Her music was interrupted by a call.
‘How did it go?’
It was Katie, ringing from a hotel room in London.
‘Okay. Sad, nice. Weird. You know how funerals are.’
‘Yeah. Just thought I’d check up on you. Any other interesting news?’
‘Well . . .’ She opened her mouth and paused. ‘Nothing, really.’
She wasn’t sure why she didn’t tell her. Perhaps because if anyone was likely to encourage her to do something different with her life, it was Katie – but right now Hannah wasn’t sure she actually wanted to be persuaded. She let her friend ramble on about her prospective date, listened and encouraged in all the right places, and berated herself afterwards for being useless. God, she needed to pull herself together, forget this bonkers idea and get on with day-to-day life.
That was the plan, anyway. Later, she wondered whether if she’d arrived home to a house that didn’t look like a bomb had gone off, and if she hadn’t had to shoulder open the door (blocked by a pile of Ben’s football kit, which he’d clearly dumped before heading out the back door that morning), she might not have started to think again that she was entitled to a life of her own. She’d swept her eyes across the hall. Phil had left a folder of paperwork and a load of work-related crap on the dresser, but there was no sign of him.
She went upstairs and peered cautiously into the gloom of Ben’s lair. It smelled equally of Lynx and sweaty football kit – she wasn’t sure which was worse. His bed was unmade, too, and his curtains completely closed. She stepped slightly warily into the bedroom and pushed open the curtains, opening the window wide at the same time. At least by the time he got home later it might smell less hideously toxic.
Downstairs there was a sticky note (only Phil, she thought – who left notes these days?) propped against the fruit bowl. Bright pink and printed with the logo of the company that seemed to take up more of Phil’s time than anything else, it said in his untidy scrawl Ben out at footy, I’ll be back at about nine.
She glanced up at the clock that sat squarely in the middle of a kitchen wall festooned with Ben’s curled and faded artwork, which had been hanging there since he was in primary school. It was only four now – where on earth was Phil on a Saturday afternoon? And why on earth was he leaving a note, like someone from 1994? She pulled her phone out of her jeans pocket and tapped his name.
Beep beep beep. Hannah frowned. That noise meant out of service. She tried again. Or did it mean the phone was switched off? Either way didn’t make a huge amount of sense. And not only that, but Phil had one bloody job, and that was to be on parenting duty while she was away at the funeral and driving home today. God only knew what Ben was getting up to.
‘Hello,’ said a voice from the hall, making her jump.
‘Ben.’
‘That’s my name,’ he said, leaning across and giving her a kiss of greeting. She smiled to herself and didn’t say a word. Sometimes he was still the cuddly little boy she’d spent hours snuggled up with on the sofa watching TV – even if now he was taller than her, with a voice deeper than his father’s.
‘How was the match?’
Ben hitched himself up – filthy knees, muddy boots and all – onto the kitchen island and made a face. ‘Not bad. Harry got an assist and kept a clean sheet and we won three-nil.’
‘That’s good.’
‘Harry got man of the match.’
‘That’s good too.’ Harry had been Ben’s best friend all the way through primary school, until Ben had drifted off and started hanging around with the dodgy gang from the streets nearby.
She bit her tongue again. It would be so easy to ask if he’d like to have Harry round for tea, ask how his mum was doing, see if there was anything she could do to get her son back on the straight and narrow. The only saving grace was football – when he was playing, the focus he had for the game kept him from messing up – or messing about. Afterwards, particularly if the team had played as well as they clearly had today, the rush of endorphins and exhaustion would flatten him and he’d be content to stay home, showered and flopped on the sofa in a t-shirt and shorts, yelling at the Xbox. She didn’t even mind that. At least he could take the Xbox with him if they moved. She pictured the golden stone of the post office and imagined herself standing in the doorway first thing in the morning, waiting for a delivery of eggs, or newspapers, or whatever else arrived before the rest of the village was awake.
