‘Because my sister’s death changed things, that’s why. When you lose someone that close to you, it changes you. My life is split into two parts – with Charlotte and after Charlotte – and I’m a different girl in this half than I was before. I wasn’t even there when my sister died but I still felt the trauma of the way she passed. Jo witnessed her sister’s death – that’s got to have hit hard.’
‘Some would say she caused it,’ Owen put in but Hattie ignored it.
The conversation was halted as a waiter came to the table with their starters. He placed them down with a flourish and left them again. Perhaps the interruption had been timely because Hattie could feel herself getting frustrated with Owen’s attitude. He sounded like everyone in Gillypuddle did when it came to Jo. Was Hattie’s intuition really that off? Could she really be so wrong about Jo? She wondered if anyone there knew about Jenny. It seemed unlikely, because if they had it wouldn’t have taken long to get around the village. Would it help people to understand her more if they did know? What if Hattie told people? Would Jo be shown forgiveness or would it make things worse?
Owen’s mobile rang. He snatched it from his jacket pocket, looked at the display and then shoved it back again.
‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’ Hattie asked.
‘It can wait.’
‘What if it’s a major scoop and you miss out on the Reporting Today reporter of the year award or something?’
Owen laughed. ‘I’m pretty sure you just made that award up. It’s not, and I can call them back later.’
Hattie shrugged, and though something about his reaction didn’t sit right with her, she had bigger things to think about.
‘So what should I do?’ she asked.
‘About what?’ Owen cut into his stuffed vine leaves.
‘About Jo!’
Owen put down his knife and fork and looked steadily at Hattie. ‘I think you should leave it alone. She doesn’t want you; she doesn’t want anyone. So stop beating yourself up about her and get on with the rest of your life.’
Hattie found her dad pruning the roses. It was his favourite variety – Bathsheba – and he’d always loved them for their scent. Hattie could hardly bear it as the smell brought Seth’s lips back to her mind. God, she wished she could stop thinking about that man, especially now after the way they’d left things. The irony was, she didn’t even need to see him now that she no longer worked for Jo, but part of her still wanted to, no matter how painful the meeting might be. Many times she’d thought about somehow engineering it, passing close to the practice in the hopes of bumping into him on the way in or out, hanging around the Willow Tree more often so that she might be there if he called for a take-out coffee… It was silly, of course, because he’d most likely avoid any kind of actual conversation with her anyway and that might make her even sadder about everything.
Nigel had stopped and listened, his head glistening with perspiration under the midday sun, as Hattie explained to him what she’d learned about Jo and the dilemma of whether she ought to go and tell her what she knew in the hopes it might draw Jo into some kind of meaningful dialogue, get her to finally open up.
‘I honestly don’t see it changing anything,’ he said in a measured tone once Hattie had finished. ‘I always tended to find that if people didn’t seek help in the first instance then they probably wouldn’t ever. The first step to any rehabilitation is that the patient has to want it. I’m sorry to say that it looks to me like she doesn’t.’
Hattie was thoughtful for a moment. Her dad had the experience and he was probably right. Her dad had the experience…
‘What if you went to see her?’ she said brightly as the solution occurred to her.
‘Would this be as a concerned member of the local community, annoyed father or as GP? Because I’m sorry to say, I’m not particularly concerned, I am an annoyed father – though you won’t let me go and give her a piece of my mind for sacking you – and I’m no longer a GP.’
‘What about the new GP?’
‘She’s not going to bowl up there for no reason. Unless Jo makes an appointment to see her, the new GP can’t do anything… Hattie, you know this,’ he concluded, his voice showing the first signs of waning patience. ‘Why are you persisting with this woman? As far as I can see she’s done you a huge favour – now you can get on and do something proper with your life.’
‘Ignore all that – what about as one human being to another? Doesn’t that at least bother you – that she’s suffering up there alone?’
‘Who’s to say she’s suffering? She seems perfectly content to me and, don’t forget, she could have company any time she wanted. She had you and she threw you out. I wouldn’t worry yourself; she’s probably advertising for a new assistant as we speak.’
