by Jacobs, Anna
‘It’ll be a team effort, Molly, and I don’t think you’d mess it up, even if you did it on your own.’ He frowned and added, ‘And I’d never get annoyed with someone who was genuinely trying to do her best.’
She realized she’d been wimpish again and got angry at herself. ‘OK, then. I’ll enjoy having a go.’
‘Great. That’s another job off my shoulders.’
‘Can I go and explore the show houses before I settle down here? I’ll keep my eyes open for people coming to view the houses and come back if I’m needed. I feel I should get to know them thoroughly, don’t you? I’ve only had a lightning tour so far.’
‘Good idea. Go for it.’
She picked up a notepad and walked out, seeing Dan working on one of the new houses and returning his wave. She found it amazing that she was being paid to enjoy herself.
This time she explored the houses thoroughly, looking into each cupboard, studying each detail, even how the kitchen drawers self-closed, and writing notes to herself on the pad she’d brought with her. Then she went outside and studied the back and front, trying to relate these houses to the artist’s impression of the finished village on the brochure. It wasn’t at all clear from the brochure which groups of houses had already been built and which hadn’t.
By the time she got back to her desk, she had a few ideas, but the phone was ringing and Euan was already speaking to someone, so she picked it up, ‘Marlbury Leisure Village. Molly speaking. Yes, you’ve come to the right place. What would you like to know?’
The whole morning zipped past and she was surprised when Euan said, ‘About time you took your lunch break. Can you work till five today? I have to go out.’
‘Yes, of course.’ The phone started to ring again.
‘I’ve got it,’ he said cheerfully and made shooing motions with his free hand.
She walked briskly up to the hotel and bought a chicken and salad baguette from the coffee shop, sitting in a corner to eat it, enjoying a few minutes of peace. The coffee shop wasn’t very busy and that didn’t surprise her at all. The food was rather ordinary, sandwiches and pies mainly, yet this was an age of interesting food and women who were on a diet would want salads not huge sandwiches.
She wasn’t on a diet, though she had lost a little weight, but one of these every lunchtime wouldn’t be good for her waistline. She decided as she ate that she’d go shopping again tonight, not only for more food and wine, but also for a television.
She’d ring her cousin Helen, too, and have a bit of a natter.
And maybe she’d look at her emails. She’d avoided the laptop since she left home. It hurt so much to find no emails from her children.
Don’t go there! she told herself. Concentrate on the good things.
Brian decided to visit his sister that evening. He’d been wondering how Rachel was coping with married life, amused at the thought of her doing the cooking and cleaning. Heaven help poor Jamie, because she wasn’t at all domesticated and had refused point-blank to learn to cook anything when she was living at home. She hadn’t even done her own washing most of the time.
Nor had he. He found that he wasn’t proud of that, and wondered if Rachel had changed her attitude now as well.
He found the newly-weds sitting over the remains of their tea and it seemed to him that both of them were rather relieved to see him. ‘Any leftovers for a hungry brother?’
Rachel waved one hand towards the two dishes in the centre of the table, one with stringy-looking meat in a thin gravy and another with lumpy mashed potatoes. He’d bet anything these were from an instant packet. She didn’t appear to have cooked any vegetables. He hoped his brother-in-law knew something about cooking or the two of them would be in big trouble healthwise.
‘Learned to cook now, have you, brat?’ Then he saw Jamie’s glassy-looking expression and shut his mouth on a forkful of meat. It was tasteless and tough, but it was food, so he chewed and swallowed. ‘What’s this supposed to be?’
‘I was trying to make Mum’s casseroled steak,’ Rachel said. ‘But I must have got the other ingredients wrong.’
‘Why don’t you email her and ask for a few recipes?’
Her face went rigid and she collected the dirty plates, taking them to the kitchen and banging around a bit.
Jamie looked at Brian. ‘Have you been in touch with your mother?’
‘No. Has she been in touch with you two?’
