Six months, if you counted it from the beginning. It had ripped through him, devoured him with an indecent speed, and she could do nothing. They had snatched as much time together as they could but . . .
She shut off her mind. She wasn’t going to remember or go back over it. Thank God for the gardens, she thought, day after day. She had no choice but to think about them. They needed constant attention. You simply couldn’t take a day off. Without that momentum she would have gone under weeks ago.
“What about the folly?” asked Dillon, and Sarah looked at him sharply.
“The folly?”
“It needs something doing to it. Doing up or pulling down. It could make a great feature but—”
“We’ll leave it for now.” Sarah used her don’t-bring-up-the-subject-again voice. “That’s a long-term project and we don’t have the budget.”
He looked at her and she held his gaze, praying he wouldn’t push it. Did he know? Is that why he’d brought it up? She had to be careful, because he was perspicacious. More than perspicacious. He almost had a sixth sense. It was one of the things she liked about him. Sensitive wasn’t quite the right word, she thought. Intuitive, maybe? He’d once told her his grandmother had “the gift.” That kind of thing could be hereditary. If you believed in it. Sarah didn’t know if she did, but either way she wasn’t going to give anything away at this point.
He was right, though. The folly did need attention. It was on the outer edge of the estate, high on a hill behind a patch of woodland. An octagon made of crumbling ginger stone, it was straight out of a fairy tale, smothered in ivy and cobwebs. It had been neglected for years. Inside, the plaster was falling off the walls, the floorboards were rotten, and the glass doors were coming off their hinges. There was just an old sofa, steeped in damp and mildew. Sarah could smell it now, its comforting mustiness mixed with the scent of his skin. She’d never minded the insalubrious surroundings. To her, it could have easily been the George V or the Savoy.
She didn’t want anyone else going in there.
“Let’s just shut off the path to the folly for the time being,” she told Dillon.
She thought of all the times she had been along the tiny woodland path that led up the hill to their meeting place. Her secret visitor would park his car in the gateway on the back road, behind a tumbledown shed. The road was barely used except by the odd farmer, so with luck no one had ever noticed. Although sometimes drunk drivers used it as a rat run from the pub, and it only took one person to put two and two together . . .
She couldn’t worry about it. It was almost irrelevant now, and certainly no one could prove anything. She tried to put it out of her mind and concentrate on the wedding instead. As the mother of the bride, it should be her priority. But it seemed to be organizing itself. There wasn’t the usual hysteria that accompanied most weddings. They had plenty of experience, after all: Peasebrook Manor had had a wedding license for some years, and it was one of the things that had filled the gaping coffers, so when it came to organizing a wedding for one of their own, they were well prepared. And Alice wasn’t a high-strung, demanding bride-to-be. Far from it. As far as Alice was concerned, as long as everyone she loved was there, and there was enough champagne and cake, it would be a perfect day.
“I don’t want fuss and wedding favors, Mum. You know I hate all that. It’s perfect to be getting married at home, with everyone here. What can go wrong? We can do this with our eyes shut.”
Alice. The apple of her eye. Alice, who treated life like one long Pony Club camp, but with cocktails. Alice, whose sparkle drew everyone to her and whose smile never seemed to fade. Sarah could not have been more proud of her daughter, and her need to protect her was primal. Though Alice was quite able to look after herself. She was charmed. She strode through life, plumply luscious, in her uniform of too-tight polo shirt, jeans, and Dubarrys, her blond hair loose and wild, face free from makeup, always slightly flushed in her rush to get from one thing to the next.
There had been a couple of years of worry (as if she’d needed more worry!) when Alice had gone off to agricultural college to do estate management—she was, after all, the heir to Peasebrook Manor, so it seemed logical, but she failed, spectacularly, two years running. She had never been academic, and the course seemed beyond her. Of course there was too much partying going on, but the other students seemed to manage.
