Welcome Me to Willoughby Close (Return to Willoughby Close Book 2)

by Kate Hewitt

  “If you need anything, or your mother becomes agitated, please just pull the red cord.” Karen gave her a kindly smile. “I’m sure she’ll be pleased to see you. She’s been asking for you.”

  “Has she?” Emily’s throat closed and she had to make herself swallow past the lump forming there. “Thank you,” she said, and she opened the door to her mother’s room.

  Naomi was sitting in a chair by the window, her shoulders slumped, her gaze vacant as she rested her chin in her hand. Rain streaked the window like tears, obscuring the grey-on-grey view of a car park.

  “Hi, Mum.” Emily’s voice sounded croaky and she tried again. “How are you doing?”

  Slowly, so slowly, Naomi’s gaze swivelled towards Emily, recognition flickering in her eyes after an endless moment.

  “You came.” Her mother’s voice was slightly slurred and strangely flat, both undoubtedly results of the medication.

  “Yes, Karen said you were up for visitors.” Somehow Emily wasn’t able to keep herself from taking an awful, jolly sort of tone, like some sort of demented school matron. She hated it, but Naomi didn’t even seem to notice.

  “I’m not sure I’m up for anything. They’re all just trying to chivvy me along.” Naomi let out a defeated sigh.

  “They’re just trying to help.” Emily took a step into the room, her smile seeming to slide all over her face. “How are you feeling?”

  A twitch of her mother’s shoulder was the only response she got. Goodness, but this was hard. Emily remembered it all too well from three years ago—the initial rage, and then the horrible flattening out, so it felt as if her mum was gone, even when she was right here, and Emily had no idea what to do, how to be. She felt as if she got everything wrong—her tone, the questions, the way she kept trying to coax her mother along as if she were some sort of sulky toddler. But what else could she do? Should she do?

  “One week down, just three more to go,” she offered hopefully, although she realised belatedly that might not even be true, and it made it sound as if her mother were in prison. “The nurses seem to feel you’re making progress, Mum, so that’s good. Really good.”

  “What is progress in a place like this?” Naomi shook her head. “I don’t want to be here.” She spoke flatly, but her face crumpled and she drew a shuddering breath that sounded like a sob. “I don’t want to have to be here. I don’t want to be the sort of person who ends up in a place like this, again and again.”

  “I know,” Emily said softly. She was far too near tears herself. She hated seeing her mother like this; sometimes she thought she’d prefer her when she was manic, happiness bordering on hysteria, sometimes frightening but surely better than this deadness.

  But then she recalled the coming down, that consuming, catastrophic crash, and she knew she didn’t prefer it. She couldn’t. Even so, this was hard, for both of them.

  “Mum, if you concentrate on getting better, you’ll be out of here sooner,” Emily said quietly. “And you can get back to normal life…” If such a thing existed.

  “I’ll never be out of here.” Her mother sounded both resigned and despairing. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Nothing does. If I leave, I’ll just end up in here again, won’t I? One way or another.”

  “As long as you manage your medication, that doesn’t have to be true,” Emily said as firmly as she could. “You can manage this, Mum. You have before, for years at a time.”

  But Naomi had already turned her face to the window, away from her. Emily knew the signs; her mother wasn’t going to speak to her again. Still, she stayed for another half hour, offering various bits of rather desperate chitchat with her mother remaining stonily silent, before she told her she loved her and said goodbye.

  At the nurses’ station, the consultant asked if he could speak to her, and with her stomach clenching hard, she agreed and ended up in his office, perched on the edge of a chair.

  “Your mother is making good progress,” she said with a kindly smile, “and the goal is for her to resume normal life after these twenty-eight days. But it’s important for her to be released into a safe situation, and from what Naomi has indicated, that does not exist here in London.” A weighty pause, and Emily knew what was coming.

  “You want her to live with me.”

  “If you feel that would be a viable option.”

  “Yes, of course.” Without question. “I have a second bedroom, and lots of my mother’s things. I also work very locally, and could work from home if needed.” She swallowed hard. It would be a lot of adjustment.

