by Kate Hewitt
“Hello, there.” A round-faced woman with frizzy hair came out of the back, smiling as she dusted flour from her hands. “What can I get you?”
“A cup of tea and a blueberry muffin, please.”
“Staying in?”
“Yes, please.”
“Take any seat you like.”
Emily murmured her thanks and chose a seat at a small table in the back. The shop was empty, which meant there would be no awkward eye contact or meaningless chitchat. She could just relax, sip her tea, and work up her strength to tackle the rest of the high street, which included the new deli and the garden centre that was somewhere on the road to Burford.
Of course, she knew it didn’t have to be as difficult as she was making it out to be. It probably wasn’t for most people. If she’d got the hang of small talk early on, instead of needing to keep herself to herself, perhaps she wouldn’t find this such a struggle.
But the fact was she did, and Emily didn’t think she’d ever change. She wasn’t sure she wanted to, even in Wychwood-on-Lea. She didn’t need people the way most others seemed to; she’d had her mum, and that had always been enough. It still was.
“Here you go.” The woman placed a teapot, cup, and a plate with a frilly doily and a muffin on Emily’s table.
“Thank you—”
“You’re not my new neighbour by any chance, are you?”
Emily, who had just reached for the teapot, put it down again. “Er…”
“Willoughby Close?”
So this was Olivia who lived in number four. Of course it was; Alice had said she ran a bakery. “I moved into number one, yes,” Emily said as she rallied a smile. “So I suppose I am.”
“Oh, how wonderful! I’ve been hoping to get some neighbours. They’re lovely little cottages, but it’s a bit lonely all on your own. You’re Henry’s new assistant?”
“Yes…”
“Welcome to Wychwood-on-Lea.” Olivia reached for her hand, which Emily gave after a second’s hesitation. “Sorry, your name…?”
“Emily. Emily David.”
“Well, it’s lovely to meet you. You must come over sometime for a meal or a glass of wine or whatever, really. Then I can welcome you properly.”
“That’s so kind…” Her standard response.
“You moved from London? How are you finding it?”
“Quiet,” Emily said, and Olivia laughed. “And beautiful,” she added quickly, not wanting to seem unappreciative of Wychwood-on-Lea’s many charms. “It’s all very…beautiful.” She’d tried to think of another word and failed.
“Yes, it is. And people are very friendly. You’ll have all sorts of invitations, I’m sure, don’t you worry.”
“That’s…” Words failed her again. She didn’t want people to be friendly. Invitations had always been something to dread. And yet, as she gazed at Olivia’s smiling face and saw the first flicker of confused doubt enter her eyes, Emily truly wished she wasn’t the way she was. Wouldn’t it have been nice to enthuse along with Olivia, to reciprocate an invitation, to joke about things? It was how other people acted. She saw them, overheard their easy banter, and yet she knew it was all utterly beyond her, and always had been.
“Well, do let me know if you need anything,” Olivia said, her smile faltering again, and Emily nodded.
“Yes, of course I will. Thank you so much.”
Olivia retreated to the back room, and Emily gazed down at her tea and muffin, her appetite and enjoyment both ebbing away. Another awkward conversation, another person who looked disappointed.
It hadn’t been like this in London. People didn’t try so much there. Emily had managed to live her life, quiet and small as it was, with few complications and even fewer interactions. And she’d liked it that way. No one asking her about her life, or discovering what it was actually like. She certainly hadn’t been as painfully aware of her own deficiencies as she was here, when her polite reserve seemed to throw everyone off, and made her wish she was different.
With a sigh she reached for the little teapot and began to pour. People would get used to her, she supposed. They would have to. It would just take a little time.
Chapter Five
“No ifs, ands, or buts. You are coming. At least for one glass of wine.”
Judging from her mischievous smile and the way she was weaving slightly on Emily’s doorstep, Harriet Lang had already had one glass, or perhaps several. Her air was determined, her eyes bright, as she gave Emily the look of a woman who knew how to boss people around, even when a bit tipsy. “It’s your welcome to Wychwood,” she stated grandly.
