So they had to wait for a moment while Damon tweaked and twanged and tried to get the strings right. Then he strummed again and this time seemed happier. He began to play a quiet tune, catching each string gently with the plectrum he’d retrieved from his shirt pocket. Jude gave Harriet a look of approval, but she didn’t seem quite as in awe – Lizzie supposed she’d heard it all before. Then Jude turned the same look on Lizzie and she had to agree – she was no expert but Damon did sound pretty good.
‘Do you know any Dolly Parton songs?’ Charlie asked excitedly.
Damon looked confused for a moment, but then he grinned. ‘Sorry, my guitar wouldn’t let me play one of those even if I did know one.’
Charlie looked disappointed and Harriet reached over to ruffle his hair. ‘Some people have no taste, eh, Chuckles?’
‘I picked you,’ Damon said mildly as he continued to strum gently. ‘So I must have some taste.’
‘Maybe I picked you!’ Harriet countered. ‘Who says you got a say in the choosing?’
‘Can you play a song?’ Charlie asked.
‘I am playing a song,’ Damon said, his head nodding slightly as he strummed.
‘A different song,’ Charlie insisted. ‘I don’t know this one.’
‘What do you want me to sing?’
Charlie shrugged. His number-one choice had already been vetoed and apparently he didn’t have a fall-back position.
‘That Smashing Pumpkins song Charlie liked that one time?’ Harriet suggested, getting more into the spirit of things now. ‘You can play that, can’t you?’
Damon paused, but then nodded. ‘Yeah, probably.’
His fingers began to move across the strings again, and then he opened his mouth and began to sing.
The look of shock on Lizzie’s face was completely involuntary. It was lucky that her hands hadn’t also flown to her ears. Damon might have been a competent guitarist, but his voice rasped like a pan scrubber being scratched across a metal pot. Lizzie supposed he might think it was cool and edgy, but it was just offensive to anyone with ears. Even Charlie looked vaguely alarmed, and he was usually happy with just about any kind of entertainment. Harriet alone looked untroubled and unsurprised but then, she must have heard Damon singing plenty of times before. The rest of the room struggled through and suffered it to the end. Damon looked up to forced smiles of approval.
‘Any more requests?’ he asked cheerfully.
‘No!’ Jude said a little too quickly. ‘I mean, let’s save them for later when we’ve had a few more drinks.’ He looked at Lizzie with something like desperation in his eyes. ‘Another drink?’
Lizzie downed the last of her Malibu and handed him the glass. She’d gladly take as much alcohol as necessary to drown out the terrible memory of the sound she’d just been subjected to. She’d call it singing, but it would be an insult to singers everywhere.
‘I’d love one,’ she said.
Jude headed out to the kitchen, leaving Damon to put his guitar back into the case, though he left it open so he could look lovingly at it from time to time.
Harriet reached for a handful of peanuts from a bowl that Charlie had balanced precariously on a side table and popped them into her mouth. With Jude out of the room, the conversation had dried up again.
‘Where did you learn to play?’ Lizzie asked Damon, more for something to fill the silence than because she genuinely cared.
‘Self-taught,’ he replied, sitting a little straighter as he did.
‘Right,’ Lizzie said. ‘That’s quite impressive. I don’t think I could teach myself to play an instrument.’
‘You’d be surprised,’ he said. ‘There are tutorials and everything online now. Anyone can do it.’
That didn’t mean everyone should do it, Lizzie thought, though perhaps she was being a little unkind. The guitar playing hadn’t actually been too bad. If someone could just have a quiet word with him about the singing, they’d potentially save many people from having to go through what the guests at Jude’s house had just had to endure.
Jude returned with more drinks and Lizzie relaxed. At least he could take charge of the conversation again, leaving her to pursue steadily increasing drunkenness.
* * *
Charlie had been allowed to drink a little beer mixed with lemonade, and while he’d been happy to join in the conversation at first, after an hour or so, he’d wandered off to play on his games console in Jude’s little office. Jude and Harriet were taking it in turns to check on Artie now. Sometime around eleven, a tinny little voice came from the baby monitor.
