Escape to Willow Cottage

by Bella Osborne

  ‘You don’t sound ridiculous. It’s complicated when someone you love hurts you whether they mean to or not.’

  ‘You know that’s the thing,’ said Beth, getting animated. ‘I honestly don’t think Nick meant to hurt me. It’s the way he is. He has to control things and if those things don’t want to be controlled that’s when he gets bent out of shape. Argh! The times I felt bad for making him cross. It makes my blood boil that I took the blame for his behaviour!’

  ‘Here,’ said Jack, holding up a cushion. ‘Give that a thump, you’ll feel better.’

  ‘Violence is not the answer,’ said Beth, taking the cushion and playfully whacking him over the head with it.

  ‘How’s Leo about it all?’

  ‘He noticed it first. I am such a bad mother …’

  ‘Now you are being ridiculous. You’re a great mum!’

  ‘No, I was caught up in my career. I thought the job bought me babysitters and childminders but what it was really doing was forcing us apart. And that was what Nick wanted; he didn’t want to share me with Leo and he never tried to connect with him. He even said he didn’t want to replace Leo’s dad and I thought he was making some gallant gesture!’ She chuckled at her naivety. ‘He was simply telling me straight. He shuffled Leo off to this private school with long days and extra lessons and after-school clubs and I went along with it. I thought it was about getting the best education for Leo, opening him up to new opportunities and experiences, but it was about putting a distance between us.’

  It was Jack’s turn to reach out a reassuring hand. He ever so tenderly placed his warm hand on top of Beth’s and his fingers gently gripped hers. She looked up at him and smiled at the gesture. ‘And the sad thing is that deep down somewhere I had an inkling about his motivations but I chose not to act on it. I was selfish because I had an attractive man who made me feel like the most special woman in the world. How shallow is that?’

  ‘But you did see through it and I don’t think there’s any lasting damage where Leo’s concerned.’

  ‘I hope not,’ said Beth, stretching out her legs, touching Doris with a toe in the process. Doris stretched and farted loudly. Jack and Beth started to giggle and the heavy mood was broken.

  Chapter Forty

  Seated in the tearoom on a drizzly Wednesday, and with the help of three cups of coffee, Beth and Rhonda appeared to have nailed the catering for the wedding. It had turned into a hard-nosed negotiation where Rhonda saw herself as the authority on buffet food and Beth needed to drag her away from all that was wrong with 1980s cuisine.

  ‘So we’re still a maybe on the vol-au-vents,’ said Rhonda, checking her own list.

  ‘No! No vol-au-vents,’ said Beth, trying to keep hold of her remaining shred of patience. There had been a moment when she was tempted to tell Carly that they were going retro and it was an eighties-themed buffet; it would have been a whole lot easier.

  ‘Any particular flavour for the crisps?’ asked Rhonda. The crisps and nuts had been Beth’s concession.

  ‘A mixture, you choose,’ said Beth, downing the last of her coffee and feeling a sense of achievement at completing one of the bigger items on the wedding to-do list. She stood up to leave. ‘Let me know if you have any issues sourcing anything, okay?’

  ‘It’ll be fine, the cash ’n’ carry is very good,’ said Rhonda and Beth looked taken aback. ‘Ha, got you, only joking!’ said Rhonda with a hoot of a laugh.

  ‘Very funny,’ said Beth, absent-mindedly rubbing her forehead.

  ‘Are you still having problems after the carbon monoxide poisoning?’ asked Rhonda, leaning in as if about to get a scoop on any ongoing health issues.

  Beth was aware that it had been the most exciting thing to happen in Dumbleford since it was mentioned in the Domesday Book as ‘Four villagers and two smallholdings’. ‘No, I’m completely recovered, thanks.’

  Rhonda started to shake her head. ‘Jack was amazing that day. It was like something out of a film how he risked his own life to rescue you and rallied everyone despite being poisoned himself,’ she said, her hand splayed across her chest when she spoke like she was taking some sort of oath.

