by Paula Martin
She strode ahead. “I don’t have to listen to this.”
“Abbey—”
“What?” She glanced over her shoulder to where he’d stopped.
“Isn’t this your house?”
She halted a few yards past a large stone house on the main street. Of course, he didn’t know her mother had moved from her grandparents’ home, where they’d lived when she was in her teens.
“Not now.” Her anger dissipated a little as she explained. “Mum decided to downsize when we all left home. She bought one of the smaller houses near the edge of the village.”
“Oh, I see.” He caught up with her, and they walked on for a short time before he said, “I guess it was expecting too much to hope we could be friends again.”
Her heart jerked but she kept her tone neutral. “I think it’s too late for that, Jack.”
They continued in strained silence until they reached the semicircle of small stone houses known as Eagle Croft.
“This is where we live now,” she said.
“Well, goodnight, Abbey. I’ll probably see you around from time to time.”
“Yes, possibly. Goodnight.”
She walked up the short path to the house. Her face creased and she blinked rapidly to stop the hot rush of tears that stung her eyes as she put her key into the lock.
It took her a long time to fall asleep. Memories of the teenage boy mingled with the image of the man she’d met and talked to today. Most disturbing were her reactions when she first saw him outside the shop and again in the pub—the tingle down her spine, and the electricity arcing through her when she put her hand on his arm. She hadn’t felt any of those things when she’d been with Jack in the past, or indeed with any other man. So why did he have this effect on her?
Her face burned in the darkness and she turned over in bed, heaving the duvet over herself as she gave a frustrated groan. No, I’m not going to let him get to me. He was only here for a short time. After that, things would return to normal.
Eventually she fell asleep, but not before wondering if anything would ever seem normal again.
* * * * *
“Late night, was it?” her mother asked when she padded down to the kitchen in her bathrobe and slippers the next morning. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Not particularly late.” Abbey yawned as she poured herself a mug of coffee. “But it took me ages to get to sleep.” She sat down at the table, took a sip of coffee, and knew she had to tell her mother about Jack. If she didn’t, someone who’d seen them talking together probably would. “Jack Tremayne was in the pub last night.”
“Oh.” Edwina adopted the closed expression she used when she didn’t want to talk about something. “I’m surprised Mike didn’t throw him out.”
“Mum, he couldn’t, not after all this time. Not everyone felt as strongly as you did, you know.”
“Perhaps not, but don’t ask me to forgive and forget.”
“If it’s any consolation, I ended up arguing with him.”
“About his article and the gatehouse?”
“Amongst other things, yes.”
“How long is he staying here?”
“I don’t know. His fiancée was killed in a car crash in America.”
“Oh, I see. Well, I’m sorry to hear that, of course, but I hope he’s not going to be around here for long.” Edwina put a plate of toast on the table and peered through the window. “It’s started to drizzle, and there’s heavy rain forecast for later. I think I’d better take my car to the shop. I need to go into town this morning to collect some embroidered bookmarks from Moira.”
“I’ll do that. I want to go to Faulkner’s anyway. They said they’d have the DVDs I ordered by today.”
It was mid-morning when she set off for the small town at the head of the lake. The forecast had been right and the rain came down steadily. Low cloud hid all but the lower reaches of the mountains, and a grey mist blanketed much of the landscape.
She called in first to see Moira, the elderly lady who spent hours embroidering beautiful silk bookmarks, which always sold well in the shop. From there, it was only a short drive into the town centre. By the time she came out of the bookstore, the rain was lashing down even harder, bouncing off the pavements and road.
She hunched forward, concentrating hard as she navigated the narrow winding road back to Rusthwaite. Every so often she had to avoid large puddles at the side of the road. The wipers barely kept her screen clear and her demister wasn’t working properly.
As she wiped the mist from the screen with the back of her hand, she swerved slightly. A car speeded around a bend toward her, and she yelped as she yanked the steering wheel to the left.
Hedgerow branches scraped against the car, and her front wheel spun on the soft grass verge. She was stuck. Slipping the car out of gear, she looked around.
The other car had stopped a few yards away.
A white Volvo. Jack’s car.
After revving the engine a couple of times, she let out a frustrated grunt when the wheel still spun. Annoyed with both herself and him, she watched as he got out of his car and slammed the door. The sexy sway of his hips as he strode toward her made something somersault inside her, but there was no time to think about that now.
His black fleece jacket was soaked within seconds, and he pushed back strands of wet hair from his forehead.
She hit the button to open the window. “What the hell are you playing at? Coming around that corner at ninety miles an hour.”
As he reached her car, she saw the angry glint in his eyes.
“You were on the wrong side of the road.”
“I was not!” She struggled to recover her composure and forced herself to ignore her thudding heart as she looked up at his steely blue eyes. “All right, I had to pull out to avoid a huge puddle back there, but now I’m stuck.”
“Revving your engine isn’t going to help. It’ll only churn up more mud.”
She bridled at his patronising tone but held her ground. “What do you suggest?”