Ben, grabbing two bananas and a bowl of cereal, disappeared upstairs to shower. She gathered an armful of washing that was lying on the kitchen table and sniffed it – thinking ugh, I can’t believe I’m doing that as she did so – to establish whether it was clean or dirty. If she was going to be busy running a shop, she’d have to get this lot a bit better house-trained.
Ben reappeared half an hour later, by which time Hannah had turned the kitchen back into some semblance of order, found and hung up four of Phil’s work shirts in the tiny little utility room, and made herself a coffee.
‘Can you do my kit before tomorrow morning? I’ve got a Sunday match covering for one of the other teams.’
‘Course I can, darling. Stick it there by the machine.’ She paused for a moment. ‘In fact, can you just empty it and put the washing out on the line?’
Ben looked at her for a moment with an expression that suggested she’d lost the plot completely.
‘I don’t know how.’
‘Well, now’s a good time to learn. The pegs are in the bag hanging on the line.’
He gave her a very old-fashioned look and said nothing, but opened the machine and hauled the damp washing out, taking it into the garden. Hannah kept her mouth shut and didn’t laugh as he stood for a moment on the patio, random pairs of knickers falling out of his arms, before he settled on the wooden table as a reasonable place to put the washing (she only cringed slightly) and then proceeded to hang it up in a haphazard manner that made her want to burst into flames of frustration. He wasn’t going to learn if she didn’t actually let him get on with it.
‘Right,’ he said, fifteen minutes later, coming inside and heading straight for the fridge. ‘If that’s everything, I’m going on the Xbox.’
‘It’s not.’ Hannah suppressed a giggle. Turning him into a responsible adult was quite satisfying, actually. ‘You want your kit washed?’
‘Oh my God,’ Ben said, as only a teenage boy could.
She’d made pasta and salad and they were sitting at the table when Hannah’s phone beeped.
Caught up with some stuff at work, don’t wait for me to eat.
‘S’that Dad?’ Ben looked up, forkful of pasta mid-air.
She nodded. ‘He’s stuck doing work stuff.’
‘He’s always working,’ said Ben.
Hannah glanced up at him. Things were getting serious if even Ben was noticing. This situation was going to have to change, and fast.
Just once, she thought, stacking the dishwasher, it would be nice if Phil was actually around when something happened. He wasn’t ever going to be the most empathetic husband on the planet – after being with him since the age of eighteen, she’d managed to get her head around that – but just once, it’d be nice if she got home from a family thing and he was there with a glass of wine, a bath with candles – now she was pushing it – and a listening ear.
‘I’m going to have a shower.’ She had a sudden need to wash the weekend out of her hair and just climb into pyjamas and flop.
The shower was utterly filthy, though – as usual – so she found herself turning it on, stripping off her clothes, and climbing in with a microfibre cloth and a bottle of Mr Muscle bathroom spray. Standing bare-skinned under the water, she squirted spray over all the surfaces and scrubbed them clean. It was hardly the same as a luxury spa treatment.
Later that evening, lying on the sofa watching Antiques Roadshow with a glass of Malbec, she heard the familiar clunk of Phil’s car door closing and sat up, readying herself for him to come in. Maybe
she’d go and grab him a glass – he’d had a long day, after all. She pottered through to the kitchen, pulled a wine glass out of the dishwasher and poured him a generous measure, taking the bottle through to top up her own.
‘This is a surprising item,’ the man on television intoned, seriously. ‘One which we’ve never seen on this programme before in all the long years we’ve been producing . . .’
‘Oh, get on with it,’ said Hannah, irritably. ‘We all know this is the money shot.’
A crowd of people gathered round as the experts cooed over a hideous-looking china bowl that looked weirdly similar to one that was sitting in Hannah’s garden shed, full of random DIY bits and pieces.
‘This vase is unusual in that it was produced in the potteries in 1934 at a time when the factory was closing down, and so there aren’t many of them left.’
The woman who owned the bowl was doing her best not to salivate, and the audience drew closer still. This was the moment when she discovered whether the ancient bit of tat she had shoved into a drawer was actually worth a fortune.
