Tilly sank back onto her heels and rubbed black cobwebs from her jeans. She was half-buried in the cupboard under the stairs, along with her father’s Victorian safe, a tangle of Christmas tree lights and a mountain of cleaning supplies. The cupboard smelled dank and ancient. Who knew what nasties lurked in the corners, nasties that once upon a time would have terrified her? Still, living with the threat of cancer had emboldened her. To test that theory, Tilly shoved her hand into the darkness. And yanked it back quickly.
Why did Saturdays throw a different light on troubles? Was it the change of pace that allowed contemplation to worry away at emotional scabs and then cause you to do something as insane as reorganize your mother’s cleaning supplies? Or was sleep deprivation eliciting a wee bit of mania? The last three days she had been up at four o’clock, listening for the squeak of the letterbox and the plop of mail on the hessian doormat.
“There you are! Gracious.” Her mother peered down. “What on earth are you doing?”
“You do realize you have four partially used tins of Brasso in here?” Tilly heaved a box from the lower shelf and nearly gagged on the stench of polish. Now that she thought about it, a sudden eagerness for domestic chores was akin to yelling, “Look at me, I’m a Looney Tune!” After all, Tilly’s housework aversion was the stuff of family lore.
Her mother gave a low ahem before speaking. “Since Isaac’s checking on the pheasant poults with Rowena, I thought we should snip some roses and take them to the cemetery. I haven’t put fresh flowers on your father’s grave since you arrived.”
“Excellent!” Tilly sprang into action, showering the hall floor with dusters and rags. “Give me five minutes to grab a fresh tee and detangle my hair. Oh, and I haven’t brushed my teeth today.”
“Darling, we’re visiting the dead. They hardly care about personal hygiene.”
“Silly me. Roses it is, then,” Tilly said, and dashed outside before her mother could ask what was wrong.
* * *
“Hey, you.” Tilly stroked the smooth marble of her father’s headstone and conjured up his belly laugh. Other memories may have dulled, but not the sound of her father’s happiness.
Her mother’s secateurs snipped rhythmically and sunshine tickled the nape of her neck. Sheep bleated across the estate, and on the school playground beyond the lime trees, children hollered and cheered through their end-of-year sports day.
Tilly stretched, enjoying a rare sensation of serenity. Even as a child, she had felt the village cemetery was a place to celebrate life, not dwell on death. She caught the intoxicating sweetness of wild honeysuckle, her sensory marker of survival, and smiled. But the smile wavered as she watched her mother yank dead roses from the container sunk into her father’s grave. The stitches had been removed, but should her mother be using her injured hand? What about the risk of tears or infection? Her mother had grown careless with her safety, reaching at awkward angles, hobbling about without crutches, carrying cups of scalding tea as Monty wove between her legs.
When Isaac was learning to walk, Tilly had hankered after a future of me-time. Amazing, that she had been so naive. Her son needed her more, not less, as he grew—more ferrying around, more guidance in a world of hidden traps. And so, she realized with rising dread, did her mother.
“It’s going to be a beautiful afternoon. Simply glorious.” Her mother snipped leaves off a fresh rose stalk. “After you’ve dropped Monty off at the groomer’s, why don’t you stretch out on the lawn with a book and a nice glass of chilled elderflower cordial? I have a fancy to take Isaac down to the church and teach him the art of brass rubbing, and you could put some color back in those cheeks.”
Yuck, a tan to draw attention to a body conspiring with an unseen enemy.
“Yes. A quiet afternoon might be just the ticket.” Her mother reached into the trug and handed Tilly the shears. “Do me a favor, darling, and hack around the headstone. That young lad cuts the grass and thinks he’s done. Never touches the edges. I keep telling the parish council to hire someone else. I’ve made a decision, by the way.” Her mother dumped out fetid water from the flower container and refilled it with fresh rainwater.
