Annie said her farewell to Alex before carrying on tidying up. After all, it was her job.
*
‘Everything OK?’ asked Alex, as he threw his bag into the back of the waiting taxi.
‘Never better,’ replied Sam, with a grin. ‘I’m going out with my brother and grandad to watch Arsenal thrash Chelsea later today and then I’m coming home to my beautiful girl.’
Alex raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this.’
‘I’m not sure I’ve ever felt like this,’ said Sam, realising it was true.
He and Alex hugged. ‘Good for you,’ said Alex, with a sigh. ‘I’m sure the love of my life is waiting out there for me somewhere.’
‘With arms like Thor and a face like Loki’s?’ said Sam, grinning.
‘If I’m very good,’ Alex told him, his eyes gleaming.
‘That would be a first,’ drawled Sam.
Back in the dining room, Sam still couldn’t get Annie on her own as the family had come down for breakfast.
‘Did you meet that retired colonel at the party?’ said Rose, as she spread marmalade on her toast.
Will yawned. ‘No. What’s he like?’
‘Very handsome,’ said Rose. ‘I was wondering whether my Wonderbra would fool him.’
Will choked on his tea and Arthur ducked down behind his newspaper.
Sam smiled at Annie but noticed it wasn’t returned. Perhaps she was a little tired, which was entirely his own fault. He allowed himself a memory of what had passed between them last night and felt the need to catch up with her in the entrance hall as she took the teapot away to refill it.
‘You look weary,’ he said, with a knowing smile. ‘Maybe you can rest up whilst we’re out at the football match.’
‘There’s actually quite a lot of tidying up to do,’ she replied before quickly walking away.
It wasn’t said with a smile. She had, if anything, been quite cold. What was going on?
‘We’d better get ready,’ said Will, walking out of the dining room. ‘The match kicks off at 12.30 and I think the whole world is going to be on the roads today.’
‘Yeah,’ replied Sam, still deep in thought.
But football was the last thing on his mind at that moment.
*
Annie was still trudging back and forth between the dining room and kitchen when she heard voices outside the front door. She guessed that it was Mick and the band having a sneaky cigarette.
But when they appeared at the doorway, it turned out that their extra guest had arrived. Mick’s cousin was silhouetted against the blazing sunshine outside.
She stopped walking to stop and stare, her eyes growing wide.
And the tray that she was holding crashed to the floor, causing the crockery to shatter into a million pieces.
It was Steve, her long-lost love.
Chapter 32
Sam was just walking across the landing when he heard the crash.
Rushing to the balcony, he stared down to see Annie standing rigid in the middle of the entrance hall, surrounded by bits of broken crockery.
He rushed down the stairs. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked, hurrying to Annie’s side.
Annie turned to look at Sam, her face white in shock.
Sam blanched. She looked ill. What on earth had happened?
‘You all right, love?’ asked Mick and the boys, who had also run across to check on her.
Annie nodded her reply to Mick, but Sam noticed that her eyes kept flicking to the newcomer who appeared oblivious to what had just happened.
‘Hi,’ said Sam, holding out his hand in greeting. ‘I’m Sam Harris.’
‘This is my cousin,’ Mick told him.
‘Steve Bailey,’ said the man, shaking the outstretched hand.
Steve Bailey? He recognised the name and tried to remember where he had heard it before. Oh, that was right. The guy who wrote the one-hit wonder that he couldn’t even recall. He seemed to think that Steve was still trying to make it big and had even approached Sam to manage him at one point. But he had turned him down as the guy just wasn’t that talented.
‘Let’s get rid of all the mess,’ said Will, suddenly appearing with a dustpan and brush.
Sam realised that Annie was standing still amongst all the debris. ‘Why don’t you take Steve through to the drawing room, Mick?’
‘Might nip out to the patio for another fag first,’ Mick told him.
