Hidden Cottage (19 page)
‘She has and I don’t know whether to ring him or wait until he gets home.’
‘Either way, I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes when you do tell him. Or Daisy’s. What about the age gap? Does that worry you at all, Scott being ten years older?’
‘No, not particularly. I’ve thought for a long time that Daisy would probably be attracted to someone a good deal older than her.’
‘You mean a father figure? Isn’t that borderline creepy?’
‘Relationships come in all different shapes and sizes. And,’ she added with a smile, ‘remind me again of the age difference between you and Greg.’
‘Yes, but that’s different; I’m the sensible, more mature daughter, therefore that’s what I would look for in a potential partner. Interestingly, I’ve never thought of Jensen as the marrying kind, but seeing him with Tattie and Madison has made me change my opinion.’
‘I agree. Tattie clearly makes him very happy. And Madison is a delight. It’s been lovely having her here.’
‘You’d be a step-grandmother if they married,’ Eliza said with a yawn that suddenly crept up on her.
Mum smiled. ‘And on that terrifying thought, let’s call it a day. Come on, time for bed.’ She stood up and took their plates and mugs over to the dishwasher. ‘By the way, it was kind of you to help Georgina today. She was very grateful.’
‘No problem. I enjoyed myself. As I think Owen did with you on the bookstall.’
‘Yes, it was a good way for him to meet people. I think he’s going to fit in well here. He certainly seems to have the right attitude.’
Stifling another yawn, Eliza kissed her mother on the cheek. ‘Goodnight, Mum, and thanks for the chat.’
‘Sleep well, darling.’
Mia locked the back door, turned out the lights and went upstairs. She stood in the dark at the open window in her bedroom and let her mind turn over the events of the day.
It was strange, but as her children were each reaching a major milestone in their lives – committing themselves to relationships and therefore growing away from her as was only right – she had never felt closer to them.
She looked down at the garden, to the barn and The Gingerbread House where a light glowed through the curtains. She thought of Daisy’s act of pretending she and Scott were nothing more than friends and wondered how on earth she was going to break the news to Jeff in a manner that would minimize the fallout.
And would Jeff be right when he inevitably claimed that Daisy was too young to contemplate marriage? Or would it be the making of her, being in a permanent and steady relationship? Certainly no previous boyfriend had made sufficient impact on Daisy for her to so much as talk of love, never mind marriage. In fact, to Mia’s knowledge, there had been no boyfriend who had lasted more than a month or two. The normal process had been for Daisy to say that she was seeing someone and then a week later to say it was over – this usually coincided with Jeff pestering to meet the boy in question.
Pushing aside her anxiety at telling Jeff about Daisy and Scott, she thought of Eliza and immediately felt another layer of anxiety wrap itself around her. She couldn’t remember the last time Eliza had asked her for advice and she wondered now if she had said the right thing. What if honesty drove Greg away? What if Eliza then blamed Mia for losing the man she loved? No, she told herself firmly, it had been good advice. As she’d told her daughter, if honesty scared Greg off, then he clearly wasn’t right for her.
She drew the curtains and went over to the bed, where she undressed and slipped on her nightdress. She then went into the bathroom and started to remove what little make-up she was wearing. She was patting her face dry after washing it when her thoughts turned to tomorrow and Owen’s invitation to spend the afternoon with him. ‘Are you sure about us all descending on you tomorrow?’ she’d asked when she saw him to the front door after dinner, and he’d been thanking her for a great evening. ‘You’re quite at liberty to change your mind; we’ll be quite a rabble.’
‘I wouldn’t have invited you if I wasn’t sure,’ he’d said. ‘Goodnight then. Oh, and thank you for the torch. I should have thought to bring one with me.’
‘That’s all right. Take care.’
Getting into bed and switching off the light, Mia hoped Owen wouldn’t have a change of heart overnight. There was something irresistibly enchanting about The Hidden Cottage and she was looking forward to seeing it again.
‘Owen, my friend, it’s your lucky day! A quick jog along the A428 and I could be with you in the proverbial blink of the eye.’
‘At the speed you drive I can believe it.’
‘And you’re sure it’s OK for me to stay the night?’