  ‘He did a great job,’ conceded Beth. ‘I dread to think what might have happened to me. Anyway, I best get going.’

  ‘And Leo, of course. Anything could have happened to Leo, him running off like that. Jack was marvellous, he had virtually the whole village searching for him. Proper manhunt it was,’ said Rhonda, now in full amateur dramatics mode. ‘Anyway, how is Leo?’ she asked, returning to normal again.

  Very slowly Beth sat back down.

  Nick slowed his pace but kept an eye on Carly as she walked along oblivious to his presence on the other side of the road. She was talking on her mobile; he wasn’t close enough to hear what she was saying but she was beaming with happiness and he could see she was admiring something on her left hand. He couldn’t be sure but it was possible she was wearing an engagement ring.

  Nick wasn’t stalking her, she just happened to be going the same way he was. He was rarely over this side of town but he liked the deli in Kentish Town and he was planning on picking up a few things from there. It had crossed his mind that he might bump into Carly or Fergus which, after his last encounter with them, didn’t fill him with optimism, but he was now interested in the development in their relationship. A recent engagement would mean an engagement party. Perhaps Elizabeth would be back in London for that? Carly turned a corner and he had to cross the road, dodging the traffic to keep her in his sights.

  Okay, now he had to concede that he was following her – the deli was in the other direction. There were not that many people about so he had to keep his distance or risk being spotted. When Carly crossed the road and checked over her shoulder he thought he had been rumbled but she was laughing when she reached the opposite pavement and she didn’t show any signs of having seen him. He looked about him; he was pretty sure that Carly was now heading for the hairdresser’s. He followed at a much slower pace. If she was going to the hairdresser’s she would be in there for ages.

  Nick toyed with the idea of waiting for Carly and asking her to go for a coffee but after their last meeting he feared she would decline and given Fergus’s parting warning to him it would most likely be a fruitless excursion anyway. He turned the corner and could see the hairdresser’s salon clearly with Carly inside hugging one of the staff. He leaned against a wall and watched for a bit while his mind wandered off to the deli and what he might choose when he got there.

  Carly handed something over and the member of staff read it and started to jump up and down with Carly. It was like watching a children’s television programme; Elizabeth’s friends were all juvenile. Whatever it was they were both excited about it, so it was probably the engagement party. Nick’s interest resumed and he watched the two of them closely. One more hug and double air kisses and Carly was heading for the door.

  Nick slunk back round the corner and went into the first shop, which was a bookshop. He walked to the back and pretended to peruse the shelves.

  ‘Hi, can I help you?’ said a bright young man in his late teens.

  ‘Er, yeah. Do you have anything for an unruly six-year-old boy?’ he asked, pleased that the shop assistant was blocking him from being seen from the window and he watched over the young man’s shoulder as Carly went past.

  He left the bookshop and walked round to the hairdresser’s. Through the glass he could see that what Carly had handed over had been an invitation of sorts and it was now pinned to a board behind the reception desk. He strolled inside and gave the receptionist a fleeting smile.

  ‘Hi, my partner, Elizabeth Thurlow-Browne, comes here and I wanted to buy her the products she usually uses for a present but she’s away on business and has taken them all with her. Would you be able to let me know what they are?’ he asked. The young woman started to witter on excitedly about what a nice thing that was while he moved himself into a better position to view the invitati
on. It was a wedding invitation. He returned his attention briefly to the prattling woman.

  ‘Money’s no object but I want to get the right thing. You ladies are very particular about hair products.’ He gave a conspiratorial chuckle and the woman started merrily tapping away on the computer. While she was busy printing him off a list he leaned over and managed to see some of the inside of the card.

  Carly Wilson and Fergus Dooley request the pleasure of Danny & Greg at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday 3rd June at St Botolph’s Church, Dumbleford.

  He almost smiled but the thought of having to return to that village filled him with a sense of unease. It was far too close to Cheltenham for his liking. Nick tuned back in to the babbling female.

  ‘The list is great, thanks. I’ll take it home, have a peruse and get back to you, if that’s okay?’ he said, taking it from her and clutching it gratefully.

