The shop was staffed by someone new today; a man in his sixties who reminded Gemma a little of her father. He had a whiff of ex-military about him, something in his posture and the ruler-straightness of his moustache that made him look like he’d forgotten to take the coat hanger out of his shirt. Gemma wondered if he was Ruth’s husband, although they seemed like an unlikely couple.
Things had changed in the village shop in the past week. There was now a strip of black tape on the floor that marked where shoppers had to stand while their shopping was processed, and a perspex screen mounted on the edge of the counter to create a transparent barrier between the shopper and the staff. Since Gemma had to step over the line to tap her debit card and pick up her shopping from the open space at the side of the screen, it all seemed a bit pointless; but this was the new normal in Crowthorpe and presumably everywhere else. The shop had maintained their stocks and kept Gemma in fresh food without her having to get a taxi or bus to Chippenham, so she definitely wasn’t complaining.
Since the shop was so tiny only one shopper was allowed in at a time, which meant there was usually a short queue outside. Mabel had learned to milk this for all it was worth, so Gemma gathered her shopping as quickly as possible, conscious that by now her dog would be lying on her back with her paws in the air, inviting strangers to give her belly rubs and feed her God knows what. Some people had issues with the hygiene of touching other people’s dogs right now, but more often than not somebody in the queue would oblige, securing Mabel’s credentials as the most spoiled dog in the village.
The man behind the counter handed Gemma her receipt and stepped back while she retrieved her bags. ‘We haven’t met, I’m Gareth. I’d shake your hand but I’m not allowed.’
‘That’s OK. I’m Gemma.’
‘I know, you’re quite the talk of the village.’
Gemma laughed awkwardly, feeling the colour rush to her face. ‘Nice to meet you, Gareth.’ She quickly left the shop, swerving the recommended two metres around the first woman in the queue of four outside the door. Mabel was in a blissed-out state, getting vigorous belly scritches from a dark-haired woman in sleek black running gear with her twin sons, who Gemma guessed were five or six. Gemma had seen the woman out running a number of times early in the morning, no doubt getting her exercise in before her children woke up and she added ‘teacher’ to her list of roles alongside mother, worker, housekeeper, cleaner, nurse, cook, wife. She’d jogged past yesterday when Gemma was learning about local hedgehogs from Barry, who told her that the woman’s husband worked long shifts in a hospital in Swindon. The fact that she was still wearing this morning’s sweaty running clothes at nearly 5 p.m. spoke volumes about how much time she’d had to herself today.
As Gemma walked home, wishing she’d brought the hessian shoppers instead of two plastic bags that cut into her fingers, she thought about what Gareth had said about her being the ‘talk of the village’. Gemma might have been more astonished at her sudden notoriety had Matthew not given her a heads up – a few days earlier he had stopped by to pick up Mabel, and mentioned with a mischievous tone that Gemma was the subject of much discussion, at least amongst the older residents. They saw her as their very own lockdown refugee, stranded in Crowthorpe with nowhere else to go. Her job was an added fascination; apparently Ruth had done a Google search on Gemma’s name and had been reading out some of her articles to anyone who would listen. She’d found it amusing when Matthew mentioned it, but also kind of confounding – she had never been the subject of gossip or intrigue before.
Other than when he picked up Mabel, Gemma had seen very little of Matthew; he seemed to be busy with work and not one for idle chatter. This suited Gemma just fine; men were not her favourite species of mammal right now, and even if she’d been on the market Matthew wasn’t her type. Despite being a similar age to her, he had a local-boy innocence about him that was a million miles away from her London life. He was clearly capable and definitely not stupid, just unworldly; she couldn’t imagine talking to him about books or travel, and it was hard to imagine what they might possibly have in common. Caro, obviously, and living at opposite ends of the same garden. Maybe walking the same dog, at a push. That was pretty much it.