“Put the car in reverse and ease back slowly. Your offside wheels are still on the tarmac, so don’t try to go forward, which is what you were trying to do, because you’ll only dig yourself in deeper. Want me to do it?”
“No, thanks, I can manage.” She spoke curtly to hide her embarrassment and moved the gear lever. As she eased backward, she felt the rear wheel gripping the road again.
Jack stood with his hands in his jacket pockets as he watched her. “Okay, you should be all right now, if you edge forward and steer to the right until your nearside front wheel clears the verge.”
Abbey did as he said and breathed a sigh of relief when all four wheels were back on the tarmac. “Erm—thanks.” She knew it sounded grudging and went on quickly, “Of course, this wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t been driving as if you were on an American freeway.”
Jack stared at her for a second, spun away, and strode back to his car.
Aghast, she leaned out of the window. “Jack, I’m sorry—I didn’t mean—”
Either he didn’t hear, or was ignoring her. He climbed into his car, started it up again, and drove past without even looking at her.
She closed her window, dragged her hand through her damp hair, and banged the other against the steering wheel.
How could she have been so insensitive? His fiancée had been killed on an American freeway.
Her cheeks burned with mortification as she continued to the village. She couldn’t blame him if he never spoke to her again.
CHAPTER 5
During the next week, Abbey was aware of a constant tension inside her. It lessened slightly when she was at the shop since Jack was unlikely to come in there, but whenever she was in the village, at the grocery store or the post office, her nerves tightened at the prospect of bumping into him.
“This is ridiculous,” she told herself countless times.
Every time she relived their encounter on the va
lley road, her cheeks burned, and she dreaded having to face him again. She even made an excuse not to go to the pub quiz on Sunday evening in case he was there, although she was annoyed with herself, and also with him, for upsetting her normal routine. Her mood matched the grey, dismal, and rainy weather they had during the week.
The rain teemed down as she headed to the Old School on Tuesday evening for her drama club meeting.
After she’d unlocked the door of the white washed stone building, and shaken the water from her umbrella, she glanced around the wood-panelled entrance hall. It was nearly twenty years since she was at school here, but sometimes it felt like yesterday.
Rusthwaite had seemed such a strange place after the first nine years of her life in a large house in London. Everything changed the day her father walked out without saying goodbye. When her mother said they were going to move up to the Lake District, to her own home village, she put on a brave face because she thought it would help her mother, and hid all her anguish.
It was Mrs. Stewart, her first teacher here, who understood when Abbey told her about the phone call from a husky-voiced woman asking for her father.
“Daddy’s in Edinburgh all this week for a conference,” she’d said.
“How strange,” the woman replied. “He told me he was going to Geneva and would be back today.” She said something else about playing stupid games, which Abbey hadn’t understood, and gave a short laugh. “I suppose it goes to show that men are all the same. They can’t be trusted.”
Puzzled and worried, she told her mother about the phone call and was alarmed when Mummy’s face turned red with anger.
“Did I do something wrong?” she asked.
Mummy hugged her. “No, love, you did absolutely the right thing to tell me.”
When Daddy came home on Friday evening, she crouched on the landing, and trembled as she listened to the angry, bitter words her parents exchanged. When her mother hissed, “How dare you give this phone number to that woman?” she froze. All this was her fault.
The next morning, Mummy told them Daddy had left and wouldn’t be coming home again. Abbey knew from her mother’s red eyes that she’d been crying and, even at nine years old, felt an agonising sense of guilt.
Mrs. Stewart talked to her for a long time and told her she wasn’t responsible for her parents’ break-up. She explained that Mummy and Daddy had decided they couldn’t live together any more, and tried to reassure her that Daddy still loved her and her two sisters.
Much later, she learnt about her father’s many affairs, but in those early days, the kindly round-faced Mrs. Stewart had helped her to work through her initial turmoil.
She gave a nostalgic smile. Mrs. Stewart had retired, and this nineteenth century stone building was no longer the village school. Children were now bussed to a modern school in the nearby town, and the Old School was used by various groups, including her junior drama club.
She headed for the door of the room which had been her first classroom, but stopped as another memory assailed her.
She’d been sitting outside this door one morning at break time and was wiping her eyes with a tissue the teacher had given her. Mrs. Stewart looked up as a tall boy with blond hair crossed the hallway.
“Jack, would you take Abbey to the tuck shop, please? I think she needs some chocolate right now.”
“Yes, ’course I will, Mrs. Stewart,” he said, with a grin that dimpled his cheeks.
Abbey stood and followed him along the corridor.
“You been crying?” he asked. When she shook her head fiercely, he stopped and turned to her. “It’s okay if you have, you know. I cry sometimes.”
She stared at him with wide eyes. This tall eleven year old cried? “Honestly?”
“Yeah, we all do when we’re upset. It’s no big deal.”
That had been the beginning of her friendship with Jack.
Smiling at the memory, she pushed open the classroom door, and halted in bewilderment. Instead of the normal room she’d expected, with tables and red plastic chairs stacked tidily at the far end, a scene of devastation greeted her. Dozens of white ceiling tiles floated on a couple of inches of dirty water.