  ‘Sure, bye,’ said the woman and she watched Nick stride out of the shop smiling to himself.

  Beth had already opened the door of Willow Cottage and stepped outside before Jack had been able to knock.

  ‘Hiya, I was about to …’ started Jack.

  Beth nudged Jack back down the path and he went ahead of her. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘When the hell were you planning on telling me that Leo had run away?’

  Jack’s jaw contracted; this was the moment he’d been dreading. ‘He didn’t exactly run away, he was with Ernie and—’

  ‘Rhonda blabbed and Leo has told me the less dramatic version of events. He said he was petrified because Ernie had seen a man that sounded like Nick. Was it Nick?’

  Jack shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’ He wiped his hand across his lips. ‘Beth, I am really sorry but the last thing I wanted to do at the time was worry you, what with you being ill in hospital and the boiler and everything.’

  ‘He is my son. There is no excuse for not telling me when he goes missing!’

  ‘To be fair when he first went missing you were unconscious, so technically …’

  Jack realized his error when Beth’s cheeks changed to a deep shade of red. ‘You had no right to keep this from me for this long!’

  Jack held up his hands in surrender. ‘You are quite right. That bit was unforgivable. I’m truly sorry. But in my defence Leo was completely fine, he hadn’t got himself injured or been kidnapped.’

  Beth froze. ‘Oh my God. You thought Nick had taken him. You actually thought he’d been kidnapped. Didn’t you?’

  Jack wasn’t sure how he had painted himself into this particular corner and was even less sure how he could make Beth see that the bottom line was that Leo was unhurt by all of it.

  ‘Honestly?’ He tried to buy himself a moment’s thinking time.

  ‘Honestly,’ said Beth, her hands now resting on her hips in full-on challenge mode.

  Jack took a deep breath. ‘A million and one scenarios went through my head that afternoon and, yes, the fact that someone, possibly Nick, may have taken him was one of the conceivable explanations,’ he said, speaking in cautious bursts. Beth was shaking her head and grinding her teeth. Jack frowned but carried on. ‘But this is Dumbleford and at the end of the day, nothing terrible happens here. With the exception of the WI fashion show.’ He sniggered at his own joke but taking in Beth’s steely expression he coughed and continued. ‘We live in this safe little bubble.’ He indicated a bubble shape with his hands.

  ‘And one day some bad guy is gonna come along and burst it.’ Beth took Doris’s lead from Jack and led her up the path. Beth was shutting the door when Jack stepped forward and put a hand on it to stop her.

  ‘Honestly, I was doing what I thought was best for everyone,’ said Jack, his eyes conveying his regret. Beth paused for a moment, gave a cursory nod and closed the door.

  Beth found she was able to paint at double-quick speed when she was still cross about something and had a deadline hanging over her. She had seen the estate agent and they had agreed that they would come round and take photos in three weeks’ time. By then she needed to have pretty much everything sorted and anything that wasn’t quite ready they simply wouldn’t photograph. It would be on their website a few days after that, a sign would go up and the marketing would commence in earnest. She was on the downward slope of the renovation of Willow Cottage and she should have felt good about it but it was difficult because she was still using all her emotional energy to deal with Leo running away. It had been a shock to hear it from Rhonda and she couldn’t help feeling that Jack was wrong to have kept it from her. Losing Leo was her worst nightmare. Keeping him safe was all that really mattered, and she kept repeating that in her mind.

  She tried to turn her attention to the decorating; she had chosen a light but warm shade for the hall, stairs and landing and it was making the space look clean, fresh and welcoming. She had to admit that what had drawn her to the shade had been the name, not the actual colour, as it was called Pointing and it had reminded her of how little she had known when she had started this project and how much she had learned. She was on her knees doing the lower part of the wall and her hair was getting in the way. She put down her paintbrush, rolled her hair up and stuck it underneath her baseball cap with the peak facing backwards.