‘But, Dad…’ Hattie began, and then her shoulders slumped in defeat. Nigel retrieved the secateurs from his basket and turned back to the rose bush.
‘If you ask me, it ought to be a case of once bitten twice shy. You enlisted my help to interfere in her affairs before and look how that ended. Forget about it, Hattie. Spend your time and energy on more useful pursuits.’
Hattie wanted to say something more, but what? Her dad had thrown himself back into his pruning and it seemed that the matter – for him at least – was now closed. Maybe he was right – maybe she ought to just leave well alone now. Jo had made her choice and she’d chosen to reject help or support. Hattie had to admit that her dad was probably right about Jo wanting help anyway; she wasn’t asking for it and who was Hattie to decide that she needed it anyway? Maybe she’d received counselling in the past, maybe she’d got it just after her sister’s death. Maybe the Jo everyone saw now was the fixed Jo, not the broken one. Maybe solitude was just in her nature. It didn’t matter now, because it looked as if Hattie was just going to have to let it be.
‘Watch out!’ Lance cried.
Hattie sidestepped a large puddle of what might be hot chocolate, though it was hard to tell. Lance came rushing over to the front door of the Willow Tree with a mop and bucket.
‘Run, Hattie, run for your life!’ he cried.
‘Phyllis is on shift?’ Hattie asked with a wry smile.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said, mopping up the spillage. ‘What gave it away?’
‘The unchecked panic in your eyes?’
‘That and the fact there’s more food up the walls and on the floor than there is on customers’ plates?’
‘Yes,’ Hattie laughed. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got time to make me a latte then?’
‘Always, my love. Find a seat; I’ll be right over.’
‘There’s no rush,’ Hattie called as he scooted off with the mop and bucket. ‘I’m waiting for Melinda to get here anyway.’
‘Right, my love,’ Lance said. ‘I’ll get the toys out for her little ones.’
‘Thanks, Lance.’
Phyllis came out of the kitchen and smiled at Hattie.
‘Hello, Dottie.’
‘Hi, Phyllis,’ Hattie said. ‘Still enjoying your job?’
‘Oh, I love it here!’ Phyllis gushed. ‘Gets me out of the house every now and again, otherwise it’s just me and the walls and they’re no company at all, are they?’
‘I don’t imagine they are,’ Hattie agreed. Phyllis rushed off to answer a yell from Lance in the back. She might be driving the proprietors of the Willow Tree insane, but Hattie could never deliberately try to take Phyllis’s job away from her. She didn’t really think that Lance and Mark would want to do that either – everyone in Gillypuddle was very fond of her, despite her clumsiness.
Hattie looked up at the sudden commotion at the door. It involved a lot of high-pitched squealing and crying. Melinda was coming in and her kids weren’t happy. Hattie couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen them acting up like that, but they were bickering like a bag of ferrets and Melinda looked frazzled.
‘Look… there’s your Auntie Hattie,’ she said wearily. Sunshine and Oce
an ran to Hattie’s table, pushing and shoving each other as they went. Rain followed, looking as if she’d been crying, while Daffodil wailed in her pushchair.
‘Welcome to my world,’ Melinda said as she dropped into a chair, looking rather less perky than usual.
‘Morning sickness kicked in?’ Hattie asked.
‘With a vengeance. I should imagine that means another boy – never had a bit of it with any of the girls.’
‘I’ll bet Stu’s happy.’
‘It’ll certainly help to even the score,’ Melinda said with a quick grin.
‘I’m going to the counter to order,’ Hattie said. ‘Want me to get something for you?’
‘Just a green tea,’ she said. Hattie raised a questioning brow.
‘Only thing that won’t have me throwing up,’ Melinda added in reply.
Hattie went to the counter, where Phyllis served her. God only knew whether they’d get what they’d asked for. As Hattie sat down, Lance came over with lollipops for the kids.
‘Can we go to the toy corner?’ Ocean asked.
‘As long as you don’t try to murder each other you can go to the moon for me,’ Melinda said.
‘Bad day?’ Lance asked with a sympathetic grimace.
‘I’ve had better. See if you can get them to be more civilised than I can today.’