  “That’s wonderful. I’ll make a referral to a consultant in Oxford.”

  Owen was already rising from his chair as Emily came down the corridor. “How was it?” he asked and she managed a smile.

  “It was okay. Not as bad as it could have been, and not as good as I always wish it could be.”

  “That’s understandable.”

  “The consultant wants my mum to live with me when she’s released from here. I was expecting it, but…” Emily shook her head. “It’s going to be a big deal. The last time she came to live with me after being in hospital, I had to take a month of unpaid leave.”

  “Will you do that again?”

  “I don’t know. My job is a lot more flexible now, but…” She shook her head, closing her eyes briefly. “I can’t think about all that now. Yet.”

  “It’s not for a few weeks,” Owen told her. “Look, why don’t we do something? Go somewhere?”

  “Don’t you have to be back…?”

  He shrugged. “The pub’s still closed. Let’s do something fun.”

  She smiled, something like hope unfurling inside her. “Okay,” she said. “Henry said I could have the whole day off if I wanted. That sounds brilliant.”

  Because it was still raining, they decided to stay inside, and Owen told her he was treating her to lunch at the Fortnum and Mason restaurant in St Pancras. Emily enjoyed avocado on toast while Owen ordered the manliest thing on the menu—a fried chicken escalope.

  “Have you ever thought about serving food at The Drowned Sailor?” she asked as she cut her toast into neat squares.

  “Certainly not food like this.”

  “But what about really decent, plain pub grub? I haven’t been in The Three Pennies except to ask about the fundraiser, but I know Harriet was saying it had become too fancy. They serve escargot now, apparently.” She wrinkled her nose.

  “I don’t know.” Owen shrugged as he stabbed a piece of chicken. “It’s not something I’ve thought about much. Most people come into my pub for a pint, not Pinot Grigio.”

  “Yes, but everyone needs to eat.” She cocked her head as she noticed his slightly defensive stance—shoulders tense, gaze downcast. “What is it? Have I touched a nerve or something?”

  “Not exactly.” He looked up with a wry smile. “It’s just…I’ve never wanted to pretend to be something I’m not.”

  “How would serving food be doing that?”

  Another shrug. “Just…trying to make The Drowned Sailor anything more than a watering hole, I suppose.”

  Emily speared a piece of smashed avocado as she considered what he was saying—as well as what he didn’t seem to want to say. “Are you afraid people will sneer at you?” she asked cautiously. “For trying to be something more?”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  He sounded so stung, she had to smile. “You know what I mean.”

  Restively Owen put down his fork. “I grew up poor, Emily. Dirt poor. Until I was twelve, our toilet was in the bottom of the garden.”

  “Okay.” She shrugged right back at him. “I’m sorry about that, but so?”

  A smile quirked his mouth at her challenge. “Don’t think I’m asking for pity. It’s just…I dropped out of school at fifteen, like I told you I didn’t even take my GCSEs, and no one bothered to check because too many of us were doing the same. I loafed around, getting up to no good…” He spread his hands. “Frankly, I’m amazed I got this f
ar.”

  “So am I,” Emily said, and he laughed at her honesty. Realising how she sounded, she shook her head with a smile. “What I mean is, you’re amazing, Owen. You’ve risen above so many challenges. If you’d followed the expected trajectory of your upbringing, you’d still be in Cwmparc, struggling to find a job—”

  “And drinking my life away.”

  “Perhaps,” she allowed. “But instead you got out, and you made something of yourself. You bought a pub, for heaven’s sake! So why not go even further, as far as you want?”

  “We are talking about serving bar food, aren’t we?” Owen joked. “And not walking on the moon?”

  “To infinity and beyond,” Emily quipped back. “Or maybe to fish and chips and beyond.”

  “Maybe,” Owen allowed. She saw he wanted to drop it, and she decided she’d pressed enough. But it had felt good, to challenge and encourage, to have their relationship—if that’s what they had—be more give and take and not just her desperately needing Owen.

