by Penny Jordan
Louise had already telephoned to warn her that he was on his way, adding that she would not be able to come with him, but that she hoped to come and see her soon.
‘How’s the decorating going?’ she had enquired, and when Melanie had replied abstractedly that it was finished, she had queried softly, ‘And the decorator?’
The same answer pertained to that question as well, but Melanie could not bring herself to give it. Instead she said as casually as she could, ‘Oh, Luke? I haven’t seen him since the bedroom was finished. He’s got his own phone now.’
And she was grateful to Louise for not pressing the matter, even while it hurt her to sense that her friend had probably guessed without needing to be told just how much Luke was coming to mean to her.
‘And you still intend to sell up?’
‘Yes. There’s a rumour in the village that the verdict on the motorway extension is going to be brought forward a few weeks.’
‘Well, let’s keep our fingers crossed that it is going ahead,’ Louise told her. ‘That way you’re bound to get an awful lot more for the property.’
‘Yes,’ Melanie agreed, but she knew she sounded less enthusiastic than she should. She had tried telling herself that it was her duty to ensure that she could get as much from the sale as she could, but with each day that passed she found herself growing more and more reluctant to part with the cottage, even to the extent of sometimes actually falling into the idiotic and painful daydream of actually living here with Luke, of the house, clean and warm and filled with the sound of their children’s laughter, with happiness and sunshine, of the garden bearing signs of family activities, its jungle tamed to give way to soft country borders and the lawn, while shorn and green, bearing the unmistakable prints of small feet.
That these daydreams were the utmost folly she needed no one to tell her; that they were self-destructive and painful, that they were actually stopping her from putting Luke out of her mind and trying to get on with her life she also knew, but no matter how hard she tried, no matter how determined she was not to allow herself to fall into the trap of permitting them, they seemed to creep up on her, catching her when she was weak and vulnerable, calling to her with all the hypnotic allure of a siren’s song, promising her delight but in reality giving her nothing but pain and reinforcing what she already knew: that Luke did not want her.
After Louise’s warning telephone call, Melanie stayed as close as she could to the front of the house so that she would be in earshot of Simon’s arrival.
The lane that ran past her house was seldom used by others, the traffic on it reduced to the odd farm vehicle and people toing and froing between the two farms which lay beyond the cottage.
A faint, depressing drizzle had kept her inside virtually all morning. In her desire to wipe Luke completely from her mind she had cleaned the house so thoroughly that there was virtually no cleaning now left for her to do. Only the redecorating. However, every time she looked at the cans of paint she could think only of Luke and the bedroom upstairs into which she could not bring herself to walk, and a wave of aloneness so acute that it was a real physical pain swept over her.
And, besides, what was the point of spending time and money on the cottage when at the end of the day she was not going to be living here, was not going to be able to enjoy the fruits of her own labours?
The truth was that she was afraid of spending too much time working on the place because of the possibility of becoming too attached to it, that when the time came she would not be able to bring herself to part with it.
Above the bedrooms ran a long attic into which Melanie had not as yet ventured, and which could be reached via a trap-door in her own room.
However, to get into the attic she would need a pair of stepladders: the stepladders which she had carried downstairs and stowed away in the garage when Luke had finished the decorating.
She hesitated before going to get them, wishing that Simon would arrive and so give her something to busy herself with.
Whereas once she had enjoyed her solitude and having time to herself, now she found that she dreaded it—dreaded it because she was terrified that she would fall into the too tempting trap of allowing her mind to dwell on Luke.
To think and to remember; to daydream. If only it would stop raining she could go out and work in the garden. As she paused, hesitating, she thought she heard the sound of a vehicle lumbering down the lane.
Warning herself that it might only be one of the farm tractors, she hurried outside, relief filling her as she recognised the driver of the bulky hired van.
‘I’ve brought Alan with me. I hope you don’t mind,’ Louise’s husband apologised after he had stopped the van and Melanie had welcomed him, ‘only this old furniture is a bit bulky and heavy and I didn’t fancy my chances of getting it up your stairs on my own.’
‘Of course I don’t mind,’ Melanie assured him. ‘In fact I’m very grateful to you both. You must be hungry, though. How about some lunch before you start unloading?’
‘Great idea,’ Simon approved.
Melanie grinned at him. She knew from Louise that he had a hearty appetite. Louise was always threatening to put him on a diet, although for all his enjoyment of good food he was not a man who was unpleasantly overweight; rather perhaps a touch more solidly built that he should have been. Even so, Melanie thought that it suited him. He had about him the air of a man who was content with his life. Melanie found him relaxing and good company. He was kind to her in a slightly avuncular and totally non-threatening way, which she liked. That he also tended to be rather protective was something which, while previously unfamiliar to her, she had discovered gave her a warm, cared-for feeling.
Alan, she learned over the lunch she had prepared for the two men, was a long-standing friend of Simon’s, although, unlike him, he wasn’t married.
