Probably the Best Kiss in the World. Pernille Hughes

       Chapter 1

      This was decidedly crap.

      Regardless of what the photographer insisted, Jen’s nose was very precise and if it smelt like cow crap, she’d gamble plenty on it being cow crap. He’d said the photo-shoot location wouldn’t be too muddy, hence her now crap-covered and immobile trainers. She evil-eyed his wellies. Git. So much for client-care. Any uncontrolled movement and she’d risk face-planting into the boggy mire he’d insisted was the only position from which to get the angle he needed. Pretentious inflexible git. Ankle-deep in the stink, she was fairly stuck and now Ava, one of her bosses, had turned up, wanting a word. Jen took a quick look at the ListIT app on her beloved iPhone: there were so many shots left to get and the light wouldn’t last much longer. Not that Ava would think or care about that.

      Eight white-haired walking-booted men and women stood on the drier ground with their walking poles, looking thoughtfully into the middle-distance as if they were intrepid explorers, not in fact the Westhampton Rambling Society who were being paid with M&S vouchers for a marketing shoot. Ava coughed loudly in an unsubtle chivvy and Jen resigned herself to risking the journey.

      It was hard work; a trial of strength, balance and swear words, as more than once she nearly toppled in her expedition to the shiny white Porsche Cayenne. Door open but sitting safely in the car, Ava was keen not to get her white jeans or pristine Hunters besmirched, her huge sunglasses pushed back to harness her long blonde-to-scarlet ombré locks. Ava and her sister-slash-business partner Zara rather fancied themselves as the Olsen twins of the organic sanitary-supplies world.

      “Darling, far be it from us to question your choices,” Here we go thought Jen; questioning choices was their modus operandi, “but shouldn’t we be using more … aspirational models.”

      “Aspirational? They’re ramblers, Ava, and we’re using them to promote incontinence pads.”

      “Yes darling, of course, but they could still be a little more, well, let’s be blunt about it, attractive. Our customers won’t aspire to be them.” Oh Lord. Jen did not have time for this.

      “Ava, nobody aspires to wear inco pads, organic or otherwise. The point here is to show ordinary people, so our customers can see incontinence affects normal people, and equally, normal people – not just the posh ones – can wear organic pads. That was the brief you approved, remember? I don’t think people believe celebrities experience incontinence, and we want people to believe our ads. We’re all about the honesty, aren’t we?” Jen ignored the grimace on Ava’s face. She’d seen it so many times she considered it a tic and best not acknowledged. Being marketing manager at Well, Honestly! for seven years had taught her plenty about tact and restraint.

      A splat of something hit the inside of the rear passenger window and slid down the glass. A small chubby hand tried to wipe it away, spreading possibly yogurt, further across the pane. Ava’s head ducked towards the interior of the car.

      “Are you behaving, Ferdinand? Remember what Mummy said; bad behaviour equals no iPad, no iPhone and no laptop.”

      Turning back to Jen, Ava pursed her lips. “We’d best be off. These three are getting excited and Keane needs picking up from his Junior Krav Maga. Then it’s two hours to Glasto. Thank goodness Rupes has gone ahead to sort the yurt.” Jen knew Ava’s husband Rupert always went a day early under the guise of “prep” time, involving several of his mates and various herbal substances. Jen’s sister Lydia had seen it first-hand. Or else he was simply hiding from his four demon spawn. “So, if you’re really sure about the models?”

      “I am,” Jen insisted, keen to get back to the shoot and hopefully home to dry socks this side of darkness. Ava still wasn’t looking convinced, but a wail from inside the car distracted her.

      “Leave Ferdinand alone, Beckham. He doesn’t want you filming down his pants. Rooney, sweetie, no Lego up nosey.” Turning back to Jen, she started to sit back down in the driving seat. “I’ve left some things on your desk, darling. Just a few bits I didn’t get to finish up. Perhaps you’ll handle them on Monday?” Ava always took the Monday after Glasto off to “reflect”. “Think of the quiet you’ll have, just you and Aiden, with me out and Zara still in the Seychelles. Heaven.” Jen chose not to flag Aiden the Intern’s mouth-breathing was plenty loud enough to be disturbing. She was more dreading what the “few bits” might be. Ava’s ability to deflect work was tantamount to a Teflon coating, and past experience said there’d be far more than a day’s work there. Moreover, Jen had never once been able to pass anything back to Ava on her return. The only upside was she’d know it was done properly and wouldn’t come back to bite her on the bum. It might take longer, but at least she was in control, and as far as Jen was concerned control was the only way to dodge life’s curveballs.

      “We’ll be off then, darling,” Ava said, giving the ramblers a last look and slight shake of her head. “Enjoy your weekend.” Slamming the door, she wheel-spun away, leaving Jen mud-sprayed from head to toe and wondering if this was really what she’d studied all those years for.

      Having smeared the slurry from her eyes Jen trudged over to the photographer and updated her shot-list with a sigh. She’d be a while yet, but it was almost the weekend and that meant time away from the inco pads and time with her real passion. She could tuck herself away in the safe confines of her outbuilding and concentrate on the thing that brought her joy.

      Some women loved to bake, some to knit, Jen Attison loved to brew.

      *

      The opening expletive caused Jen to spill beer all over her hand. She mumbled one of her own under her breath. The following litany of filth carried across the small courtyard from the open kitchen door to the outbuilding. It wasn’t quite the sound of summer as she imagined it. Being a Friday night, the town was bouncing, the pubs and wine bars full with locals and the weekend tourists, all making the most of the balmy evening; sitting out where possible, or moving down onto the beach. The seasonal warmth brought the joy out in them, their chatter and laughter filling the air, the distant echo of fun snaking down the warren-like alleyways and over the garden walls of the houses in the old town. Jen could clearly hear it from the comfortable seclusion of her small stone outbuilding; the singing, the Oi, Oi’s and the banter.

      Jen looked at her phone. Eleven. She’d been expecting to pick Lydia up at midnight from the station. She had an alarm set. Yet here she was, spouting loud angry vocabulary that would make a fishwife blush and no doubt there would be more, so Jen braced herself.

      “For fuck sake. Come out, you shitpin!” There was a silence from outside, as Jen waited, calmly finishing tapping the beer from the conditioning tank into the brown bottle she was holding. “Jen? Can you help me? Please?”

      Jen sighed as she capped the bottle and placed it in line with the others she’d already filled since getting home. Slipping down from her stool, she looked out into the courtyard to see her sister, still swearing while crossly attempting to extract her ankle-strapped high heel from between two cobbles.

      “Easy, tiger. The kids next door don’t need to know those words,” Jen said, crossing the distance.

      “Where do you think I learnt them?” They both knew this wasn’t true. Lydia had merrily collected a ripe vocabulary as a child when visiting Jen at uni, sponging up the vernacular of the rugby team who Jen had bizarrely acquired as a fan club. A secret home-brew kit in your fresher dorm room and indiscreet dorm mates will do that for a girl. Proud of the words they were teaching Lydia, the rugby lads had virtually made the thirteen-year-old