‘What’s this, consideration from you, Rich? You’re not having a midlife crisis, are you?’
‘Nah, that’s more your thing. Is there a decent pub in the village where we can go for lunch? Or should I, this side of civilization, try and pick something up on the way?’
‘Not only is there a pub here that serves food, but we even have electricity, and there’s a rumour that we’ll be hooked up to the internet before too long.’
‘Yeah, OK, funny man. Now how about you leave the wit to me and you go and get that guest room ready? Hey, and be sure to put a heart-shaped chocolate on my pillow.’
‘I will, so long as you promise to behave this afternoon; I have friends coming.’
‘Anyone I know?’
‘No. These are
new
friends, hence the need for you to conduct yourself in an orderly fashion.’
‘Not a chance in hell of that happening!’
They chatted for a few minutes more and after they’d ended the call, Owen smiled, pleased at the prospect of seeing Rich. They’d been friends since they were twelve years old and couldn’t have been closer had they been brothers.
When Owen’s father had been alive, he had forced the family to live a nomadic existence, uprooting them every time he fell out with an employer and lost his job. On his death, Owen and his mother were at last not just free of the tyranny of the man, but free to live a life that wasn’t based on fear and secrecy. This meant that they could settle in one place and stop looking over their shoulders for fear that they had been found.
They were living in Basildon when they heard the news that Ron Fletcher was dead, that he had been living rough and had died of hypothermia. There had been no tears shed or words of remorse uttered from Owen’s mother, only the promise that from now on there would be no more moves; they would be putting down roots – their days of taking flight were behind them. Trusting her, and believing they were now going to stay long enough in one place to make it worth his while to make a friend, Owen had allowed himself to get to know Rich, who was in the same class at school as him. Initially Owen had been wary, but after Rich had told him about his father running off with the babysitter and not leaving a penny for the family, only debts, Owen had lowered his guard and confided in him about his own father. Very soon they became the best of friends, as did their mothers, who, both in the same boat, joined forces and started up a cleaning agency together.
All these years on, there wasn’t a thing Rich and Owen didn’t know about each other. What had always bound them together was the need not to turn out like their fathers and as a consequence they’d had a hunger to earn a ton of money. Whereas most of their contemporaries at school hadn’t given a damn about exams or studying, Owen and Rich saw it as a way out of not exactly dire poverty, but a distinct lack of funds. Owen had his eye on going to university, but at sixteen Rich left school and went to work in the city as a trader assistant. By the time Owen had made it to LSE to study Economics and was paying his way by playing the piano in hotel bars, Rich was earning obscene amounts of money as a trader in his own right – it was Rich who put a word in for Owen at the bank where he worked when Owen graduated. In Owen’s second year at university, Rich suggested he move in with him, since he’d just bought a two-bedroom flat. It was in that same year that Owen started going out with a fellow economics student he’d recently got to know at university; her name was Bea.
Rich had never been married; he frequently claimed he’d never met the right woman. ‘You mean nobody’s been mad enough to take you on,’ Owen would counter-claim. But Rich had just phoned from Cambridge implying he was there because of a woman. ‘I’m not saying any more than that,’ he’d said when Owen had demanded more information. ‘You’ll have to wait until I’m there for all the details.’
In turn Owen would have to tell Rich about Nicole. Although the person he actually wanted to talk about was Mia. There was something about her that intrigued him. He barely knew her but the more time he spent in her company, the more time he wanted to spend getting to know her.
Last night at Medlar House he was conscious that, whoever Jeff Channing was, he didn’t seem to be much missed. In fact, the family seemed perfectly complete without the man. It reminded Owen of him and his mum – it had always felt right when it was just the two of them. When Dad had been present, they weren’t themselves; they’d been guarded and in fear of the next verbal or physical outburst.
Owen would be the first to say that no one should define themselves by constantly referring to their partner, but he still thought it was odd that Mia hadn’t previously mentioned her husband. And what about the absence of a ring? It was the first thing he’d looked for when he’d arrived at Medlar House last night, and lo and behold, there was a gold band on Mia’s left hand. He’d swear it hadn’t been there before. There again he hadn’t mentioned anything about Nicole. But a four-month relationship didn’t really compare to a marriage.
