by Nell Dixon
After some discussion, it was decided that Mum would accompany Lou to her first scan. Mum had to explain to Chuck how the NHS worked as he seemed concerned that Lou would need money for her medical expenses.
Lou decided to take Mum up on her offer of a Sunday lunch so I said my goodbyes. Mum followed me out to the car.
“I do hope Louise is going to be all right. Have you got any idea about who this man might be? I mean it all sounds a bit strange to me. Gary isn’t the one I’d pick for our Louise but he is still around isn’t he?” She bent down to talk to me through the open car window, her face creased with worry.
“I don’t know, Mum. Perhaps after she’s had the scan they’ll help her work out her dates and then she’ll have a better idea.”
She pursed her lips. “It’s hard bringing children up on your own.”
I didn’t have an answer for that. Mum had been a single parent. Our father hadn’t been around since before Louise had been born. I only vaguely remembered him from the earlier part of my childhood. We’d last heard of him some ten years or so ago when he’d sent a Christmas card with a ten pound note in it. Mum had burnt the card and the money, which we’d thought was a bit of a waste, in a ceremonial bonfire.
“I’m sure she’ll work it out.” I inserted my key into the ignition. It was time I got back to do some more renovation work before Mike arrived to look at the creepy shoe.
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance that you and Steve might have patched things up?”
“No, Mum. He’s got someone else, I told you.” It didn’t get any easier to say no matter how many times I repeated it. The words still left a bitter taste in my mouth.
“Oh, that’s a shame. We’ll pop round later, after we take Louise home.” She straightened her back and stepped back onto the pavement as I started the car.
She waved as I pulled away, a look of disappointment still visible. Poor Mum, both her daughters letting her down. I knew she still clung to the hope that Steve and I would get back together. She adored Steve, and he’d been part of our little family for so long it was hard to adjust.
He was outside loading the skip when I arrived back at the cottage. The heat had built up now the sun was overhead and he’d stripped off to just a pair of faded cut off jeans. Hard physical work had given him a taut abdomen and muscle definition heightened by the tan he’d acquired from working outside.
I pulled into my parking space next to the skip and watched him trundle the empty barrow back down the plank. It was small wonder that he’d had girls fainting when he’d been in Danger Line and even when we’d been together he’d still attracted female attention. He stood the barrow down and came straight over to me.
“How did it go at Claire’s? Is Louise all right?”
“I left Lou there to have Sunday lunch with Mum and Chuck. It’ll be fine I think, once Mum’s over the shock. They’re going to call in later when they run Lou home.” I locked the car.
“Claire’ll be collecting pram brochures before you know it.” Steve wiped his arm across his brow. “It’s hot out here now. I was about to call it quits for today, I’ve just finished moving the last of the shot wood from the lounge.”
“Thanks, that was on my to-do list for today.”
We stood awkwardly facing one another making polite conversation like strangers.
“Have you made any plans for lunch? We could go to the pub if you liked, my shout.” He looked at me.
I knew he wanted to make amends for the row we’d had the other night. My stomach gurgled in appreciation at the idea of a meal that I hadn’t had to prepare.
Then I remembered that his girlfriend might be behind the bar.
He seemed to sense my hesitation. “We can sit out in the garden to eat, it’s a nice day.”
I wouldn’t have to see her if we were outside, and surely he wouldn’t have suggested it if he knew she would be there. “Okay, why not?”
Perhaps a civilised lunch together might help get our relationship onto the purely business partnership I had been striving for. We could behave like grown-ups.
After all, we were both moving on with our lives now. Steve with her and me with Mike.
“Great, give me five minutes to shower and change.” His face lit up and he headed off towards the house. I ambled along behind him wondering what I’d agreed to.
Large white cabbage butterflies flapped around the weed ridden bed of herbs and fat, lazy bumble bees droned amongst the white daisies and blue lobelia that spilled all over the stone flags of the patio. It was too nice to wait inside the cottage so I wandered around the neglected flowerbeds, wondering where the lavender scent that I’d noticed the previous day had come from.
Sage, thyme and rosemary straggled out onto the path and Mr Flibble lay stretched out and content in a sunny patch amongst the mint. There was no sign of any lavender, just bindweed, nettles and a rampant bed of foxgloves.
I poked around in the undergrowth with the handle of a broom. A lavender bush must be lurking somewhere. I found nothing.
* * *
Mother’s lavender bushes are full of flowers this year. The honey will be sweet and full perfumed. There is still no word from Joshua, and Mother begins to grow anxious about Father’s absence too. The business which has taken him from home for many weeks should have been completed some days ago. I both long to hear he is safe but fear his return at the same time. There is no hiding my condition now and it is obvious that I am with child.
Mother cries and prays in between scolding me and pacing the floor.
* * *
“What are you doing?” Steve stepped out into the garden. He’d changed into some light coloured Chino trousers and a white short-sleeved shirt. His hair was still wet from the shower and he smelt of soap and cologne.
“Yesterday, when I was out here I thought I could smell lavender. It was really strong.” I propped the broom back up against the wall next to the back door.
