‘Sit,’ he says, talking to me like I talk to Hamish.
I sit. Lawrence strides up and down in front of me wearing his ‘concerned’ frown. I have never previously come across a man with such a wide range of forehead furrows. Already, I know many of them too well.
‘I’m sorry to say, Amy, that we won’t be extending your trial period.’
Trial period? I didn’t know I was on one.
He folds his arms and stares at me. ‘If you’d like to clear your desk you can leave now.’
I also fold my arms. ‘This is because I object to one of our clients groping my bottom?’
‘I don’t think there’s any point in us discussing this issue. We’re not sure that you’re a team player and here at the British Television Company we need team players.’
Team players! You need bloody mindless slaves with no homelife, I think, but say nothing. There’s no use in arguing with someone like Lawrence and, to be truthful, my return to the fold has not been quite the homecoming I envisaged.
My heart was never in this job from day one, though I don’t think I’ve done badly enough to be given the boot. If Lawrence had one iota of compassion he’d understand my problems. But he doesn’t. The man has a calculator where his soul should be, and all he knows are targets, ratings and sales. This isn’t for me. I want to make programmes with integrity. I want to work with people with integrity. In my time, I was a damn good producer and I deserve more than this.
I have no argument for Lawrence though. I’m too exhausted, too crushed to be able to fight my own corner.
Holding up my hands, I back out of the door. ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘Thanks for nothing.’
Bad news, it seems, comes in more than threes. Before I know it, I’m out on the street and stunned. It’s not yet ten o’clock and I’ve found out that my beautiful children are being bullied and I’ve been sacked.
In a daze, I get onto the Tube, heading back towards home. Hanging onto the overhead bar, I let my body move with the sway of the train and my mind go into freefall. I’ve come back here to try and pick up my old life and, suddenly, it’s all crumbling round my ears.
Before I know what I’m doing, I’m out on the street and walking towards my old house in Notting Hill. It pulls me up short. I didn’t mean to do that. I just did it on autopilot, before I remembered that I didn’t live here any more. Since we’ve been back I’ve done all that I can to avoid coming here. I’ve even taken a circuitous route to give this place a wide berth.
It’s dry today, for a change, but windy along the street and I pull my coat around me, aware of the swirling dust stinging my eyes. Now, standing outside the place that was my home for many a happy year, I feel even more like an alien. A hick up from the sticks. I stare at the house, hands jammed into my pockets to keep them warm, as if it’s somewhere that I don’t know every nook and cranny of, every creak and groan. I know that the utility-room door is warped, that a breeze blows through the study window, catching you in the back of the neck as you sit at the desk, and I know that the thermostat on the radiator in the family bathroom needs replacing.
They haven’t done much to the house, the new people. There are two smart black pots either side of the front door bearing wind-scorched bay trees, but other than that it looks pretty much the same. But I know that the rooms – which made the house our home – would now be unrecognisable. There’ll be new furniture, new books, new cutlery, new covers on the beds, a different range of foods in the fridge. All the small things that defined us as a family are gone. I wonder, if the house could look back at me, would it think the same thing? Would it think that I looked pretty much the same on the outside? Would it realise that everything inside has changed, that nothing is familiar any more?
Desperately, I want to go back inside to try to reach out to the past. But the door is closed to me, there’s no one at home. More than the new plot in the graveyard that I tended, or the emptiness in my double bed that I feel so keenly, this brings it home hard to me that this treasured part of my life is now gone. It’s the past. It’s over. What I had will never be mine again.
I tried so hard to re-create the old life – for me, for the children – without ever realising that even if everything had turned out perfectly and even if I’d done the impossible and claimed back my house, my beloved job on Sports Quiz and had managed to get the children places at Weston’s again – it still wasn’t going to bring Will back to me. My old world meant security to me; somehow I thought if I got that back then I’d manage better without my husband and everything would return to how it had been.
Of course, I was hideously mistaken. Things can never be the same. A smart job in London and a flat with a trendy address is never, ever going to bring William back, it’s never going to give my children back their beloved father. All the time I think I’ve been making plans, moving on, and all I’ve been doing is trying to move forwards by going back.
