Billie’s independent streak was nothing new. She was Harriet’s daughter, after all. Her smart, funny, proud, kind, engaging and beautiful daughter. The daughter who wouldn’t let Harriet close now no matter what she did. That was the constantly heartbreaking part: to be so near such a wonderful girl, yet not be allowed to reach her.
Other mothers had good relationships with their daughters. Harriet envied those women. Sometimes she hated them.
She’d tried everything she could think of, but she hadn’t a clue how to fix what she was sure she’d somehow broken. She’d spent a fortune on courses and books promising answers. Amazon would deliver another one this week while they were away, but she didn’t hold out much hope. She already knew all about how teenage brains were wired. She’d studied all the advice about talking so they’d listen, listening so they’d talk, being firm, being easy, being their friend, not being their friend, setting boundaries, not setting boundaries. She’d tried love, logic and leaving Billie alone.
They may as well have been from different countries for all they understood each other.
‘Are you coming with us today or not?’ she asked Billie. She heard the exhaustion in her own voice.
James folded the paper into another article-sized square.
‘Will I have to change clothes?’
‘I’d like that,’ Harriet told her.
‘Then I’ll stay here, thanks. I’ll hang out with the snake.’
‘Billie …’
‘We’ll text you where we are in case you change your mind.’ James had cut her off.
‘Thanks, Dad.’
He smiled at his daughter while Harriet imagined popping his eye out with his cereal spoon. She stamped on the thought almost as soon as it came into her head, though. What was wrong with her? She was supposed to be rekindling her relationship with the man she loved. She shouldn’t be thinking about maiming him.
Instead, she hunted through Sophie’s cabinets and plucked out all the herb and spice jars. Twenty-six. She lined them up on the worktop, smallest to biggest. Then she reordered them, herbs on one end, spices on the other. Then she sorted them by expiry date.
She texted an update to Sophie.
Despite the calming effect of sorting through Sophie’s kitchen, something was still nipping at Harriet later, while she and James were in town. Try as hard as she might, she couldn’t ignore it. ‘Why do you always have to do that?’ she asked him as they were on their way to dinner. Billie hadn’t turned up to meet them, despite her carrying on a near-constant stream of texts with James. She treated him like one of her friends. Harriet, on the other hand, was apparently worse company than a reptile.
‘Do what? Is my nose whistling again?’ James asked. He pinched his nostrils.
‘Be the good guy. With Billie. You always do it.’ It definitely felt like them against her most of the time. It used to be her and James against the world. She missed her partner.
‘I’m not trying to,’ he said. ‘I’m just being me.’
As usual, James was a man of few words, but the ones he chose prodded her sore spot. That was the real problem. Billie didn’t object to her parents. She just didn’t like Harriet. She was old enough now to decide who she valued and wanted in her life. Harriet was not that person. She’d been tried and found wanting, maybe not as a parent but as a person.
She breathed away the familiar tears that stung the backs of her eyes. That was a snivel for another day.
Inside the half-empty restaurant, James glanced around with a little smile playing on his lips. White tablecloths, spotless wine glasses and proper silver gleamed in the candlelight. The clientele was as well-polished as the cutlery. ‘We’re out of our league here,’ he said.
‘Speak for yourself.’
‘I am.’
Harriet considered her husband, trying to see him as an outsider would. He wasn’t a head-turner – despite his hulking presence, he was too low-key for that – but he was still good-looking beneath the dishevelled hair and love of faded tartan. Handsome even, once one took the time to notice.
Harriet hadn’t noticed at first. The night they met, they’d stood nearly back-to-back at the pub for hours. She hadn’t been on the lookout for prospects. That wasn’t her style, and besides, she was out with colleagues and she didn’t like mixing business with pleasure. She was too busy being a trainee solicitor in those early days to mix very much pleasure with pleasure, either.
So James was a surprise. He was out with colleagues, too. That was back when his colleagues had only two feet and didn’t need milking. They were celebrating a big deal they’d just won, and James was the man of the hour. It was his worst nightmare, being the centre of attention like that. He was much happier alone in a field, knee-deep in manure.