‘Kids are always more civilised with other people than they are with their mothers,’ Lance said airily. ‘Come on, kids.’ He looked at Daffodil in her pushchair. ‘Someone’s tired.’
Melinda looked and heaved a sigh of relief as she noted Daffodil’s eyes starting to close. ‘Thank the heavens and all the angels,’ she said. ‘It’s a shame they don’t all nap during the day now. Why can’t they make every day a school day – there ought to be a law about it.’
Hattie laughed. ‘When would you cuddle and love them if they were at school all the time?’
‘When they’re asleep.’
Lance took the rest of the kids to play and Melinda looked at Hattie.
‘So, you’re back in the land of the living?’
‘Yes – looks like it.’
‘And that’s the end of your adventure up on the hill?’
‘Seems that way. Jo’s made it pretty clear she’s had enough of me.’
‘Witch,’ Melinda said savagely.
Hattie sighed. ‘Maybe I deserved it.’
Melinda clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth as if she might disagree but said nothing. Hattie had been over all the details of who said and did what with her on the phone, and Melinda had already made her feelings clear on where the blame lay. The only thing Hattie had kept back was what she’d learned about Jo’s sister, Jenny. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Melinda to keep it quiet, but she didn’t think she could cope with her disapproval. What if she viewed the event in just the same way as Owen and her dad had? As if it was somehow karma, something Jo had deserved, and something that didn’t deserve anyone’s pity?
Phyllis came over with two cups and Hattie was happy to see that they looked close to what they’d ordered, though Phyllis didn’t manage to get away without spilling a drop of Melinda’s tea.
‘Oops!’ she said with a raspy chuckle.
‘I ought to demand a refund,’ Melinda said in a low voice when she’d gone. ‘There’s hardly any tea left in here.’
‘She’s doing her best,’ Hattie said.
‘I wish you’d got the job here.’
‘I realise now it wouldn’t have solved anything. I came home looking for a direction and I’m still doing that. It wouldn’t have mattered whether I’d found a job here or at Sweet Briar.’
‘The kids are sad that they can’t go up there anymore to see the donkeys.’
‘To be honest, I actually think that’s one thing Jo will miss about closing the gates to Sweet Briar again. Even though she’d never say it, I think she quite liked seeing your kids.’
‘I got that impression too,’ Melinda agreed. ‘So, what are you going to do now?’
‘I don’t know.’ Hattie took a sip of her latte. Lance had definitely not made this one and she wondered whether Melinda might have a point about refunds after all because she’d tasted better. ‘When I went to see Owen I did half wonder about heading to London.’
‘To see if the streets really are paved with gold, Dick Whittington?’
‘To see if there’s a future there. I don’t know… I have fashion experience – sort of. And I quite enjoyed it. Maybe my CV would get me something in the industry in London.’
‘If you want to work in fashion what’s the point of going to London? You said Alphonse was desperate to have you back and you loved Paris. Why not give him a call? Not that I want you to run away to Paris again, of course, but if you’re thinking of leaving Gillypuddle anyway, it makes more sense than London does.’
‘But Owen is in London.’
‘Ah! So this might be going in a serious direction?’
‘It might be… Mel… if I tell you something you absolutely have to keep it to yourself. You cannot breathe a word of it to anyone.’
‘You know I won’t, but if it’s that important perhaps you shouldn’t tell me. Under torture – or gas and air – there’s no telling what secrets I might let out.’
‘It’s just…’ Hattie lowered her voice. Perhaps she shouldn’t even be having this conversation here, of all places, where Owen’s second cousin Lance might hear it, but Hattie would explode if she didn’t tell someone and Melinda was as good a confidante as she could think of. ‘Seth and I… we sort of… well, we had a moment…’
‘What?’ Melinda’s eyes were wide. ‘But I thought you were madly in love with Owen!’
‘Not madly in love. I mean, I like him…’
‘Please tell me this hasn’t turned into a huge mess.’
‘Seth asked me out. At least, that’s what I think he was trying to do. He’s not actually very good at it – though in the circumstances I don’t blame him. I had to tell him about Owen.’