‘Mummy!’
Harriet pushed herself from the sofa. ‘I won’t be a minute. He’s doing this all the time at the moment – night terrors or something they call it.’
At this Jude looked alarmed. ‘How long has this been going on? It didn’t happen last time he stayed with me.’
Harriet shrugged. ‘About a week, maybe. He just wakes up all stressed. Apparently it’s a toddler thing – nothing to get antsy about. Mum says I used to do it too.’
She left the room, Jude watching her go with a look of concern.
‘You heard her,’ Damon said mildly. ‘He’ll be alright in a minute.’
Jude turned to him and now his look of concern had turned to one of irritation. Lizzie knew what he was thinking without having to ask. Damon had no children, hardly took any interest in Artie as far as Lizzie could tell, and wasn’t far short of a man-child himself. It was alright for him to offer glib reassurances because – though she could be wrong – Lizzie would bet he’d never had a single responsibility in his life.
‘I’ll turn the music off for a while, shall I?’ Lizzie offered. ‘Just until Artie settles off again…’
Jude threw her a grateful look. She went to the iPod dock and pressed pause on the playlist. As she took her seat again, Harriet shouted for Jude.
‘Can you come in for a minute?’
Jude got up and went out, leaving Lizzie and Damon alone. Here were two people now thrown together who had nothing more in common than the fact that their partners had once been partners, and if any situation promised an awkward silence, this was it. Lizzie glanced at him and offered a tight smile.
‘So…’ she began in a bid to fill the gap. ‘You never did say what you do for a living.’
‘I’m in a band.’
‘Really?’ Lizzie asked. Considering what she’d heard that evening, she vowed never to get conned into going to see them. ‘What are you called?’
‘We haven’t settled on a name yet.’
‘Oh. Where do you play?’
‘Haven’t actually played a gig yet.’
Lizzie frowned. ‘So you’re not making money from it? You have another job?’
‘Not exactly… I’m helping out on my dad’s farm until we get going. We’re trying to build up a YouTube audience first, then we’ll get on the circuit.’
‘Will you try for a record deal?’
Damon’s lip curled. ‘Give all our earnings to a faceless corporation? No chance! You don’t need a record deal these days; you can do it all yourselves and keep all the money.’
‘Oh…’ Lizzie said, folding her hands over one another in her lap. ‘Well, that’s good.’
They fell to silence again. Lizzie looked up at the clock. Jude and Harriet had been gone for a good five minutes. She supposed that when you considered they were probably trying to get Artie settled again, five minutes wasn’t all that long, but sitting alone with Damon made it feel like a lot longer.
‘So how did you meet Harriet?’ she asked.
‘In a pub.’
‘Oh, the Golden Lion?’
Damon snorted. ‘Nobody goes in there!’
Lizzie smoothed another frown away. That wasn’t what she’d heard from Derek, and the Golden Lion looked quite nice from what she’d seen.
‘She was dancing on a table in the Grim Reaper,’ Damon said with a grin at the memory.
‘Where’s that? Is
it in the village?’
‘God no! I never drink in the village.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, it’s boring…’ he said, as if that were the most obvious thing in the world.
‘So where’s the Grim Reaper then?’ Lizzie asked, deciding it was also somewhere she ought to make an effort to avoid in the future.
‘It’s out on the A12.’
She nodded and looked at the clock again, wishing harder than ever that Jude and Harriet (but mostly Jude) would reappear. But another few silent minutes ticked by and there was still no sign of them. Doubts and suspicions began to creep into Lizzie’s mind, and she shook them away.
‘What are they doing in there?’ Damon said, clearly beginning to feel as uneasy as Lizzie. ‘How long does it take to get a kid to sleep?’
‘I have no idea – never had to do it,’ Lizzie said.
‘He’s always doing this.’
‘Who?’
‘The kid. Always waking up.’
Lizzie shrugged. ‘I suppose that’s what toddlers do.’