After much consideration, Gemma had come to the conclusion that meaningful long-term relationships weren’t for her; perhaps she’d lived on her own for too long. There had been the usual ill-advised one-night stands and dalliances in her twenties, some of which had lasted a few months. A holiday romance or two, then two years of Johannes just after her twenty-sixth birthday. In the end he had decided to take a job with an orchestra back home in Switzerland, but didn’t ask Gemma to go with him. She was only upset for the brief time it took her to realise that living in Zurich with a man who cut his toenails in bed was unlikely to be an environment in which she would blossom.
Gemma hurried back to West Cottage in the late-afternoon sunshine, the heavy bags cutting off the circulation in her fingers. She’d only needed a few things, but as usual had ended up buying a couple of local cheeses, two bottles of wine, a pack of doggy beef strips for Mabel and a sharing bag of Maltesers that she was looking forward to sharing with herself later. There weren’t many thrills to be had in lockdown life, so no wonder everyone was eating and drinking more – the diet industry was going to make a killing when this was over. Gemma mentally drafted an article about finding joy in small pleasures in challenging times, then realised no one would pay for it, so gave up. She stopped near Grove Farm to rest her hands, and ended up having a chat with an elderly villager called Reg who had a magnolia in a pot for her if she wanted it. Almost certainly not, but she promised to let him know once she’d tackled the garden tomorrow.
As Gemma unpacked the shopping and put the wine on the coldest shelf of the fridge, Mabel quietly slid the pack of beef strips out of the bag and snaffled them under the dining table. Gemma only noticed when she heard the crackle of the wrapper as Mabel attempted to break into the packaging, wedging it between her paws and tearing at it with her teeth. Gemma sighed and sat on the floor against the wall, keeping Mabel in sight but knowing that chasing her would be futile; right now Mabel knew she was in trouble, but if Gemma chased her it would become a legitimate game. Gemma’s only hope was to distract her so she could get the pack back, which required time and patience. She held a handful of biscuits and waited for her moment, wondering how it could be that Mabel was brilliantly behaved 99 per cent of the time, but food wiped all her training from her tiny doggy brain.
After a couple of minutes, Mabel stopped chewing, clearly frustrated that her teeth couldn’t pierce the heavy waxed paper. Gemma seized the moment, scattering half a dozen dog biscuits across the wooden floor like meaty marbles. Mabel momentarily lost her mind and relinquished hold on the beef strips. Gemma pounced and snatched them back, then wandered back to the kitchen to put them in the cupboard. Human 1, Labrador nil.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Wednesday, 1 April
To Do
Call Mum. DO IT.
Distinguish weeds from flowers
Pull weeds
Leave flowers
Gemma stood in front of the bathroom mirror, pulling her hair into a ponytail which, along with her well-worn Spice Girls tour T-shirt, made her look like she was having an early midlife crisis. The T-shirt had been a present from Caro to celebrate twenty years since they’d seen them live on the Spiceworld Tour – they hadn’t known each other then, but it turned out they had both been at Wembley Stadium on the same night in 1998. Gemma’s hair now had a full two inches of dark roots and desperately needed a cut, but that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. She’d seen pictures on social media of friends opting for messy tubes of home dye and highlighting kits, but Gemma didn’t dare take matters into her own hands. It would get done when it got done, and in the meantime hairbands and makeshift headscarves were her saviour.
Her daytime walks and time outside cleaning windows had given her face a touch of sun –
she looked healthier than she had in years, despite not having touched her make-up bag in nearly two weeks. This was really the only time of the year she could spend time in the sun; in high summer Gemma went from English Rose to Roasted Tomato in minutes, without so much as a freckle in between. She rubbed on a layer of SPF moisturiser, added a slick of lip balm and decided she would do. It was a garden wilderness in Crowthorpe, not the beautiful grounds at Pemberley.
Her phone buzzed on the side of the sink – a WhatsApp from her mother, saying Call me when you have a minute. Gemma could feel the passive aggression from 200 miles away; the subtext was ‘You haven’t called me in a few days and I can’t think why, since it’s not like you’re busy.’
