by Anna Jacobs
He already knew that she was fiercely independent, but since he didn’t want her to have a fall, he moved quickly to steady her. When he offered her his arm, she hesitated visibly for a moment, then took it to cross the hall. She let go the minute she was able to take hold of the back of a kitchen chair.
He watched to make sure she was safely seated before he moved away. ‘You’re still dizzy, aren’t you?’
‘A little, not as bad.’
‘I see you’ve changed your clothes. Do you want the others washed and dried?’
‘I can do that if you’ll let me use your washing machine.’
‘Were you listening to what they told you in hospital? You’re to avoid using that arm for the next few days.’ He let that sink in, then said, ‘It won’t take me a minute to put your things in the machine once Gabby has got up.’
From the stubborn expression on her face, he guessed she wasn’t going to let him do much for her. She was too independent for her own good.
‘Would you like another cup of tea? Or do you prefer coffee? Or there’s apple juice.’
‘Apple juice, please. Where’s your daughter?’
‘Dee went back to bed after you did, which is over an hour ago now, to grab some more sleep. She’s definitely not an early morning person. Is Gabby still asleep?’
‘Yes. She got up to use the bathroom, which is what woke me, then went straight back to bed. Um, I know I’m in your house, but where is it exactly?’
‘It’s in Peppercorn Street.’
She looked at him blankly. He sounded as if he thought she’d recognise the name but she didn’t.
‘It’s in Sexton Bassett, which is in Wiltshire, and the street is quite well known locally. It leads out from the town centre and ends near a small stately home on a couple of acres, which you can see from our back garden. We’re at the top end, Number 4. I didn’t bring you here without asking, by the way. You’d agreed to come and stay for a day or two once we’d got some clean clothes for you both.’
‘Ah. Yes. I vaguely remember that.’ She gave him a rueful smile. ‘Only I didn’t mean to do that. I was going to insist on staying at my own home.’
‘Now why does that not surprise me?’ He smiled back at her. ‘Not a good decision, though. You were concussed and not thinking clearly. Your eyes are much clearer this morning, if that’s any comfort, even if you are still a bit dizzy.’
‘My head’s aching.’
‘Even after the aspirins you took earlier?’ He looked at his watch. ‘Better not take anything else yet, though, but you should have something to eat, don’t you think?’
‘I suppose so. I don’t feel hungry. Do I remember correctly that you brought my computer here?’
‘Yes. Gabby and I packed all your possessions except for some crockery.’
‘Oh. And did you lock up my house carefully?’
‘Yes. For what that’s worth. That house will hardly keep out the rain, let alone a burglar.’
She looked embarrassed. ‘It does have a couple of leaks, but it was all I could afford to rent. I’m sorry to have given you so much trouble. I feel a lot better this morning, so we can get a taxi home after Gabby gets up and—’
‘You’re not better enough to manage on your own. You’re still as white as a sheet and what’s more, you’re favouring that arm. My daughter will come pounding down the stairs any minute, so I’m going to make some more toast. She’ll grab something to eat then rush off to school. She likes to stay in bed till the last possible minute. I thought we’d leave your daughter to wake up in her own time.’
Claire gave him another assessing stare then looked round the kitchen. ‘No wife?’
‘I’m divorced, have been for years. You?’
‘Divorced. Two years ago.’
‘Is your ex the one you’re hiding from?’
She gasped. ‘How did you know that?’
‘It seems pretty obvious. New name. Things Gabby said.’
‘Oh. Well, yes. He’s being a – nuisance. I’m trying to stay out of his way.’ After another of those long pauses, she added, ‘Thank you so much for your help.’
She didn’t sound particularly grateful but he didn’t comment on that. ‘Fruit and toast suit you?’
‘Anything. Thank you.’
He started getting things out of the fridge and saw her looking round the room, studying it.
‘It’s quite an old house, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. Too big for just me and Dee, really, but I fell in love with it on sight. It was built in 1910 and is going to need quite a bit of modernising, which I shall enjoy doing. I’ll have to get some help with that, but there’s no rush. I want to do it right.’
‘Did I see some stairs going down another level from the back of the hall?’ She rubbed her forehead. ‘I’m not quite sure which of the images in my mind are true and which are the result of the anaesthetic and painkillers.’
‘Yes, you did see stairs. There’s a slight slope along this part of the street, so we have a semi-basement which contains the former kitchen and servants’ rooms. Winifred next door doesn’t have that because her house is at the top of the slope, but the first four houses do. The last owners of this place were quite elderly and they had trouble with the stairs, so they closed off the lower part and put in a kitchen and utility room up here. They’d given up driving so didn’t need to use the garage. I’ve opened up the basement again because I’m making a start on the back garden and obviously I do use the garage, but we don’t use the rooms down there for anything.’
‘What I’ve seen looks lovely. I miss having a bigger house. I don’t miss living with my ex, though.’
‘Does Gabby miss her father?’
‘No,’ she said so sharply he stopped asking questions.
Chapter Six
As Claire was eating a belated breakfast, Helly got up suddenly and padded out into the hall, standing looking up the stairs and giving a low woof. She put her spoon down. ‘Gabby must be waking up. I’d better go to her. She’ll worry if she doesn’t know where I am.’
