Willow Cottage, Part 4

by Bella Osborne

  ‘Need a hand?’

  ‘Thanks, Jack, but I know you’re busy.’

  ‘I’m done here,’ he said, nodding over his shoulder at the school. ‘The joy of helping out is that I don’t have all the additional work that comes with full-time teaching. I could be with you within the hour.’

  ‘Great, but you must stay for dinner – my way of saying thank you. It’s only pasta, which is probably not the best thank-you but …’ She realized she was gabbling. ‘Anyway stay for dinner as long as that’s not going to cause any issues.’

  Jack smiled from the corner of his mouth. ‘No issues. That would be perfect. See you in a bit.’

  Beth watched him disappear inside.

  ‘Come on, Mum!’ shouted Leo, who had now decided to sit on the ground next to Doris. Beth hurried over and as they set off she felt a flicker of excitement that Jack was coming over.

  Like he promised Jack appeared about thirty minutes later wearing some paint-splattered joggers and a fitted white T-shirt and set straight to work stripping off the paint from the bathroom door with the blowtorch. Because they only had the one blowtorch, which was Jack’s anyway, Beth was working on getting off the residual bits of paint from her bedroom door that she’d stripped earlier. She found she was glancing over at Jack now and again and watching the taut muscles in his arms as he carefully edged the melted paint away from the door. She may have ogled at him one too many times because Jack suddenly turned towards her and Beth quickly looked away.

  ‘You okay?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh yes, me, I’m fine. Thank you … for asking,’ she said, wondering why she sounded like a 1940s radio presenter all of a sudden.

  ‘Muuuuuum, I can’t do my homework, it’s too hard!’ shouted Leo from the kitchen.

  ‘What subject is it?’ called back Beth.

  ‘Maaaaaaths,’ called back Leo, managing to convey his despondency in the drawn-out word.

  Beth felt her shoulders sag. Helping Leo with his homework invariably turned into an argument because basically he didn’t want to do it and any minor setback was his cue to give up. Jack was watching her closely.

  ‘I’ll go if you like?’ he said. Beth pulled a face. She would very much have liked Jack to take over but he was already helping her with the doors. As if reading her mind, Jack spoke. ‘I don’t mind. I like maths and I like Leo.’

  Beth couldn’t help but smile. ‘I am really taking advantage of you,’ she said.

  He switched off the blowtorch and handed it to her. ‘Not at all, chance would be a fine thing,’ he said, jogging downstairs. Beth narrowed her eyes after him. Was he flirting with her? Or was he implying that Petra was not taking enough advantage? Or perhaps she was reading far too much into the innocent comment. She decided on the latter and picked up where Jack had left off on the bathroom door to refocus her mind.

  The giggling that came from downstairs warmed her heart. Jack and Leo got on well. It was good for Leo to have a strong male role model around and she knew he would miss Jack when they eventually sold the cottage and moved on. She swallowed hard when she thought about how much she would miss Jack too.

  ‘I’m pregnant!’ shouted Carly from the bathroom. She ran out of the room clutching the white tester stick and rushed into Fergus’s playroom.

  ‘Whoa!’ he said, good-naturedly pausing his game.

  ‘You okay?’ he asked as he watched Carly literally bounce up and down in front of him.

  Carly steadied herself and tried to appear serious. She studied Fergus; apart from the patch where his hair still needed to grow back and his accompanying short haircut you wouldn’t know what had happened to him. He was sitting at his computer in a T-shirt and lounge trousers, the picture of health with a hint of laziness, but she loved him just as he was.

  Carly went to put the stick in her pocket to leave her hands free to sign but remembered that she’d recently peed on it so she carefully put it down behind her on Fergus’s desk.

  Carly waved her hands like a conductor about to direct an orchestra and Fergus chuckled at her. ‘Is this charades?’ he asked. ‘I’m very good at charades.’

  ‘You cheat at charades!’

  ‘It’s not my fault that people can’t help but mouth the words they’re trying to act out,’ he said, trying to look innocent.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said and she started to sign very carefully and deliberately. ‘I have important news …’ She left a dramatic pause. ‘I did a test and …’

  ‘You’re going to grammar school?’ teased Fergus.