Will cleared up the pieces of crockery whilst Sam led Annie away and down the stairs. As soon as they were in the kitchen, he pushed her onto the nearest chair.
In a daze, Sam walked across to the sink and washed his hands. All the time his mind was racing. Annie’s shocked reaction had spoken volumes to him. Steve was the man that had broken Annie’s heart all those years ago. Of that he was certain. No-one else would have had that effect on her. But did she still love this guy? He didn’t know. But she hadn’t said that she had loved him either, had she?
With a sigh, he finally went over to stand in front of her. She slowly raised her head so that her green eyes could meet his.
‘So that’s him?’ he asked, his voice curt.
She nodded her reply.
‘He hurt you, just remember that. I would never do that.’
Annie looked down, her long thick lashes hiding her expression.
Sam turned away abruptly and walked out of the kitchen and into the back courtyard. There he took a deep breath and exhaled slowly in the winter sunshine.
It didn’t matter. Everything would turn out OK.
*
Yes, Annie knew that Sam cared for her. But she was just his housekeeper, he had made that clear.
And then there was Steve. The man she had yearned for the past two years had arrived on her doorstep, out of the blue. He was actually here at Willow Tree Hall. If that wasn’t a sign, she didn’t know what was.
She didn’t want to hurt Sam. She really didn’t. But it still couldn’t prevent her from seeking out Steve before he left. She had to talk to him. Because if she didn’t speak to him now then she would miss her chance.
She found him sitting at the small patio table, drawing on his cigarette as he looked out across the back lawn. Some of the snow had begun to thaw, leaving a few tufts of long green grass amongst all the white. Nearby the snowman that Will had built a few days previously had begun to slump as his body melted beneath him.
Steve turned to look at Annie as she walked up to him. Unable to speak, she just stared wide-eyed at her long-lost love.
Slowly, his eyes ran up and down from her jeans to the coat she had shrugged on and finally up to her pretty face. ‘Hello,’ he said, flicking the cigarette out onto the lawn before standing up in front of her. ‘What have we got here then?’
She caught her breath. He had just repeated the very same words that he had first spoken to her. He remembered!
Nervously, she played with a strand of long hair.
He broke into the cheeky grin that was ingrained into her memory.
‘Beautiful hair,’ he said, his cockney accent still strong after all these years.
She sighed with happiness. ‘You remember,’ she said softly, her breath showing in the cold air.
He frowned. ‘What are you talking about, lovely?’
‘It’s me, Steve. Annie. From the ship, remember?’
He looked momentarily confused before brightening up. ‘Of course it is! Great to see you. It’s been, what, how long?’
‘Nearly two years,’ she replied.
Her heart was thumping inside her ribcage. It was as if she had stepped back in time.
Steve reached out to touch a blonde wave, just by her shoulder. ‘So, you and me, yeah? We were good, weren’t we?’
She nodded. ‘We were.’
His eyes gleamed. ‘Thought so,’ he told her. ‘The pretty ones were always my favourites.’
His words confused her somewhat but she didn’t have a chance to think abo
ut them because he reached out to grab the collar of her coat to pull her into towards him and began to kiss her.
But it wasn’t a soft kiss of love and promise like Sam’s had been earlier. It was rough and, she realised with a start, not very pleasant. His tongue poked into her mouth like a python stabbing its enemy and his breath smelt of tobacco.
Abruptly she pulled away and stared into his face. It all felt so very wrong.
‘Angela, was it?’ he said, breaking into a grin. She realised his teeth were yellow and crooked.
‘The name’s Annie,’ she told him, horrified.
That was when she finally realised that he didn’t remember her at all. That she really was nothing to him. She had wasted so much time thinking about him. But it hadn’t been special to him. It certainly hadn’t been love. She had just been another conquest to be picked up and discarded. Why on earth had she thought he would know who she was? More importantly, why did she even care? He was actually quite ugly. His hairline was receding. Was that the beginning of a paunch? Had he always looked like this?