  After lunch, they walked to the National Gallery and wandered through the elegant rooms for an hour or two, studying the paintings and then making a game of imagining what the people in portraits were thinking.

  “He looks like he really needs to get to the bog,” Owen said in a carrying whisper, and Emily had to stifle her giggles.

  By three o’clock, they decided to head back to Wychwood to miss the worst of the traffic, and they walked through a steady rain back to the van, getting soaked in the process.

  “It’s been a wonderful day,” Emily said as she pushed her dripping hair from her eyes and Owen started the van. “Even if I’m the one looking like a drowned sailor at the moment.” She glanced at him, noticing the furrow between his eyes. “Do you think the pub’s all right?”

  “I asked Darren to check on the cellar,” Owen replied. “And he hasn’t texted, so it should be fine.” He gave her a quick and lovely smile. “I wouldn’t have missed today for anything.”

  *

  He’d spoken the truth, but Owen couldn’t keep an anxiety from gnawing inside him as he headed back on the M40. It had been raining steadily all day, and it was now a proper downpour. Plus, although he hadn’t told Emily, Darren had texted him an hour ago, apologising that he hadn’t had chance to check the cellar.

  Even if the cellar was full of water, Owen reasoned, it wasn’t the end of the world. He could claim any damage on insurance, and at least the main areas would still be safe. But it had rained a lot, and when he switched on the radio, the news was full of accounts of flooding all across the region, from Oxford to Cardiff. The Severn had burst its banks, and an entire village near it was practically underwater. Owen switched off the radio and concentrated on driving.

  As they drove into the village, he noted the rainwater sluicing down the high street with a pang of real fear. Sandbags lined most of the shop doorways, and the trains weren’t running.

  “Goodness,” Emily murmured, giving him a concerned look. Owen’s hands clenched harder on the steering wheel. When The Drowned Sailor came into view, he saw Darren out in front, and water streaming out of the door. As he pulled into the car park, an emergency vehicle screamed into the space next to him.

  Owen clambered out of the van and sprinted towards Darren. “What’s happened—”

  “I’m so sorry, Owen.” Darren looked shell-shocked. “The water came up from the cellar—the main room has at least three feet in it.”

  “What—”

  “And the ceiling fell in,” Darren continued miserably.

  “The ceiling—” He thought of the damp-proofing he’d been wanting to get around to doing, and shook his head slowly.

  “I’m sorry,” Darren said again, and Owen stepped back, his mind spinning, as two firemen shouldered their way into the building to deal with the damage.

  Emily jogged up next to him, rainwater streaming down her anxious face. “What’s happened?”

  Owen’s chest was tight as he stared at the flooded mess of his pub. He couldn’t answer Emily. He couldn’t bear putting it into words.

  Everything he’d worked so hard for was ruined.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Owen gazed around the utter, impossible mess of his pub and then at the tumbler of whisky he’d poured and left on top of the bar. He hadn’t had a drink in fifteen years, but he was sorely tempted now. In a matter of days, his whole life, which had been starting to shape up rather nicely, was in complete ruins.

  It had been three days since he and Emily had driven up to The Drowned Sailor—ironic, the name, now—and he’d glimpsed the devastation. Even then he hadn’t realised it fully. He hadn’t been able to.

  He never should have gone to London, he acknowledged dully as he gazed around at the ceiling rubble, the gaping hole, the water stains on the walls. He’d told Emily he wouldn’t have missed it for anything, but he knew now that wasn’t true.

  He should have missed it for this.

  The truth was, in the moment, Emily had been more important to him than the pub. Supporting and even saving Emily had been more important than saving his livelihood. And here was the result—everything in ruins. His life basically over.

  Everyone in the village had been incredibly supportive. An army of volunteers had shown up that first night, sleeves rolled up, ready to work, but there wasn’t anything they could do; it was too dangerous and had to be handled by professionals.