  ‘Fergus!’ admonished Carly and he signed ‘sorry’.

  ‘You’re going to be a daddy!’

  Fergus looked puzzled. ‘I’m going to be naughty?’ he said and it made Carly question her signing. She’d definitely used the right sign but she tried another tack.

  ‘No, I’m pregnant!’ she signed and emphasized it with her lip movements but Fergus was staring at her hand moving over her stomach as she signed ‘pregnant’.

  ‘You’re a stomach?’ he said. ‘Are you poorly?’

  Carly’s frustration was rising. ‘No, we’re going to have a baby!’ she repeated the sign for baby cradling an imaginary infant in her arms and rocked it from side to side – this was a sign nobody could confuse.

  ‘I know,’ he said calmly. ‘I saw the predictor stick when you came in. I’m deaf, not blind!’ He chuckled and she whacked him on the shoulder. ‘But it was dead funny watching you sign it in forty different ways!’

  ‘Oooh! You git!’

  He pulled her onto his lap. ‘This is amazing, I’m ridiculously happy right now,’ he said, nuzzling into her neck.

  ‘Me too. Argh! We’re going to be parents!’ squealed Carly and she started to bounce again making the chair rock precariously.

  ‘Argh!’ said Fergus, copying her bounciness. ‘Can you move the pissy stick off my accounts please?’ he asked as he cuddled her.

  Carly was laughing as she stood up but when a thought struck her the smile slid from her face. ‘Oh shit! This isn’t good at all.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘My nan will know we’ve had sex before marriage!’

  All Fergus could do was laugh.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  ‘Beginning of June?’ screeched Beth into her mobile a bit louder than she intended. ‘You’re getting married in four weeks’ time?’

  ‘I know!’ said Carly.

  ‘Why would you put yourself through that stress? What’s the big rush?’ Although Beth was already feeling excited at the prospect.

  ‘I simply can’t be a fat bride,’ said Carly calmly.

  There was a momentary pause while Beth made the connection and screamed, ‘Oh my God! You’re pregnant!’

  Carly and Beth exchanged squeals of delight then returned to normal volume. ‘I can’t believe it’s happened and Fergus is as thrilled as me!’

  ‘That’s the best news ever, I’m over the moon for you both. You’ll be amazing parents,’ said Beth and a stray happy tear sploshed off her chin. ‘You’ve made me cry now.’

  ‘You soft sod!’

  ‘How many weeks are you?’ Beth blinked hard to try to stop the happy tears.

  ‘Four and stop counting backwards, that’s a very intrusive thing to do,’ said Carly haughtily.

  ‘Too late. You little minx, Fergus could only just have been out of hospital!’

  ‘You’re as bad as him, he keeps saying I took advantage of him in his weakened state.’

  They both laughed. ‘I am so happy for you, Carls.’ Beth knew how important having children and being part of a family was to Carly and it filled Beth with happiness for her friend that her wishes were coming true.

  ‘Thanks, and now it’s full steam ahead on sorting out a wedding in beautiful Dumbleford for the first weekend in June.’

  ‘Dumbleford? You’re bonkers! How will you organize a wedding in four weeks at a venue that’s a hundred miles away?’ said Beth, but she was already working out th
e answer.

  ‘With your help,’ said Carly, her excitement palpable. ‘I’ll do most of it over the phone and on the internet.’

  ‘Internet? You?’

  ‘I’m getting better with my new phone apart from the fact when I type something it becomes something completely different.’

  ‘Autocorrect,’ said Beth but Carly wasn’t listening.

  ‘… and Fergus will help too.’

  ‘There’s still loads to organize though,’ said Beth, already wondering how much of this madness would fall at her door. She didn’t mean to be uncharitable but her aim was to get Willow Cottage finished in the next few weeks, not plan a wedding. She wanted to get it on the market by the end of June at the very latest in the hope that she could move in the school summer holidays and Leo could start at a new school at the beginning of the new term in September. She knew there were a lot of variables that could, and most likely would, impact on her plan but at least it was something she could aim for.

  ‘So you’ll help me?’ asked Carly, her voice small and a tad pathetic.

  ‘Of course I will!’ said Beth. ‘We’ll make it the best wedding ever. What’s our budget?’ she asked, rapidly warming to the idea of spending someone else’s money.