Luke stood up. ‘Stay there. I’ll call up to tell her we’re down here.’
But there was the sound of voices then Dee came clumping down the stairs. ‘Gabby’s just using the bathroom. I told her to come down to the kitchen when she’s finished.’
She stopped to pat Helly then snatched a piece of toast, smeared on some butter and ate it in a few rapid bites. Her mouth still full of the last of the toast, she picked up an apple and a banana, shoving them into her backpack. ‘Bye.’
He grinned at Claire’s surprised expression as his daughter slammed the front door behind her. He murmured his usual, ‘Have a good day, Dee!’ adding, ‘I always say that, though she never hangs around to hear it.’
Claire couldn’t help smiling as she pushed her empty bowl away and dealt with a piece of toast in a more civilised way. ‘Talk about swift departures.’
‘Yes. She’s got it down to a fine art. I make certain there’s fruit and toast easily available and she buys her lunch at the school canteen. She’s more sociable in the evenings. Mostly, anyway. Unless I say something that upsets her.’
‘Teenagers can be very touchy. I have that pleasure to come.’
‘Your daughter still has a delightful attitude towards the world. Make the most of it while you can.’ He remembered how Gabby had held his hand and openly enjoyed every mouthful of the pizza.
Claire relaxed visibly at the compliment. ‘She’s the joy of my life, and amazingly resilient, considering. I hope she doesn’t turn too moody in her teens.’
‘Good luck with that. I’m told they start behaving in a more friendly fashion after a while. And she’s only been back with me for a few months. Her mother just dumped her.’
‘That’d upset anyone.’
‘I like to have her back again, however grumpily she behaves. Look, please, do help yourself to more toast. There’s plenty of bread in the freezer.’
As she t
ook a second slice, the dog whined in its throat and nudged her elbow.
Helly had been sitting watching them, clearly resenting every mouthful they ate. In the end Luke couldn’t stand those hungry eyes any longer. He got out the rest of the tin of steak and showed Claire what it was. ‘All right if I put this in Helly’s bowl? She ate the other half last night. I’m not sure whether you feed her once or twice a day, but she seems hungry again.’
‘She could eat for England, that one. Typical Labrador. But we’ve had to be a bit, um, economical lately. I feel guilty about that but I haven’t been paid yet for my last job and I have to watch the pennies.’
‘What do you do exactly?’
‘I produce computer graphics at the moment, either of my own design or according to someone else’s rough sketches. I do anything that’ll earn money, simple websites, whatever. Sometimes people want me to design their own paper and business cards as a matching set and I put them together. I’ve worked with the same small printing company for a few years. Plus I have a friend who does advertising and she kindly keeps me in the loop for jobs. The last job I did was for one of them but the company isn’t a rapid payer, unfortunately.’
She sighed and stared into space for a moment or two, then said quietly, almost as if talking to herself, ‘I used to run my own design business and make decent money, but Gabby and I have had to stay under the radar since I left my husband, so I haven’t been able to set up a shopfront again.’
‘How come you didn’t manage to take much business equipment with you after the split-up?’
She shrugged. ‘Martin had smashed it up, told me he wanted me home for Gabby like a proper wife. I only kept my laptop, because it’d been in for repair and of course I still had the software and stuff I’d stored in the cloud. Gabby and I were in a bit of a hurry to leave at the end, you see.’
‘But your husband’s stalking you now.’
She grimaced. ‘My ex-husband. It’s not me, it’s Gabby that he wants back now. I don’t think he’d actually hurt her or me, come to that, but he says he doesn’t trust me to bring her up properly, whatever that may mean and he wants to make sure she knows what’s right and wrong. He uses the word properly all the time, as if there’s only one way to do things.’
‘He sounds more than a bit mixed up.’
‘Tell me about it. But we’ve managed to avoid him for several months now and she’s been nearly her old self again.’
‘That must make life horrendously difficult for you.’
‘Yes. I’m not doing anything illegal, because I got custody. He’s only supposed to see Gabby twice a month in a supervised situation. But in the early days he picked her up from school a few times without letting me know, or from his parents’ house because his mother’s always on his side. He didn’t bring Gabby back till late. She’s too frightened of him when he gets that look on his face to refuse to go with him.’
He looked so sympathetic she continued her tale. ‘I panicked the first time he took her because I didn’t know where she was, and called the police. He was furious. But he brought her back at bedtime. He didn’t hurt her physically, but he shouted at her and she said she didn’t like it.’
He could only stare at her, shaking his head slowly at the idiocy of some people. What did you say to something like that?
‘At first I found somewhere near her school because she had a lot of friends there, but that didn’t work out. I asked the teachers not to let Gabby go home with him, but he sneaked into the school grounds or caught her as she came out of school.’
‘Not nice.’
‘Mmm. I got a restraining order to keep him from doing it, only he doesn’t pay it much attention and it isn’t a big priority for the police. It was upsetting Gabby more and more, so in the end I moved away without telling him where we were going and she gradually got back to being her old self. Only he found us again, so we had to slip away a second time.’
