‘It’s very James,’ Lizzie said as she pressed the button again. ‘We probably wore out our welcome yesterday.’
‘I’ll try phoning him again when we get back,’ Gwendolyn said. ‘Not that he’ll answer to me – he’ll think I’m nagging.’
‘He thinks everyone is nagging,’ Gracie said.
‘That’s because we are,’ Lizzie replied as they turned to walk back to the car.
‘Still, it’s been nice to see him looking so well,’ Gwendolyn said.
Lizzie exchanged a glance with Gracie, who climbed into the front passenger seat as Lizzie unlocked the car for them. Their brother had been very chatty, certainly, but nobody could ever say with any certainty that James was well.
‘It was nice to see him full stop,’ Gracie said. ‘It’s not often these days we all get together.’
‘It’s a shame he isn’t living closer to us.’
‘I’d have him back home in a heartbeat,’ Gwendolyn said. ‘He just doesn’t want to know.’
‘That’s because you’d be able to keep too close an eye on what he gets up to,’ Gracie replied. ‘You can’t help someone who won’t be helped.’
‘He knows it’s done out of love.’
‘I’m not sure he does,’ Lizzie said. ‘And even then I don’t think he cares. James will do what James wants to do – always has done, always will. He was never any different, even when he was a kid.’
‘That doesn’t mean we have to give up trying.’
‘It doesn’t, but it means we have to accept that there are limitations on what we can do for him – what he’ll allow us to do for him.’
‘Did you hear him talk about the baby, though?’ Gracie asked. ‘I think he was actually excited. Maybe that will make a difference?’
‘Getting to be an uncle?’ Lizzie asked.
‘Yes. Perhaps it will be a positive thing to focus on.’
‘If he ever gets near enough to undertake any uncle duties, then maybe. We only see him when we make the effort to visit him as it is, but when you have a baby and the mill is up and running, we’ll have even less time to make the trip. I can’t imagine him doing it instead. Suffolk might as well be Outer Mongolia as far as he’s concerned.’
‘Then we’ll have to make sure we find the time,’ Gracie said firmly. ‘Once he falls in love with his little niece or nephew I’m sure that will change.’
It was a nice thought – that Gracie’s baby might be the saviour of their brother’s almost lost soul – but Lizzie wasn’t quite as confident as her sister.
TWENTY-TWO
‘Oh no!’ Gracie sucked in her breath as she looked out of the window.
Lizzie looked up from her laptop, biting back a sigh of irritation. While she understood that it was tough for Gracie to get a job right now, she couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to her sister’s shiny plans to start a business of her own. Being pregnant didn’t stop that from happening – at least it shouldn’t. But Gracie spent more and more time these days nursing her belly and floating around the caravan like a delicate heroine from a Victorian novel – not doing very much at all except reading the odd chapter of a book (or, in her case, baby magazine), walking the garden and threatening to swoon with every change of the wind. And she wasn’t even three months gone yet.
‘What is it?’
‘Charlie’s here… but he’s got company.’
Lizzie shot to the window now, expecting to see Harriet with Charlie. But it was Jude. Gracie threw her a sideways look.
‘He doesn’t usually get out of the car when he drops Charlie off.’
‘No, he doesn’t,’ Lizzie said in a low voice.
There wasn’t time to argue the point further, however, because whilst this short exchange had been taking place, Charlie had sprinted to the caravan door and thrown it open.
‘Hello!’ he cried.
It was tempting to have yet another conversation about knocking – something Charlie seemed to have forgotten how to do since he’d become so comfortable with them both – but there wasn’t time to do that either because Jude was hot on his heels. But he did knock – at the open door of the caravan, his expression suitably awkward and sombre.
‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘Charlie was insistent that he just comes in now. Says you’ve told him he’s practically family and he can treat this like his home.’ He gave a small smile. ‘I guess I see now that he does.’