  Emily had wanted to help, too; when Owen had first run up to his pub, and she’d come to his side, he’d instinctively shaken off the hand she’d put on his arm. He couldn’t help it; he’d felt alone, unmoored, unable to do anything but look at what was happening. Roughly he’d told her to go home; she’d looked hurt but had agreed, and he’d told her he’d ring her. He hadn’t. Hadn’t wanted to, because what had there been to say? My livelihood, my whole life, has just been destroyed. Want to have dinner on Saturday?

  No. That, just like this, was ruined. Everything was.

  Still, Emily had texted, asking how she could help, and Owen had texted back that there was nothing anyone could do. The insurance people had to come in and make their assessments. Now they had and he was left with even less.

  Nothing but this tumbler of whisky, the amber liquid glinting in the weak sunlight streaming through the windows, because now the rain had stopped.

  Owen reached for the tumbler of whisky, his fingers clenching around the glass. He wasn’t going to drink it, but he liked to think he had the option of blunting the pain.

  Friends were still trying to rally. Jace had offered his DIY services, and Ava had brought food, as if he were an invalid, and Darren had said he would do whatever it took to get the pub back up and running. The trouble was, Owen knew that was impossible. The pub would never open again. Once more he reached for the glass, and then swearing under his breath, rose from the stool where he’d been sitting by the bar.

  The insurance company had sent an assessor two days ago, and two efficient, blank-faced workmen had gone through the site. Technically, Owen wasn’t meant to be in here, since the place was considered dangerous, what with half the ceiling stoved in. Technically, he didn’t care.

  The creak of the front door opening had Owen turning as he raked his hands through his hair. “The pub’s closed,” he called out irritably. “Can’t you tell?”

  The door opened further, and then Emily stood there. She was dressed in one of her elegant work outfits—a slim-fitting pencil skirt in navy with a pink silk blouse that had little pearl buttons. Her hair was twisted up in some fancy way, and she looked beautiful and sexy and impossibly remote. How could he have thought they’d have a chance, even for a moment?

  “What are you doing here?”

  She blinked at his surly tone, and then stepped into the room. “I wanted to see you.”

  Owen spread his arms wide to encompass all the damage—the rubble still littering the floor, the damp walls, the complete ruin. “Not much to see.”

  Her s
late-blue gaze scanned his face. “I’m so sorry, Owen.”

  “So am I.”

  She stared at him, and he stared back, and there didn’t seem to be much more to say. He dropped his arms and was about to turn away when she asked, “Have the insurance people come to look at it?”

  He let out a heavy sigh. “Yes.”

  “And what did they say?”

  He swallowed, feeling like there was a stone in his gut. “They’ve managed to find a way to keep from paying for most of the damage.” Bitterness corroded every syllable, bitterness and guilt, because he knew this was his own damned fault. “The cellar wasn’t an approved place for storage, because of the flood risk, so I’m not covered for any of that damage, and the ceiling falling in isn’t covered, either, because I hadn’t damp-proofed when I’d been told to.” Never mind he hadn’t had the money. “And because I was cheap, I got the cheapest policy, so all the fixtures and furnishings are covered at their current value, rather than new for like. So that’s about a hundred quid, if I’m lucky.” He let out another sigh. “It’s my own fault. I know that. I should have taken out a better policy, and paid attention to the small print. I should have damp-proofed the upstairs, but I didn’t think it was as bad as it obviously was. I know.”

  “I’m sorry.” She spoke quietly, sadly, and Owen shook his head.

  “It’s all right.” Even though it wasn’t.

  “What will you do?”

  “I’ll have to pack it all in.” He shrugged, or tried to, even though the words felt like something physically breaking inside him. “I can’t afford to fix it all. I bought this place when it was a falling-down mess, with a business loan I still have to pay back. There’s no money for this level of renovation.” He kicked at a piece of rubble. “The Drowned Sailor just gave his last gasp.”

  Emily was silent, and he looked at her, saw her brow was furrowed. Her lips pursed thoughtfully as she scanned the room. “You disagree?” He spoke scoffingly, because to him it was all too obvious.

  “No, not necessarily. I just hate the thought of you having to give up.”