Sunshine Over Wildflower Cottage

by Milly Johnson

  He did not touch her in bed but she would have let him if he made a move on her, just to keep the peace. She craved the oblivion of sleep but her brain refused to rest. Eventually, through sheer mental exhaustion, her eyelids shuttered down and she dreamed of the tension cloud bursting and the rain falling hard on her face, saturating her and she woke up with a start to find that her face really was wet. And that was because Ian was standing over her slowly pouring a beakerful of cold water on her head and she daren’t move and he didn’t stop until it was empty.

  Then he climbed back into bed without saying a single word.

  *

  That night, Viv had a terrible feeling that she had turned into her mother. She lay in bed replaying that kiss over and over again, picking at the detail, hoping that somewhere in her brain she might recover the missing moments just before their lips came together. Did he pull her towards him, did she swoop on him? Who pulled away before the other? For the first time she had an insight into Stel’s Mills and Boon of a brain and understood her a little better for it.

  Now she had some space to think of things other than the future of the sanctuary, her mind returned to the subject of her mother. As Viv waited for her breakfast eggs to poach the next morning, she thought how odd it was that Stel had put her off going back home for a visit. They were due a chat. She’d ring her after she’d eaten, she decided, and ask if the decorators had started yet. Something was niggling her and she didn’t like it.

  But Stel didn’t answer when she saw Viv’s name pop up on her phone; she couldn’t. If she’d picked up, she would have broken down at the sound of her dear, sweet, lovely voice. Viv had left her a voicemail saying she had just rung for a chat, nothing else. Stel sent a text five minutes later.

  SOZ LOV. JUST GIONG IN TO CUSTMR RELS COURSE SHEFFIELD TDAY. X

  There were just enough errors and shorthand for it to appear genuine.

  Chapter 91

  Viv had brought the sanctuary accounts right up to date and she volunteered to hand them personally to Nicholas Leighton. She wanted to prove to him that their business had been consigned to a private history book that only three people had ever read.

  So her mother was on a customer relations course in Sheffield, was she? Viv had no reason to doubt that was true. Her mother didn’t keep secrets very well, she wore her heart too much on her sleeve. Course or no course, if Stel had something on her mind that she wanted to talk to her daughter about, she would have picked up her phone. So Viv decided that her niggly worry about her was probably nothing then so she carried on thinking about Heath Merlo who had occupied a lot of her grey matter since the three seconds she spent in his arms yesterday. Her business at Ironmist was done, she could go back to Yorkshire now, or to London but she wanted to do neither. Heath Merlo’s kiss had anchored her to Ironmist for the foreseeable future. She hadn’t turned into her mother and started looking up wedding dresses, but she wanted to linger in the perfect orbit of Wildflower Cottage for however long it extended its welcome to her. It had become home.

  This time there was no need for illegal entry via the bridle path and vaulting over the gate; she drove straight to the main entrance of the Ironmist estate.

  You could have inherited this, she thought to herself.

  It’s not mine. It doesn’t even flash up on my radar as having anything to do with me, she countered.

  She parked up on the gravel circle in front of the impressive centuries-old building and felt a nervous stirring in her stomach which intensified with every step she took towards the heavy wooden door. She pulled down on an iron lever to activate the bell and heard it ring deep within the belly of the castle. Eventually the door opened with a wholly appropriate horror-film creak and a girl appeared. She had the same dark hair, high forehead and large blue eyes as Antonia, but her lips were much thinner, cheekbones sharper, nose longer, skin paler. Her willowy height amplified her reed-like figure. This must be Octavia, thought Viv. There was definitely no chance of them ever being identified as sisters.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Octavia asked with a strained smile. Viv would have put money on her knowing exactly who she was though. Well, maybe not exactly.

  ‘I’ve brought these,’ she said, holding out a carrier bag full of files. ‘They’re the accounts for the Wildflower Cottage sanctuary. Is Mr Leighton in?’

  ‘No he’s out,’ said Octavia, taking them from her.

  ‘Ah, well would you ask Mr Leighton to return them to us when he’s finished with them, please.’

  Behind Octavia, her sister appeared.