‘At least not now,’ he told Melanie rather wryly after praising her homemade potage bonne femme. ‘I used to work away from home on long contracts abroad. I suppose I can’t blame Moira for getting fed up with it, and with me. I tried to tell her that I was doing it for her and for the kids, and she certainly never complained about the money I was making.’ He pulled a face, his voice heavy with a cynicism that failed to mask his pain as he added, ‘What I didn’t bargain for was returning from one of these contracts to discover that she’d got herself a new life and a new man; that she was leaving me and taking my kids with her, claiming that I wasn’t a good father to them or a good husband to her because I was never there.’
Melanie bit her lip, feeling both sorry for him and sad at the break-up of his marriage, even though she suspected that there must be a great deal more to it than merely the fact that he had had to work away from home.
‘Marriage—you can keep it,’ he concluded bitterly. ‘From now on I’m going all out for Number One, putting myself first. Do you know, the last time I saw my kids, the boy—my son—actually referred to this other guy as ‘‘dad’’?’
‘Come on,’ Simon intervened. ‘We’d better make a start on shifting this furniture, otherwise it will never get done. You leave everything to us,’ he told Melanie cheerfully. ‘I’ll just take a look at the stairs first though. Which room do you want this stuff in, Mel?’
‘The first one on the left at the top of the stairs, please,’ Melanie told him.
It was the room in which she herself was sleeping. What she intended to do was to move out the existing furniture and reorganise the room around her unexpected presents. What she would have liked to have done was to put the oak furniture in the newly decorated bedroom, preferably on top of a newly fitted carpet. If she closed her eyes she could just see it now: the heavy traditional furniture, so deplored by Louise, would look good against her new décor, and would fit in admirably with the oddly sloping walls and generally old-fashioned air of the pretty bedroom; but once she did that, once the room was furnished, it would be far too tempting to move into it herself and if she did that her dreams woul
d never be free of Luke. Never.
She was already suffering enough during the day without having her nights tormented by him as well.
Guiltily she acknowledged that it had been foolish of her to give in to the whim of staining and sealing the scrubbed floorboards, and of buying that sheepskin rug she just hadn’t been able to resist on her last trip to Knutsford to stock up on food. True, a really good-quality plain carpet in the same shade of peach as the lower half of the walls would have looked even better than her stained floorboards, and certainly would have felt far more luxurious, but, since she didn’t intend to use the room, since she had never intended to do anything with the house than simply clean and tidy it up a little, and since she had certainly never intended to allow it to get so firm a grip on her heart, it was pointless allowing herself to imagine what it would feel like to push back the bedclothes and to step out of bed on to the thick luxuriousness of a soft warm carpet. Just as it was an even greater folly to wonder what it would be like if Luke was sharing the room with her, sharing the bed with her, if she and Luke—
‘Penny for them,’ Simon teased her, causing her to flush brilliantly and bite down on her bottom lip.
‘They aren’t worth it,’ she told him bravely, unaware of the concern and compassion which touched his eyes as he looked at her down-bent head.
In the end, she took Louise’s advice and left the men to their self-appointed task, promising them a cup of tea and a slice of the cake she had made the previous evening once they had finished.
There seemed to be an awful lot of banging and crashing noises, accompanied by several rather salty curses, but eventually they both returned downstairs, and Simon told her triumphantly, ‘There; it’s all upstairs and reassembled, although I’m sure my back will never be the same again. That bed-frame—’
‘Bed-frame?’ Melanie queried. Louise had not mentioned a bed-frame.
‘Yes, it was upstairs in our loft, and Louise said that as you were having the rest of the suite you might as well have that as well. By the way,’ he added with a grin, ‘has anyone told you before that don’t seem to be able to tell left from right? We guessed you’d got it wrong when we opened the door of the bedroom on the left and found it was already furnished, especially when we realised that the room opposite it was empty and quite obviously ready and waiting for the furniture. Louise has the same problem. She drives me mad at times!’
Melanie couldn’t say a word. They had put the furniture in the empty room…in the room she had sworn she would keep closed and empty until the house was safely sold, just so that she wouldn’t have to walk into it and be reminded of Luke.
Common sense told her that just because the room was now furnished didn’t mean that she had to use it, that she could just as easily close the door on it now as she had done before, but she had an uneasy, despairing suspicion that she wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation of opening the door and seeing just how the room looked with the addition of some traditional furniture, a suspicion which was confirmed when Simon asked her cheerfully, ‘Well, aren’t you going to come up and see how it looks?’
‘I…’ What could she say? If she refused, both men would think it odd and that she was ungrateful, and they had worked very hard…
‘Well, yes…I…’
‘Come on, then. I must admit, it looks surprisingly good in there—much better than it did in our place. Of course this house is a lot older. I like the way you’ve decorated it, by the way. Just wait until I tell Louise; she’ll be over here like a shot, wanting to see what you’ve done. It seems a shame to have to sell it when you’re putting in so much hard work, but then I suppose it is too large for one person and too far out to be really practical, although it’s less than an hour’s drive from Chester,’ he mused, unconsciously repeating one of Luke’s comments to her.
Luke. Her hand was on the knob of the bedroom door, turning it and pushing the door open, her brain momentarily cheating and deceiving her so that as she turned towards the window it was almost as though a shadow moved inside the room.