So Alice came home, and was put to work, and it suddenly became abundantly clear that running Peasebrook Manor was what she had been put on earth to do. She had vision and energy and a gut feeling for what would work and what the public wanted. Somehow the locals felt included in Peasebrook Manor, as if it were theirs. She had been the mastermind behind converting the coach house in the middle of the stable yard into a gift shop selling beautiful things you didn’t need but somehow desperately wanted, and a tearoom that sold legendary fruit scones the size of your fist. And she was brilliant at masterminding events. In the last year there’d been open-air opera, Easter egg hunts, and an antiques sale. She was thinking of running children’s camps the following year: Glastonbury meets Enid Blyton.
And the most exciting upcoming event, of course, was Alice’s own wedding, to be held at the end of November. She couldn’t have a summer wedding, because they were too busy holding them for other people.
“Anyway,” said Alice, with typical optimism. “I’d much prefer a winter wedding. Everything all frosty and glittery. Lots of ivy and lots of candles.”
She was to marry Hugh Pettifer, a handsome hedge fund manager who set hearts aflutter when he raced through the lanes in his supercharged white sports car, bounding from polo match to point-to-point.
If Sarah had her doubts about Hugh, she never voiced them. He was perfect on paper. And utterly charming. She supposed it was her maternal need to protect Alice that made her wary. She had no evidence that Hugh was anything other than devoted. His manners were faultless, he mucked in at family events, and he was thoughtful. He partied hard, but then all of Alice’s crowd did. They were young and beautiful and wealthy—why shouldn’t they have fun? And Hugh worked hard. He earned good money. He wasn’t a freeloader. And anyway, if he was looking for a meal ticket, he wouldn’t get one from the Basildons. They were classic asset rich but cash poor. If anything, they needed him more than he needed them.
So Sarah kept any doubts about Hugh to herself, because she had no evidence of anything except a feeling that he was . . . what? Insubstantial? A bit . . . shallow? She had to learn to let go. It was time to hand Alice over. She would still be very much part of life at Peasebrook Manor—it would fall apart without her—but she was a woman in her own right. And while Sarah wasn’t gold digging on Alice’s behalf, it would be nice for her to have a husband who could support her if she wanted to have children. Sarah was in no doubt of her daughter’s capabilities, but she knew how deep the pressures dug. And nobody could deny that money didn’t make things easier, especially when it came to motherhood.
“I’ll put a gate up, shall I?”
Dillon’s voice startled Sarah and dragged her back to the matter at hand.
“Yes. And put a lock on it for the time being. I don’t think the folly’s safe. We don’t want anyone getting injured.”
Dillon nodded. But he was eyeing her with interest. Sarah started to doodle on the edge of one of the planting plans. She couldn’t quite look at him. He knows, she thought. How she wished she could talk to someone about it, but she knew the importance of keeping secrets. And if you couldn’t keep your own secret, how on earth could you trust someone else to keep it?
“Right.” Dillon stood up. “I better get on. It’s starting to get dark early. The days are getting shorter.”
“Yes.” Sarah couldn’t decide which was worse. The days or the nights. She could fill her days with things to do, but she had to pretend to everybody, from Ralph and Alice down to the postman, that nothing was wrong, an
d it was wearing. At night she could stop; she didn’t need to pretend anymore and she could sleep. But her sleep was troubled, and she couldn’t control her dreams. He would appear, and she would wake, her face wet with tears, trying not to sob. Trying not to wake Ralph, because what could she say? How could she explain her distress?
She sighed and took another custard cream. Her brain had no respite these days. Everything whirled around in her head, day and night, a washing machine filled with thoughts, fears, worries that seemed to have no answer.
And she missed him. God, she missed him.
She picked up their used mugs and took them back to the kitchen. On the kitchen table was a copy of the Peasebrook Advertiser. Ralph must have been reading it, or one of the staff. Sarah kept her kitchen open to the people who worked for her, because she felt it was important for them to feel part of the family. They were usually all gone by five o’clock so it wasn’t too much of an imposition, and she was convinced it was an advantage.