  ‘I’ll deal with this, Otty, I know about it.’ So ‘Otty’ handed over the bag then went back inside.

  ‘I’ll make sure Dad gets these,’ Antonia said to Viv, wearing a suspiciously pleasant smile.

  ‘Thank you,’ replied Viv, with cool civility. She hadn’t forgotten how Antonia had upset Armstrong. The sooner she was out of her presence, the better.

  ‘Do give Heath my love,’ Antonia called as Viv stepped towards her car.

  ‘I will,’ Viv threw over her shoulder.

  ‘I liked him very much,’ added Antonia with an exaggerated sigh. ‘I do hope we can all be friends now.’

  Viv didn’t say anything.

  ‘I liked his ruthlessness.’ Antonia walked out onto the gravel. She had those expensive riding boots on again and Viv wondered if she slept in them. ‘Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t,’ said Viv, getting into the car.

  ‘I like bad boys.’

  ‘Oh, do you?’ What was she on about? Heath wasn’t a ‘bad boy’.

  ‘Not with animals, obviously. With people. Women,’ Antonia went on.

  ‘I wouldn’t know, I just work there,’ said Viv. ‘Bye then.’

  But Antonia had a point to make. ‘Well, you know about his wife, of course.’

  It was a remark meant to pique Viv’s interest. And it worked.

  ‘His wife?’ Viv delayed closing her door.

  ‘Sarah, the one who died of cancer. Sarah Bernal. “Beloved Daughter”. That’s what it says on her gravestone. She’s in a very pretty churchyard in Mawton.’ Antonia raked her long hair back from her face with her fingers. ‘I don’t blame the family for insisting that the headstone didn’t have her married name on it. The first one did, but they ripped it out. Replaced it after what happened.’

  Antonia was being deliberately tantalising. She was trying to press Viv’s buttons. Correction, she was pressing Viv’s buttons.

  ‘So, what happened?’ Viv asked, annoyed that Antonia had got to her, but she needed to know.

  ‘Heath abandoned Sarah when she was dying. Didn’t you know? How wonderfully callous is that, to break the heart of your terminally ill wife?’ She sighed with twisted admiration. ‘Ask the family if you don’t believe me. Bernal’s food store in Mawton. Just don’t tell them you’re shagging him.’

  ‘You really are a bitch, aren’t you?’ said Viv and slammed the door on Antonia’s poison. She was shaking as she accelerated away, hands locked on the steering wheel. No, no, no, he wouldn’t have done that. She thought of Darren deserting Stel. There was no way that Heath could have done the same to Sarah. But why didn’t her gravestone bear the Merlo name? Why was there only the word daughter on it and not wife?

  Should she drive to Mawton and ask? Excuse me but could you tell me what happened between your daughter and Heath Merlo that made you rip out her first gravestone?

  Everything she knew about Heath Merlo, everything she felt about him had been torn up and thrown in the air. She couldn’t be around him if what Antonia had said was true. There was no excuse that she could think of that would absolve him of that.

  Someone much closer, and honest, would know.

  Geraldine.

  Chapter 92

  How emotions could change like the weather, thought Viv as she sat through a lunch of fresh garden spinach, fried potato cakes and eggs with a beaming Geraldine and the man she had woken up smilin
g about and now could hardly bear to look at. Just as the foggy day had given way to bright sunshine, the sun in her heart had been swallowed by cloud. At the table, she existed in a dark bubble as all around her was lightness and jollity

  Even Pilot seemed to have been rejuvenated. He was shaking his tuggy toy for all it was worth.

  ‘You okay, Viv? You’re quiet,’ said Heath, leaning over and bumping her arm gently with his fist. Had he done that two hours ago her skin would have sighed at the contact. Now she felt numb. In the same way the kiss had been tumbling over and over in her mind, Sarah Bernal’s imagined last hours had now taken their place.

  ‘I think she’s still in shock,’ chuckled Geraldine.

  ‘True,’ said Viv, plastering on a fake smile.