Luke. His name was virtually on her lips before she silenced it, wondering with horror what on earth the two men would have thought if they had heard her calling out to someone who wasn’t there.
‘Mm. Your decorating friend has made a good job of this.’ Simon approved, touching the paintwork of the dado rail, thankfully oblivious to the tension which was gripping her as she walked into the room.
A double bed now faced her as she stood just inside the door, a large, heavy wardrobe on the wall opposite it. The two men had placed the dressing-table in front of the window and the man’s dressing-chest on the wall at right-angles to it.
Whereas before the room had looked newly decorated, now suddenly it seemed to have a more homely, settled air to it, now it was possible to imagine curtains at the window and the duvet cover on the bed, a bed which, she noticed, was accompanied by what looked suspiciously like a brand new mattress.
When she said as much, rather accusingly, to Simon, he flushed a little uncomfortably and said defensively, ‘It was Louise’s idea. It was one we bought last year, and then found out too late that it wasn’t suitable for my back. It wasn’t any use to us and Louise said that you might as well have it; that a furnished house always sells better than an empty one.’
There was nothing Melanie could say. To refuse to accept this additional gift would be ungrateful and possibly even hurtful to Louise, who had so kind-heartedly and thoughtfully given it to her. Even as she contemplated offering to pay for it, she knew that such an offer would immediately be spurned. Perhaps instead she could take Louise and Simon and even Alan out for a meal to show her gratitude for all that they had done. Perhaps that might be an idea; she could ring Louise when the two men had left, to thank her for her extra gift and to suggest such an invitation.
After she had thanked them and made them another cup of tea, the two men were ready to leave. Melanie accompanied them out to the van, and while Alan climbed into the driver’s side Simon turned to her, taking her in his arms to give her a warm hug.
Just as he did so, a huge BMW swept down the lane towards them, the sound of its approach startling them both since it was being driven far too fast on such a quiet country lane.
As far as Melanie could see, the car had only two occupants—a grey-haired man in his late fifties who gave her a hard, thin-lipped look which for some reason made her go cold inside and cling anxiously to Simon’s comforting shoulder. The other occupant of the car was a young woman, perhaps three or four years Melanie’s senior; her relationship to the older man was obvious from the features she shared with him, although where his hair was grey hers was strikingly coal-black and very expensively styled.
She too seemed to stare at Melanie with more than merely casual curiosity, although the dislike and malice in her gaze was spiked with a very obvious satisfaction.
‘Pleasant-looking pair, weren’t they?’ Simon commented when they had driven past. ‘Know them, do you?’
‘No,’ Melanie answered him honestly. ‘I’ve never seen either of them before.’
‘Mm. Well, they were certainly interested in you. Perhaps they’ve heard that you’re putting the place up for sale and were prospective buyers, although neither of them looked the type to choose to live in such an isolated spot. I see the pair of them enjoying and needing a far more high-profile kind of lifestyle, and there’s probably plenty of money to support it.’
As she listened to Simon, Melanie recalled that Louise had often remarked that her husband could be very astute when it came to summing up others, and just before he gave her a final hug and then released her to climb into the passenger seat of the van, he commented warningly, ‘Watch it where that pair’s concerned, young Mel. From the looks they were giving you, neither of them struck me as feeling particularly friendly towards you. Are you sure you don’t know them?’ She shook her head, and then wrapped her arms around her body as though already warding off some kind of
threat.
It was still drizzling, the grass at her feet so wet that the damp was soaking through her shoes. As she watched the van disappear down the muddy lane, she stared disconsolately after it.
For the first time since she had moved into the cottage she felt alone in a way that frightened her.
After so much institutionalised living, she had just begun to discover how much she actually enjoyed living on her own, how much freedom it gave her. So far she had slept at night in the cottage completely alone without feeling the slightest qualm; but now, whether because of the way the two in the car had looked at her or because of Simon’s warning, she experienced a sense of foreboding, of reluctance to go back inside almost.
Which was utterly ridiculous. After all, what did she have to fear from two complete strangers?
Melanie stared at the garden. She wished it was dry enough for her to do some work outside, to dissipate her odd mood with hard physical labour, to dispel the sensation of being cut off from the rest of the world, a sensation emphasised by the mistiness that was now permeating the landscape, brought on by the damp and the drizzle.
When she walked into the cottage the phone was ringing. As she rushed to pick up the receiver a thrill of sensation raced through her. Without even thinking of checking it, she held her breath, aching to hear Luke’s voice at the other end of the line, but instead the voice she did hear was the dry pedantic one of the solicitor.
‘Ah, Miss Foden,’ he began formally. ‘You may remember that some little time ago you got in touch with me concerning a conversation you had had with a Mr Hewitson regarding his desire to purchase the cottage and its land. You were concerned at the time that some prior verbal agreement to such a sale might have existed between my late client and Mr Hewitson and I was able to advise you that this was not the case.’
Disappointment had formed a giant lump in her throat and an aching pain around her heart. Swallowing hard, she tried to focus on what the solicitor was saying to her.
‘Has something occurred to alter that advice?’ she asked him seriously, not sure where his conversation was leading.