“That’s very kind…” Emily said. She felt as if she’d said those words a million times already—because everyone was so kind. In the last three days, Olivia had made her a meal and left it on her doorstep with a bunch of bright daffodils; Alice and Henry had given her an enormous gift basket of local jams and chutneys and other delectable goodies; and now Harriet Lang, who used to live in number two, was inviting her out with a gaggle of other ex-residents for a drink, just as Alice had promised.
It looked like it was going to be hard to say no. Harriet must have been briefed, because she’d launched into her invitation with the attitude of someone who expected resistance and was prepared to counter it with every means possible. It was seven o’clock on a Friday night at the end of her first week of work, and Emily had anticipated a night of Netflix. She was already wearing her fluffy socks.
“I’m not dressed properly,” she said, giving a little, forced laugh. “I’ve already got into my pyjamas…”
“Then you can get out of them again,” Harriet said with the firm cheer of a school matron. “I’m happy to wait. Ellie has to drive in from Oxford anyway, and she’s only left half an hour ago. Really, it’s fine. And we’ll have such fun.”
Emily seriously doubted that. An evening of drinks with a bunch of strangers who were already all good friends with one another? Nightmare times two. Times a thousand. She knew Alice had been arranging for this to happen, but she’d still hoped it would take too much organisation to get this many women together. Apparently it didn’t.
“I’m not really a pub kind of person,” she tried, but Harriet really wasn’t having it.
“Nonsense. Everyone is a pub kind of person, at least once in a while.”
“I’m really not.” She had a visceral dread of going out with a bunch of chatty women who would ask her all sorts of questions and no doubt look at her askance for her quiet and invariably disappointing reserve.
“Well?” Harriet planted her hands on her hips, blocking the doorway as if she thought Emily might make a run for it. “You’d better get your skates on.” Her matronly manner softened a bit as she laid a hand on Emily’s arm. “Really, it’ll be fine. We don’t bite, I promise. At least not often.”
Which was so reassuring. Not. “I guess I’ll get changed,” Emily said weakly, and went upstairs. Her fingers were trembling as she slipped out of her comfy clothes and put on a pair of black cigarette trousers and a cowl-necked cashmere top in soft grey. She really didn’t want to do this. When was the last time she’d gone out of an evening? She couldn’t even remember.
She wasn’t a complete Billy No Mates, she told herself as she ran a brush through her hair. She had a few friends from her uni days, work-focused introverts like her. They’d mostly just studied together, occasionally grabbed a quick meal. She saw them once every six months or so, if that; once she’d started at Ellis Investments, right after graduation, she’d focused on her job—and her mother—and let that be enough.
Now she tried to tell herself the evening wouldn’t be so bad. If they were all friends, they’d chat to each other and she could fade into the background and be forgotten. Hopefully that was what would happen.
Back downstairs Harriet was wandering around the open-plan living area with obvious curiosity.
“You’re not much of one for clutter, are you?” she remarked cheerfully. “I wish I could say
the same. But with three children and a dog, my house seems forever in a state of mess. This is pretty.” She nodded at a decorative glass bowl she’d picked up, putting it back on the coffee table with a clatter. “Shall we go?”
“Er, okay.” Emily reached for her coat, unable to keep from glancing back at the bowl. Harriet had replaced it so it was no longer in the centre of the table, which wasn’t a big deal—she knew that, of course—and yet…
It looked so wrong.
“Emily?” Harriet stood at the door, swathed in a pashmina, eyebrows raised.
“Coming.” Quickly Emily moved the bowl back into the centre of the coffee table, breathing a little sigh of relief at the inherent rightness of it. She straightened and glanced back at Harriet, who was, of course, looking at her oddly. Whatever. It was her bowl. Her table. Her house.
This evening was going to be awful.
“Let’s go,” Emily said as brightly as she could and walked out of the cottage.
