Finding Hope at Hillside Farm

by Rachael Lucas

  And now – after he’d rebuilt his life, patched up his heart, spent hours in therapy – she was here. It was like some sort of sick joke on the part of the universe.

  He released his fingers, stretching them out, feeling the points of pain in his hands where the nails had been pressed hard into his flesh.

  His instinctive reaction was to walk back in there, tell Ella to get the hell out of this house and close the door behind her. But if he did that, he’d traumatize Hope, who was showing real signs of progress – she was happier in herself, more confident, and she was sleeping much better. The horses were helping her to relax and express her feelings. No, he’d have to take it a bit slower than that. He had no idea what Ella’s next move was going to be, but he was ready for it. He wasn’t going to let it spoil Hope’s day. He’d be the perfect son-in-law to Lou and Jenny, and the kindest, most attentive father to Hope that he could possibly be. And as soon as the last mince pie was eaten, he’d open the door, see Ella out, and find a way to make sure that nobody in the house ever saw her again. There was no other way.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Ella – and Harry

  Upstairs, Ella was trying to listen to Hope explaining a very long and complicated joke she’d invented about fetlocks and forelocks, whilst also trying to hold her mobile up to the skylight in Hope’s bedroom so she could send a text message. There was one bar of reception, and if she could just get the angle right, it would . . . swoosh.

  ‘Thank the lord,’ she said out loud. It had sent. Calls tended to work, but messages were a different thing altogether. Now all it had to do was reach the intended recipient, and she could escape. And my God, did she need to escape. Her heart was thumping so hard in her chest that she’d felt it must be obvious to everyone in the room. She’d walked in, already apprehensive, and –

  She’d often thought about bumping into her ex-husband in the street, or in a bar one day. It had been a long-held daydream. She’d be smartly dressed and articulate, cool and in control. Definitely not in muddy jodhpurs with unbrushed hair. Thank God she was at least reasonably respectable today, having recycled the outfit she’d worn for a Christmas Eve-Eve drink at the pub with Lissa and some of her workmates from the school.

  In the daydream version of events, she’d tell him she was sorry for the way she’d behaved, that she knew now that her reaction was one grounded in an unbearable pain – emotional and physical. That she’d been grieving her father and the riding career she’d dreamed of since childhood. That if she could turn back time she’d take back every hurtful word she’d said, and –

  ‘Which lord are you thanking?’ Hope’s voice was clear and inquisitive.

  She shook her head, returning from the fantasy world where she could organize everything just so and the man she’d once married wasn’t sitting downstairs.

  ‘It’s just a saying.’

  ‘But why did you say it? There isn’t a lord here.’

  Ella didn’t have the brain capacity to explain. She was twisting a lock of hair in her fingers, trying to work out how on earth she could get through the meal if Lissa didn’t return the rescue call. What if she’d turned off her phone for the day in one of her mad digital detox missions she’d been reading about in Glamour magazine? Or what if it sat, ignored, while she played Monopoly with her family and they drank their way through the crates of fizzy wine that Lissa had bought to lubricate the occasion?

  ‘Do you mean the lord like Jesus?’ Hope carried on fiddling with the plastic horse figures. ‘Do you believe in angels?’

  The thing she’d learned about Hope was that her insatiable appetite to know more, read more, absorb every bit of information like a tiny little eight-year-old sponge meant that every single new word was catalogued and filed away in her astonishing brain. She had a vocabulary far beyond her years.

  ‘Why were you sending a message?’

  ‘I was just checking on the horses.’ The lie resolved itself in her head, and she tried it out loud. ‘In fact, one of them isn’t feeling very well, so I might have to go straight after we’ve had Christmas dinner.’

  ‘Awww.’

  ‘I know.’ She gave what she hoped was a sad smile. ‘But the horses can’t tell us when they don’t feel well, so we have to listen to them by watching what they’re doing. That’s why we have to stay close.’

  Hope nodded solemnly. Even after a few short weeks of working with the horses, she had developed an empathic bond with them.

  ‘My bedroom is nice, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s lovely.’