‘We don’t mind at all,’ Gracie said. She looked at Charlie. ‘What do you want to do today? I was thinking we might bake.’
‘Chocolate cake?’ Charlie asked.
‘If you like.’
He gave an eager nod.
‘Come on then,’ Gracie said. ‘We’ll get the bits out and make a start.’
While Charlie followed Gracie to the little kitchen area, Lizzie looked at Jude. She couldn’t deny that she’d missed him, and now, standing in front of her, he looked good.
‘You want to come in for a minute?’ she asked. Things were already awkward, but she didn’t know what else she could do but invite him in.
‘If that’s OK.’
‘Sure.’ Lizzie made her way to the sofa and Jude followed. She looked towards the kitchen. ‘Gracie seems to come alive when Charlie is here,’ she said in a voice quiet enough not to carry.
‘I expect it’s hard work for her, though, in her current condition. You must say if it’s too much.’
‘It’s fine. The rest of the time she’s a right lazy lump so it will do her good to be busy. I guess Charlie brings out that latent maternal instinct. Good for the baby when he or she arrives, I suppose.’
‘Charlie loves her to bits. He loves you both. I’m grateful that… well, you know… that you can both still find time to see him.’
‘We wouldn’t have done anything else. None of this is Charlie’s fault and you were right – he shouldn’t pay for the mistakes of others.’
Jude nodded. ‘I thought I’d come and see if you still needed me to take a look at the layout on your build – offer some advice? Or…’ His sentence trailed off.
‘I think I’ve figured it out,’ Lizzie said.
‘Oh, right…’ Jude glanced at Charlie and Gracie, and then back at Lizzie. ‘I don’t suppose you have time for a quick walk?’
‘I’m kind of busy… Working on a piece.’
‘Oh… right. I just thought…’
Lizzie glanced back at Charlie and Gracie. They had already begun a fairly disruptive takeover of the kitchen area and, in a place this small, it wasn’t so easy for Lizzie to get away from them to work. Over the past few weeks she’d been able to charge up the laptop and hide away in a corner of the garden when the caravan got too much, but as the daily weather now came with the beginnings of an autumn chill, it was getting harder to do that.
‘Was there any reason in particular?’ she asked, turning back to Jude now.
‘I just figured… well, as Charlie is here a lot now and you’ve both been so kind to him it’s silly for us not to get along. At least be a little civil with each other – you know?’
‘Isn’t that what we’re doing now?’
‘I was hoping for something more like a little friendship rather than a ceasing of hostilities.’
‘It wasn’t me who began the hostilities – as I recall.’
‘I wasn’t the one who ended it between us either.’
‘If you’re trying to say it was me, then you have some sort of memory malfunction,’ Lizzie snapped back. He opened his mouth to reply, but then closed it again, and he looked so deeply hurt that for a moment she felt like the biggest, most unreasonable bitch on the planet. ‘I didn’t mean that to sound as horrible as it did. Sorry.’
‘It’s OK. I only wanted to bury the hatchet. I can see why you might not be so keen…’
‘And you have buried the hatchet. There wasn’t really one to bury… Look – wait here a minute.’ She went into her bedroom and returned a few seconds later, pulling a thi
ck cardigan around her shoulders. ‘I reckon I can spare half an hour if you want to talk away from the caravan.’
Jude nodded. ‘Thank you.’
‘I’m just popping out for a minute,’ Lizzie called over to Gracie. There was a muffled, nonchalant reply from behind her as she pulled the door closed and took the steps down into the garden. A brisk wind was blowing in from the east and heavy grey clouds were massing overhead, bringing a cooler temperature than Lizzie had experienced since she’d first arrived at the mill that spring. It was a timely reminder that winter was on the way, but at least there was real hope now that they’d be living in the mill’s annexe rather than the caravan when it arrived, even if the mill itself wasn’t working by then. And funnily, this was the first question Jude posed as they left the garden and headed for the bramble-edged lanes.