‘No, she hasn’t, but your father’s cousin Sally has. She wanted to know how your mother was because she got a “This number is no longer in operation” message when she tried to phone Molly. She said she was sorry she couldn’t visit your mother in hospital.’
Brian stared at him. ‘Mum had to stay in hospital? Not just be treated in casualty?’
‘Yes. Concussion from a vehicle accident. I got a friend who works there to check the records. Must have happened on the way to the wedding.’
‘Mum wasn’t drunk, then?’
‘No. She collapsed and was taken to hospital.’
‘Oh.’
‘Rachel still insists on believing your father’s version of events. Are you more open-minded?’
Brian swallowed hard. ‘You’re sure of this?’
‘Oh, yes. We were just discussing it when you arrived, or I was trying to discuss it and yet again Rachel was refusing.’
That accounted for the fraught atmosphere. ‘Well, I’ve got some more news about Mum to add to the mix. Bit of a shock, really.’
Jamie raised his voice. ‘Rachel! Your brother has some further information about your mother.’
‘I told you: I don’t want to talk about her.’
He stood up. ‘We’ll join her in the kitchen.’
His brother-in-law’s voice was chill and Brian suddenly wished he hadn’t come tonight. He didn’t want to get mixed up in a quarrel, let alone make it worse. He trailed after Jamie and stood in the kitchen doorway, feeling uncomfortable.
Rachel immediately tried to walk out, but Jamie caught hold of her arm. ‘I don’t know what Brian has to say, but you’re going to listen. We have to deal with this.’
She scowled at her brother. ‘You not only came to mooch a meal off me, you came to make trouble. Well, Dad wouldn’t lie to me. He wouldn’t!’
‘He lies to everyone. Even I know that.’
Her lips wobbled and tears brimmed suddenly in her eyes. ‘Not to me, he doesn’t.’
Jamie tried to put an arm round her but she shook him off and went to lean her hips against the working surface, folding her arms. ‘Well? Get on with it, Brian? What else has Mum done?’
‘Left home.’
‘What?’
‘She’s rented out the house and left.’
‘Where’s she gone?’
‘I don’t know. I asked the fellow who’s renting the house and he—’ Brian suddenly snapped his fingers. ‘That’s who he is, Mrs Benton’s son. I knew I’d seen him before but he had hair then. Now what the hell is his first name?’
‘Stuart. This is for real, right? He’s living in her house, the place she told the arbitrator she couldn’t bear to leave?’
Jamie intervened. ‘She didn’t actually tell him that; she told him the house had come to her from her parents, and she felt she had a moral right to keep it.’
‘Whatever. Brian, how come you were talking to Stuart Benton?’
‘I went to pick up my boxes of old toys and he was there. He refused to tell me his name or give me Mum’s forwarding address.’
Rachel made a huffing noise. ‘What’s got into her? First she refuses to sell the house to Dad, then she rents it out to someone else and just . . . disappears. She is losing the plot and I am so not going to be part of trying to cheat Dad.’
Jamie intervened again. ‘Your father told me how much he was offering for the house. He boasted he was going to get it at a knock-down price. Rach, his offer was way below market price, like about fifty per cent below.’
‘Well, it
probably needs a lot of work doing to it.’
‘You know it doesn’t. Your mother has always made sure it was kept in good repair.’
Brian intervened hastily as they glared at one another. ‘I’ll go and see Mrs Benton next door. She’ll know where Mum is. I always got on quite well with her.’
‘Let us know too,’ Jamie said.
Rachel made another scornful noise. ‘Don’t bother!’
Jamie spoke to Brian. ‘Look, I’m seriously worried about your mother and I feel guilty. I shouldn’t have let you all treat her like that at the wedding. She was the mother of the bride and deserved to sit in the correct place, not by herself at the end of the table, with no one talking to her. My mother gave me hell for it afterwards, said she wished she’d known. If she had, she’d have insisted on being seated near Molly.’
‘Mum was still on the top table, it’s no big deal,’ Rachel said.
