by Jenny Kane
Frowning, Mabel scribbled extra notes on her chart. ‘Well, I wish you’d said. Should I rearrange things and get Derek and his team to do the whitewashing in the meantime? The garden is almost there, and I’m sure Sam and that nice John would rather do the outside jobs.’
Thea bit back the urge to ask Mabel why she always referred to John as being ‘nice’.
‘That would be helpful, thank you. The equipment is there already.’ She took the mill keys from the desk drawer. ‘Oh, and Mabel, Shaun has to leave today. He and Richard are needed in Cornwall to work on the next series of Landscape Treasures, so you’d better take him off your rota for now.’
The old lady was horrified. ‘Leaving?’
‘Yes.’ Thea resisted the temptation to say ‘I told you so.’
‘But he said he’d stay here. He promised.’
‘Only if and when he could get the time off work. We’ve already had Shaun’s help for much longer than I imagined, plus he got Richard here to mend the table, saving us hundreds of pounds.’
The crease on Mabel’s forehead deepened. ‘It’ll take more than today to mend the table. The layers will have to be built up slowly to hide the scratch properly.’
‘I’m aware of that.’ Thea met Mabel’s eyes. ‘He will come back with Shaun as soon as he can.’
‘So, Shaun will still do Open Day then?’
‘I don’t know, Mabel. Why don’t you ask him?’
‘No need to snap!’
Thea exhaled slowly. ‘Forgive me, I’ve had very little sleep for two nights running.’
‘You do look a bit tired.’ Mabel lightened her tone. ‘Shall I fetch you a coffee, dear? We don’t need you overworking and getting ill. Whatever time do you get here in the mornings? You’re always here before anyone.’
Looking back at her laptop screen so her eyes didn’t give her away, Thea mumbled, ‘It’s as if I never leave.’
*
‘Can I come in?’
‘Of course.’ Thea gave Tina a half-smile as her friend sat on the opposite side of the kitchen table, perched as if she might run off again at any moment. ‘It’s great to see you, I—’
‘I came to tell you that I should hear about the insurance claim today.’
‘Oh, right. Thank you.’ Feeling the weight of everything that needed doing crashing down on her, and not wanting to miss this chance to apologise to Tina, Thea leant across the kitchen table, and took Tina’s hands. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Please don’t go back to the Trust office to work. If you don’t want to share the scullery with me, I’ll find somewhere else. I miss you so much… I mean, I know it’s only been a few hours, but… Look, I don’t think you’re a gold-digger at all and—’
‘You were right.’
Tina’s words came out so quietly that Thea wasn’t sure she’d heard them properly. ‘Sorry?’
‘I said you were right. That’s sort of how I’ve been, although all I wanted was someone to take care of me. I hadn’t thought about the gold-digger side of it. It isn’t like I don’t want to pay my own way.’
Getting up, Thea hurried around the table and wrapped an arm around her friend. ‘I still shouldn’t have said it. I honestly didn’t mean it. It’s just that you and Sam get on so well. I’ve seen you working so happily together. It’s a shame for you to miss out on something because he doesn’t fit the image in your head.’
‘Maybe.’ Tina looked out of the window. ‘How about you and Shaun? You like him, don’t you?’
‘Against my better judgement.’
‘He clearly likes you. Just the way he glances in your direction is enough to tell me that.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘You know he does, or he wouldn’t have invited you out for a meal last night. Did you go? I wanted to ask you about it before but…’ Tina swung around to face Thea and sighed.
‘I wanted to tell you all about it as soon as I got back, but…’
‘But it’s hard to talk to someone when they aren’t talking to you.’
‘I really am sorry Tina. Basically, I was trying to be encouraging and cocked it right up.’
‘I know.’
Thea smiled. ‘Why don’t we climb today’s paperwork mountain and then escape for a while? I think we’ve both earned one of Sybil’s scones and some decent coffee. Not to mention a proper catch-up.’
*
‘Yes!’ Tina punched the air with her fist before turning to a yawning Thea.
‘Success with the insurance company perchance?’