My eyes fill with tears and I realise that there’s no trace of Will here. He’s not in London any more. There are no traces of him in the restaurants we used to go to, the places we used to love. My husband’s in Helmshill now. That’s where his heart is. That’s where Will is. And it hits me like a body blow that I’m not.
Feeling my wedding band on my finger, I take my hand out of my pocket to look at it. The shiny gold symbol always felt like a part of me; now I feel like a fraud for wearing it. Slipping the ring from my finger, I let it fall into the depths of my pocket. I’m not a married woman any more. I’m a widow. A single parent. Alone.
Chapter One Hundred and Six
As I go into the block at Lancaster Court, the letting agent is coming out. We both do a double-take. Then he flushes bright red.
‘Hello,’ I say, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice.
‘I’m here with an eviction order,’ he says briskly. And then I notice the bulky brown envelope in his hand. ‘From the landlord. Your neighbours have complained to us. The dog has to go by the weekend or you’re out.’
‘Ah.’ My poor dog. I sigh and take the envelope as he holds it out for me. ‘Hamish isn’t a pet. He’s a member of the family.’
The letting agent looks unimpressed by this. So kick me out on a technicality.
‘You’ll lose your deposit,’ the agent explains. ‘If you go.’
‘Right.’ That’s an awful lot of money.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. He doesn’t look it.
‘Me too.’
Then he scuttles away, banging the door behind him and leaving me to think, Am I really sorry?
With a leaden heart, I let myself into the flat. In the living room, Hamish and Mils are lying side-by-side on the sofa watching The Jeremy Kyle Show. They both look up when I walk in. Hamish slides off the sofa, wagging his tail and rubbing up and down my legs.
‘I’m thinking of selling you both to a glue factory or some laboratory that does hideous animal experiments,’ I tell my pets, but they fail to look terrified. Perhaps they now know that I’m all bluff and bluster. ‘If I don’t, we’ll all be homeless. Any other ideas?’
Milly Molly Mandy yawns and returns her attention to a lesbian grappling with her ex-husband for reasons I know not why on the small screen.
‘I need a nice cup of tea,’ I tell Hamish as I divest myself of my coat. ‘You won’t believe the morning I’ve had. It’s been hell. What else could possibly go wrong?’
Then, before I get as far as the kettle, my mobile rings. Why, it’s Wayne the estate agent calling all the way from Yorkshire! Surely good news now!
‘Mrs Ashurst,’ he says. ‘I’ve some very bad news.’
I just about manage to stop myself from laughing hysterically down the phone.
‘The Gerner-Bernards have decided not to go ahead with the purchase of Helmshill Grange.’
My inclination to laugh dissipates instantly and instead I suck in a sharp intake of breath. ‘They can’t back out now. Not at this late stage.’
‘They’
re very sorry,’ Wayne says, and I wonder whose side he’s on.
‘Give me their telephone number,’ I demand. ‘I want to call them.’
‘I can’t do that, I’m afraid.’
‘I want to call them and make them realise exactly what they’re doing.’
‘I’ve tried everything to persuade them otherwise, Mrs Ashurst, but they wouldn’t change their minds.’
‘What can I do?’
‘We’ll remarket the property,’ he says. ‘Straight away. Perhaps you’d consider reducing the price?’
‘I need time to think about this,’ I tell Wayne the Wonderboy. ‘I’m struggling to take it in.’
But as I hang up, I know exactly what I have to do. I have to go up to Yorkshire and find out what’s going on. I forget about my cup of tea and, instead, go into the bedroom and pull an overnight bag out of the wardrobe. I throw some stuff in for me and then go through to the children’s rooms and do the same. My coat gets shrugged back on. ‘Come on, you two,’ I say to Hamish and Milly Molly Mandy. ‘You’re coming as well.’