“Oh, my God,” she gasped as she looked up.
Part of the suspended ceiling framework had come down, revealing the wooden rafters of the single storey building. Above them, through several holes in the slate roof, the rain seeped in, trickling down the walls or dripping onto the flooded floor.
She made a quick investigation of the other rooms. A small one at the corner of the building seemed to be unaffected, but the rest were in the same state as the one they used for their meetings.
When her drama club members started to arrive, she went back to the hallway to greet them. “Sorry, no meeting tonight. The ceiling’s come down in most of the rooms. This place is a disaster area at the moment.”
“Should we stay and help clear up the mess?” Sam Dixon, Sally’s fifteen year old brother, looked around from the doorway where he’d been surveying the chaotic scene.
“I’m not sure it’s safe, Sam,” Abbey replied. “I’ll ask Tom to come and take a look at it.”
She pulled her phone from her pocket and rang Tom Williams, the chairman of the Parish Council. Briefly, she explained the situation, and turned back to the waiting teenagers.
“Okay, Tom’s on his way.”
“Let’s rescue some of the chairs and tables,” Sam said. “We can pile them all in the end room, the one that’s still dry.”
The young people worked quickly, and moved a lot of the plastic chairs and tables out of the flooded rooms. When an ominous creak echoed from the rafters and several more tiles cascaded to the floor, Abbey pulled the teenagers out.
“That’s it,” she said. “I don’t want any of you getting knocked out or buried under a roof collapse.”
“Isn’t there an old fable about the ceiling falling down?” one of the girls asked as they waited in the hallway. “Except it was an acorn and not the ceiling?”
“It was the sky,” another girl replied. “Henny Penny thought the sky was falling down.”
“No, it was Chicken Licken.”
Abbey smiled as the youngsters continued their discussion about the other animals in the story. She tried to conceal her underlying anxiety about the roof and how long it would take to repair. There was no other place in the village where youth groups could meet.
Tom Williams, the grey-haired owner of one of the cafés in the village, arrived ten minutes later, accompanied by Kevin Layton, the local odd job man. Abbey waited with the teenagers while the two men went from room to room, inspecting the damage.
When they came back into the hallway, the expressions on their faces told her it was bad news.
Kevin shook his head. “Too big a job for me. A lot of the slates on this side of the building have crumbled. The water’s probably been seeping in for weeks, if not months. The downpours we’ve had this past week have been the final death knell, and I’m worried about the state of some of the roof beams.”
“What should we do?” Tom asked.
“The building should be closed. It’s dangerous. I can cover the roof with sheeting to stop any more water getting in, but you need to call in the professionals. Elliott’s from Kendal, for example.”
Tom nodded and turned to Abbey. “I think you’d better get these kids out of here, Abbey.” He handed her a key. “Take them up to the church. They can wait in the vestry until their parents collect them.”
“Thanks, Tom.”
She led the way up the steep path through the graveyard to the stone church which stood on the small hill overlooking the village. The teenagers crowded into the vestry, plying her with questions about the Old School and where they could meet while the roof was being repaired.
She held up her hands to quieten them. “I don’t know where we can meet, but I’ll see what I can find out and let you know. Meantime, keep thinking about what we can do for the drama fe
stival.”
By the time Tom Williams came up to the vestry, the teens who lived in the village had left the church to walk home in small groups. Others, who lived further afield, had rung their parents to collect them, and only two sisters were still waiting.
Tom ran his hand through his thinning grey hair. “It’s not good, Abbey. Kevin thinks the whole roof is beyond repair. It’ll have to be replaced, not only the slates, but a lot of the beams, too.”
“How long before we can use it again?”
“The job itself will probably only take a couple of months. Finding the money to pay for it could take much longer.”
“Won’t the county council pay?”
“The Old School isn’t owned by the council now,” Tom began, and stopped as the last of the mothers arrived to collect her daughters. When they left, he gave Abbey a bleak smile. “Come on, let’s go down to the White Lion. I need a drink tonight.”
Abbey hesitated. She’d avoided the pub for the past week, but now she saw Tom’s worried expression. “Okay, but only on condition you let me buy you that drink.”
The rain had eased, and they walked down the path to the lychgate. “So who owns the Old School now?” she asked.
“We do. The Parish Council bought the building from the county council for a nominal fee when the school closed, and it’s now administered by a board of trustees. I’ll have to call an emergency meeting.” He gave a short laugh. “Not sure where we’re going to meet though.”
“I’d started to wonder about that, too. For the drama club, I mean.”
Tom nodded. “Yes, a lot of groups are dependent on the Old School.”
They crossed the market square toward the White Lion, and Abbey tensed as Tom held open the pub door. Only when she ascertained that Jack wasn’t there did she start to breathe normally again.
News had travelled fast, and several people crowded around Tom, asking questions. Abbey bought him a pint, but stayed near the bar where Sally was serving.
“Sounds bad,” Sally commiserated.
“It is. The whole place is in an awful mess, and Tom’s worrying about how much the roof replacement is going to cost.”