‘Yep. It’s going to take time to process, but the smashed vase comes under accidental damage. It makes no difference that it was a bird that caused the breakage rather than a human.’
‘Thank God for that!’
‘And I forgot to tell you, I’ve finally found a locksmith who is willing to have a go at the mill doors. He’ll confirm a date tomorrow.’ Snapping her laptop closed, Tina moved around the table to perch next to Thea. ‘Now you can tell me about last night.’
Feeling the blush as it hit her cheeks, Thea laughed. ‘We went out to dinner.’
‘And?’ Tina lowered her voice, aware that there was always a chance John might be lurking within earshot.
‘And he’s leaving.’
‘What?’
Explaining the situation to Tina, Thea left out the part where Shaun had, once again, declared how much he wanted to take her to bed.
‘Have you told Mabel?’
‘Yes. It went down like a lead balloon.’
‘I bet. He’ll be back for Open Day though?’
‘No idea.’ Thea gave an accepting shrug. ‘We had a great time together last night, but I’m going to have to accept that that was it. There is always going to be somewhere else he has to be. Not his fault. It’s the nature of the job.’
‘Did you, you know…?’
‘I know perfectly well, thanks.’ Thea still regretted her decision to sleep alone the night before. Or rather, fail to sleep. All night she’d lain there, wishing she’d said yes, that she would join Shaun in his bed. She’d wanted to. Very much. But, the notion of sleeping with him and then never seeing him again… it just wasn’t her style.
‘Of course not.’
‘Shame.’ Tina gave her friend a hug. ‘It would have been a nice memory.’
‘Or something to make his leaving even harder.’
Tina lowered her voice further. ‘You’ve gone and fallen for him, haven’t you?’
‘Maybe.’ Thea straightened up. ‘Mabel is sending Derek and the boys to crack on with the whitewashing so we can do the paperwork. Would you be a star and check on Shaun and Richard?’
‘No problem.’ Accepting the change of subject for now, Tina headed towards the door. ‘Then I am taking you to Sybil’s. Cheese scones and hot coffee! Plus, we can pick her brains about local craft folk who might be up for new premises or a studio in the village.’
No sooner had Tina’s footsteps finished echoing along the corridor, than John appeared on silent feet. ‘I imagine you’re very tired this morning.’
The accusation shot from his lips like a bullet.
Thea closed her eyes. ‘John, I’m very busy. If we take it as read that you are about to ask me out, and I’m about to say no, then we can get on with our day.’
‘I came to apologise.’
‘Apologise?’
‘For coming on so heavy with the constant date requests. I hadn’t realised your taste in men had changed so dramatically.’
Thrown by the apology, and not quite sure whether she and Shaun were being insulted, or if John was simply stating a fact, Thea mumbled, ‘Oh, right then.’
‘But he’s leaving.’
‘For a short time.’
His smile suddenly returned. ‘He won’t come back.’
John didn’t say anything else, but the certainty of his words hit Thea hard as she realised that, just this once, he might be right.
Twenty-Seven
May 18th
Tina put a bright red cross through the date on the calendar. It had quickly become a ritual since Mabel had hung it up on the inside of the front door on the 1st May. There was no doubt it helped keep people focused, although it scared her and Thea to death.
Mabel was still taking her role as coordinator extremely seriously and, apart from occasional mutterings from a few of the stalwarts about her bossy ways, she was proving an asset. The calendar had been Mabel’s way of instilling into everybody else that time really was short. Each day she took up a thick red marker pen, and crossed off the bold black numbers, showing how much – or how little – time they had left. Tonight however, Bert had arrived and taken his wife away early.
Tina smiled at the memory of Bert’s kindly face, as he’d steered his far more dominant wife off the premises. He’d manoeuvred Mabel with a soft insistence to which she gave a token effort of resistance, before giving in, just as her husband had probably known she would.
‘I wonder what it’s like to be happily married for that long.’
Thea tried not to acknowledge the presence of the marker pen in Tina’s hand as she came through the front door with an armful of fresh eggs. ‘We’ll never know. Already too late for us to be married for over fifty years, unless we live to gone ninety and get married tomorrow.’