But Brian remembered how unhappy his mother had looked and she’d been very pale, now he came to think of it. Why hadn’t he paid attention to it, then? Because he’d been sloshing down the booze, that was why.
He stood up. ‘I’ll go and see Mrs Benton straight away. Thanks for the meal, Rach.’
His mother’s tenant opened the door at the next house and greeted him with, ‘Oh, it’s you again.’
Brian kept his voice polite with an effort. ‘Can I see Mrs Benton, please?’
‘Not now, lad. My father’s just collapsed and we’re waiting for the doctor.’
Lad! Who did he think he was talking to? Then Brian realized what Stuart had said. ‘Sorry about that. I hope Mr Benton gets better soon. Look, I just wanted Mum’s forwarding address or her mobile phone number.’ He whipped out his business card. ‘If you know them, could you email me? Her old mobile number doesn’t work and I’m getting a bit worried about her.’
‘So you damned well should be. Where were you when she was being harassed by that group of yobs?’
‘What?’
‘Rocks thrown through windows during the night, trouble caused every time someone came to view the house. No wonder she couldn’t sell it.’
Brian stared at him in shock. ‘I didn’t know about that.’
‘How come? Didn’t you ever go round to see her?’
‘Well . . . not lately. I’ve been too busy trying to find somewhere to live. I was camping out at a friend’s place and I’ve only just found somewhere of my own. Things were a bit hectic at work, lots of overtime and I really needed the money.’
‘Shows where your priorities lie, doesn’t it? If she were my mother, she’d be more important than my job and I’d take better care of her, too. Ah, here he is . . . This way, doctor.’ He turned back to Jamie. ‘Why don’t you try emailing your mother? I told you last time: her email address is working perfectly well. She hasn’t changed that.’
‘I wanted to talk to her.’
‘If I were her, I’d not want to speak to anyone from the family. No wonder she changed her mobile number.’ He shut the door without another word.
Brian walked down the drive looking sideways at his old home as he passed, wishing he was still living there. He hadn’t realized how easy he’d had it in those days, hadn’t even paid his rent most weeks, felt ashamed of that now. He’d mooched a meal off his sister tonight, but he’d mooched a lot more from his mother.
Now he couldn’t afford to go out for a drink with his mates, couldn’t even afford to get an Internet connection, so would have to take his laptop to work and ask permission to email his mother from there in his lunch hour. They were a bit sticky about you using their email system in work time, but he’d tell his boss how skint he was and promise only to hook up to the network outside working hours.
He cringed at the memory of how scornfully Stuart had talked to him. And his brother-in-law had been disapproving, too. He’d never seen Jamie look like that, so icy and disapproving. He was only a couple of years older than Rachel, but many years wiser.
The trouble was, the two men were right. He hated to admit it, but they were. Even if his mother was mad at him, he still wanted to know she was safe . . . and happy.
Rachel didn’t seem to care, though. Well, she’d always been Daddy’s little princess, hadn’t she? But surely even she couldn’t go on believing the lies their father told her? If she did, his sister was far stupider than he’d thought. Actually, he didn’t know what Jamie saw in her. He’d never fancy a spoiled brat like her, however pretty she was.
He’d acted pretty badly. He’d been spoiled too. What would any woman see in him? The one he’d met in the supermarket had dismissed his invitation to coffee out of hand. She might already have a fellow, of course, but she wasn’t wearing a ring. No, she hadn’t even shown a flicker of interest in him. Probably thought him a useless oik after he’d needed help with such basic things.
He was useless at looking after himself, but he was doing something about that, at least. A man ought to be able to look after himself!
He went into his flat. It had been advertised as a studio flat, grand words for one small room with a sink and two-burner cooker, and a minuscule bathroom. At the moment the place looked like a campsite. He burped. Rachel’s food was sitting very heavily in his stomach and he couldn’t even afford a can of beer to take the greasy taste away.
The only thing Brian was certain of at the moment was that he had to hang on to his job. He’d become Mr Eager Beaver and was working harder than he ever had before, because times were chancy and people were being laid off everywhere. His boss had complimented him last week on a job well done.