‘This is a rare collector’s item, and I think if you were going to insure it . . .’
‘Or sell it, more like,’ Hannah said under her breath.
‘. . . you’d be looking in the region of thirty to forty thousand pounds . . .’
It was another five minutes before Phil finally materialized.
‘Hello pet,’ he said, standing in the sitting room doorway. ‘You okay?’
She nodded and indicated the glass of wine. ‘Got you a drink.’
‘Oh, I won’t,’ he said, patting his stomach. ‘Trying to start a bit of a get fit campaign, you know?’
She snorted. ‘Well, I’ve heard of them, yes, but . . .’
‘You have it. Nice to see you back safely. I’m just going to nip up and have a shower. Completely pooped after this afternoon.’
It wasn’t until she was halfway through his glass of red that she realized he hadn’t even given her a kiss hello.
Chapter Five
‘I’m going to be late tonight. Got a meeting over in Leeds.’
Phil was up and out of bed at six thirty on Monday morning, moving purposefully around the bedroom, buttoning his shirt, spraying on some new aftershave he’d bought recently that Hannah privately thought smelled a bit too much like Ben’s Lynx for her liking. She lay back with her nose peeking out from under the duvet, trying to will herself awake. Sunday had been swallowed up with domestic tasks and Ben’s extra football match, so she still hadn’t found the right moment to bring up the whole ‘let’s turn our entire lives upside down and move 150 miles away’ issue. But the idea had been snowballing in her mind, and she now felt a steely determination that she’d never experienced before. She was going to make this happen, somehow.
‘What time will you be back? I wondered if we could maybe go for a walk, or something.’
Phil turned and looked at her, an expression of bemusement on his face. ‘A walk?’
‘People do,’ said Hannah, slightly injured. ‘I mean . . . it might be nice to spend some actual time together.’
‘Yeah.’ Phil looked unconvinced. ‘Sure. If you fancy it.’
‘What time will you be back?’
She sat up, stuffing his pillow behind her back and straightening the collar of her blue-and-white-striped nightshirt. Phil fiddled with his cufflinks and didn’t look up.
‘Darling?’
‘Hmm?’
‘If we’re going to go for a walk, you need to tell me when. I need to cook, and—’
‘Oh, by the way, Ben’s got a detention.’ Phil ran a hand through his hair, sweeping it back. He was definitely thinning on top, Hannah noticed. She wasn’t sure he had, though, so she didn’t say anything. He had always been sensitive about ending up completely bald, like an egg, exactly like his dad.
‘Another one?’
‘Seems like it. Anyway, I don’t know what time I’ll be back – bit of a how long is a piece of string thing, really. What’s with the sudden obsession with walking?’
He sat down on the dressing table stool for a moment and gave her his full attention.
‘I just wanted to talk to you about something that happened at the weekend.’
Phil bit his thumbnail, frowning. ‘Yeah, sorry, I feel bad. I just had so much on, and you kind of had to deal with the whole funeral thing yourself.’
‘I did,’ Hannah began, and somehow the words just tumbled out. ‘And Beth offered me the chance to take over the shop and live there. I mean, us, not me. I mean, you can work anywhere, that’s pretty much part of the deal, right? Ben needs to be somewhere without all the distractions, and . . .’ She tailed off, realizing that her plan to bring the topic up carefully and in a well-thought-out, strategic manner had just fallen by the wayside in favour of a classic Hannah blurting out of news.
‘You want to up sticks and move to the Cotswolds because your cousin has offered you a shop?’
‘Basically, yes.’
Phil stood up and moved to the window. Hannah looked on, watching his silhouette as he stood still for a long moment, not saying anything. It struck her again in that second that not once – not since the day she’d realized she’d missed two periods and it wasn’t down to end-of-term exam stress, but a pregnancy that ultimately ended up with Ben – had she asked for anything. She’d gone along with everything: leaving their friends in Manchester to move around the country, endless interminably dull nights out while Phil entertained clients. And she had never once said what about me? She braced herself for the inevitable disappointment.