  ‘Pretty much whatever we like, within reason,’ said Carly, followed by a small squeal. ‘Fergus has shown me his bank accounts and he’s raking it in!’

  ‘Excellent!’ said Beth, metaphorically rubbing her hands together.

  ‘It also means we can investigate buying a house. We need more room and a garden for when the baby arrives. But we’re focusing on the wedding first.’

  ‘Okay, you write out a list of what you want and we’ll see what we can do. You know you’ll have to compromise on some things?’ Beth didn’t like being the voice of caution but she felt it was better to manage expectations early.

  ‘Beth, it’s fine, I get it. The important thing is that I’m marrying Fergus Dooley and having his baby. We could get married in a shed for all I really care!’

  ‘Now that level of compromise I like to hear. A shed I can definitely arrange!’

  Beth opened her front door to Jack holding aloft a bottle of wine and a box of Maltesers. ‘Supper?’ he said and Doris trotted past him and into the cottage uninvited.

  Beth smiled; she’d had a busy day preparing the hallway to be painted and had pretty much nothing at all to show for all her hard work as it looked exactly the same as when she started with the possible exception of the scuff marks from the sandpaper on the skirting boards.

  ‘Hang on a second,’ she said, trying hard not to be a party pooper. ‘Does Petra know you’re here?’ The last thing she wanted was to upset her friend.

  Jack screwed his face up in amused bewilderment. ‘No, why?’

  ‘Don’t you think you should check?’

  ‘Again. No and why?’ said Jack, looking even more entertained.

  Beth’s shoulders sagged. ‘I would hate her to get the wrong impression of our friendship.’

  ‘Would you?’ Jack was frowning over one eye, making him appear quite quizzical.

  ‘Yes,’ said Beth earnestly. ‘I like Petra and I’d hate us to fall out if she did get the wrong idea.’

  ‘Right,’ said Jack slowly. ‘What would be the wrong idea?’

  ‘That we like each other … like that …’ said Beth, feeling the colour rush to her cheeks and cursing her mother’s genes for that particular family trait.

  ‘Like what?’ asked Jack, his mouth twitching mischievously.

  Beth pushed her hair behind her ear, breathed in and held it for a moment while she thought how to answer without getting herself into a worse mess. ‘Like more than friends that like each other’s company.’ She was rather pleased with her diplomatic response.

  ‘And that would be an issue because …?’

  Beth’s eyebrows shot up in alarm. Was he suggesting an affair? Her mind was a swirl of questions and her tummy was swirling with butterflies. ‘Because it would be morally wrong and I couldn’t betray Petra like that however much I might … or might not … I simply couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I’d feel awful.’ She was pointing at him now and was struggling with how to finish her monologue. ‘And worse still would be if you guys split up.’ She pointed her index fingers from herself to Jack.

  ‘Split up,’ repeated Jack, relaxing against the doorframe.

  ‘Yes,’ said Beth taking a deep breath.

  ‘Me and Petra?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Jack’s lopsided grin was mocking her. ‘Petra’s not my girlfriend.’

  Beth was confused. ‘But you stayed over … and she touches you … a lot.’ She was thinking out loud. ‘You’re not together?’

  ‘Nope.’ Jack shook his head. ‘We were once, very briefly ages ago, but there wasn’t that spark, you know?’

  ‘Yes. Right. Okay.’ She found she was nodding at him slowly while the information sunk in.

  ‘Can I come in now please?’

  Beth blinked as if coming out of a trance. ‘Of course, sorry.’ She stepped out of the way, feeling like a prize idiot; her ears were now actually burning with embarrassment, but she was also feeling a tiny sense of relief too. ‘That looks like my kind of supper,’ she said, trying to distract herself by taking the wine and Maltesers from him and thinking that a few months ago she would have been mentally calculating the calories and sugar content.

  ‘Sorry about the whole Petra thing. I could see you were close and I assumed … which I shouldn’t have done,’ continued Beth while Jack took off his hoody and stood in the kitchen doorway.

  ‘It’s okay, we are quite close I guess. She’s not had it easy bringing Denis up on her own. It’s tough being a single mum.’