Farmer James. That’s how all of her friends knew him nearly the entire time they were dating. Not that he was a farmer then. He was a marketing exec, biding his time until he could get back home.
She’d known that about him from the start, yet it was easy to ignore the goat threat, as she’d thought of it. James wasn’t thinking practically. Gloucestershire was his past, not his future. It was full of farm animals and roofs that needed thatching. She had no inkling the night they met that one day they would become her farm animals and thatched roof.
She wished they had a cute story about meeting. A spilled drink, maybe, or clumsily trodden-on foot or some clever comment that had drawn them together. The mundane truth was that neither of them could remember why they first spoke. They just found themselves face to face at the bar.
His direct gaze got her attention. ‘Hello,’ he’d said.
Normally she would have stayed focused on the bartender so she wouldn’t miss her chance to order. ‘Hello.’
‘Enjoying your night?’
‘No, it’s very average.’
‘That’s an honest answer. Me neither.’ He raised his full pint. ‘I reckon I can sneak off after this.’
But he didn’t sneak off. He stayed talking to Harriet.
She did remember the frothy happiness she felt when he asked to see her again. She’d fancied the pants off James. She didn’t know she’d fall in love with him, too.
Now James rubbed his nose again with his fingers. ‘Have I got something …?’
‘What? No, no, sorry. I was just thinking about the night we met.’
James smiled. ‘You mean the way I swept you off your feet?’
‘Get over yourself. I was definitely still on my feet.’
‘Not later that night you weren’t.’
They both laughed and Harriet was able to breathe for the first time in what seemed like for ever. Maybe this would work.
‘It was a fun night,’ she said.
James smiled. ‘I couldn’t believe my luck, meeting someone like you.’ He was obviously in the mood to reminisce, too. ‘The way your mind flew between ideas. You even made connections between whatever bollocks I was spouting. That’s saying something. You were the most exciting woman I’d ever met.’
Harriet smiled. This was starting to feel like old times. She knew this holiday was a good idea. ‘Now I’m just the most annoying,’ she teased.
‘Only most of the time, but I’m used to you.’
They both heard his mobile ringing.
‘Are you going to get that?’
‘That’s okay,’ he said.
‘What if it’s Billie?’ She almost always rang him instead of her.
James took his phone out to look. ‘Hi, what’s up?’ Persephone, he mouthed. ‘We just walked around, really,’ he told her. ‘We’re having dinner now. Yeah, it’s posh. I know. Listen, I don’t think we’re supposed to use phones in here. I’d better go. Still two weeks … you know I do. Okay. No, better not. Okay, text then. Bye.’
‘That was Persephone,’ he said, putting his phone away.
‘You said. What’s she texting?’
‘Hmm? Oh, just some business stuff about the loan. She thinks we can re
structure it somehow to save some interest. Then I can borrow more for the new equipment.’ He laughed. ‘You know I leave the details to other people. She just tells me where to sign.’
‘She knows you do what?’
He stared at her.
‘You said, “you know I do”.’
‘I don’t remember,’ he said. ‘So, what are you going to have?’
‘You don’t remember from thirty seconds ago?’
He shrugged. ‘The lamb looks good,’ he said.
Clearly, he wasn’t going to tell her what Persephone had said.
They didn’t talk any more about when they first met.
Chapter 8
Sunday
Sophie had been in less formal museums, so how the bloomin’ blazes was she meant to relax in Harriet’s house? When she was little, she loved imagining she lived somewhere really grand. She might have set her fantasy in a stately home, if she’d ever been inside one.
John Lewis on Oxford Street was as close as she got. She and her mum used to go there every Christmas, while her dad happily stayed home with a stack of his favourite takeaway menus and free reign to watch all the football he could on telly.
Sophie had walked arm in arm with her mum from one end of the long road to the other. The Christmas lights had twinkled above them as they popped in and out of the shops, gathering inexpensive gifts. John Lewis’s merchandise was mostly out of reach (‘too dear’, her mum would whisper), but they’d spend hours wandering through every department anyway, fantasising about what they’d buy if they were the type of family who had 500-thread-count sheets and real crystal.