‘Is the build going well?’
‘I think we’re nearly there. At least, the living quarters are. The mill workings might take a lot longer because we have to wait for a specialist company to get a gap in their schedule, and then when they do it will take ages anyway. In a way it’s doing me a favour because the longer they take, the more time I have to get extra finance in place.’
‘You found someone, then?’
Lizzie nodded.
‘You know, I meant what I said just now – about looking at your building. You can still ask me for help if you need it. With contacts or drawing up plans or anything. I’d like to think we could still be friends.’
‘I’ve made a bit of a fist at drawing up plans but Tim seems to think they look OK.’
‘Tim’s not really going to say anything else. As far as he’s concerned he’s just going to act on your instructions and take care of the practical side of those. If he thinks a wall is in the wrong place or you could better utilise a space by moving a door, he’s not going to tell you that.’
Lizzie looked at him askance. ‘I think you might be a bit unfair to Tim there.’
‘He’s a builder, not an architect.’
‘He’s a good builder and I trust him.’
Jude paused, and then he seemed to think better of pursuing the argument. ‘Did Gracie end up buying the caravan?’
‘No. She needs her money now for other things. I can sell the caravan elsewhere in the next few weeks and that will be something towards the costs.’
‘If she hasn’t bought the caravan where will she live?’
‘With me.’
‘In the mill?’
‘Yes.’
Jude was silent for a moment. ‘Things have changed then,’ he said finally.
Lizzie shrugged. ‘I’ve got used to having her around.’
‘It’s a big place to live in alone, I suppose.’
Lizzie gave him a sideways look. ‘That was always the plan to be honest, so it’s not that. I want to help Gracie. It’s going to be tough for her when the baby comes, and I think she’s more scared than she’d have us believe.’
He nodded, lapsing into silence again. Their footsteps crunched on leaves fallen early and littering the lane, and a rook’s call echoed across a nearby field. Lizzie had to wonder what the point of this walk was because, if they were supposed to be entering into any meaningful kind of dialogue about their future relationship, it was taking a long time to materialise. But then she had to wonder if they had any future relationship, aside from when Charlie brought them together, and if she was honest, Lizzie could see a time when perhaps even that would stop.
‘I didn’t want us to end the way we did,’ Jude said into the long silence.
‘Neither did I. Is that what you’ve come to talk about?’
‘I was hoping we might. Amongst other things.’
‘How about we try the other things then?’
‘You don’t want to talk about us? I don’t think it’s as simple as ignoring it.’
‘We’ve managed to ignore it well enough for the last few weeks.’
‘That wasn’t my choice – you wouldn’t talk to me.’
‘You didn’t try very hard to change that, as I recall.’
‘I asked Harriet to come.’
‘Yes… that was a masterstroke of tact, wasn’t it?’
‘There’s no need for sarcasm.’
‘What else do you expect?’ Lizzie returned. ‘You sent the very person we split up over to try and talk me round? Why didn’t you come yourself?’
‘I thought you wouldn’t talk to me.’
‘But you thought I’d talk to Harriet?’
‘I thought there was more chance of her persuading you that all there is between her and me is friendship. You wouldn’t have believed that coming from me.’
‘Maybe I would have.’
‘I didn’t know what to do. Harriet offered.’
‘I’ll bet she did.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘You two – thick as thieves.’
‘We have a child together.’
‘And how am I supposed to compete with that? How am I supposed to compete with her?’
Jude stopped dead and turned to her. ‘Lizzie… you had no need to compete. I loved you.’
She froze too, stopped in her tracks and her train of thought by the words that had come so unexpectedly from his mouth. All the time they’d been together he’d never once told her he loved her.
‘I still love you,’ he added in a voice shot through with hopelessness. ‘I don’t suppose that counts for anything, though.’
‘What about Harriet?’
‘Lizzie – you’re being so unreasonable! We’re friends; how many times do I have to say it?’