“A decision about what?” Tilly tore at the long grass around her father’s headstone, the blunt shears squeaking with each abortive cut. “Supper?”
Her mother straightened up and rubbed the small of her back. “Goodness, so stiff these days. No, I’m selling Woodend.”
“You’re—” Laughter sneaked out. “What?”
“Selling Woodend. I’m putting it on the market next week.”
The shears clattered onto the marble base of the headstone. Tilly’s legs wobbled and then crumpled. She collapsed to the grass, unable to move despite the damp that seared through her jeans and pressed wet denim against her skin like cold steel. The rain had petered out two days before, but the dew had been heavy that morning. An invisible mass of high pressure now hovered over Southern England and gleeful weather forecasters popped up everywhere predicting fine weather for weeks to come. Some even talked of a real summer. Amazing, how people desperate for sunshine could latch on to the smallest ray of hope.
Her mother wasn’t serious. She couldn’t be. She couldn’t punch a hole in the frayed bottom of Tilly’s world, because then Tilly might fall through. “This is a joke, right?”
“I’m sorry, darling. I’ve been trying to find the right moment to tell you. Then I realized there was no such thing. Go ahead, ask your questions.”
Tilly looked up into her mother’s eyes and read resolve. Her mother had found her own position in the middle of the road. She had dissected the whole aging-woman-alone-in-a-big-house problem and had settled on a solution without consulting her family. And why shouldn’t she? Virginia Haddington was a seventy-year-old widow entering a new phase of life, one no longer steered by the demands of motherhood.
Tilly asked the only question that mattered: “Why?”
Her mother continued arranging flowers. “The accident was quite an eye-opener, you know.”
“Oh God. You have osteoporosis, don’t you?”
“Lord, no. Why would you think that?”
Tilly grabbed the cardigan that was tied around her waist and struggled to put it on. But the sleeves were inside out; everything was twisted.
“My life is changing, Tilly, and I can no longer ignore the inevitable. I’m not saying that I’m a decrepit relic, Lord forbid. But I lay on that sodden grass for over an hour. Cold and alone, calling out in the dark. A weekender from one of the barn conversions heard me. Do you have any idea how humiliating it was, to be found by a stranger?”
A tsunami of failure swamped her. Her mother had needed her, and Tilly hadn’t even been in the same time zone.
“The ambulance men addressed him as if he were responsible for me.” Her mother clutched at her pearl necklace. “They called me Virginia, for goodness’ sake.”
“I hate to point out the obvious, but you are Virginia, Mum.”
“They should have called me Mrs. Haddington. It was disrespectful. Lying there, remembering that summer nine years ago, I can’t be that person again. Not if it means depending on strangers who call me Virginia.”
“But Woodend has been your home for over forty years. You can’t sell it.”
“It’s too big, Tilly.”
“Hire help.”
“I have help.”
“Hire more.” Tilly’s anger rose with her voice. Selling Woodend wasn�
��t a solution. It was a ridiculous act of sacrifice, a misplaced desire not to be a burden.
“It will solve nothing,” her mother said. “Woodend is a house for children, not memories. Marigold and I have been talking about one of those nice cottages along Badger Way.”
“What if Isaac and I come live with you?” Maybe life was offering her an opportunity, the get out of jail free card Isaac would need if the lump were cancerous. With Rowena, her mother, and her sisters around, he would be immersed in love and protection. And besides, if she had to stare down death, wouldn’t she rather do it at home? Tilly leaped up. “It’s so perfect I can’t believe I’ve never thought of it. I’ve always wanted to return to Bramwell Chase. Why not now? I could start a new gardening business. Here.”
“Why, in heaven’s name, would you want to come back here? Your life is in North Carolina.”
So, not a good idea. But she had sprung it on her mother, and her mother hated surprises. Tilly needed to examine the financial implications, talk to a banker—talk to Sebastian. That would impress her mother. Her mother always listened to Sebastian. Tilly jiggled from foot to foot, eager to get home and call him.