  ‘Don’t I know it,’ said Beth with empathy in her voice. ‘But it must be harder being in a different country away from family and friends.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jack slowly. ‘She came here to study. She was young and naïve, which in a new country makes you vulnerable. She got badly hurt by someone …’ Jack paused briefly. ‘Petra’s had more to endure than most but she’s a fighter and I love that about her.’

  ‘Me too,’ agreed Beth, tipping the Maltesers into a patterned bowl and handing them to Jack. She got the feeling that there was a lot more to Petra’s story but she wasn’t going to pry.

  She picked up two wine glasses and Jack followed her into the living room. ‘Oh, I gave Carly your phone number, I hope you don’t mind,’ said Beth as the thought struck her. She passed Doris a dog treat, which she devoured in one gulp before settling herself in front of the sofa so that Beth had to climb over her to sit down.

  ‘I know, she rang earlier,’ said Jack. ‘What’s with the high-speed wedding planning? And why here?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly, apart from her being pregnant!’ said Beth happily, pouring out the wine.

  ‘Ahh, that explains it. Lovely news. Here’s to baby Ghastblaster!’ he said, raising his glass. ‘Still not sure why it’s in Dumbleford.’

  ‘Once she gets her mind set on something, there’s no swaying her.’

  ‘I’ve been allocated cars, marquee management, and I’m introducing the readings in church but at least I get an invite to the wedding,’ he said before taking a slow drink.

  ‘You’ve got off lightly, I may have to delegate some of my tasks to you!’

  ‘Hey, I’ve got a business to run.’

  ‘I’ve got a cottage to finish,’ said Beth, taking her drink and placing it on the windowsill.

  Jack’s light mood seemed to have changed. He patted Doris’s flank but she didn’t move. ‘What are your plans once it’s finished?’ he said, his eyes still fixed on Doris.

  ‘Put it up for sale, hope I make my money back plus a bit more and then buy the next place,’ said Beth. ‘Hopefully, second time will be easier.’

  ‘Will it be around here?’ He gave a glance in her direction. ‘Because there’s talk of the old gatehouse going up for sal
e. It was once attached to the manor house but—’

  Beth could sense Jack’s intentions so she cut in. ‘I don’t think that would be wise, Jack. What with Nick sniffing around the pub it’s made me a bit jumpy and the plan was always to move on.’

  ‘How many times do you think you can do that?’ He was looking uneasy.

  ‘As many as it takes.’ She picked up her wine glass and took a sip. ‘Nice wine, thanks.’

  He nodded. ‘At some point you will have to face whatever it is that you’re running from.’

  ‘I’m escaping, there’s a difference. The film wasn’t called The Great Running Away now was it?’ She was keen to lighten the increasingly heavy mood.

  Jack shook his head. ‘Better to face it head on, I think. Whatever or whoever it is will catch up with you sooner or later. Our demons always do.’

  ‘Then I’ll face them when it happens.’ Beth was starting to feel slightly uncomfortable with the interrogation. ‘Jeez, there must be something else we can talk about.’

  Jack didn’t answer.

  ‘What about you, Jack. What troubles you?’

  There was a long pause. ‘Rebecca,’ said Jack quietly, his focus on stroking Doris.

  Beth pulled a face. ‘The book?’

  ‘No, my ex-girlfriend,’ said Jack. Beth’s eyes widened a little but she kept quiet. ‘She was an alcoholic …’ He took a slow and slightly juddering inward breath.

  ‘Oh,’ said Beth, surprised by the change of direction. Jack rarely shared anything personal.

  Jack briefly smiled at her and returned his attention to Doris. ‘I didn’t know when we got together but it turned out she’d been fighting it for years and nobody knew … Once you’ve spotted the pattern it’s obvious. She would get drunk and get into these rages.’ He took a deep breath and leaned back into the sofa, his eyes skyward. ‘She used to lash out and it was me that she directed her temper at.’ He went quiet.

  Beth gently squeezed his forearm. ‘I’m really sorry, Jack, it must have been an awful time for you.’

  ‘I couldn’t understand why she was doing it but then you realize it’s not them, it’s the alcohol, the addiction. It’s an illness.’ He closed his eyes; it was clearly hard for him to share his story and Beth really felt for him.