‘That’s a depressing thing to say!’
‘It must be the effect of that calendar! How can it be mid-May already?’
‘Never mind mid-May, where did today go?’ Tina rubbed a dust-covered hand over her cheek, leaving a secondary trail of grime in its wake. ‘I’ve been digging out demonstration tables for the mill from the back of the stable block.’ She gestured to her hair. ‘I take it I’m pickled in cobwebs?’
‘Yep.’ The memory of Shaun teasing a line of spider’s silk from her hair inconveniently planted itself at the forefront of Thea’s mind. Had that really been six weeks ago?
Shaun had been away from Mill Grange for thirty days now. Thea had told herself it was inevitable that he’d be longer than he’d hoped, but she hadn’t thought he’d be gone a whole month without a word. John was right. Shaun isn’t coming back.
Guessing what was on her friend’s mind, Tina took the trays of eggs from Thea’s hands. ‘I take it you still haven’t heard anything?’
‘No.’ Tugging her boots off, Thea gestured to the eggs. ‘Sybil will be pleased the eggs are coming regularly now Gertrude and the gang have settled in.’
Accepting that her friend didn’t want to speculate about Shaun, Tina said, ‘When we’re finished at Mill Grange, it’s going to be a wrench for Sam to leave the hens.’
‘Not to mention Tony Stark.’
Tina laughed. ‘I still can’t believe you called the rooster Tony Stark!’
‘The way he struts about and yet remains adorable, it suits him down to the ground. Very Robert Downey Junior.’
‘Talking of Sam, he said he’d have the kettle on, and the jacket spuds should be ready by now.’
‘Jacket spuds?’
Tina led her friend towards the kitchen. ‘Don’t you remember? Sam’s cooking jacket spuds on the bonfire by his tent this evening. You, me and Sam are going to have a chill with some wine. Celebrating a job well done so far, and a rallying cry to help with the final push to the summit. We have nine weeks until opening, and for the first time ever, we’re on schedule.’
‘Nine weeks?’ Thea stifled a heavy yawn. ‘How is that possible?’
‘Don’t look so dismal. It’s working. The chickens are laying, the seedlings Sam and John put in are already mini plants, which will be ready for sale by mid-June, Sam’s rent and egg money is keeping us in cleaning materials and snacks, and the mill is almost ready to have its health and safety check so we can invite the spinner and so on for Open Day. The only big decision left is whether to pull down the greenhouse. If we are going to do that, it needs doing ASAP.’
‘And professionally. That is no job for Derek, Bill and Sam, however skilled they are.’
‘I have the quotes I got weeks ago. Should I chase them up tomorrow? We’ve saved so much, the loss of one greenhouse shouldn’t upset the trustees too much.’
‘I’d have still liked to save it.’ Thea suddenly held up a hand, as if asking for quiet and whispered, ‘Did you hear something?’
‘No.’ Tina automatically looked around as she replied, ‘There’s no one here. I double- checked before I marked the calendar.’
‘Right.’ Thea forced herself not to peer over her shoulder. ‘It’s such a shame about the greenhouse. It could be so beautiful.’
‘I know, but you’ve worked miracles already. Something was bound not to work out.’ Tina studied her friend. ‘When did you last get a good night’s sleep?’
‘Just takes me a while to drop off sometimes. Lots on my mind. At least the trustees have stopped emailing me with demands for progress reports every five minutes. Finally the penny seems to have dropped that I can’t get on with my job if I’m answering their queries all the time.’ Thea pointed to the mugs on the side. ‘I’d forgotten about supper with Sam. Would you like me to cry off so you two can be alone?’
Now it was Tina’s turn to sigh. ‘I’ve told you, Sam isn’t my type, and frankly, I’m not his. He’s never made a single move or said anything to make me think he’s remotely interested beyond friendship.’
Suddenly Thea understood. ‘And there is no way you’ll ask him out because you don’t want him to reject you.’
‘Of course I don’t. No one wants that, do they?’ Tina stared at Thea. ‘Are you sure you’re okay? You seem unsettled.’