  ‘I’m going up to Selwyn’s and I’m bringing back wine,’ said Heath, decisively scraping back his chair as he got up from the table. ‘I’ll call in at Fennybridge first, pick up the order and tonight we will knock our glasses together and celebrate. You all right with that, Geraldine? Viv?’

  He was studying her. He had picked up on there being something not quite right because she couldn’t sustain eye contact with him.

  ‘Sounds good,’ she said, flicking her eyes upwards.

  He was so handsome, and happiness radiated from him today, but until she knew the truth, the portcullis on her emotions remained down. Despite all the good he did for animals and the considerate way he treated Geraldine, whatever heaven his kiss tasted of and however much his scent set explosions tripping along her nerves, she would never be able to see past his weakness, his cruelty and his selfishness if he had deserted his wife as she lay dying. She could not stay here. Not even for Geraldine’s sake. Not even for Ursula.

  When he had gone, Viv cleared the table, wiped it down, acted as normally as she could.

  ‘Whilst the cat is away, the mice will play,’ she said, preparing the ground in case she had to go. ‘I’m taking a long lunch break today.’

  ‘And so you should,’ said Geraldine.

  ‘I think I’ll have a leisurely wander around the shops.’

  She crept up to the subject of Sarah. Word association, a stepping stone closer to her with each one. Moors. Mawton. Graveyard. Roses. Sarah Bernal.

  ‘She never lived here then?’ asked Viv.

  ‘Only for a little while,’ replied Geraldine. ‘When his father started to fade, Sarah moved here with Heath so he could take over the sanctuary. I’d only been living here a few months myself. It was chaos.’

  ‘So when did Sarah become poorly then?’

  ‘Before Heath’s father died. Heath was in an awful state. I think he blamed himself for not realising how ill she was, because he’d been concentrating on his father so much. But no one knew. She covered it up.’

  ‘Did Sarah die here at the cottage?’

  ‘No. Not here. She’d left by then.’

  ‘They split up?’ Viv felt mean press-ganging Geraldine for answers, but she carried on regardless.

  ‘Well,’ Geraldine cleared her throat, suddenly aware she’d given out some information that Viv didn’t know. ‘She . . . things weren’t working out between them so well.’ She delivered the line sing-songy, as if setting the words to a melody made them more acceptable. ‘There was a lot of pressure on Heath. As I say, she hid it from him . . . He wasn’t to know . . .’

  She’s defending him, thought Viv. She pressed on with her questions.

  ‘Where did she go?’

  ‘Mawton.’

  ‘Is there a hospital in Mawton?’ Quick fire questions, not giving Geraldine time to fabricate answers.

  ‘No, no. She must have gone back to her family. I think.’

  ‘I’ve seen her grave. It says Sarah Bernal, not Merlo.’

  ‘Her family . . .’

  ‘They were angry with Heath?’ Of course they were. That’s why they didn’t want his name on the grave. How could it be any more obvious?

  ‘They weren’t normal circumstances. Heath’s dad had just died, you see and, well, Viv, as I know only too well, things aren’t always as straightforward as they appear . . .’ Viv knew that Geraldine must feel as if she were caught in a storm of questions, but she couldn’t stop – wouldn’t stop – not until she heard it all.

  ‘Geraldine, just tell me so I don’t ever put my foot in it,’ said Viv, ignoring her conscience’s protest that she was manipulating her friend. ‘You told me your story, I didn’t make you feel judged, did I? When I took the accounts up to Ironmist, Antonia Leighton told me that Heath had abandoned Sarah. I want to be able to stand up for him if I hear anything like that again.’

  Lulled into a deceptive sense of security, Geraldine told her.

  ‘I was there when he said that she should leave.’

  ‘Where? Here?’

  Geraldine turned her head towards the fireplace. She didn’t even know she’d done it. A picture of a fragile, distressed Sarah Merlo arguing there with Heath flashed into Viv’s brain.

  ‘Why would he say that?’

  ‘He couldn’t look after her, he wasn’t in any fit condition . . . He was empty.’

  ‘Geraldine, what did he say? The actual words.’

  ‘I can’t really remember the ac—’

  Geraldine was lying. She knew what they were and Viv needed to hear them. She wanted Geraldine to prove Antonia wrong and give her the ammunition to blast away the doubts that sat in her heart like gangrene.