‘It’s a pain. You can’t get a minute alone without him wanting something. He’s still staying here tonight, right?’
‘As far as I know.’
‘Good.’
‘You don’t like him?’
‘Course I do.’
Lizzie paused. She was running out of conversation fast and what there was felt like hard work.
‘Do you have to get up early to work on your dad’s farm?’
Damon sat back and clasped his hands behind his head. ‘Early enough, but it’s not like he’s going to sack me if I take the odd lie-in, is it?’
‘I suppose not. Do you still live with your parents on the farm?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And they don’t mind… I mean, does Harriet stay over there a lot with you?’
‘They don’t mind. My room’s soundproofed anyway for my guitar so…’
‘Does she bring Artie?’
‘Not if I can help it. Usually Harriet gets someone to babysit if she’s coming for the night.’
‘How long have you been together?’
Damon scratched a hand through his hair. ‘Maybe six, seven months. She’s amazing.’
‘Seems like it…’ Lizzie gave a rueful smile.
‘I mean, other than the obvious, she’s as close to a ten as you can get,’ he said, looking towards the stairs.
‘Other than what obvious?’
‘You know…’ Damon looked at her. ‘The baggage.’
‘Baggage? You mean Artie?’ Lizzie stared at him. She’d always been more worried about Jude’s relationship with Harriet than the fact that he had a son, and she’d never imagined that it would be Artie who would present an issue to anyone. She was about to say something to that effect when the sound of laughter came floating through from the baby monitor in the kitchen. It must have been loud because they hadn’t been able to make out the indistinct mumbling that had been coming through before, but this was clear. It sounded like Harriet, and something had clearly tickled her.
Lizzie tried to ignore the prickling hairs on the back of her neck and the wave of insane jealousy that suddenly swept over her. Harriet had been doing her best to get one up on Lizzie all night – try as she might, Lizzie couldn’t ignore it any longer. Harriet had constantly reminded Jude of how much history they had together, she’d flirted with him despite Damon being there and now she’d taken him off on some pretence of needing him for Artie.
Lizzie glanced at Damon. Would he agree if she spoke any of this out loud? Or was she really seeing things that weren’t there?
‘What the hell is taking them so long?’ he said again, looking at the clock.
‘Maybe I should go and see if everything is OK?’ Lizzie said.
Just then, Charlie wandered in. ‘Can I have some more beer?’ he asked, clearly bored.
‘Oh,’ Lizzie replied. ‘Well, maybe we ought to ask Jude first.’
‘Where is he?’
‘He’s helping Harriet. Artie woke up.’
Charlie’s expression brightened. ‘I know how to get Artie back to sleep!’
‘Maybe you could go and help them…’ Lizzie suggested, seizing suddenly on a resolution to their current predicament. With Charlie in there, nobody needed to worry about what else might be going on.
Charlie dashed off, and Lizzie exchanged another look with Damon. Only this time she couldn’t hide the little lacing of triumph in hers.
Flirt your way out of that, Harrie…
When Charlie came back, Harriet and Jude were with him. Both were smiling broadly and looking as if they’d had the time of their lives in Artie’s bedroom.
‘Is everything OK?’ Lizzie asked. ‘Artie’s gone back to sleep?’
‘He has now,’ Jude said. ‘He’s such a little character, though – messed us around something rotten. He’d got both our full attention and he wasn’t wasting that opportunity…’ He glanced at Harriet, eyebrows raised. ‘I wonder where he gets that from?’
‘Not from me!’ Harriet laughed. ‘You’re the needy one!’
‘But you love an audience,’ Jude countered.
‘Oh yeah, right, I forgot that everything is always my fault,’ Harriet said with a grin.
‘Not everything,’ Jude said. ‘Just most things…’
‘But he’s asleep now?’ Damon interrupted their banter. ‘And he won’t wake up again tonight?’
‘I think he’s settled,’ Harriet said. ‘I can’t promise he won’t wake again.’
‘So I can’t play my guitar?’ Damon asked, looking crestfallen.