Crossing her arms protectively over her chest, Thea said, ‘I’m just being paranoid, forget it.’
‘John isn’t here. I’ve checked. I check every room every night. And I’ve told you, you can come back home with me. There’s a decent sofa you could sleep on, or we could grab an airbed from Taunton on the way back.’
‘I have to be here. After that nightjar got in, I couldn’t possibly risk leaving the manor. Anyway, Malcolm knows I’m sleeping here now, so I can keep an eye on the place. He agreed that if Shaun hadn’t been here when the bird had got in, and got it out again, then the damage could have been so much worse. It’s only the volunteers that don’t know I’m living in.’
‘Because you don’t want John knowing you’re here all the time.’
‘I can’t believe he hasn’t worked it out.’ Thea looked over her shoulder. ‘He’s not a stupid man.’
‘Bloody persistent.’
‘Yes.’ Thea had stopped trying to avoid John during the day. He’d turn up at some point during the morning and do a token gesture of work, just enough to be seen as useful so he wasn’t asked to leave, then he’d take time to charm either Mabel or Diane or both, before sauntering off again to goodness knew where.
‘When he isn’t here, what’s he doing?’ Thea cuddled her arms tighter around her chest. ‘I feel as if John is watching me even when I can’t see him.’ She groaned. ‘I sound paranoid, don’t I?’
‘A bit.’ Tina found herself looking over her own shoulder. ‘Do you want to check the house again before we go to see Sam?’
‘No, it’s okay. Logically, I know I’m overreacting because I’m overtired. John’s hardly here compared to everyone else.’
‘I thought he’d stopped asking you out every five minutes.’
‘He hasn’t asked me once since Shaun left.’
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’
‘Very, but…’
‘But what?’
‘But the second my… the second Shaun left John stops hassling me. I can’t quite believe he isn’t planning something.’
Tina crossed her arms as she regarded her friend. ‘You were going to say “the second my boyfriend”, weren’t you?’
‘Hardly. Boyfriends don’t disappear for three weeks longer than planned without a word. I know the signal here is weak, but it isn’t non-existent. He could
email me or call the landline.’
‘Only if he has a signal his end.’
‘He’s in Cornwall, not Outer Mongolia. And the landline doesn’t need a signal.’
Pulling a face, which clearly expressed her conviction that Shaun was mad, Tina picked up the mugs. ‘Come on. Let’s take these to Sam. Dinner’s bound to be ready by now.’
Picking the back door key off the table, Thea agreed, ‘I’m quite hungry actually.’
‘I’m not surprised. You’ve been working like a Trojan and hardly eating.’ Tina ran an assessing eye over her friend. ‘You’ve lost weight. I hadn’t noticed before. You always wear such baggy clothes.’
‘They’re warm.’ Thea felt defensive.
‘It wasn’t a criticism. You’re looking great.’
‘Thanks. Sorry.’ Thea gave a weak smile. ‘Let’s go and find Sam. He’ll be hungry as well, and he’s such a gent, he wouldn’t think of starting without us.’
‘He is, isn’t he? And so is Shaun.’
‘If he was a gentleman, he’d have been in touch.’
‘Hun, he’ll have a good reason.’
‘So you said.’
*
The aroma of bonfire, cooked potatoes and charred tinfoil hit the girls’ nostrils as they crossed the garden. Mill Grange’s grounds looked beautiful bathed in the half light of the late spring evening.
Sam got to his feet as they approached. ‘They’re ready.’ He brandished a packet of butter and a knife. ‘I’m going for full-on calories myself.’
‘Sounds good.’ Tina spotted three bundles of foil tucked into the embers at the edge of the fire.
‘I wasn’t sure if you’d want your potato before you went, Thea? Might be a good idea, as I bet you haven’t eaten much today.’
The girls exchanged glances as Thea asked, ‘Go where?’
‘Didn’t you see the message I left on your desk?’
Tina’s eyebrows rose. ‘You went inside the office?’
Sam poked the fire with a long stick. ‘There was no one else about and I’m sure it was a message Thea would want ASAP.’