She was an idiot. She had stopped herself moving forward for all these years. She had denied herself so much happiness because of fear and pain. She had let him treat her so appallingly and had still yearned for him! What kind of masochist was she? This wasn’t a man to dream about. This was her worst possible nightmare. This was yet another man like her stepfather who had treated her badly.
The difference was that she had grown up in these past few months. She had begun to realise that she was OK. That she wasn’t the lowest of the low human specimen that her stepdad had referred to. She had done nothing to these men and yet they had continued to hurt her.
And Annie had had enough.
She stared at Steve as he continued to grin at her. ‘Look, why don’t you come up north to the gig with us? You and me can have a good time afterwards, yeah?’
‘A good time?’ she repeated.
‘Yeah,’ he told her, licking his lips.
And suddenly she was filled with icy rage.
She stepped to one side and picked up the head of the snowman which came easily away from its body. With one swift movement, she dumped it onto Steve’s head. For a second, she had the satisfaction of seeing the snowman’s face, including the carrot nose, replace Steve’s own.
‘Hey!’ said Steve, wiping snow out of his eyes. ‘What was that for?’
‘That was for every single woman that you’ve lied to and cheated on,’ snarled Annie. ‘That was for all the disappointments and broken hearts that you’ve left behind. The feeling of inadequacy that, somehow, someone of such ugliness can cause.’
He looked at her wide-eyed, snow still dripping down his face. ‘Are you crazy?’
‘Completely and utterly,’ Annie told him. ‘One last thing. Your record was rubbish. You can’t sing. You kiss like a slobbery schoolboy and, on reflection, you weren’t even any good in bed.’
Nearby, Mick suddenly appeared at the French doors.
‘We gotta go, mate,’ he announced, before frowning at the sight of Steve covered in snow. He looked at Annie. ‘Everything OK, darling? What’s happened here?’
‘It’s nothing,’ Annie told him.
And that was what Steve was to her now. He was nothing.
‘Oh yeah? Don’t look like nothing to me,’ said Mick, looking angry as he turned back to face Steve. ‘Did you try it on with this nice girl? God, your side of the family is a right embarrassment! Get in the car and stay there, you lowlife. Otherwise you can walk to bloody Liverpool.’
Annie watched as Steve slunk around the corner, snow still dripping from his head.
She would remember the look of complete bewilderment on his face if she ever wanted to think of him again.
But she knew she wouldn’t.
*
Meanwhile upstairs, Sam had been shrugging on his football shirt when he glanced out of the window.
And that was when he saw them. That was when he saw Annie staring at Steve with starry eyes. That was when he saw Steve reach out and kiss her.
When she didn’t immediately pull away, Sam abruptly turned away from the window and snatched up his sweatshirt. Pulling it over his head, he suddenly stopped and sank down onto the bed. He didn’t understand. He would have sworn blind that she wasn’t the type of woman to cheat on him. That she could have played him. Lied to him.
Had she pretended to look at him with love and desire in her eyes? Had it all been an act?
He was an idiot. She had obviously played him from the start. Had his initial gut reaction about her had been right? Only she hadn’t been after his grandad’s fortune. She had been after his. No, he wouldn’t believe that. Couldn’t. Deep down, he knew she wasn’t that type of woman.
But then why did she kiss that guy?
Sam abruptly stood up. He was glad he was going to London to see the football match. He needed to get away for a while. From Annie and the pain that threatened to engulf him.
He could barely glance at Annie’s bedroom as he headed down the corridor. It only reminded him what a complete idiot he was.
He rushed down the winding staircase, but in his haste to get out of there, he almost ran into Annie in the entrance hall. He searched her face, desperately seeking a sign that it was all in his head. That the warm, caring Annie he had woken up with that morning really existed.
But she wouldn’t even make eye contact with him.
She had never said she loved him. It was all a mistake. He had fabricated the whole thing in his mind. So she would just be the housekeeper to him and nothing more.