It may have been under an hour on the Tube, but the shop felt a million miles away from their little suburban bungalow. So that became Sophie’s ideal. Sleeping in one of the huge ornate beds upstairs, wearing the coolest new pyjamas, finding the perfect slippers to pad down to the kitchen shop for breakfast on pretty plates.
She wiped her eyes with the tips of her fingers. It wasn’t normal to still feel this sad about losing her mum. She hardly ever let Dan see her upset about it any more. His patience had worn out years ago. She just wished the feelings didn’t creep up on her every time she had a nice memory, that tears weren’t the price she had to pay for the happy thoughts.
Now that she was here in a real-life stately home (nearly), the reality wasn’t as fun as her childhood imagination had pictured it anyway. Harriet’s house might be gorgeous, but Sophie was terrified of ruining it. Absolutely everything was perfectly presented or tidied away. Just seeing all the lists neatly taped up in the kitchen gave her the shakes. To constantly be reminded of so much to do, on top of not breaking anything? Nightmare.
There were To Dos inside the cabinets, too. All the herbs and spices were inventoried. No wonder Harriet had gone after her oregano. Each tin of beans and every different kind of rice was recorded. What was Camargue? She didn’t even know how to pronounce it, let alone what it tasted like.
Even the bed linen was labelled. In her own house, as if Harriet would forget where her pillowslips went. Or care that they were in the wrong place.
That must be the kind of planning it took to be a successful career woman and the perfect homemaker. Obviously, Sophie didn’t have what it took to be either. She managed to get a meal on the table for her family each night and make sure they had clean underpants, even if they weren’t quite dry when they were needed. But they sometimes had to use washing-up liquid in the bath and, as often as not, a roll of kitchen towel sat beside the toilet.
She stared again at the closed office door. What was it that Dan had asked her to check for? Fennel and something. Think, Sophie, think. It was for a stew. Stock cubes? No, something from Harriet’s herb cabinet. That must be why she’d opened it in the first place.
Whatever it was, Harriet probably had some – in date, of course. Someone like Harriet would have every ingredient known to humankind. Even the weird ones, like star anise, and what was that Moroccan mix Dan liked to use (though she suspected he also just liked to say it)? Ras-el-hanout, that was it.
But what if she was wrong, and Harriet didn’t normally cook with cumin or coriander or … what was it that Dan needed?
Then he’d be cross. He usually was when she messed up the shopping. It was always something: low-fat coconut milk instead of regular, or bread with the wrong kind of seeds. It wasn’t as bad when she was the one cooking. That just earned a lengthy critique of the meal. But when he was about to do the cooking, like now …
She racked her brain some more.
Why couldn’t she even remember a simple thing like that? It wasn’t too much to ask, when he’d already done the shopping and the thinking about the recipe in the first place and he was about to do the cooking.
One little thing.
She couldn’t disturb him when he was working. He was on another very important call with his boss, he’d said, so she’d just have to remember on her own.
As she scanned the packets again, hoping to jog her memory, a tiny niggle worked away at her. She was grateful for everything Dan did for them. She was. It was just that sometimes he was a smidge of a diva about it. His meals were tasty, but it would be nice if he could cook them without messing up every single pot, pan and utensil to do it. She always had a mountain of cleaning up to do. Or chopping at the start, or peeling the potatoes or getting the skin off the peppers or some other tedious prep so that Dan had everything he needed to channel his inner Ramsay.
Dan had always been the big picture man. Details were for other people. How many times had she heard that? Even though that couldn’t really be true, or he wouldn’t be such a good solicitor. He could handle details. He just didn’t like to. That’s why he had Laxmi, she supposed.
Sometimes he forgot that Sophie wasn’t his at-home Laxmi.
It hadn’t taken the children long to claim their favourite spots in the conservatory: Oliver was propped up against the arm of the sofa and Katie in one of the roomy reading chairs. ‘Do you remember what Dad wanted to make for dinner tonight?’ she asked them.
