“You came back!” Irene’s delighted voice chimes in, and I turn to see her hurrying over. “How lovely!” To my horror, she turns to me and mouths, “Very striking!” in a totally unsubtle way.
Oh my God. Could we be more uncool?
“So. Um…What brings you here, Craig?”
“I live here now,” he says in the same leisured, easy way.
“You live here?” I say in astonishment.
“I’ve rented Lapwing Cottage.” He addresses Suze. “I’m your tenant.”
“Oh.” I can see the light dawning on Suze’s face. “I didn’t know Lapwing Cottage had been rented out!”
Trust Suze not to know she’s rented out a cottage on her own estate. She and Tarkie have got so much property and investments and stuff between them, she can’t keep track. We were once eating lunch at a local café and they kept bringing us complimentary slices of cake and being really nice to us. We had no idea why—until Suze suddenly realized that she was the landlord, she’d just forgotten.
“Is it OK?” she adds anxiously. “If there are any problems, talk to Gordon, our estate manager; he runs all that kind of thing.”
“It’s great,” says Craig. “It’s charming. Old world. Rustic.”
“How did you know I work here?” I demand.
“One of those crazy small-world things,” he says easily. “I rented the cottage online. Wanted a bolt-hole from London. A place to write songs. Chill out, you know? Then I’m in the village shop getting some supplies and I see a postcard: For sale, three garden spades, never used, apply Becky Brandon, née Bloomwood. I think to myself, There can’t be two Becky Bloomwoods. So I ask the guy and he tells me you work here. What are the odds?”
“Wow,” breathes Suze.
“So I have a question,” Craig adds, fixing me with his dark gaze. “Three garden spades?”
“They were on sale,” I say, feeling a bit defensive, “so I bought a few. Our garden’s quite big and I thought we might need several. Only it turned out we don’t.”
“Sounds like you.” He looks amused. “Well, I must be going. Nice to see you, Becky. We should have a drink sometime. What have you been up to all these years?”
“Oh…er…” My mind has immediately gone blank. What have I been doing all this time? I can’t think of a single thing. “Loads of stuff,” I say feebly. “You know.”
“Cool.” He nods. “You’ve got a kid, I hear.”
“Yes, a daughter. Minnie.”
“Nice.” He turns to Suze. “One more question. Would it be OK if I hired a hot tub for the garden?”
“A hot tub?” Suze looks taken aback.
“I have a thing for hot tubs.”
He smiles, showing his dazzling new teeth, and I have an immediate vision of him in a hot tub with his hair all wet and glistening and his chest all hairy and Ross Poldark-y.
I mean, he never used to look Ross Poldark-y, but I bet he does now.
“A hot tub,” says Suze, sounding utterly flustered. “Gosh. Of course! I mean, we don’t usually, but…if you want…”
“Cool.” He nods again. “And I’ll be having a Christmas party, I should think. I’ll send you both invites.”
“Oh!” says Suze. “Thanks!”
“Well, see you.” He lifts a hand in farewell and heads out of the shop with a lope. He didn’t used to walk like that. He’s picked it up from somewhere.
I look at Suze, who breathes out.
“Wow,” she says again.
“Yes,” I say, still feeling a bit flabbergasted. “Well, there you go. That’s my ex.”
“He’s really cool.” She eyes me suspiciously. “Bex, were you really cool at uni?”
I’m tempted to say, “What are you talking about? I’m really cool now!” But this is Suze I’m talking to.
“I was a tiny bit cool,” I say honestly. “Like, for about half a term.”
“Were you in the band too?”
“I…um…”
I clear my throat, trying to decide how to answer. The band is actually a sore point, because I should have been in it. I bought this amazing pink bass guitar and I learned loads of notes, and Craig said I could have a go. But after the first rehearsal the rest of the band ganged up and said I wasn’t good enough. It was so unfair. They wouldn’t even let me play the tambourine.
“I was his creative inspiration,” I say at last. “It was pretty collaborative. Good times,” I add in a careless rock-chick manner.
“So why did you two break up?” says Suze, agog.
“The band got a record deal and they dropped out of uni to make an album.”
“No way!” Suze’s hand flies to her mouth. “That’s amazing! Would I know it?”