‘Fair enough.’ Phil turned round, his expression slightly bemused. ‘If it makes you happy, fair enough.’
‘If it makes me happy?’
‘Well, you must think it’s a good thing, or you wouldn’t be suggesting it.’
‘I do.’
He looked at his phone and made a face. ‘I need to go, babe.’
‘Can I send you more info about it? You can’t just say yes without knowing what the hell you’re getting into.’
‘I can,’ he said, pocketing his phone. ‘I think I just did.’
And then he was gone. She was left sitting there, slightly stunned, not quite able to figure out why he’d capitulated – actually, that wasn’t the right word for it. He hadn’t even seemed that bothered.
For the whole of that day, Hannah spent every spare moment on her laptop, sending messages about the shop to Phil by WhatsApp, rambling excitedly about all the plans she had. She couldn’t stop thinking about her idea to turn the little alcove into a tiny second-hand bookshop, and found herself sketching little pictures on one of Ben’s discarded A4 notebooks at the kitchen table.
Beth, of course, was delighted.
‘Oh my God,’ she shrieked, dropping the phone in her excitement so that she had to call back again. ‘Sorry. I just can’t believe it. It’s perfect for you and selfishly I’m so bloody relieved I can actually get out of this place. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, of course, just . . .’
Hannah laughed. ‘I know, I know.’
Phil was messaging her between meetings:
The thing is, babe, there’s just one consideration – we need to work out what to do with our place.
We could rent it out, Hannah typed. She squirmed with excitement on her chair. It was all so much simpler than she’d expected. Phil seemed to be not just enthusiastic but actually on board in a way she hadn’t seen for a long, long time.
We could. In fact, I’ve been thinking. What if you take Ben over a bit early, and I can get things sorted and up to scratch before we put it on the market.
Good thinking, Hannah responded, privately delighted at the thought of how peaceful it would be to have the place to herself – or at least, with no men in it. Ben didn’t count, in her eyes. Even if he did leave man-sized piles of washing and mess everywhere.
All we need to do is have a chat with Ben about it.
Together?
>
Nah. It looks like my meeting tonight is going to run late. Why don’t you have a word with him, see how the land lies?
Okay, she replied, bracing herself. Growing up, Ben hadn’t been a fan of their constant house moves, and he seemed more settled now they were back in Manchester. Although given the group of friends he was hanging around with, that wasn’t exactly a good thing.
She took him to McDonald’s in the end, working on the assumption that any news for teenagers was best heard on a stomach full of junk food. Ben, who was deeply in the ‘please don’t be seen within fifty metres of me in case people think we’re related’ stage, insisted that they get a drive-through meal and then sit in the car. It was baking hot even with the windows open, so they parked in the supermarket car park in the shade.
‘Normal families have this sort of conversation over dinner,’ Hannah pointed out, reasonably.
‘Normal families don’t have conversations.’ Ben peeled a gherkin off the top of his burger and placed it on the box.
The weirdest thing, she reflected afterwards, was that if she’d had to guess how it would go, she would never have imagined that Ben would take it on the chin.
‘Don’t you want to yell at me about ruining your life?’
Ben shrugged, and no matter how she pushed, he wouldn’t be drawn further. It wasn’t an enthusiastic yes, but it wasn’t a no, either. Maybe that would have to do.
Back home, Hannah stood at the back door thinking about everything she’d have to do if they moved. The grass was shaggy and strewn with daisies – Phil had promised he’d cut it at the weekend, but he’d clearly forgotten. She’d have to get organized and do it herself. The whole garden was looking a bit overgrown – neither of them were gardeners, and it was more a case of cutting things back and hoping than actually creating a flower-filled room outdoors. The scruffy lawn – scarred by one too many games of football – had a sagging, cracked goalpost at one end and a slightly tired-looking wooden table and chairs at the other. If they were going to move, all of this would need a major tidy-up.
The Village Green Bookshop: A Feel-Good Escape for All Book Lovers from the Bestselling Author of The Telephone Box Library Page 4