“My life was in North Carolina, but now it’s a place of ticks and snakes and hurricanes that play havoc with my homeowner’s insurance. But Woodend—” Tilly swallowed, aware that her voice was running ahead of her thoughts. “You’re right, Mum. Woodend needs a family. And you shouldn’t be alone. None of us should be.”
“I won’t be alone. That’s the beauty of my plan. You and your sisters have your lives, which is as it should be, and I’ll have mine with Marigold.” Her mother ran a hand down her throat, then let it rest across her chest. “Now, no more talk of you returning to Woodend.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing. But I’d do anything to save Woodend.”
“It’s not the house that needs saving.” Her mother spoke with quiet precision, and her eyes bore into Tilly’s. That was it, then. Her mother was hauling up anchor and pushing out to sea, leaving Tilly adrift in the shallows.
She gazed at the dandelions springing up over her father’s remains and tried not to feel like a spectator as her life atrophied. Her mother gave a small “Well,” an empty word, a last-minute substitute for an entire sentence: I’m so glad we had this discussion. Then Mrs. Haddington began picking up gardening tools and clearing away cut grass and dead flowers. Making sure everything was all neat and tidy before heading back through the lych-gate.
Tilly stood still, surrounded by dead people. If only her father were here to squish her into one of his bear hugs that smelled of cigar and sandalwood shaving soap. Or if David could reach for her and say, “What’s wrong, babe?” then throw out his sexy grin that obliterated every worry. But there was no one to cushion her. No one.
* * *
Inside Woodend, Monty barked a welcome, and the gravel under the car’s wheels made popping noises that echoed Tilly’s mood. Pop, there goes a breast. Pop, there goes Woodend. Could things get any worse? Yes, clearly they could.
Sebastian sat on the back doorstep lobbing gravel into an upturned flowerpot like a disaffected teenager. Fabulous. Her brain was more crowded than a city parking lot flashing the full sign, and now she had to find space to park a problem that brought a flood of adolescent passion. How could she have forgotten Sebastian was due for lunch and a ruddy cricket lesson? No wonder sleep deprivation was the preferred torture of dictators worldwide.
Sebastian rose and gave her that look—head tilted, gray eyes stretched wide—a precursor to sympathy, to handling Tilly as if she were a cracked egg. Suddenly, she was eighteen again, with Sebastian so much older at twenty. They were sitting in her father’s Rover, the hood buried in a ditch. Sebastian’s voice droned around her: What were you thinking, Tilly, swerving to avoid a badger? Suppose you’ve jarred your spine? Then he left her alone in the night and ran to the nearest farm for help. She had pleaded with him to stay, to hold her until she stopped shaking. But Sebastian’s pattern was always to suffocate her with the practical, while she longed for the comfort of the physical.
“Tilly?” Sebastian’s voice was as low and concerned in the present as it had been in the memory. She shoved the car door open and looked at the arch of crimson shower rose, its partially open buds glowing against the paint-water sky. Her father had transplanted that rose from her grandmother’s garden. A rose with Haddington history, history her mother was prepared to walk away from.
She should help her mother climb out of the car; she should answer Sebastian; she should…run. Tilly wriggled past him and raced through the kitchen, through the hall, and into the cloakroom. She slammed the door, turned the brass key in the lock and slid to the prickly brown carpet tile. Thirty-seven and hiding from her family in a bathroom. Life hadn’t evolved much, had it?
The cloakroom—or powder room as Isaac called it—was cool and silent as a bunker. Thick walls provided natural heating in winter, natural air-conditioning in summer and year-round soundproofing against the outside world. The pipes behind the cistern rattled, signaling that someone was using the kitchen tap. Sebastian, no doubt, as he filled the kettle and prepared to brew a pot of tea, the English cure-all. No! He would tiptoe around her laden with solicitude. Isaac was too perceptive, would realize his mother was in trouble. Mind you, didn’t he suspect already? Wasn’t that why he’d begun trailing her around the house, Bownba in tow? In the past three years she had worked relentlessly to shield her son from the ugly side of life, but what if she let it all hang out in one sniveling, tearstained admission? What if he realized that his mother was as vulnerable as his father?
