb consequences for his appearance; his hair was damp and tousled and scraped hastily into a pony tail while sweat and sawdust gave a subtle glisten to his body and had made his eyes watery and dark. Polly tried not to stare and hoped sincerely that her pupils were not dilating visibly. If they were (they were), he was too well mannered to acknowledge it.

  The house was all but finished by four o’clock. The roof was slatted and watertight. There were no side walls at the moment as Jojo, predictably, had run out of money. However, even in its skeletal state it was stunning. It was obvious what a gorgeous home it was going to be when complete; occupying this spectacular position in the lie of Hubbardtons, overlooking the main cluster of houses of Hubbardtons and just a twenty-minute walk for Jojo to her classes at Hubbardtons.

  The little architect started a round of applause when the job was done, which was followed by liberal high-fiving and unabashed hugging. The men then jumped from the structure and stood back to look on it, nodding and congratulating each other and themselves. They finished the last of the beans and made another inroad into the batch of pies before disappearing to their pick-ups and returning with fiddles. They played until dusk. Polly counted seven violins as she tapped her toes with her mouth agape. There were two bonfires. She sat by Kate at the smaller. Mikey McCabe was playing his fiddle around the other; jigging and twisting, turning and stamping. He had jeans on. But Polly could clearly see his legs beneath them. She really couldn’t take her eyes off him. She couldn’t really. He was magnificent.

  Polly ate little at supper for she was still full from lunch. She washed up diligently and made tea for Kate, Clinton and Charle(s).

  ‘I have a slight headache,’ she said, swiping her brow with the back of her hand so that she covered her eyes as she spoke, ‘I think I’ll take a stroll.’

  ‘You want to wait till I’ve finished my tea?’ offered Kate.

  ‘I think I’ll go right now if you don’t mind,’ Polly declined politely, ‘I must nip it in the bud.’

  A headache? A stroll? But Polly is positively stomping along Main Street, forking right, then right again. Springing through the petticoats then climbing up on to the skirts of Hubbardtons.

  No moon. No need.

  I must nip it in the bud.

  Turn right.

  The house, pale yellow-pink in night light, still smelling divine.

  ‘Hey! You came.’

  ‘Mikey.’

  ‘You came.’

  ‘I can’t do this.’

  ‘You’re here.’

  Mikey was leaning against one of the corner posts of the house. Polly climbed on to the platform and walked over to him. He was still in jeans and now wore a polarfleece top to ward off the chill of the September night. He had her locked into his eyes. She could not get away. Not even if she had tried.

  ‘I,’ Polly said, as Mikey straightened up and walked over to meet her, bang in the centre of the house, ‘can’t do this.’

  ‘Do what?’ he asked softly, his lips parted and damp. ‘Do this?’ he enquired as he stroked her hair and brought her hand to touch his. ‘Or this?’ he asked, pulling her closer and breathing a kiss on to her forehead. ‘Or is it this,’ he wondered aloud as he tipped up her chin and lowered his face over hers, ‘that you can’t do?’ Their lips were less than an inch apart. She could feel his breath over her cheek. His eyes were so close, so dark and deep. She could hardly breathe. ‘Is it this that you can’t do,’ he said, without the question mark, as he sank his lips against hers. He flicked his tongue. It was surprisingly cold against her top lip. She really could not breathe. As she gasped for air, he plunged his tongue deep into her mouth where it immediately leapt about, sweeping across the underside of her teeth, pressing at the roof of her mouth, searching out her tongue and pulling it into a frantic dance with his. Her arms were about his shoulders.

  How did they get there?

  She was kissing with a hunger that umpteen apple pies could not diminish. Mikey pulled away and placed his hands on his hips.

  ‘Well, girl, it sure looks like you can, indeed, do this.’

  Polly could not speak, let alone protest, because her voice, it seemed, was only for gasping and her heart was in her mouth anyway. Simultaneously, it was also beating hard and fast between her legs. Mikey came close again, encircled one hand around Polly’s waist and pushed the other up under her crotch. He pressed and rubbed and as he did so, the seam of her jeans massaged her clitoris. She could have fainted. Instead, she moaned and swayed, closed her eyes and tensed her thighs as he grazed her neck with his teeth. He took his hand away and cupped her right breast, suddenly pinching hard at the nipple. Now they weren’t kissing. They weren’t saying anything. They were breathing heavily, gorging on each other’s faces.

  ‘Christ,’ Mikey said hoarsely, scooping Polly against himself, bucking his groin gently against her. Automatically, she travelled her hand down his body and felt his erection defiant through denim. She rubbed him and squeezed along the impressive length of his cock while they stared at each other. They ate at each other’s mouths again.

  A noise. Footsteps.

  ‘Hallo?’

  Jojo! Quick! Into the trees.

  ‘Hallo?’

  They watched as Jojo clambered aboard her new house and walked round it in a slow waltz of sorts.

  ‘Hi there, little house!’ they heard her repeat over and over as she circumnavigated her domain. She didn’t stay long. They neither resented nor blamed her for coming. They�
��d have done the same, they agreed, if it was their house built on this beautiful plot of land. Jojo walked away, singing and skipping as she went. Mikey had his back to a tree and pulled Polly against him but facing away from him. She pushed her arms back so she could hold on to the belt loops of his jeans and steady herself. It caused her body to arch forward and gave unlimited access to Mikey’s hands. He felt along her stomach, slipped his fingers down the front of her jeans as far as he could reach and then slid them under her knickers. He could not reach far enough, despite her wriggling, so he cupped and fondled both her breasts instead and then encircled her neck with his hands, squeezing, quite tightly. It felt dangerous. It was. Wasn’t it?

  The ground was unbelievably soft. Mikey had laid her down on it, removed her boots and jeans arid placed his fleece and his shirt under her body. He was stepping out of his jeans, looming over her in white jockey shorts, his erection holding out the fabric like the mast of a marquee. He straddled her, kissed her and then set to work on each of her nipples in turn, while she tried to reach his cock which was tantalizingly beyond her stretch. God she wanted him. All of him. Inside her. She bucked her body up and sat with her face against his stomach, his cock stiff between her breasts. She had a hand on each buttock and started, teasingly slowly, to inch his underpants down. The shaft of his penis sprang out of the fabric, his balls still concealed.

  ‘Polly,’ he murmured, ‘God, you’re something else.’ Slowly she lowered her mouth over his cock, making sure he could feel her hot breath over it before her lips touched down.

  ‘Polly,’ his voice was rising with his excitement. She kissed the very tip of him with the lightest of lips. Then she gulped down as much of him as would reasonably fit.

  ‘Polly.’

  Gosh, his voice was high. What power!