“I’ve smelled that a few times too.” He looked around the garden. Not that Steve would recognise a lavender bush if he fell over one. Doing up the gardens is my part of our projects.
“Well, I can’t see any lavender.” I kept my tone light so he couldn’t accuse me of finding more weird stuff to get freaked about.
“Probably somewhere in that lot.” He nodded at the lush, green bed of weeds.
“Maybe.” I decided not to argue. It wasn’t worth it.
The Coach and Horses was about a dozen streets away on the edge of the newer part of the town. Red bricked and ugly it did however have a very nice garden which was popular during the summer.
“Go and grab a table, I’ll get some drinks,” Steve suggested as we walked through the wooden side gate.
I carried on round to the rear of the pub while he went inside to get some drinks. The garden was busy. In addition to the smokers who occupied the tables nearest to the back door there were several families with small children and a few loved-up looking couples. I took a seat at the last empty table and wished I hadn’t agreed to come.
Steve reappeared after about five minutes carrying a two glasses of lager and a menu. I wondered if Chloe was at work behind the bar.
“It’s busy here today. I think everyone’s decided to come out while the weather’s so nice.” He took a seat and placed my drink in front of me, making the table wobble.
“Yes, and I think I can see now why this was the only table left vacant.” I rescued my beer as the table moved again as Steve leaned on it, spilling some of his onto the grass below.
I couldn’t help smiling. Steve and I had usually always managed to get the wonky table whenever we had gone anywhere. It had become an art form learning to level them up with folded napkins and torn up pieces of beer mats. The corners of Steve’s mouth curved upwards and I knew he remembered too.
“We should decide what we want to eat and order. It looks as if we might have to wait for a while anyway.” I pretended to be interested in the menu. It had
been strangely comfortable, sharing a joke with Steve, and now I felt unsettled again, knowing we couldn’t go back.
“I’m having the chicken.” He took a long pull of his drink.
“Me too.” I placed the menu down on the table, avoiding the lager puddle.
“I’ll go and order.” Steve scooped it up and headed back inside. This time he was back within a minute.
“Food will be about half an hour.”
I’d expected as much with how busy the place was, and it was quite pleasant simply sitting in the sunshine with a cold drink.
“Kate! And Steve!” Nasreen swooped bat-like out of the sunshine to cast a shadow over our table. Her beady eyes were agog. “Fancy seeing you two here – together.”
“We’re here for Sunday lunch. What brings you here?” I wasn’t going to get drawn into any explanations. She could think what she liked.
“I come here quite often, silly.” She giggled and gave Steve a flirtatious glance. “I’m here with my sister and some friends.”
On the far side of the lawn I could see a large party all busy digging into bowls of chips.
“So, are you two back together then?”
Steve hunched his shoulders and scowled into his pint.
“No. This is lunch, we’re on a break from the renovations.” I felt quite proud of the evenness of my tone.
She didn’t show any signs of embarrassment at her complete lack of tact. “Oh, that’s a shame.” She gave another giggle and winked at Steve.
I wondered if a jury would let me off an assault charge if I were to slap her now.
Steve had a hunted look in his eyes. “I think your friends want you.”
Nasreen’s sister beckoned her from across the garden.
“Maybe I’ll catch you later.” She scowled at her sister and stomped away crushing the daisies beneath her jewelled flip-flops.
“Not if I see you coming first.” Steve muttered. “Blimey, you work with some loonies.”
Actually most of my fellow employees at the bank are quite nice. Nas was really the only fly in the ointment.
“Ignore her. You know what she’s like.” After the Christmas party he had definitely known what she was like.
I took another sip of my beer and Steve lapsed back into silence. It seemed we didn’t even have the ability to make small talk anymore. The pleasant and relaxed atmosphere of a moment ago had disappeared. My stomach growled, reminding me that it had been a long time since the small bowl of cornflakes I’d scoffed for breakfast.
“I hope the food gets here soon, I’m starving.” The sun and the alcohol were combining to make me feel a little light-headed.
Steve glanced at his watch. “Should be here in a minute.”
I swished the last of my lager idly around watching the patterns the sunshine made through the glass on the rough wooden surface of the table. In the distance I could hear Nasreen’s annoying laughter.
Steve downed the last of his pint and cleared his throat. “I hoped we might have chance to chat over lunch.”
“Oh?” I lifted my head to look at him. This sounded ominous. My heart rate picked up and I waited for him to continue.
“I know it’s not been easy for you, us having to stay in the cottage together while we finish the renovations.”
My appetite had disappeared and I felt sick. “And?”
“I think I should move out.”
His face swam in and out of focus. “Move where?” I prayed he wasn’t going to say here, at the pub with her.
“My mate has an old caravan. It’s only small so it’ll fit at the end of the garden next to the skip. I’ll move into there and just use the kitchen and bathroom in the house as I need to.” His dark brown eyes locked on mine. “It’s for the best, Kate. I think we need some space away from one another.”
My insides were empty and hollow. Steve was leaving me, really leaving me.
This was it, the beginning of the end. I tried to convince myself that this was what I wanted as the pub waiter placed our dinners down on the table before us.