She looked down at the paper. There was a picture of him on the left-hand page. His dear face, his kind smile, that trademark sweep of salt-and-pepper hair.
Memorial service to celebrate the life of Julius Nightingale . . .
She sat down, reread all the details. Her head swam. She knew about the funeral—it was a small town, after all. It had been tiny, but this memorial was open to anyone who wanted to come. Anyone who wanted to do a reading or a eulogy was to go and see Emilia at the shop.
A eulogy? She would never be able to begin. How could she put into words how wonderful he had been? She could feel it coming, a great wave of grief, unstoppable, merciless. She looked up at the ceiling, took deep breaths, anything to stop its engulfing her. She was so tired of being strong, so tired of having to fight it. But she couldn’t afford to break down. Anyone might come in, at any moment.
She gathered herself and looked down at the page again. Should she go? Could she go? It wouldn’t be odd. Everyone in Peasebrook knew Julius. Their social circles overlapped in the typical Venn diagram of a small country town. And in her role as “lady of the manor” Sarah attended lots of funerals and memorials of people she didn’t know terribly well, as a gesture. No one would think it odd if she turned up.
But they would if she broke down and howled, which is what she wanted to do.
She wished he were here, so she could ask his advice. He always knew the right thing to do. She imagined them, curled up on the sofa in the folly. She imagined poking him playfully, being kittenish. He made her feel kittenish: soft and teasingly affectionate.
“Should I go to your memorial service?”
And in her imagination, he turned to her with one of his mischievous smiles. “Bloody hell, I should think so,” he said. “If anyone should be there, it’s you.”
5
Jackson had been dreading his meeting with Ian Mendip. Well, meeting made it sound a bit formal. It was a “friendly chat.” In his kitchen. Very informal. Ian had a proposition.
Jackson suspected it would mean doing something he didn’t want to do yet again. He was breaking all the promises he had made to himself about getting out of Ian’s clutches and getting some backbone. He had no alternative, though. He had no qualifications, no references, no rich dad to bail him out like so many of the kids he’d been at school with.
That was the trouble with this area, thought Jackson, as he took his seat at Ian’s breakfast bar: you were either stinking rich or piss poor. And while he had once been filled with ambition and optimism, now he was resigned to a life of making do and being at Ian Mendip’s beck and call. Somewhere among it all he’d lost his drive. The galling thing was he knew it was his own fault. He’d had the same opportunities as Mendip: none. He just hadn’t played it as smart.
He looked round the kitchen: white high-shine gloss cabinets, a glass-fronted wine fridge racked up with bottles of vintage champagne, music coming as if from nowhere. There was a massive three-wick scented candle oozing an expensive smell, and expensive it seriously was—Mia had wanted one, and Jackson really couldn’t get his head round anyone thinking spending hundreds of pounds on a candle was a good idea.
Ian hadn’t got all this and the Aston Martin parked outside by being nice. Next to the sports car was Jackson’s ancient Suzuki Jeep, the only set of wheels he could afford now, what with the mortgage payments and the maintenance for Mia, which took up nearly all his salary. His mates told him he’d been soft, that he’d let Mia walk all over him. It wasn’t as if they were even married. He didn’t have to give her a penny for herself, they told him. His only financial responsibility was to Finn. But Jackson reasoned that if he had a duty to his son, he had to look after his son’s mother. And to be fair, Mia hadn’t actually asked for anything. He’d done it because he thought it was the right thing.
Which was why he was still running around doing Ian’s dirty work instead of setting up on his own. He needed cash to start up, even as a jobbing builder who just did flat-roofed extensions and conservatories. That’s how Ian had begun. Now he did luxury apartments and housing developments. He was minted. He had proven that you could claw your way up from the bottom to the top.
Jackson was Ian’s right-hand man. He kept an eye on all his projects and reported back. He scoped potential developments: it was Jackson who had given Ian the heads-up on the glove factory, meaning Ian had been able to swoop in and get it at a knock-down price before it went on the market.