Before they’d gone to order their food from Mr Wu’s van on the green, Mia had caught him looking at a family photograph. Pointing to the man at the centre of it, he’d said, ‘Your husband?’
‘Yes,’ she’d replied. ‘Jeff’s away for the weekend; he’ll be sorry to have missed you this evening. What can I get you to drink?’
That was the only reference she made to Jeff Channing. Which should have no more importance to Owen than what the weather was doing in Outer Mongolia, but it was another thing about Mia that intrigued him.
During the evening he’d watched her interacting with her family, particularly with the girl called Madison. There had been a quiet intensity to her when she spoke to the child, a way of making Madison feel that in that moment nobody interested her more. He could see it in the encouraging smile she gave Madison, the tilt of her head, the gentle warmth that exuded from her and which seemed tangibly to touch the girl. As absurd as it sounded, he had wanted to be on the receiving end of such focused attention.
A mind so rife with thoughts about a married woman was clearly not good. Thank God Rich was coming to stay. Ten minutes in Rich’s company and he’d be brought back down to earth and put firmly on the straight and narrow again.
It soon became apparent that Rich wasn’t in any fit state to bring Owen back down to earth – his own head was stuck way up in the clouds.
‘I’ve finally met her,’ he said after he’d arrived and had demanded a full tour of the house, garden and lake before settling on the veranda with a beer. ‘I’ve met the future Mrs Lancaster, although of course she might well want to keep her own surname. I’d have no problem with that. No problem at all. Or she could combine the two. A double-barrelled wife is fine in my book.’
‘
Whoa
, slow down, fella!’ Owen said with amusement. ‘Start at the beginning if you don’t mind.’
Rich’s face now took on the expression of a man who couldn’t wait to tell his story. ‘Her name’s Catherine Carter and the moment I laid eyes on her, I knew. I just knew that the search was over. She’s the woman I’m going to marry.’
With an excited gleam in his eye, Rich then went on to explain that he’d met Catherine in London three weeks ago at a mutual friend’s dinner party and that they’d hit it off straight away. Phone calls, emails and text messages followed, along with dinners out and then she invited him to join her for a charity ball in Cambridge last night, which her parents had a hand in organizing.
‘You’ve met the parents already?’ Owen managed to interject.
‘Her brothers as well. I’ve been thoroughly checked out.’
‘So how come you’re sitting here with me? Why aren’t you still in Cambridge with her?’
‘She’s spending the day with her family and visiting an elderly relative. I’m going back to Cambridge tomorrow and then we’ll head home for London.’
‘And why are you so certain she’s so right for you?’
Rich shrugged, then drank some more of his beer. ‘I can’t put it into words, I just know.’
‘Do you think she feels the same way?’
He shrugged again and his expression became serious. ‘I don’t know. Not for sure. And that scares the crap out of me. I mean, what would she see in a bloke like me? She’s gorgeous, and I’m, well, let’s be frank, in a Shrek lookalike competition, I’d walk it.’
Owen smiled. He’d never known his friend to doubt himself or his ability. Not during any of the financial crises he’d lived through, or even back in 1987 when Black Monday saw 50 billion wiped off share values, had Rich wobbled. Owen had always joked that his friend’s nerves weren’t made of steel; they were crafted from tungsten carbide. But now it looked as if Superman had met his kryptonite.
They walked down into the village to the pub for lunch. Steak and chips ordered at the bar, along with a bottle of wine, they went back outside to the front of the pub and sat down at a table overlooking the green. The Parrs were there and gave Owen a friendly wave. As did another couple he recognized from the fete yesterday, but whose names he couldn’t remember.
Owen poured their wine and decided it was his turn to fill Rich in on what he’d been up to since moving to Little Pelham. He told his friend about Nicole.
‘Do you want my honest opinion on that?’ Rich said.
‘I’d expect nothing less.’
‘I was always worried that she was only interested in you because of your financial situation.’
‘Not my good looks, then? I’m gutted.’
Rich laughed. ‘Sorry to burst that bubble of yours. But seriously, and more importantly, you’re happy coming back here? It doesn’t remind you too much of your father?’