She briefly considered some kind of April Fool’s message – I’m actually at the hospital having my hand reattached after it got caught in some farm machinery – but then remembered it was her mother, who had left her sense of humour somewhere in the eighties. The first-floor bathroom was at the back of the house and managed a reasonably good connection to Matthew’s WiFi, so Gemma pressed the call icon and listened to the tone as she waited for her mother to answer. Barbara still hadn’t quite got the hang of the swipe action on a smartphone, so would no doubt be stabbing at the green button right now and wondering why it wasn’t connecting. Gemma sat on the edge of the bath, drumming her fingernails on the porcelain as she waited.
‘Hello, darling. I hadn’t expected you to call quite so soon.’
Gemma instinctively narrowed her eyes and gritted her teeth, already glad this wasn’t a video call. ‘Hey, Mum. How are you?’
‘We’re fine, keeping our spirits up. Your father has an RAF Police Association meeting on Zoom later. We don’t even know what Zoom is. Where are you living again?’
For a woman who had never had a job and had spent most of her adult life living in houses she didn’t own, Barbara Lockwood had extremely strong opinions about Gemma’s living arrangements. As far as she was concerned, the years being housed and indulged by Aunt Laura were the sole reason why Gemma was single and childless – she hadn’t needed to get a ‘proper job’ or find a husband. In contrast, Louise had gone straight from university into Army Officer training and was now settled down with Jamie, an Army dentist, and their two cavity-free children. They were the epitome of what Gemma’s mother thought a family should be.
What Barbara didn’t know was that Gemma and her sister had gone for a walk in Norwich on Christmas Eve, and Louise had confessed that her marriage was desperately unhappy. While they huddled together on a frosty bench in the gardens of the cathedral, watching the robins hopping from tree to tree, Louise had confided that she actually liked women, but had married Jamie in a crisis of sexual identity. There was nothing to be gained from sharing this particular revelation with their mother right now; the truth (and presumably Louise) would come out in time, and their mother’s world would come crashing down for a brief period, before she stopped making everything all about her and embraced her youngest daughter’s life choices. Gemma, however, would always be a disappointment, the member of the Lockwood family who would never amount to much.
She headed back to the mirror and carefully tweezed stray hairs out of her eyebrows as her mother prattled on about the inconsequential minutiae of her day, including gossip about neighbours not adhering to social distancing rules and scandalous rumours of people driving to Norfolk’s beaches to walk their dogs. Gemma answered a few questions as vaguely as possible – yes, she was still working; no, Caro wasn’t going to evict her before the lockdown finished; no, she hadn’t heard from Fraser. Gemma had told her mother about their split the previous week, sparing her the explicit details but making it clear it was his fault. ‘Let’s just say he turned out to be less than I deserve.’ Barbara had made a huffing noise, no doubt thinking that Gemma was too picky or too difficult to live with, and mentally cancelling her order for a lovely wedding hat.
After ten minutes Gemma started to wrap the conversation up with the usual promises to call again in a few days. As a final gesture of familial support, she suggested her dad call her if he couldn’t get Zoom to work later. Her father was a proud man and would rather die in a ditch than ask his daughter for IT support, but it felt good to offer.
Gemma left her phone to charge in the kitchen and pulled on her purple dog-walking trainers before heading into the garden. The day was cool and overcast, but dry – perfect weather for a few hours of outdoor labour. She found gloves, a bucket and a selection of old gardening tools in the shed, along with a push-along cylinder lawnmower that didn’t look much like it was up to the task of ankle-deep grass.
The garden of West Cottage began outside the kitchen door with a small sunken courtyard surrounded by a low stone wall. Its east-facing aspect meant that it caught the morning sun, and Gemma could see what a lovely spot it would be for the first coffee of the day. A heavy wooden bench had been placed against the house wall, presumably for this purpose, but it hadn’t been warm enough in the mornings to use it yet. On her left was a storage area for the wheelie bins and the small tool shed, and to her right the path curved round the side of the house to the side gate that Matthew had used on the day she had first met him. She wondered if he owned the barn or leased it from Caro; if he owned it, the right of way to use that gate and path must be quite complicated. But she could see that the barn had its own entrance at the far end of the garden, so perhaps he just sometimes nipped through the garden as a shortcut, knowing that Caro wouldn’t mind.