Mils makes a break for it as I bring in her travel cage, but I grab her, kiss her on the nose and, while she’s still in a state of shock at my unexpected affection, slide her inside. I put Hamish on the lead and my dog promptly enters into the spirit of adventure by barking like a loon and doing jumping jacks even though he’s not supposed to. Banging the flat door behind me, I struggle down the road, going as fast as my legs will carry me with my baggage and my pet posse. The Land Rover is just round the corner and I load it up with our gear. Minutes later, I’m outside the children’s school.
‘Do not eat one single thing,’ I say to Hamish before I fly inside.
The receptionist looks up as I burst into the school. ‘I’d like Tom and Jessica Ashurst out of school, please. A family emergency has come up.’
Without further question, she springs into action and five minutes later, while I’m tapping my feet impatiently, my children appear.
They’re carrying their coats and have worried looks on their faces.
‘Why do we have to come out of class, Mummy?’ Tom wants to know.
‘Are we going to the dentist?’ Jessica looks deeply unimpressed by this idea.
‘Mummy has a few problems she needs to sort out. We’re going to Yorkshire,’ I tell them. ‘Back to Helmshill Grange.’
‘Hurrah!’ they both shout and race out towards the car.
And, despite the fact that my problems are stacking up, my heart feels lighter than it has done in days and I race after them.
Chapter One Hundred and Seven
‘I could fix you up with a date,’ Cheryl suggested.
‘I don’t need a date,’ Guy insisted. ‘We’ve been down that route before and it was a complete disaster.’
‘It might stop you moping around like a love-sick teenager.’
‘I’m not moping around.’ Although he had to agree that he was feeling rather too much like a love-sick teenager for his own good.
‘You’re just too fussy,’ his receptionist puffed.
‘I am,’ Guy agreed. ‘And I also happen to have found someone that I want to be with all by myself.’
Cheryl made another disparaging noise. ‘I don’t like to point this out,’ she said, ‘but the lovely Mrs Ashurst is at the other end of the country.’
‘I’m working on that,’ he told her.
‘You’d better not be thinking about leaving us to go south.’
‘No,’ Guy said honestly. ‘That’s not in my masterplan.’
‘Glad to hear it.’
He sighed to himself. He could only hope that Amy would be pleased to hear what he had in mind. ‘Now, let’s get down to business. What’s in the book for today?’
Cheryl reeled off the list of appointments. ‘Two cats to neuter. A budgie with some sort of growth on its beak. A dog with diarrhoea. Oh, and Mrs Harris is coming in. Megan had her pups a few weeks ago.’
That stopped Guy in his tracks. ‘Why did no one tell me?’
‘Why would you want to know?’ Cheryl looked puzzled, as well she might. One or more of their clients’ pets had pups practically every day of the week and he never took a personal interest in them. How would Cheryl know that this was different?
‘Stephen had a look at them. Did their injections and all that. Now she wants you to check them over just to make sure they’re all right. Have you got a problem with that?’
‘No, no.’ He felt a guilty gulp travel down his throat. How the hell was he going to be able to bill Mrs Harris for this? For what Hamish had done to her poor, unsuspecting bitch, he at least owed her this one on the house.
‘You’ve gone all pale.’ For reasons that Cheryl wasn’t aware of he felt more than a little responsible for Megan’s pups.
‘I’m fine. Perfectly fine.’
‘I’ve squeezed her in,’ Cheryl continued, unaware of the cause of his discomfort. ‘Mrs Harris should be here at any minute.’ On cue, a shiny new Vauxhall Corsa pulled up outside. ‘Oh, look. She’s here now.’
He watched, frozen, as his client eased herself out of her car, toddled round to the boot and opened it. She struggled to lift a cardboard box out.
‘Don’t just stand there,’ Cheryl scolded. ‘Go and help her!’
Mobilised, Guy shot out of the door and into the car park. ‘Here,’ he said to Mrs Harris. ‘Let me help.’
‘Oh, thank you, Mr Burton,’ she said gratefully. ‘They might only be a few weeks old, but they weigh a ton.’
Guy took the box from her arms and stared inside. Shocked, he nearly dropped it on the ground. There could be no doubting the parentage of these pups. Peering back at him, all barking squeakily, were six miniature versions of Hamish.