  It was low-beamed with sloping ceilings, and a little pine bed sat in the middle, flanked by matching wooden drawers and a dressing table which was piled high with plastic model horses and Hope’s drawing and painting kit. Ella’s stomach swooped with nerves. She’d messaged Lissa:

  MASSIVE SOS I need a rescue call.

  That ought to do it. They’d had the deal for pretty much as long as they’d known each other. Ella had barely ever used her side of the bargain, but Lissa was forever getting into bad dates and using her friend as an excuse to bail after the first drink. It was time to call in the favour.

  ‘Are you two all right up there? Ella, can I get you a drink?’ Jenny’s voice floated up the wooden stairs of the cottage.

  ‘That would be lovely, thank you.’

  ‘Let’s go and see if we can have some of the nice Christmas stuff. Grandma’s bought lots of bottles of ginger beer.’ Hope looked as if she’d have been happy enough with Christmas if she’d had nothing else.

  Harry’s face felt incredibly odd. It was as if it was formed out of plasticine and he couldn’t quite get it to work properly.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’ he said stiffly, as Hope towed Ella by the hand into the kitchen. He took off the oven gloves he was wearing and hung them precisely on the rail of the Aga before opening the fridge, avoiding eye contact. In the little utility room, he could hear Jenny and Lou bickering good-naturedly about the turkey and where to carve it.

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Ella, with feeling. ‘But only a tiny one. I’m driving.’

  ‘Me too, please, Harry.’

  He turned away, opening still-unfamiliar cupboards to find the champagne glasses. They were in a box, still wrapped in their protective packaging from the move. He opened them and busied himself with unwrapping and carefully washing and drying each one. The air was thick with words unspoken and he still couldn’t bring himself to look at her, or even speak directly to her. How could she be here? It didn’t make sense.

  ‘That’s not ginger beer,’ Hope said, as he twisted the cork off a bottle of Mumm he’d been given as part of a corporate award package. He couldn’t stand the stuff, and for some reason at this time of year it was handed out left, right and centre. Jenny wouldn’t drink on her own, and Lou was of course on a strict diet following his heart trouble, so the cupboard in the cottage was groaning with bottles.

  ‘No, it’s not ginger beer,’ he said, grimly. He poured the champagne into a glass and handed it to Hope.

  ‘Give that to your friend, darling.’ He turned away as Hope carefully passed the glass to Ella, and busied himself pouring drinks for everyone else.

  The grandmother clock on the wall whirred in the silence, clicked the hour, and chimed two o’clock.

  ‘What shall we drink to?’ said Hope, echoing the phrase she’d heard adults saying. She held up her champagne glass of ginger beer and beamed at him. His heart melted and he smiled back at her, raising a matching glass of ginger beer.

  Ella looked across at him fleetingly and the warmth in his heart chilled again instantly. He fixed her with a look which he hoped summed up everything he was feeling. God, he was so angry.

  ‘Christmas!’ sang Hope, loudly. ‘Let’s drink to having a nice Christmas.’

  If Jenny or Lou noticed the chilly atmosphere, they didn’t say a word. Dinner was served, the food was apparently delicious, and if anyone noticed that he served himself the smallest port
ion of everything and pushed it around his plate without swallowing a mouthful, again nothing was said. Hope ate four roast potatoes and then asked for a raw carrot, which she gnawed on ‘like a reindeer’.

  Ella seemed to be coping admirably, he noted. How could it be that she of all people owned a thriving equine therapy business? Jenny and Lou had been asking questions about it all the way through the meal, and he’d had to grit his teeth and nod politely in all the right places. He’d had to turn the snort of disbelief into a cough when Jenny proudly explained that Ella was a real inspiration for Hope. The idea of Ella providing therapy to traumatized people was almost impossible to imagine.

  How could someone so utterly unforgiving possibly work as a professional in the counselling industry? He remembered with a stab of bitterness how she’d looked the day he’d seen her for the last time – and the things she’d said to him.

  He noticed she kept checking her phone. Probably looking for an out, he thought. But the reception here within the stone walls of the cottage was so hopeless that there wasn’t much chance of anything making it through.