“Fine, good idea.” My voice sounded as if it was coming from a long way away as I stared at a plate of food I no longer wanted.
Chapter Eleven
Steve kept saying all through lunch, and I kept agreeing with him, that his moving out would be a good thing. We wouldn’t argue as much. It would preserve our business relationship. I picked at my chicken and nodded my head. I suppose Steve moving out might help our business relationship but why did it have to hurt so much?
Torture by roast chicken complete, we made our way back through the quiet side roads to the cottage. We rounded the corner leading to our back yard and I tried to picture a caravan next to the yellow skip that had become a permanent fixture amidst the weeds. Then I noticed another car, a smart, shiny blue one that I didn’t recognise, parked next to Steve’s beaten-up old van and my red VW.
“It looks like we’ve got a visitor.” Steve frowned and quickened his stride.
My pulse speeded to match my pace as I realised it must be Mike. He’d obviously arrived early. My battered self-esteem got a little lift at the sight of his tall well-groomed figure.
He stood on the edge of the garden next to the skip looking up at the back of the cottage. He turned towards us.
I raised my hand and waved.
“Who’s he?” Steve muttered.
“Um, it’s Mike, my evening class tutor. I said he could come over. He was interested in that shoe you found in the chimney.”
Steve’s jaw set in a hard line.
“He’s a professor at the college and he knows lots about the history of the town. He’s going to help me and Lou find out about the cottage.” I hissed in his ear as we drew nearer to where Mike stood waiting.
“Hi Kate, I think I might be early.” Mike smiled at me and my spirits rose for the first time that day. He was very good looking when his eyes crinkled at the corners.
“I’m sorry I was out when you got here. I hope you haven’t been waiting long?”
“Only for a few minutes. I thought you were in at first. I could have sworn I saw someone looking out of the window there.” He pointed to my bedroom window.
Steve and I both squinted upwards. The black diamond leaded casements glinted back at us in the sunshine.
“Must have been a trick of the light. The glass in those windows is extremely old. It can distort things,” Steve said.
“Mike, this is Steve, my business partner. Steve, this is Mike, my tutor.” I emphasised the word business so Mike wouldn’t get the wrong idea about how things stood between me and Steve. Everyone else still appeared to be set on trying to get the wrong end of the stick over our non-relationship and I didn’t want Mike to get muddled about it too. Especially as he was the first man to show any kind of interest in me since Steve and I had split up.
The men in my life shook hands while eying one another up like two wary adversaries. The sun disappeared temporarily behind a tiny white cloud and I glanced back up at my bedroom window. A pale, feminine face framed by dark chestnut curls looked straight back at me.
* * *
Mother has confined me to my chamber and there have been many harsh words between us. Father’s manservant, Richard, and his wife, Dorcas, watch my every move. I look out from the window of my room to see if Joshua is come back.
Father is still not returned and I am afeared for his safety. Dorcas came back from market with news that there has been a great battle between the King’s forces and that of the rebel army not many miles from here with many dead, and yesterday I thought I heard musket fire beyond the river.
* * *
“Oh my God! There is someone in the house. I just saw a girl in my room.” I tugged urgently at Steve’s shirt and he and Mike peered up at the cottage.
“There’s no one there, Kate. Are you sure?” Steve turned back to me. The window remained aggravatingly empty but I’d definitely seen a girl’s face.
“Yes, it
was a girl with brown hair. I know what I saw.” I fumbled in my bag hunting for my mobile to ring the police. How could someone have got inside the cottage? The back door was still closed and the front door would be difficult to force as we didn’t use it very often.
“Did you see anyone, Mike?”
It crossed my mind that the intruder could be one of Steve’s few die-hard Danger Line fans. It wouldn’t be the first time that someone had sneaked inside our home to hide in wait for him. He had discovered a girl dressed only in her underwear inside our wardrobe once a few years back.
“I don’t know, I’m not sure.”
Steve dug the back door key from his pocket and he and Mike hurried towards the back door. “We’ll go inside and check. Wait here.”
I waited outside on the path as they went inside. My hand ready on my phone to dial the nines. After a couple of minutes my bedroom window flew open and Steve’s head appeared.
“There’s no one here. We’ve checked all through the house.” He didn’t look happy.
“I definitely saw someone.”
Mike stepped out of the house. “There’s no one in there, Kate. It must have been the same trick of the light that fooled me.”
I bit my tongue. I knew what I’d seen, but it didn’t make much sense if the house was empty. “Maybe.”
Steve appeared behind Mike in time to catch my reply. His frown told me that he still wasn’t happy with me. He’d probably bring this whole incident up the next time we had an argument.
We trailed back inside and I took Mike to see the house. Steve accompanied us into every room as if concerned that he might steal something. Mike proved very knowledgeable about the age of the house, confirming the dates of some of the features inside the rooms. Judging by the permanent scowl that was fixed to his face whenever I caught his eyes, Steve didn't appreciate the commentary.
We arrived back in the lounge.
“I was very excited when Kate told me about the shoe you’d found in the chimney. Do you know the date of it?” Mike looked around the room.