  Doris sauntered over, sat next to Beth and leaned against her shoulder. Beth gave her a cuddle. She wasn’t sure if Doris could sense it but Beth was already starting to feel sad about having to leave Dumbleford. She never thought she would feel that way but the people and the village and even this huge lolloping dog had wheedled their way into her heart and, however much she tried to deny it, she knew it was going to be a wrench to leave. But what choice did she have?

  She eventually took a break and made herself a sandwich in the kitchen. After paying back Jack for the new boiler she had virtually no money left and the part-time work at the pub was barely enough to cover her bills. But she liked a thrown-together sandwich of leftovers and she had a good feeling about leftover bacon and peanut butter with jalapeños. She sat down at the small table and studied the floor while she ate. Ernie was right about the oak floorboards; they had almost returned to normal now that they were drying out. Beth turned her attention to her two to-do lists; one was headed up ‘Willow Cottage the last leg’ and the second ‘Carly’s wedding’. There was a lot on both lists and a glance at the calendar told her she was fast running out of time. She needed to come up with a much better plan than the one she currently had, which was to muddle on regardless. She went to the living room to get a pen to jot down some options and when she returned Doris was lying under the table, her big dark eyes full of guilt, and Beth’s sandwich had gone.

  Beth had been on the phone so long she thought her ear must have those funny little wrinkles you got on your fingers from being in the bath too long.

  ‘… on top of the cake disaster I can’t find a florist that is free and within a fifty-mile radius as apparently everyone in the Cotswolds is getting married that weekend!’

  When Carly paused for breath Beth saw her opportunity. ‘I’ve had an idea. Now listen before you dismiss it because it’s not as bad as it sounds,’ she began.

  ‘Really selling it to me there, Beth,’ said Carly with a small huff.

  ‘The WI.’

  ‘The Women’s Institute! Are you having a laugh? My nan belongs to that! It’s all curly perms and bitching about soggy bottoms!’

  ‘Is that listening before you dismiss it?’ said Beth, her voice going all schoolteachery, and she acknowledged she had a bit of a habit of doing that.

  ‘No,’ said Carly, sounding like a sulky teenager.

  ‘Right. Petra is a member of the local WI …’

  ‘Petra!’

  ‘Ahem!’ Beth coughed her annoyance at the interruption.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Carly.

  ‘Yes, Petra is a member. It had a revamp not long ago when they brought two WI groups together so it covers a few villages and hamlets.’ Carly groaned on the other end but Beth ignored her. ‘It’s a re
al mix of ages: mums from school, people who work, some who are retired, and the one thing they have in common is that along with embracing all that is good about the WI and its pledge to educate women they mainly drink wine and eat cake.’ Beth was happy with her summary. She had been along once with Petra and she would have gone more often but even going halves on a babysitter was a cost she couldn’t stretch to right now.

  ‘Okay, but how exactly does that help me?’

  ‘The WI has lots of women with lots of skills and links to lots of local businesses. I know that Petra does favours for the other members and I’m wondering if we could tap into that. I’m sure at the very least they could whip up a lovely Vicky sponge,’ said Beth with a chuckle.

  ‘Bloody hell! I want more than a soggy-bottomed Victoria sandwich for my wedding cake!’ said Carly but at least she was laughing too.

  ‘So shall I ask the WI?’

  ‘Nothing to lose,’ said Carly. ‘See if any of them do flower arranging too.’

  ‘I will, good idea!’

  Chloe, Petra’s barmaid, had a sister who was a very responsible sixteen-year-old, although Beth feared that was an unlikely combination. Anyway she had been persuaded to leave Leo, along with Denis, in the girl’s care in exchange for free-flowing fizzy drinks and crisps, on the strict instructions that she call immediately there were any problems. Jack had offered to take them climbing but Jack was still in Beth’s bad books and she wasn’t ready to swallow her fatty lump of pride just yet.

  And if Beth wanted the help of the WI the least she could do was turn up to one of their meetings and ask her favours face to face. Beth had a jacket on, another charity-shop find that she had become rather attached to, and a mulberry flat cap although even for a May evening it was definitely starting to warm up.