He lost his temper. ‘Could you make sure the house is tidy by the time we get back?’ he snapped. ‘It’s a bit of a mess everywhere and that’s not really acceptable, is it?’
As Annie took a step back, he could finally see a hint of hurt showing in her eyes.
But he didn’t care anymore.
At least that was what he was trying to tell himself.
*
Annie waited until Sam, Arthur and Will had left to go to the football match. Then, when they were finally out of view she sank onto the bottom stair. The tears ran down her face. The dreamy bubble of love from the previous night had well and truly burst. How had everything changed so quickly?
She sighed and lifted her head up to the ceiling, the tears still coming.
Steve had never been anything like real love. Not like she felt for Sam. She truly loved Sam. She knew that now. But he had just reminded her that she was just a housekeeper and nothing more. Of course they weren’t equal. She might be a close friend of the family as far as Arthur and Rose were concerned, but she would always be staff. They paid her wages.
Why hadn’t she seen any of this coming? She had been so blinded by how she felt about Sam that she hadn’t seen the reality. She didn’t even use the front door but the staff entrance on the side of the house.
Willow Tree Hall had changed these past few months. It was a safe, warm, happy place once more. But she couldn’t carry on living there any longer. She cared for Sam too much to stay.
She would have to quickly organise a replacement housekeeper. Someone who could properly take care of Arthur and Rose. Someone who could do a far better job than she ever could. She couldn’t believe it. After all that happened, she was going to have to leave Willow Tree Hall after all.
The realisation that she would have to say goodbye to the Harris family upset her greatly. But it was the thought that she would leave Sam forever that broke her heart.
Chapter 33
It was New Year’s Eve and the end of the year was closing with a shiver.
The temperature was bitterly cold but Arthur was wrapped up in many layers as he and Sam walked across the frosty path late in the morning. Some of the snow had remained, leaving the landscape still gleaming white in patches.
‘So where are you taking me?’ asked Arthur, holding on to Sam’s arm. He still used a walking stick and had a slight limp from the operat
ion but his recovery was complete. ‘I know the doctors have given my heart the all-clear, but I’m not sure the old ticker’s up to a cross-country jog yet.’
‘I wanted to show you the old barn.’
‘Don’t tell me, you want to turn it into a gymnasium.’
It was the first glimmer of humour that his grandad had shown since Annie had handed in her notice almost a week ago. The whole house appeared to have been plunged into misery at that news.
But it was nothing compared to the pain in Sam’s heart. He had kept his heartbreak just about manageable by avoiding Annie as much as he could. In fact, he had made sure that they had both never been alone in the same room during the past seven days.
He tried to focus back on the barn.
‘It’s going to be a recording studio,’ he announced.
Arthur stopped walking. ‘Don’t you think we should have, perhaps, a working kitchen first?’
Sam attempted a smile. The kitchen was first on the list to be completed in the New Year, along with various stages of the next phase of the restoration.
‘I know. But here’s my plan.’ Sam took a deep breath. ‘We’re still not generating any money as an estate. And I want to spend more time here.’ He dismissed Annie’s face as it came into his mind. As he had tried to do for every minute of every day for the past week. ‘My bands and singers pay a lot of money to use a decent recording studio,’ he carried on. ‘If I can convert this barn into a sound studio then they can pay us the going rate instead. My artists can record their albums there. They can work in peace and stay at the hall, if that’s OK with you.’
‘Lad, it’s your home too,’ said Arthur. ‘And we need to invest in its future.’
Sam nodded. ‘I agree. Also, half my bands are based in the United States. So I’m signing them over to one of the guys who does the managing over there. He’s a good guy and will take care of them and I’m getting compensated too. It’s just too much for me to cover everyone on my own. I’m so tired from the constant travelling. That frees up my time for a select number of singers and bands and also means that I can spend most of my time here.’
A House to Mend a Broken Heart Page 27