She sniffed and smeared away a tear with the back of one hand. ‘He boasted to me the first time that we’ll never escape him for long. He says he’s going to do his duty by his child until she grows up and marries, and I’d better not stand in his way.’
She stopped and looked at him as if puzzled. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I don’t usually confide in people.’
‘People say I’m a good listener. Go on.’
She gave him a doubtful look and he waited in silence for her to continue or not, then more words came pouring out, as if she was desperate to unburden herself.
‘Martin’s always been a bit of a control freak, but not like this. He used to get such a smug, arrogant look on his face when he brought Gabby back, and he whispered things to me before he left, about how he’ll never let go and I’d better get used to it. The expression on his face when he says that really creeps me out.’
‘He sounds as if he needs professional help and counselling.’
‘Yes. But he doesn’t break the law in any other way, and it’s only my word against his about what he says, so he’s got off with warnings about sticking to arranged visits.’
‘Didn’t you get any money in the divorce settlement?’
‘I should get the major share of the proceeds from the house. He found a way to prove that it’d bankrupt his business to pay me out any other way, so I have to wait till it sells. Only the house has been on the market for nearly two years and it hasn’t sold. I think he’s making sure it doesn’t. He won’t be short of money, after all.’
‘No maintenance payments for Gabby, even?’
‘In theory yes, in practice no, except for a token payment once or twice when I took him to court.’
‘Can’t you take over selling the house?’
‘That’d mean getting in touch with him again. I can’t work out how to do that without giving him a chance to upset Gabby all over again. That’s why we’re so short of money.’
‘Well, whatever you’re doing with her now must be right, whatever he says. She’s got excellent manners and she’s a real charmer.’ He waited a moment then added, ‘You haven’t finished your breakfast.’
She looked down and started to push the plate away, then pulled it back, muttering, ‘I mustn’t waste good food.’
He didn’t comment on that. ‘You’ll stay here a while longer, won’t you? You really aren’t fit to look after yourself yet, let alone Gabby and Helly.’
Silence, then, ‘One more night, then, if that’s not too much trouble. I’m worried about leaving my house unoccupied. I didn’t realise when I rented it that it’d be such a target for hoodlums and vandals. Not in the daytime, when most of the nearby industrial units are occupied, but after dark. Only I didn’t have much choice. It was the only house I could afford. A flat wouldn’t have been any use with Helly to think of and actually, she’s a help when it comes to people annoying us. Looks fierce if Gabby gets upset.’
‘Maybe you can find somewhere else once you get paid.’
‘Maybe.’
She didn’t sound hopeful. Well, it took a chunk of money to rent a house, he knew that.
Claire concentrated on her food, eating the last few bites of toast, even though she didn’t look to be enjoying it particularly.
He picked up his mug of tea and took another sip. He’d found out more about her situation than he’d expected to, but didn’t want to push his luck. It made him angry to think of that delightful child being put under such pressure.
Then there were footsteps on the stairs and he called, ‘We’re in here.’
Gabby came in, looking rosy and clean, not wearing her school clothes but clean jeans, top and sweater.
She gave a beaming smile the minute she saw her mother and went over to have a cuddle, then bent to speak to the dog and ruffle her fur, before sitting down to her breakfast.
‘Am I going to school today?’
‘No, it’s too far.’
Claire sighed and seemed lost in thought still, so Luke took charge. ‘There’s som
e fruit salad and toast, Gabby. Do you want both?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Yoghurt on your fruit salad?’
‘Ooh, yes. I love yoghurt.’ She ate slowly and with relish.
‘I’ll put some bread in the toaster for you, shall I? Then you can choose what to put on it.’ He indicated the jam jars and butter dish near the breadboard and she went across to study the labels.
‘Ooh, cherry jam! My favourite.’ She spread some thinly on her toast.
He took the knife from her and put on a much thicker layer of jam, with chunks of cherries. ‘That’s more like it.’
‘Thank you.’ She went back to sit at the table, taking small bites of the toast and making happy little noises as she chewed slowly. Her hair was the same red-gold as her mother’s, and just as wavy. They were an attractive pair.
After Gabby had finished eating, Claire reached for her daughter’s plate and started to clear the table, so he said firmly, ‘I’ll deal with the kitchen. You’re looking tired again. Before I start, let’s find you somewhere more comfortable to sit.’
Between them, he and the child persuaded her to lie down on the sofa in the room he used mainly in the evenings and Gabby picked up the magazine from the Sunday paper, which was still lying on a low table.
When the little girl’s disappointment with the magazine’s contents showed, he remembered suddenly a box filled with children’s books that had belonged to Dee. ‘Just a minute, Gabby. I’ve got some children’s books you might like to read. Why don’t you come with me to find them?’
He led the way up to the attics and she looked round with great interest. ‘I’ve never been in such a big old house before. Does anyone sleep up here?’
‘No. We’re just dumping things here till we can think what to do with them. The box I want should be over here. Ah, here it is.’
‘What sort of books are they?’
‘All sorts of children’s stuff. I’ll open the box when we get downstairs. I don’t want anything to fall out. Oh, just a minute! Grab that carrier bag as well, would you? Can you manage to carry it down?’