  ‘I need to hear them, Geraldine.’

  Geraldine sighed. ‘She said that she needed to be with a man who loved her. He said he was sorry it wasn’t him.’

  The impact of her words showed clear on Viv’s face. She could see that, however much Viv had said otherwise, she hadn’t been prepared to hear the truth at all. Geraldine tried to pat the words into a digestible shape and ended up distorting them further. ‘He didn’t mean it. I know he didn’t. She was nearer the end than he knew . . .’

  Viv nodded as if she accepted that he had made a mistake; although she didn’t. A mistake was forgetting to put the bins out, or setting an alarm clock for the wrong time; not telling the woman you’d married – for better or worse no less – that it would be too much trouble to help her die in peace.

  ‘Heath never forgave himself,’ said Geraldine. ‘He’s a good man, Viv.’

  ‘I know that,’ was all Viv said.

  Pilot nudged under Viv’s arm for affection and she took his big shaggy face in her hands. His great sad eyes looked up at her as if he understood that she had to go. And she kissed him on the nose and she knew she had said goodbye to him for all of them.

  ‘Okay, well,’ Viv jumped enthusiastically to her feet, ‘if Heath’s gone for wine, I think I should bring a cake home with me. A huge chocolate one.’

  ‘You are all right, aren’t you, Viv?’ asked Geraldine as Viv opened the kitchen door to go out. She wished she could have rewound the last five minutes and said that she didn’t know anything. One reveal had pulled another with it, like a constant stream of magician’s tissues.

  ‘Of course,’ said Viv.

  As soon as Viv entered the folly, she started scrambling together everything she had into her suitcases, half-blinded with tears.

  Geraldine realised she had gone an hour later when Heath came back and asked why the folly was empty.

  Chapter 93

  Viv booked herself in at a Travelodge for two nights. She didn’t want to go back to Stel immediately. She didn’t want to talk or think or feel. She texted her mother to say that she’d be home on Saturday morning and then switched off her phone. She had both the numbers of Wildflower Cottage and Heath’s mobile in her phone, but they didn’t have hers. They had a false address for her on file so they couldn’t contact her. They owed her a week’s wages but she could stand that. She wouldn’t ever go back for it; she couldn’t ever go back.

  *

  She arrived at Stel’s at ten on Saturday morning, but sat in the car looking at the house for a minut
e or two, before getting out. From the outside, everything was the same as she’d left it last time, but it didn’t feel like her home any more. She’d never looked at it differently when she came back for holidays from University, but she knew this time that she had moved on. Her heart had found a new place to settle but she’d had to wrench it away and now she was adrift. She didn’t know where she belonged any more.

  Stel opened the door and stood there with her arms held wide ready to close around her daughter and squeeze her. Her mum felt distinctly thinner than Viv remembered. Then Ian came out and he gave Viv a kiss and said that it was nice to meet her. He smelled of Paco Rabanne and it suited him. But it was ladled on and masked all the other layers of scents that would have given him dimension.

  Stel led her upstairs to the attic, twittering like a nervous bird that Ian was storing stuff in her room and staying for a bit, just until he got his place renovated and that’s why she’d had to postpone the decorators. Viv wasn’t daft, she knew her mother was scared to tell her that she’d moved him in. Once again, she’d hardly let the grass grow under her feet but maybe this time it was the right decision for her. It didn’t matter anyway because Viv wasn’t coming back here to stay. It was time she made her own life. And it was time for her mum to lift her wings and fly.

  Viv tipped out her suitcases and loaded the washing machine with every item of clothing from them – clean and dirty. She needed everything to smell of Persil and Comfort and not misty morning flowers and hay-scented air. Basil sat on her bed like a fat ginger cushion as she carefully removed her mini-lab and set it up on the table by the window. She found a bottle of the oil-copy of Geraldine’s perfume and realised that she had never given it to her. She’d send it to her in the post without a covering note. Viv picked up Basil and cuddled him and smelled her mother’s scent on him. And salt, as if she had been crying into Basil’s fur recently.