In the middle of the stone wall, three steps led up to a path that ran the length of the garden, with a wide stretch of lawn either side. On the left side, the lawn was edged with a planted border of lilac trees and flowering shrubs and a stone wall that overlooked a narrow lane that ran at 90 degrees to the main road; Gemma had walked Mabel down there on a number of occasions and knew that it wound past farms and fields to the tiny hamlet of Frampton about two miles away. On the right, a dense laurel hedge ran the full length of the garden, creating a natural fence between West Cottage and the house next door. Gemma could occasionally hear their children screaming on the garden trampoline, although it was hard to know if this was an expression of joy or a snapped femur. The place was clearly huge and had its own private driveway, so they barely felt like neighbours. Gemma had seen a car going in and out of the electric gates on occasion, but had never met the owners.
She walked to the top of the steps and stood with her back to the house. She could see Matthew’s barn at the end of the path about 15 metres away, beyond a couple of gnarled apple trees and a large decked area with a clematis-covered pergola that had clearly been built for al fresco dining in the evening sun. The garden furniture had gone, but a brick barbecue with a rusty grill remained. Even in its untamed state, Gemma could see what a beautiful garden it must once have been, and how much love and thought Caro’s parents had put into it. It was easy to imagine a summer party full of friends drinking and dancing, lanterns draped through the trees and the sweet scent of jasmine in the air. Caro had been close to her parents but didn’t visit nearly as often as she wanted to once she was juggling a high-powered job with the demands of parenting. After they died, she admitted to Gemma that she’d taken for granted that they’d always be here, and would never forgive herself for how much family time she’d denied them in what turned out to be their final years.
Starting at the house end of the border, Gemma knelt down on the lawn and began to tackle the weeds, working her way around the shrubs and border perennials with a small garden fork. Half an hour on the Gardeners’ World website last night had given her the basics of spring border management, so she snipped last year’s dead growth with secateurs and dug out the roots of dandelions and goosegrass and ground elder with a trowel. It was mindless but satisfying labour as, metre by metre, order emerged from the chaos. Mabel occasionally wandered over to sniff at the soil, but found nothing worth snacking on apart from worms and roots, and even she wasn’t that desperate. Every no
w and then Gemma walked back to the courtyard to empty the bucket into the green waste bin, taking the opportunity to stretch her back and shoulders and toss a ball down the garden a few times for Mabel to fetch before starting on the borders again.
Gemma heard Matthew before she saw him; the clatter of the manual lawnmower almost made her stab herself in the hand. He was wearing his usual paint-spattered shorts and work boots, along with a white T-shirt that drew Gemma’s eye to his work-tanned arms and the hard muscles of his back. The effort on his face was visible as he hacked through the long grass; clearly it was a machine designed for much lighter work. Matthew stopped at the end of the first strip and swiftly raked the clippings into a pile on the path, then pushed the mower through again. After three passes, a 14-inch-wide strip of perfect green lawn had emerged, so Matthew moved along to the next strip. He didn’t acknowledge Gemma or take his eye off the lawn, so she turned her attention back to digging the borders.
Half an hour later, Matthew had finished the laurel hedge side of the lawn and Gemma’s back felt like she’d been ridden by a rugby team. She slipped off her gardening gloves and spent a minute or two rolling her shoulders and stretching her neck from side to side, while admiring the precision of Matthew’s mowing – perfect lawn stripes, with all the clippings raked into a neat row for easy collection. Her father would have signed him up to the squadron and given him a medal.
Gemma caught Matthew’s eye and raised her eyebrows questioningly, while making the ‘T’ sign with her fingers. He smiled and nodded enthusiastically, so Gemma dropped the gloves and tools into the bucket and headed into the kitchen. While the kettle boiled she found two clean mugs in the cupboard and added a teabag to each, then retrieved a plastic container of milk from the fridge and a packet of chocolate biscuits. She’d had grand plans to make Aunt Laura’s famous shortbread recipe, but flour was one thing the village shop couldn’t provide right now. Luckily it had a decent selection of McVities, which would do just fine.
Two Metres From You Page 7