‘Play it quietly, but don’t sing,’ Harriet said.
Lizzie didn’t say anything about the mere fact of them having a drinks party was probably enough to wake Artie again if things got too rowdy. While Harriet was forbidding too much noise, it saved everyone from having to suffer Damon’s singing again, even if that hadn’t been her intention. For once, Lizzie found herself in agreement with something Harriet had said.
‘Can I top you up?’ Jude looked at Lizzie’s empty glass. She nodded and handed it to him.
‘I think Charlie wanted a drink too,’ Lizzie said.
‘You want one, Chuckles?’ Harriet asked, smiling at Charlie. ‘Come on, I’ll sort yours out while Jude does the others.’
Jude left for the kitchen, with Harriet and Charlie following. Lizzie looked at Damon and tried to hold in the long sigh working its way into her throat. Luckily, he was busy lifting his guitar from the case, gazing at it with such love and wonder that Lizzie was worried he might be about to snog it, but at least it saved her a repeat of the painful attempts at conversation they’d endured moments before. She could hear laughter again coming from the kitchen, but it seemed to be as a result of something Charlie was doing or saying. This time, Lizzie couldn’t hold the sigh back. Damon looked up.
‘They’re always doing that,’ he said, angling his head towards the doorway.
Lizzie wanted to ask if it bothered him, but she had the feeling that Damon wouldn’t be very good at discretion, and she didn’t want anything she said on the matter getting back to Jude or Harriet, so she didn’t.
‘I suppose they’ve known each other so long they’re like family,’ she said instead.
But Damon simply dipped his head to look at his guitar as he began to play, and then Harriet and Jude came back with Charlie and the drinks, and that was the end of that.
SIXTEEN
Lizzie had the windows wound down, and the wind whipped her hair into wild tangles as they zipped down country lanes, the slipstream lifting the scents of yarrow and foxglove into the car from the hedgerows. The blue sky was barely troubled by tendrils of high cloud but the warm sun was glorious. Gracie was twiddling with the dials of the radio while Lizzie’s eyes were fixed on the road ahead.
‘Honestly, there’s nothing decent on,’ she said as she scrolled through discordant snatches of music that ranged from Beethoven
to Katy Perry.
‘Then turn it off,’ Lizzie said. ‘Talk to me instead.’
‘I thought you needed to concentrate on the directions.’
‘Not for a minute, I’m on a straight road for the next few miles.’
Gracie turned off the radio and looked expectantly at her sister. ‘OK. What do you want to talk about?’
‘Nothing in particular. It’s just nice to chat while we have a bit of time off, isn’t it?’
‘Lizzie, we live together. We have loads of time to chat.’
Lizzie laughed. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘Not really.’
‘We’re always talking when things need doing. We’re rarely talking when we have nothing else to think about. We talk about whose turn it is to take the rubbish out or whether we want a cup of tea.’
‘Seems to me we’ve done a lot of talking about other things lately,’ Gracie said.
‘Well, yes, maybe a little over the last few days. But then you did decide to drop a huge bombshell on us.’
‘It was sort of a bombshell for me too, trust me.’
‘Then why don’t we start with that?’
‘I’d really rather not.’
‘And that’s what worries me. Gracie, you talk incessantly about anything and everything, but then you have something this huge happen to you, and every time anyone wants to discuss it, you clam up. It makes me wonder if you’re completely OK with it all.’
‘I just don’t think there’s a lot to say. I’m still a bit in shock, but I expect it will all be alright in the end.’
‘But, about Frank—’
‘Mum’s put you up to this, hasn’t she? That’s why she was so keen to stay in our caravan to keep an eye on things while you took me to see this other place. I worked it out as soon as you told me we were going to see this other mill because when you first said you were going, you didn’t want to ask Mum to stay and hold the fort at all because you thought it would be too stressful for her. I thought it was funny you’d changed your mind. You both must think I fell off a Christmas tree.’
The Mill on Magnolia Lane: A gorgeous feel-good romantic comedy Page 17