“Well, no,” I admit. “What happened was, they all went off to this place in Devon to record it—”
“Did you go too?” interrupts Suze.
“No.” I feel an old flicker of resentment. “Mum and Dad wouldn’t let me drop out. Anyway, they went off to make this album, but they kept fighting about it. And then one of them hit another one and the police got called. So then all their parents drove down and made them stop recording and go back to uni.”
“Oh,” says Suze, looking disappointed. I can tell she was hoping for an ending more along the lines of “And then they sold out Wembley!”
“Craig had a massive row with his parents,” I continue. “He refused to go back to Bristol. And then the band fell apart.”
“What did Craig do?”
“Took a year off and went to Manchester. But by then I’d already broken up with him.”
“Because of the band,” supplies Suze, a little breathlessly. “Because they all thought you were Yoko.”
“Kind of.” I hesitate, feeling I should be honest. “Also, he wasn’t very hot then. In fact, he was a bit annoying.”
We’ve talked quite enough about my old boyfriend, I decide, so I move away to adjust a display of sweaters in a businesslike manner. But Suze follows me, oblivious.
“And now here he is, living in Letherby,” she says wonderingly. “That must be weird for you.”
“No it’s not.”
It is a bit, but I’m not admitting that.
“It must be a little weird,” persists Suze.
“It’s not weird at all,” I say firmly. “Why would it be weird?”
“I mean, he’s quite different from Luke,” muses Suze, ignoring my protestations. “Are you going to go to his Christmas party?”
“Dunno,” I say after a pause. “Are you?”
“Of course!” she says eagerly. “We have to go! I bet it’ll be awesome, all musicians and cool people.”
At that moment there’s a clatter as a customer knocks over a pile of toffee tins, and we abandon the conversation. And as I’m stacking them back up, I try to absorb this strange new fact of my life. Craig Curton is living in Letherby. And he looks so different! His arms. His hair! It’s so swooshy and thick, and that stubble really suits him….
By mistake I knock over the toffee tins again, and as Suze looks round I hastily say, “Oops!”
“Distracted, Bex?” says Suze, lifting her eyebrows meaningfully, and I lift my chin in dignity. Of course I’m not distracted. At least I’m not admitting it to Suze.
But, oh God, I can’t help it—I feel as though seeing Craig has opened up a window into the past. Memories of uni are piling into my head. Those jeans I used to wear. And that lipstick. What was I thinking?
I was quite awestruck by Craig when we first got together. I thought he was really intellectual because he talked about Schopenhauer and drank a brand of gin I’d never heard of. But now, from my position of maturity, I can see that I shouldn’t have been so impressed. I mean, anyone can drink gin and talk about German celebrities. I was talking about Heidi Klum just the other day.
Anyway, it was all a long time ago. We all went out with weird people when we didn’t know any better. When I first met Luke, he was going out with a totally snooty girl called Sacha de Bonneville, so he can talk. (Why am I having an argument with Luke about this in my head? I have no idea.)
I put the last toffee tin in place and shake back my hair. It’s just one of those strange, random coincidences. And Suze is right: If Craig throws a Christmas party, we should go. Maybe famous people will be there. Or maybe he’ll play some new song and we’ll be the first to hear it.
Maybe he can get us VIP tickets to his next concert! I feel like I suddenly have a whole new status symbol which I can drop casually into conversation: “Well, of course, I used to date a rock musician….” “Well, of course, I was always his inspiration….” “Well, of course, he wrote a song about me….”
And then I freeze. Oh my God. What if he did write a song about me?
Search history
Craig Curton
Craig Curton Becky Bloomwood
Craig Curton lyrics
Craig Curton songs inspired by unnamed mystery woman
Craig Curton celebrity friends
Sacha de Bonneville
Venetia Carter
talking mermaid
Heidi Klum
By the next morning I’ve googled the lyrics of every single song I can find written by Craig Curton. I’ve listened to snippets of them all and peered at the videos and I still can’t work out if any of them are about me.
I’m definitely not in his best-known song, “Lonesome Girl.” It starts off, “She’s mesmerizing,” and at first I thought, Ooh, that could be me; I’m quite mesmerizing. But then it continues: “She’s everywhere, she’s in the air, feel the pain, know the pain.” What pain? Anyway, I’m not lonesome. So. Not me.