  Eventually, after the main course, she excused herself to go to the loo. Hope hopped down from the table to assemble some Lego character she’d been given. Lou sat back and stretched – he still got tired in the afternoons, and they’d all been up for hours. He’d be off for a nap in a moment, and the pudding could wait until later.

  As Harry got up to clear the table he noticed that Ella had barely touched a thing on her plate, either. He swept the leftover meal into the bin with grim satisfaction.

  Call me. SOS. Help.

  The bloody message wouldn’t send. Ella had locked herself in the downstairs loo of the cottage, which was absolutely freezing, the stone walls damp with condensation. She held the phone up to the tiny window, but nothing happened.

  Come on, she said to herself, think, think.

  Perhaps I don’t need to actually get a message in front of them for this lie to be feasible. They probably don’t even care. They’re hardly going to check the text for evidence. She tipped her head forward, resting her forehead against the cool glass of the mirror above the sink. This was like some sort of awful Christmas nightmare. Lissa still hadn’t answered her bloody phone, and Ella had been in the loo so long it was starting to look awkward.

  She pulled the chain and then ran the taps to make it sound like she’d been using the bathroom, then stopped midway across the room to stare at her phone in a studious manner, as if someone had just sent a message. It felt completely staged and artificial. She’d never been any good at drama at school and she could feel a blush prickling the back of her neck and creeping up her cheeks. Harry would know she was lying, if he remembered her as well as she remembered him – a strange sensation of nervousness fluttered in her stomach – but she couldn’t let that stop her. He must want her gone as much as she wanted to be out of there.

  She set her shoulders back and stepped into the kitchen, her voice coming out slightly higher than normal. She tried to sound just the right balance of casual and concerned.

  ‘Oh Jenny, I’m so sorry to cut this afternoon short. I’ve had a message from Charlotte to say that one of the mares is looking a bit uncomfortable. I think I’d better go up and check her.’

  Charlotte wasn’t even there. Oh God, there went another lie.

  ‘But we haven’t had the Christmas pudding yet.’ Hope’s little face dropped. ‘It’s got flames.’

  Ella squatted down to her level to look her in the eye. ‘I know, Hope, and if I can get back I will –’ God, please don’t strike me down for telling lies to a child – ‘but I need to make sure that Sweetbriar can be the best mummy she can for her foal.’

  It was night-time dark outside already. If Jenny looked out she’d see that the lights at the farm were off, and put two and two together and start asking where Charlotte was and why she was up there in the dark.

  ‘My mummy died.’ Hope looked at her, steadily. Her eyes, Ella realized, were not the same chocolate brown as Harry’s but instead a greener brown, ringed with dark circles.

  ‘I know, sweetie. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your fault.’ Hope pursed her lips thoughtfully and continued, ‘We’d better make sure Sweetbriar doesn’t die. Can I come?’

  Ella shook her head. She looked up briefly and saw Harry standing, arms crossed, a nerve jumping in his cheek. His face was thunderous.

  ‘Not today, but maybe very soon?’ If she made it out of the door without Hope’s tears falling, it would be a miracle.

  ‘Tomorrow?’ The little girl’s lower lip was beginning to wobble.

  ‘Sweetheart,’ Jenny put an arm around her granddaughter’s shoulders and squeezed. ‘How about we let Ella get back to check on the horses, and then we can work out some good dates and write them down on your new calendar?’

  Hope nodded. She loved to know what was happening and when, and a huge laminated wall planner had proved one of her best Christmas presents. She’d already instructed Harry to hang it on the wall over her bed and gathered a load of stickers to decorate it.

  ‘Shit.’ She banged her hand on the steering wheel. ‘Shit, shit, SHIT.’

  The bloody Land Rover, temperamental at the best of times, whined and then went dead. She turned the key again, knowing perfectly well what was going to happen.

  Bollocks, bollocks, shit. Ella leaned her head against the window, soaking her face with condensation.

  Maybe if she just tried again after a moment.

  There was a knock at the window.

  Afterwards, Harry had no idea why he’d been the one to say ‘don’t worry, I’ll sort it’.

  He curled his fingers around the keys, feeling their familiar weight. Was it because he wanted to make sure she was out of the way, so they could enjoy the last hours of Hope’s eighth Christmas without him having to avoid Ella’s eye or bite back angry comments about the past?