‘Why would you do that?’
‘It wouldn’t have been right to lie about it, would it? What if he’d found out about Owen from somewhere else? Here, for instance? You know how gossip travels in this village.’
‘I suppose so. Does that mean you have to choose?’
‘I think Seth sort of made the choice for me. Once I’d told him he wanted nothing else to do with me.’
‘But if you’d been free to choose in your own time, would you have gone for Seth or Owen?’
Hattie was silent for a moment as she took another sip of her latte, instantly wishing that she hadn’t bothered.
‘I don’t know,’ she said finally. ‘That’s the problem, I wish I did. I really like Owen, but when I’m with him I think about Seth. In fact, I think about Seth all the time and it makes me feel so guilty because I think Owen likes me a lot. But then I have a great time with Owen – really great; he doesn’t feel like hard work like Seth sometimes does.’
‘Wow,’ Melinda said, ‘you really have made a mess.’
‘Thanks. What do you think I should do?’
‘I don’t think you should be taking my advice for a start. There’s only one voice to listen to and it’s in here…’ Melinda placed a hand on her chest. ‘You have to listen to your heart, even though I admit that sounds like a corny lyric from a nineties power ballad.’
‘But what if my heart doesn’t even know the right answer?’
‘Then…’ Melinda shrugged. ‘I hear Paris is nice at this time of the year…’
Hattie gave her a rueful smile. ‘The old running-away tactic. Admittedly it’s served me well in the past.’
‘Your dad’s happy that you’re not living up at Sweet Briar now anyway. I take it he’s not started the education offensive yet, otherwise you’d have been ranting about it by now.’
‘I think he’s given up on that. I think he’s finally accepted that Charlotte was the achiever of the family. Me… I just seem to
drift.’
‘You don’t! You stuck months up there on the hill with Medusa and nobody else would have done. You raised money for her even when she didn’t want it—’
‘Hardly – I’m convinced the only big donation we had was from Seth to pay his own bill so I wouldn’t call that successful fundraising.’
‘And you brought people to her door…’ Melinda continued with a frown that told Hattie to shut up and listen, ‘to make her life better, even though she didn’t realise that’s what they were doing. I wouldn’t call that underachieving. You achieve, Hattie. You just have a different idea of what needs achieving than Charlotte would have done.’
Hattie’s smile was warm and grateful. ‘What would I do without you?’
‘Oh, I’m sure you’d be just fine,’ Melinda said with a shrug. They looked up as Lance sauntered past the table with a tray full of sandwiches.
‘I’m coming back your way in a minute,’ he said. ‘I want to know all about how Hattie is getting on with my cousin. Mark wants to know if we have to buy hats yet…’
Hattie looked at Melinda. That was all she needed right now.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Hattie woke shortly after four in the morning. For a moment she was vaguely surprised to find herself not in the dingy bedroom at Sweet Briar, but back in the clean and cosy surroundings of her bedroom at home. She’d dreamt about Charlotte again, the third time that week, and her dreams hadn’t been that frequent for a long time. While she’d accepted long ago that life went on, Hattie still missed her sister, and though mostly it was the constant dull ache of absence, sometimes she felt the pain more keenly. Perhaps learning of Jo’s loss had lent her own a new potency because, every now and again, she’d stop and remember and the sorrow would steal her breath.
Their circumstances were so different, their lives and personalities, what drove them and what they craved, and yet Hattie felt that she was connected to Jo, whether Jo or she liked it or not, by this one defining fact of their lives. There was this one thing that bound them and made them the same. Hattie didn’t have all the facts about Jenny’s death – what Owen had managed to find out touched only on the basics of the accident and subsequent inquest that had cleared Jo of wrongdoing – but it was clear that it had been very different from the way in which Hattie had lost Charlotte. Still, Hattie couldn’t shake the continuing urge to reach out to Jo, despite what reception she might expect, despite how everyone warned her not to. She didn’t even know why she should feel this way; she only knew that she did.
Hattie's Home for Broken Hearts: A heartwarming laugh out loud romantic comedy Page 24