‘They’re quite a handful,’ the elderly lady said with a sigh. ‘I can tell you.’
Guy could well imagine.
‘They’ve got me run ragged.’
And, if their father was anything to go by, it was only going to get worse. What a shame they hadn’t inherited their looks from their boisterous father and their personality from their placid mother.
The little glossy black and tan bundles were climbing over each other, trying their best to escape from the confines of their box. On a cute scale of one to ten, the pups were up there at eleven. One licked his finger with its soft, tickly tongue and Guy felt his heart melt.
‘Still,’ she said, ‘I’ve got offers for four of them already. They’ll soon be off my hands.’
He lifted the pup up. It licked all over his chin. It was a dog, the biggest of the bunch.
‘That one’s the most lively, Mr Burton. We’ve nicknamed him Trouble. I think he’ll grow into a fine dog.’
He couldn’t believe he was about to say this, but he did anyway. ‘Mrs Harris, is this one taken?’
Chapter One Hundred and Eight
It takes me five hours to drive back to Scarsby. The children have behaved like angels all the way. Even Hamish and Milly Molly Mandy have been no trouble at all. It’s as if they know.
Now we’re in striking distance, on the last leg of the journey. I ease the Land Rover up the twisting lanes, over the steep hills, taking roads which decrease in size with every turn away from the motorway up to Scarsby. The moors are spread out before me, stark in their winter array. For miles and miles, I can see nothing manmade but the threads of the low, meandering drystone walls and the odd, lone farmhouse. A hawk hovers patiently by the side of the road, waiting for its lunch to appear. I turn off the radio and all I can hear is the plaintive whistle of the wind past the car.
‘Nearly there.’
‘Yay!’ Tom and Jessica shout together. Hamish wakes up and barks.
Before I go up to the house, I screech to a halt right outside the estate agents. ‘Wait here,’ I say to the kids. ‘I won’t be long. Don’t let the dog eat anything.’
Wayne, the youthful estate agent, looks up, shocked, as I burst through the door, making it reverberate on
its hinges. This is the most excitement Scarsby has seen in months.
‘Mrs Ashurst.’ His spotty face blanches as if he’s seen an apparition. ‘I was going to c . . . c . . . call you,’ he stammers before I can say anything. ‘Honestly, I was.’
‘What on earth is going on?’ I snap. ‘How can you have lost this sale? Do you know how important it was to me?’
Wayne holds up his hands. ‘I’ve got some good news,’ he bleats. ‘It looks like we’ve got another buyer.’
That stops me in my tracks. I flop into the seat in front of his desk. Now it’s my turn to be stunned. ‘Oh. So soon?’ That’s good news, isn’t it? I should be thrilled. Instead, my heart beats in panic. This sale could still go through.
The estate agent recovers some of his composure. He shuffles papers about on his desk and tries to look like he knows what he’s doing.
‘The client has just gone up to the house. You’ve only missed him by a few minutes.’
‘I’ll go straight up there,’ I say, standing as I do. ‘I’ll show him round.’ Do your job, I think. It seems that I came back not a moment too soon. ‘Give me his name.’
The agent flushes again. This man should never play poker. ‘I’m afraid that I’m not at liberty to do that.’
‘Why on earth not? He wants to buy my house, I damn well want to know who he is.’
‘He’s asked that he remain anonymous, for the moment.’
‘Is this man seriously interested or is he just a time-waster?’
The agent shrugs. ‘He seemed genuine enough.’
I wonder whether it’s one of these soap-star types from Granada in Manchester. They’re all buying up country properties out here. Though, frankly, I don’t give a toss who buys it as long as it goes quickly. No, that’s not strictly true. I care very much who lives at Helmshill Grange – even though I shouldn’t.
‘Call him,’ I instruct, and wag my finger at him for good measure. ‘Tell him that I’m on my way and not to move without seeing me.’
‘I’ll do that right away, Mrs Ashurst.’
I can present Helmshill Grange in its best possible light. Let’s see if I can’t secure a sale within the next hour!
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