‘You don’t still want to be with her?’
‘No! Why would I be here if I did?’
‘So she’s back with Damon?’
‘No. She’s single and apparently so am I. But both of us being single, and even being friends and parents, doesn’t mean we automatically belong together. If you’d only give me a chance then maybe I could prove it to you.’
‘If that’s true then I’m sorry I screwed it up. But…’ Lizzie paused. Maybe Gracie had been wrong about this? Maybe she was wrong to judge Lizzie’s relationship with Jude by the standards of hers and Frank’s. Maybe there was still a chance. But maybe they’d already gone too far on their current track now to ever get back what they’d once had. Maybe she didn’t want to now, because it had been hard enough getting over him this time, and she didn’t know if she wanted to take the risk of having to do it a second time if things went wrong again. She shook her head.
‘That’s it?’ he said. ‘You don’t want to try?’
‘You really want us to try again?’
‘Why not? Is it such a terrible idea?’
‘It’s been too long and things have gone too far to go back. I’m a different person now, and I don’t feel the same way I once did.’
‘Look me in the eye and say that, because I don’t believe it. I don’t believe we could have been that good together and not have some of those feelings left.’
‘I’m not saying there’s nothing left. I just don’t think it’s enough. I have too much else going on in my life now.’
‘I could help you with all those things! I want to be with you when Gracie’s baby comes and the mill opens—’
‘Won’t you be too busy with your own child to worry about someone else’s?’
Jude’s gaze went across to the wild fields beyond the hedgerow but he didn’t reply. Maybe Lizzie had gone too far – but this… thing… this situation, had gone too far anyway, so how could speaking her mind make it worse? Thinking it didn’t do much to dispel the sudden squirming of guilt in her gut, though. It had been a harsh thing to say, and now she wished she hadn’t.
After an agonising minute that felt more like a year, he spoke. ‘Why is it so hard to move on from this? Why does it have to be such a big deal?’
‘Because I was lied to before and it broke my heart. There… is that what you wanted to hear? Did you want me
to drag up painful old memories that I’d tried to bury? I’ve got trust issues – there – you’ve got the scoop.’ Lizzie turned to walk back the way they’d come.
‘Lizzie – please!’
She started to walk again and Jude jogged to catch up.
‘Please…’
She shook her head. ‘I need time; I’ve got too much to think about.’
‘I get that. OK…’ He walked at her side now, his steps keeping time. ‘At least let me be involved in all the other bits of your life. You let Charlie stay in yours, and I’ll always be grateful for that. So let me return the favour. If you need help with anything, please ask. Please let me help you with the mill, with Gracie… anything you want.’
‘No strings attached? I can just ask?’
‘No strings attached. I just want to be there for you.’
Lizzie looked straight ahead, the lane twisting into the distance, her beloved windmill standing proud of the grassy flats. It sounded too good to be true that Jude wanted friendship and nothing else. He had to have an agenda other than that; this had to be part of a wider plan to win her back. The question that she had to ask herself was: did she care? Did she want to be won back? The answer from her heart was undoubtedly yes, but did that make it the right answer?
‘OK,’ she said, turning to him. ‘Maybe that would be OK.’
* * *
Lizzie tried James’s number again as she sat on the caravan steps, wrapped in her fluffy cardigan and watching the sun sink below the horizon. It was the third time she’d tried to call him that day, and she had a feeling that he was watching her number flash up on the screen of his phone and simply choosing to ignore it. After their last visit it had taken two days for him to resurface, Lizzie, Gracie and their mum going out of their minds with worry. The only excuse he’d been able to give them for the fact that he hadn’t replied when they’d last called at his flat was that he’d stayed out with some mates and had only noticed all the missed calls on his phone when he got home in the evening.
This time he picked up.
‘Hey,’ he drawled.
The Mill on Magnolia Lane: A gorgeous feel-good romantic comedy Page 25