Several cars had pulled into the courtyard by the time Emily locked up. She managed to hang back in the shadows as everyone greeted each other like long-lost relatives, with exclamations and hugs and smacking kisses on the cheek. Emily held her bag to her chest, managing a smile when people looked her way.
She’d been introduced to everyone and the names had washed over her in an impossible-to-remember tide—Alice and Olivia, of course, and then Harriet; there was also Ava and Ellie, and they were all talking about people she didn’t know—babies and children and husbands or boyfriends. Maybe dogs, as well, judging by some of the comments. Everyone seemed to have somebody in their lives, if not several, a happy and chaotic tangle of relationships that felt utterly foreign to Emily.
“Shall we walk into the village?” Ellie—or maybe it was Ava—suggested. “What’s it to be, The Drowned Sailor or The Three Pennies?”
“Oh, I don’t think I can bear another night at The Three Pennies,” another woman said. Maybe that was Ava. She was gorgeous, with a long, tousled mane of golden-brown hair and a throaty voice that made her sound like a film star. “That place gets more stuck-up by the second.”
“The Drowned Sailor it is, then,” Harriet said cheerfully, marching in front of them all like a suffragette holding her banner.
The Drowned Sailor. Perfect. This already awkward evening was now potentially going to become even more torturous. Emily would most likely see Owen Jones, with his loud laugh and unsettling manner that had been flirty one second, vaguely hostile the next. Talking to him had felt like static electricity; she’d never known when she was going to get a shock. It had left her all weirdly tingly, too.
Emily trailed towards the back of the gregarious group as they headed down the darkened road towards the village. The sun was setting but it had been raining all day and the sky was already dark and heavy with clouds, the air damp and cold. Emily pulled her coat more tightly around her as she ducked her head against the onslaught of a decidedly chilly wind, despite it being April in just a few days.
“Sorry if we’re a bit overwhelming.”
Startled, she glanced up to see one of the women had fallen in step beside her. This had to be Ellie, and she confirmed it with a shy smile.
“Ellie Venables. I used to live in number one, before I moved to Oxford.”
“Oh…right.” Emily tried to think of something else to say and couldn’t. Her brain felt as if it were full of cotton wool.
“I moved with my husband Oliver and my daughter Abby,” Ellie continued with a quiet kind of pride. Even in the midst of a dark and rainy night, Emily could see the love shining in her eyes, the happiness that surrounded her like a rosy bubble and radiated from her fingertips just as it had for Alice. “But it was a happy home for the two of us, for a little while. And Marmite too, of course. My dog.”
“That’s…nice.” She sounded so lame. But she couldn’t think of what else to say, and it was nice. Still, Emily felt her lack rather keenly as they continued to walk in a somewhat suffocated silence, and a burst of raucous laughter from the front of the group punctuated the quiet night.
“Are you missing London?” Ellie asked in a voice full of sympathy. “All your friends?”
“I suppose,” Emily managed. She felt like a fraud. “It’s very different here.”
“Yes it is, isn’t it? I moved from Manchester, and you would have thought I’d come from the moon. Some of the la-di-da types looked at me as if I were an alien, at any rate, especially when they heard my accent.” She laughed ruefully. “But you don’t look as if you’d have that sort of problem.” She gave a friendly nod towards Emily’s camel-hair coat, not exactly the most sensible clothing option considering the rain, but Emily liked to be stylish. It was her protection.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” she murmured. When she’d started at Ellis Investments, it had been important to look the part. And she loved the feel of nice clothes—the silkiness of a blouse, the heft of a good coat. Comforting somehow, and solid. Dependable in a way that people often weren’t.
As Emily had continued to work and earn and she’d been able to build her wardrobe, she’d also liked the image she presented—someone who was in control, who had made it.
And yet, as she’d taken in Ellie’s rueful smile just now, Emily knew the clothes were no more than a costume, a designer wardrobe hiding the deficiencies underneath. She suspected she was far more of an alien here than Ellie-from-Manchester ever could be, not that she’d ever admit it.