He wasn’t getting into any more debt, either. Look where his spending spree had brought him! He was living like a tramp.
He’d look up some of his boyhood toys on the Internet tomorrow. If he could sell one or two on line, he might scrape together enough money to buy a bed, at least. Sleeping on a narrow, old-fashioned air mattress in a tatty old sleeping bag was the pits.
It suddenly occurred to him that his sister hadn’t even asked where he was living. Selfish bitch! Well, she’d had her big day as Princess of Wedding World. Now she had to come down to earth, just as he’d had to. He burped again and grimaced, making himself a slice of bread and jam to try to get rid of the taste. She was a lousy cook. So was he. But if he couldn’t do better than that tough meat of hers, he deserved shooting.
He hunted through a pile of old newspapers for the free cookery book he’d been given at the supermarket and sorted out the stuff as he went. It occurred to him that if he didn’t let the place get untidy in the first place, he’d not have so much to clear up. When he’d finished sorting them out, he sat down and looked through the list of recipes. Plenty of stuff he liked here.
He read the introduction and chose a simple dish – well, they said it was simple. Pulling out his mobile phone, he began to list the ingredients he’d need to buy tomorrow.
Actually, now he’d got started, he was quite looking forward to having a go at cooking. How hard could it be if you followed the recipes carefully?
When he’d finished that, he didn’t know what to do with himself, so played card games on his laptop.
He couldn’t even scrape together enough for a TV, because he’d maxed out his credit card. Perhaps he should join the library. Books were still free, weren’t they?
He looked round the room and groaned. If his workmates could see him now, they’d fall about laughing and he’d never live it down.
But he was managing, wasn’t he? Independent.
He hoped his mother was managing too. He’d definitely send her an email tomorrow.
But would she reply?
Later in the afternoon, Molly looked after the sales office on her own while Euan went to show a couple round the houses. She started to go through the stationery supplies and the jumble inside the two cupboards. She’d ask permission before she touched Euan’s drawers, though.
At nearly closing time, he’d still not come back so she phoned through
to ask Avril if she should lock up the office, since she didn’t have a key to open it once that was done.
‘Lock it up. You’re not paid to work all the hours God sends,’ Avril said. ‘I’ll make a note to get you a key.’
Molly went shopping, buying some more bottles of wine and a very small TV. It had been nice to have Euan visit her last night, but she’d be on her own most evenings, so it wasn’t an extravagance. Of course, she could visit Helen occasionally, or invite her cousin to visit her, but that would still leave a lot of empty evenings. They were the hardest part of single life, she found, those evenings. No one to chat to.
When she got back, she couldn’t be bothered to cook the steak she’d bought, so settled for a cheese toastie and an apple. Then she got out her laptop and went on line, relieved to find that Euan had been right. His Wi-Fi network did extend to where the caravan was and the password he’d given her worked.
She found emails from her friends, but nothing from her children. That made her feel sad but it was no use dwelling on it. She replied to Nikki, sent off a cheerful email to her cousin Helen and closed the laptop.
Television reception with the small indoor aerial recommended by the salesman was adequate, but not brilliant. She found a couple of programmes to watch.
She was managing just fine.
In the middle of the night she woke up abruptly. She lay in the darkness wondering what had disturbed her sleep, then heard it again – the sound of breaking glass.
She went to the open window and stared out through the security mesh. There was some moonlight, enough to see if someone was around. There was no sign of anyone at the front of the houses, but that had definitely been breaking glass, so she phoned through to the night security guy at the hotel.
‘I’ll be down straight away,’ he said. ‘It’s probably nothing, but I could do with some fresh air.’
She hurriedly put on some jeans and a top, then continued to watch through the window. The security man came down the hill quietly, not needing a torch, but it could only be him, surely? She saw him move along the front of the finished houses then disappear behind them.
Suddenly there were yells and shouts, and she didn’t know what to do. The security man was on his own. What if he’d had two or three intruders to tackle? But she was small and would be no help in a fight.