  ‘I’ll give you a lift.’ His voice was stiff and formal.

  ‘It just needs a jump start.’ Ella had turned to look up at him from inside the battered Land Rover.

  ‘Have you got jump leads?’

  She’d shaken her head. ‘They’re in the barn.’

  Maybe it was because – with her belted into the car – he could tell Ella, without having to look her in the eye, which felt dangerous, somehow, exactly what he thought of her. His jaw ached. He ran a hand across it and heard it cracking.

  Ella reached back and picked up her long waxed coat from the back seat of the Land Rover.

  ‘It’s fine, it’s only a walk up the hill.’ She zipped it closed.

  He shook his head. ‘It’s pouring with rain. Let me take you.’

  ‘It’s fine.’ Her voice was tight with tension.

  ‘It’s a good ten-minute walk uphill.’ He was getting soaked now, standing here arguing the toss with her. Water dripped down the neck of his shirt.

  ‘OK. Fine.’ She sounded defeated.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Jenny appeared under an umbrella, the rain battering down and running on rivulets off the ends.

  ‘Land Rover won’t start. I’m going to give Ella a lift.’

  ‘I said it was fine, but Ma – Harry insisted.’ She flushed slightly. Bloody hell, she’d almost given the game away. He wasn’t Mac. He was Harry – Hope’s father. And someone she thought she’d left long behind in her past.

  ‘Let’s go then.’ He knew it sounded curt. Jenny shot him an odd look. If he wasn’t careful he’d have more explaining to do when he got home, and he was definitely not in the mood. What he wanted was a tumbler of whisky and a good hour staring into the flames of the log burner, trying to work out what the hell had happened and exactly how he felt.

  Hope burst out of the door in her socks, running across the gravel towards Ella, who had climbed out of the Land Rover.

  ‘I don’t want you to go.’ It was a wail, more than a sentence.

  ‘Ella has to check the horses, sweethe
art. I’ll be back in five minutes, I promise.’

  Hope twisted her mouth sideways, chewing on the inside of her cheek – it was something she’d always done when she was anxious. He bent down, pushing a strand of wet hair from her cheek.

  ‘And if Sweetbriar is OK, will you bring Ella with you so we can play games and watch Frozen again?’

  He closed his eyes briefly. He was torn between his own desperate need to get her out of the way, and the desire to do whatever it took to make his beloved girl happy.

  ‘Pleeeeeease?’

  He flashed her a brief smile, nodded and closed the door.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Jenny

  ‘What on earth’s up with Harry?’

  Back in the warmth of the cottage, Jenny settled down beside Lou on the sofa, picking up her mug of coffee and wrapping her hands around it. Hope was sitting on the armchair, her legs sprawled out over the sides, a pair of noise-cancelling headphones on. She was humming to herself and playing some sort of game on her iPad.

  ‘Christmas effect.’ Lou picked up the Radio Times and looked at the page, which he’d marked with highlighter pen.

  ‘There’s a thing on about reindeer in the Arctic Circle. Hope might like that. Shall we watch it?’

  Jenny shook her head. ‘She needs a bit of downtime. She’s quite happy there.’

  It was hard to work out how she could be a grandma when she still felt about eighteen inside. Her knees didn’t, mind you, and neither did her back. All that bending up and down tending to the Aga (which she’d dreamed of for so many years, and refused to admit to Lou had turned out to be a huge, intractable lump of iron) had left her feeling stiff as an old ironing board. She’d have a bath later, when Hope was settled and Harry was back.

  Hope shifted in her seat, so she was lying on her back on the seat of the floral armchair with her legs up against the back. It was one of her favourite positions – Jenny smiled, remembering it had been one of Sarah’s, too. She felt, privately, that the reason she’d coped so well with Hope’s particular needs was because her daughter was cut from the same cloth. It was easy to deal with Hope’s mercurial moods, her strange fascinations, her need for space to do her own thing, because the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree. It was – her stomach clenched with the familiar hollow feeling of grief – as if she’d been left with an echo of Sarah.