Katie didn’t answer until she’d finished tapping on her phone. ‘Pork stew. Why?’
‘Bavarian pork stew,’ Oliver clarified. He was watching one of those David Attenborough documentaries. Between the goats and the Discovery Channel, this holiday was heaven for him.
‘I just want to check that we have everything he’ll need.’ She could find the recipe on the BBC website.
Chopped tomatoes! That was it. She checked the cabinets for the other ingredients, but a careful examination – twice – didn’t turn up the thyme that the recipe called for. Was it possible that perfect Harriet had run out of something as basic as thyme? Even Sophie had that at home. Out of date, no doubt, and probably spattered with who-knew-what, but there nevertheless.
Dan definitely hadn’t asked for it, either. She smiled to herself as she glanced at the wall clock. It was nice to know that he wasn’t always perfect. Much as he liked to think it. ‘Let’s pop into the village,’ she told the children. ‘We need some things for later.’
They glanced up. ‘Can we see the goats first?’ Oliver asked.
‘I’ll stay here,’ said Katie.
Fat chance. ‘Dad’s working.’
‘I am old enough to stay in by myself,’ she said.
‘Maybe, but I’d still like you to come with us. It’s a family outing.’
‘It’s not a family outing if Dad’s not coming.’
‘Then it’s three quarters of a family outing. Come on. We can go to the barns first. Just for a few minutes, though. Marion will be busy.’
Oliver jumped to his feet but Katie took her time. Sophie was grateful that her daughter still (mostly) listened to her and Dan. She knew some of her classmates were giving their parents sleepless nights. Luckily not any of Katie’s close friends, though. That would probably change when boys started getting involved. At thirteen, so far Katie wasn’t interested. Dan always said he hoped that would be true f
or another decade or two.
Dashing off a note for him, Sophie grabbed a few reusable bags from the wall hook.
They strolled towards the village along the wide gravel path that ran beside a stand of bright white birch. Leaves whispered in the warm breeze. Sophie filled her lungs with the fresh air, though Harriet had been right. There was definitely a tinge of dung.
‘Poor Artemis!’ Oliver said. He’d been worrying since they left the barn. ‘How does a goat get pink-eye, Mum?’
‘I haven’t a clue, darling. That’s a question for Marion. We can ask her later. Then you’ll know and you’ll be ahead of the game for when you’re a vet.’
Oliver nodded gravely. ‘Maybe I’ll take notes. I might not remember when I’m an actual vet. How many years of uni is it?’
He knew the answer. They’d looked it up enough times. He just liked to hear it. ‘Five years, six if you go to Cambridge.’
‘But I’m not going to Cambridge, remember? It’s too far. I’m living with you at our house.’
Sophie hoped he’d always be such a homebody. ‘That’s right. But really, darling, you don’t need to worry about that right now. It’s years away.’
‘Mum. I’ll need to prepare.’
Sophie matched his serious face. ‘Of course. Sorry.’
‘But what if he doesn’t get better? Artemis, I mean.’ His bottom lip quivered. ‘If he goes blind … or dies? James will be sad.’
Artemis was James’s prize billy. Sophie was pretty sure that a weepy eye wouldn’t kill him, although until it cleared up, he was being kept away from the lady goats. For a randy billy, that probably was a fate worse than death. Poor Artemis, Sophie agreed. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it too much, darling, Marion knows how to cure him. She’s an expert.’
She stared off into the meandering green fields that rolled on for miles. She was glad there weren’t big hills. After years of walking on city pavements – and being completely allergic to the gym – her heart might not take too much incline.
The children were quiet as they walked a little bit behind her. Sophie was tempted to talk to them, but then she thought, why shouldn’t they get their own space to enjoy all this, too? She’d been thinking more and more lately that she’d have to start facing the fact that her babies had become their own people.
The Staycation: This summer's hilarious tale of heartwarming friendship, fraught families and happy ever afters Page 8