They’d reached the village green, The Drowned Sailor twinkling with friendly-looking lights on one end of it, and conversation was thankfully prohibited as they entered the crowded, noisy warmth of the pub and found a table in the back.
Harriet put herself in charge of amassing enough chairs and stools as everyone took off their coats, and Ava announced she’d spring for the first round of drinks.
“Red or white?” she asked the group.
“What about cocktails?” Harriet suggested, and Ava let out a surprisingly dirty laugh.
“Owen doesn’t do cocktails, you git.”
Harriet rolled her eyes. “Of course he doesn’t.”
“Why not one of each?” Ellie suggested mischievously. “Red and white? We’re a big group, aren’t we?”
“That we are,” someone else agreed, and laughter and comments flew around as Emily perched on a stool in the corner and quietly tried to make herself invisible.
As the women continued to chatter and laugh, her gaze moved around the crowded pub. The Drowned Sailor did a brisk business on a Friday night—mostly men clocking off after shift work, by the looks of it, some with their significant others. Emily glanced at the bar and a frisson of something unexpected went through her as she saw Owen Jones standing behind it, just as he’d been when she’d come to this pub three days ago.
There was something weirdly magnetic about him, with that quick smile, the booming laugh she could hear even from across the noisy room. His hair was dark and curly, springing up in a wild thatch around a face that looked as if it had seen a few fights, with a nose that had been broken at least once, and an ear that must have got a bit mangled somehow. Although she couldn’t see their colour from here, Emily remembered his eyes—a bright, laughing blue.
She watched as he pulled a pint, his biceps rippling with the smooth, assured movement. He had a tattoo all along one forearm, although she couldn’t see what it was from across the room. He was built like a rugby player, or even a fridge—a wide, solid chest, firmly packed with muscle. He wasn’t particularly tall, but he made up for it in power.
He glanced up from the pint, and to her horror his gaze snagged on hers, as if an invisible wire connecting them had just been yanked. She froze, as trapped as that poor, ubiquitous bunny in the headlights, and a small, slow smile tugged at his mouth as he kept looking. And she, foolish ninny that she was, kept staring.
Finally, after what felt like an absolute age, Emily managed to drag her gaze away. She felt shaky, weak and wa
tery-kneed. What on earth had just happened?
She looked up again, but he’d moved on, his back to her as he did something at the till. When he turned around, his gaze was firmly focused on someone in front of the bar as he chatted and laughed, his gaze not flicking even once in her direction, which brought a swell of relief along with a ridiculous sense of disappointment that Emily could not bear to examine too closely.
She’d never had a proper boyfriend before, something that hadn’t bothered her even if it sometimes felt a bit embarrassing to admit to at her age. Most people assumed she’d had loads of boyfriends; apparently it was the norm to be in and out of relationships as if you were trying on clothes, not that she had any idea.
When she was forced to make chitchat in the staffroom or in a shop, Emily usually got along with vague comments and murmurs, resting on the general assumption that yes, of course she’d had relationships. Of course she was just like everybody else.
Ava returned with the wine, passing around glasses and then topping them up, before her golden-brown gaze rested thoughtfully on Emily.
“And we have a special drink for our newbie,” she said in a voice that carried much too far. The other women responded with a bevy of excited murmurs and questions.
“Champagne for Emily David.” Ava brandished a flute full of bubbles with an arch look. “Owen was insistent.”
“What?” Harriet swung round to face Emily, her narrowed gaze like a laser. “Are you keeping secrets? Do you know Owen, Emily?”
“No—that is, not really.” Mortified, Emily felt a scorching blush sweep her cheeks. Damn Owen Jones, and damn his stupid champagne. She didn’t even like the stuff. “I met him when I was canvassing for Willoughby Holidays, and the fundraiser we’re arranging.”
“Well he seemed to know you quite well,” Ava remarked as she handed Emily the glass of champagne. “Insisted on opening a bottle just for you. Said it was compliments of the owner.”
“Goodness, that’s not like Owen, is it?” Harriet said speculatively.