Which was why Jackson knew he was capable of achieving what Ian had. He could spot the potential in a building. He had the knowledge, the experience, the energy; he knew the tradesmen who could crew it. He just didn’t have the killer instinct. Or, right now, the money he needed to invest in setting up on his own. He’d missed the boat. He should have done it years ago, when he was young and had no responsibilities. Now he was trapped. Not even thirty and he’d painted himself into a dingy little corner.
He hunched down in the chrome and leather bar stool opposite Ian. Ian was spinning from side to side in his, smug and self-satisfied, tapping a pencil on the shiny black granite. In front of them were his development plans for the old glove factory: line drawings of the building and its surroundings.
“So,” said Ian, in the broad burr he hadn’t lost despite his millions. “I want that bookshop. That is a prestige building and I want it as my head office. If I do it up right, it’ll do more for my reputation than any advert.”
Ian was obsessed with how people perceived him. He longed for people to think he was a class act. And he was right—the bookshop was one of the nicest buildings in Peasebrook, right on the bridge. Jackson could already see the sign hanging outside in his mind’s eye: PEASEBROOK DEVELOPMENTS, with its oak-leaf logo.
“And I’ve gone over the drawings for the glove factory again and done a bit of jiggling. If I get the bookshop car park, I can have parking for four more flats. Without it, I’m down to eight units, which doesn’t make it worth my while. Twelve will see me a nice fat profit. But you know what the council are like. They want their allocated parking. And that’s like gold dust in Peasebrook.”
He tapped the drawing of the car park with his pencil.
“Julius Nightingale wasn’t having any of it,” Ian went on. “One of those irritating buggers who don’t think money’s important. I offered him a hefty whack, but he wasn’t interested. But now he’s gone and it’s just his daughter. She insists she’s not interested, either. But she’s going to struggle to keep that place afloat. I reckon she could be persuaded to see sense. Only she’s not going to want to hear it from me. So . . . that’s where you come in, pretty boy.”
Ian grinned. Jackson was, indeed, a pretty boy, slight but muscular, with brown eyes as bright as a robin’s. There was a little bit of the rakish gypsy about him. His eyes and mouth were wreathed in laughter lines, even though he hadn’t had that much to laugh about over the past few years. With his slightly too-long h
air and his aviator sunglasses, he looked like trouble and radiated mischief, but he had warmth and charm and a ready wit. He was quicksilver—though he didn’t have a malicious bone in his body. He just couldn’t say no—to trouble or a pretty girl. Although not the pretty girls anymore. His heart wasn’t in it. He wasn’t even sure he had a heart these days.
Jackson listened to what Ian was saying and frowned. “But how am I going to get to know her? I’ve never read a book in my life.”
“Not even The Da Vinci Code? I thought everyone had read that.” Ian wasn’t a great reader himself, but he managed the odd thumping hardback on holiday.
Jackson shook his head. He could read, but he never did. Books held no thrall for him. They smelled bad and reminded him of school. He’d hated school—and school had hated him. He’d felt caged and ridiculed, and they had been as glad to see the back of him as he had been to leave.
Ian shrugged.
“It’s up to you to work out how to do it. But you’re a good-looking boy. The way to a girl’s heart is through her knickers, surely?”
Jackson looked mildly disgusted by this. Ian leaned forward with a smile.
“You get me that shop and you can manage the glove factory development.”
Jackson raised his eyebrows. This was a step up, letting him manage an entire project. But Ian’s offer was a double-edged sword. He was flattered that Ian thought him capable of the job. Which of course he was.
But Jackson wanted to be able to do what Ian was doing for himself. He needed money if he was going to do that. Proper money. Right now, Jackson couldn’t even put down a deposit on a pigsty.
Ian was smart. He knew he’d got Jackson by the short and curlies. He was taking advantage of him. Or was he? He paid him well. It wasn’t Ian’s fault that Jackson had screwed up his relationship. Or that keeping Mia was bleeding him dry. He only had himself to blame for that. If he hadn’t been such an idiot . . .
How to Find Love in a Bookshop Page 8