Panic ripped through her chest. No, no. Tilly pushed down on nothing. Isaac believed her to be Super Mom, the big boss momma who kept him safe. And that’s what she would be, as soon as she concocted a few sure-fire tactics to keep her defenses in place. She rubbed her palms down her thighs and contemplated the cloakroom walls. “Oldest walls in Bramwell Chase.” So said the village builder who used to sneak her illicit toffees. These walls were constructed of wattle and daub. Mind-blowing, that medieval mud and reeds could blend, unseen, into the modern world. Tilly jumped up. That was it—a way to weave back into everyday life so Isaac would suspect nothing. Everyone knew how she felt about Woodend and would anticipate a smattering of gloom-and-doom on her part. She would use that to her advantage until she got to grips with the whole lump thingy. See? Sometimes all you needed was to rearrange the facts, to click the Rubik’s Cube in a different direction.
“Mom!” Isaac pounded on the door. “We’re back and Rowena wants to know if you have the squits. Grammy says you’ve been in there for ages.”
Tilly flushed the lavatory—who knew why, but the action steeled her—and called out in a cheerleader chirp, “Coming, Angel Bug! I want to hear all about your morning.”
Right, time to face Isaac. Tilly tugged up her jeans, but they slipped down immediately. How had she managed, yet again, to buy the wrong size? Had it been to prove Sari wrong, after she had cheerfully pointed out, “You need them skintight, hon. That way they’ll still fit once they’re broken in.” Skintight wasn’t Tilly and never would be, but no matter how often she fried these jeans in the dryer, they would never fit. And life was too short for jeans that didn’t fit. Next time, she would get it right.
Chapter 13
High above, swallows circled, scouring for insects. Tilly didn’t believe in omens, but she did believe in reading the behavior
of birds. And swallows that high? Definitely a portent. Good weather was here to stay.
Sprawled across the old lounger, facedown, she listened to a wren belt out its melody. What an impossibly deep, rich sound for such a tiny bird. This was a moment to savor, a memory-in-a-bottle moment, with life at a full stop and her only company the birds and the garden of Woodend.
Her mother had dragged Isaac and Sebastian to The Flying Duck for a ploughman’s lunch—best in the county—and Rowena had taken Monty to the groomers. Tilly had said three words to Rowena, “I need space,” and Ro had shepherded everyone out. Was that the secret of a good relationship, space to be alone without needing to explain why?
Two pigeons cooed in the lilac tree, and Tilly hoisted up her forelegs and swung them back and forth. She closed her eyes and, for some totally unknown reason, hummed the Sesame Street theme song.
The pigeons shot toward the paddock, flapping furiously, clearly startled. Now what? Tilly dragged herself up. If Sebastian had sneaked back, he would be sorry. Very sorry. She snorted out a breath and turned, prepared for battle.
“Absolutely not.” She rubbed her eyes. “Either I’m dreaming or you’re insane.”
“I’m obsessive-compulsive, not insane.” James stepped closer, throwing his shadow over her. “I was expecting an answer from you. I didn’t get one.”
“You flew all this way to find out if you’d hired a landscaper? You’ve got to be joking.”
James shook his thatch of hair from his forehead; within seconds it tumbled back. “I just spent $8,000 on a plane ticket. I hardly call that a joke.”
No, but it did strike her as funny that in the past six hours two people had sprung monumental surprises on her and she hadn’t seen either coming. Blimey, she’d forgotten about James. She had delegated him to her mother and not given him a second thought. Or a first thought, for that matter. Tilly pursed her lips. What on earth had her mother told him?
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