Love and Devotion (16 page)

Freda’s overly refined but vague manner had Harriet wanting to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. She wanted to kick at the cabinets of china figurines, to run her hand along the spotless mantelpiece, knocking every ornament and dried-flower arrangement to the floor then grind them underfoot. The house was a mausoleum of perfection.

Freda had turned housework into a vocation. Because, at the end of the day, it was all she had to stop herself going completely gaga. And that husband of hers wasn’t much better. Harvey McKendrick had always given Harriet the creeps. There was something weird about his manner: so upright and formal. Harriet had never seen him without a tie. He was cold-blooded too. When they were children, he ran over a neighbour’s cat by accident and couldn’t understand the fuss everyone had made about it.

Harriet gave the photograph a cursory glance. It was of Dominic,
Dr Dominic McKendrick,
and he was dressed up to the nines in his Cambridge finery; black gown and fancy fur trim. The picture had probably been taken to commemorate some highly important occasion in his world of academia, but she couldn’t be bothered to ask what. Freda was right about one thing, though. He did look handsome. But then he always had.

She muttered a suitable response, passed the photograph back to Freda and said, ‘Well, Miles, shall we see what delights Kings Melford has to offer us?’ She was on her feet before Freda could press them to stay any longer. She wanted to get out of the suffocating atmosphere this irritating woman was so reluctant to leave.

She had always been infuriated by the blatant favouritism that had gone on in the McKendrick household. Since for ever, Dominic had been considered the brightest son, the one destined for a stellar future. At the age of eleven he was sent away to boarding school where, apparently, his academic ability would be better nurtured. This might have left him isolated and excluded when he came home for the holidays, but there was no force on this earth that could hold, restrain or exclude Dominic McKendrick. From an early age he’d been convinced of his own brilliance and had believed the world revolved around him. The oldest within their gang of four - he was a year older than Felicity - he’d been their self-appointed leader. It had been him who’d got them all drunk for the first time, one night when both sets of parents had been out - this was in the days before

Freda’s problems had started. He’d decided it would be a laugh to concoct the mother of all cocktails. They’d pooled their resources by pinching a selection of barely touched bottles from the back of their respective parents’ drinks cabinets and had mixed them together. Net result, when Harvey and Freda came home, they found four teenagers in varying degrees of drunkenness. And undress - Dominic had also suggested a game of strip poker and they were all down to their underwear, with Felicity on the verge of removing her bra.

Harriet’s face coloured at the memory. She wondered if Miles remembered that night, too.

‘Seeing as it’s such a nice evening, I thought we’d go to The Navigation,’ he said. ‘That okay with you?’

‘So long as it’s not pensioners’ night and it’s child-free, I have no complaints.’

The pub was heaving, and after queuing for their drinks, they spied a free table in the garden overlooking the canal and the bridge. Further along, the towpath was busy with people mooring up for the night. When they were settled, she noticed that Miles’s attention was caught by one particular boat, a beautiful sixty-foot traditional narrowboat. Its paintwork - red, black and green - was immaculate, and the brassware gleamed in the low evening sun. It was in excellent condition, not a mark or scratch on it, which meant it wasn’t a hire boat; it had to be privately owned, about a hundred grand’s worth.

‘Ever thought you’d like to have a boat and just cruise away?’ she asked him.

He looked back at her. ‘We all think that at some time or other, don’t we?’

‘So why don’t we do it?’

He blinked. ‘You mean you and me?’

She smiled. ‘No, I was talking generally. People dream of escaping, but they rarely do it.’

‘The vast majority of people aren’t brave enough. And, of course, there are those who are too tied down to do it.’ He glanced away, his gaze once more drawn to the boat he’d been admiring.

Harriet took a moment to observe him. He’d always been the quieter and more thoughtful of the McKendrick boys. He had a sensitive, intelligent face with pale blue eyes. In all the years she had known him they had never argued and she had never stopped respecting the way he’d handled living in the shadow of such a difficult and dynamic brother. Dominic had to be the ultimate pain when it came to older brothers. As a highly regarded English don with a couple of slim books of poetry to his name it wouldn’t occur to him that Miles was his equal. Or that anyone else was, for that matter.

As children, the four of them had been extraordinarily close, to the point of being a tight, self-sufficient clique. They had no need of any other friends; they had all the friendship they wanted. To this day, Harriet was convinced that this was the reason she found it difficult to fit in with other people and make new friends - she just hadn’t learned the necessary skills at the age when most others do. After they’d all been through university they’d drifted apart, each doing their own thing. Felicity got married, Harriet started working for a small software house in Newbury, Miles went to London to work for a large chain of bookstores, and Dominic was offered a teaching job in the States at the University of Chicago.

Thinking about what Miles had just said, she asked him, ‘So do you feel tied down?’

Again he looked back at her. ‘Yes.’ The starkness with which he uttered that one word made her sit up.

‘But why?’ she pressed. ‘You’re not married and have no real commitments to stop you doing whatever you want. You could sell the bookshop and — ’

‘I have a mother who’s ill, Harriet,’ he interrupted, his voice perfectly level.

‘You have a father who can take care of her. She’s not your responsibility.’

‘You think I should just walk away and leave them to it? Like Dominic has?’

‘It’s an option.’

He looked her straight in the eye. ‘Presumably that’s the same option you could take. You could leave your parents to look after Felicity’s kids.’

For a moment she didn’t know what to say. Miles was the first person to broach the subject with her. No one had ever suggested she had a choice. That she could turn her back on her family ... could forget her promise to Felicity.

‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have been so blunt,’ he said. ‘But I’m right, aren’t I?’

‘I could walk away if I wanted to,’ she admitted.

‘You could, but you’re missing the point. You won’t walk because, like me, you have a strong sense of what’s right and wrong.’

‘That’s not how I see it - right versus wrong.’

He dismissed her words with a wave of his hand. ‘We’re two of a kind; we both have an innate sense of duty. You’re either born with it or you’re not. It’s called loyalty and it means we play with the cards we’re dealt. We do the best job we can.’

She sat back in her chair and felt a rush of affection towards her old friend. Inexplicably, she felt like hugging him. It was great sitting here with no children, no parents, just the two of them having a proper, grown-up conversation that wasn’t subject to countless interruptions. A conversation that meant something. ‘You have no idea how refreshing it is to talk to someone who understands,’ she said at length.

‘I think I understand all too well. And I have nothing but admiration for you.’

Harriet took a long swallow of her lager and watched a pair of swans gliding past on the other side of the canal. When they disappeared behind the fronds of the willow branches dipping into the still, languid water, she looked up and noticed the sun was slipping lower in the sky, turning it hazy. ‘People think that because I loved Felicity,’ she said quietly, ‘it must follow that I’m crazy about her children. But I’m not. I can’t help it, but that’s the truth. Children have never interested me. Does that sound as awful to you as it just did to me?’

‘I have even less experience with kids than you, but my guess is the important thing is that you’re there for them. That they know they can rely on you. They need stability and I reckon you’d be better than most at providing that. Okay, you might not be made from the conventional mother mould, but that might just work to the children’s advantage.’

She suddenly smiled. ‘You know what? I think we should do this again. You’re good for me. To be honest, I’d been feeling guilty that I didn’t seem able to — ’ She broke off, distracted by the sight of a tall, slim man on the other side of the beer garden carrying two glasses of wine in his hands and a packet of crisps between his teeth. There was something comical about the way he was weaving his way through the tables and chairs, and the way his hair had flopped down in front of his eyes and was adding to his problems. It was only when he’d reached his table and was able to remove the crisp packet from his mouth and push back his hair that she recognised him: Will Hart. He was with an attractive blonde girl who laughed when he kissed her on the top of her head. She had to be about half his age. Typical, Harriet thought with disgust.

‘Someone you know?’ asked Miles, following her gaze.

She explained who it was. ‘Do you know him?’

‘I know of him. His ex-wife’s an auctioneer in Maywood; she runs Stone’s. Do you know it?’

‘No. But I know he’s into antiques.’

‘He is now, but apparently he used to be a hotshot lawyer, had some kind of breakdown and then got into the antique trade. He has a place here in Kings Melford, took it over from a real old character, Jarvis Cooper. You must have heard of
him.’

She laughed. ‘Sorry, but the grapevine must have run out of branches; the news didn’t reach me down in Oxford.’

‘He’s not new news, so to speak. He was around when we were kids. Hart’s Antique Emporium is in what used to be The Tavern, the old coaching inn opposite the square; it’s been owned by the Cooper family for years.’

Harriet vaguely recalled something about a shoe shop or a cobbler. But still thinking of Will Hart, she said, ‘He doesn’t look the sort to have a breakdown. He looks too ...’ She sought to find the right words. ‘He looks too laid back and untroubled.’

‘Perhaps he has life sussed. Doesn’t feel the need to escape like the rest of us.’

‘How do you know so much about everyone?’

‘I own a bookshop where people congregate to gossip over coffee and occasionally contemplate buying a book. I always knew I’d end up doing some kind of community service.’

‘Hey, no whingeing allowed! You know you love that bookshop.’

‘Actually, I do. The customers are great, and surprisingly loyal. They like the individual touch we offer. The nothing’s-too-much-trouble approach we small businesses are famous for still means something to a lot of people.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’

‘Have you started looking for a job yet?’

‘I spent today putting the finishing touches to my CV and now that it’s polished to within an inch of its life, I’m going to email it out to as many agencies as I can.’

‘You wouldn’t consider a change of direction, then?’

‘No chance. I love the geeky world of computer programming.’ She put a hand to her heart. ‘I always knew it was my destiny, darling.’

He smiled. ‘Felicity used to be so proud of you, you know.’

‘Really?’

He nodded. ‘She once told me that she wished she had half your brains.’

Harriet frowned. ‘When did she say that?’

‘Earlier in the year when she was staying with your parents. It might have been during February half-term. She had the children with her, so it probably was. She often used to come into the shop when she was home.’

Thinking that this tied in with Carrie’s question about Novel Ways, Harriet said, ‘Felicity was far smarter than me. She spoke three different languages, for heaven’s sake. She was always in demand to do translation work. I don’t know how she did it with the children around. Especially when they were really young.’

‘She must have been very organised. Like you, I expect.’ After a pause, during which he fiddled with his beer mat, he said, ‘Does it upset you to talk about Felicity?’

‘No. Funnily enough, it feels good. Like she’s still with us. That I could look over my shoulder and there she’d be, her old smiling self.’

He nodded and looked thoughtful, staring off into the distance. ‘I know what you mean. I still can’t quite believe she’s gone, but then ... but then I remember the funeral and it hits me like a hammer. Dead. It’s so final.’ He swallowed and slowly turned his pale-blue eyes back to Harriet. She was surprised to see the depth of sadness within them. ‘I don’t think I shall ever forget that day at the funeral,’ he said. ‘You handled it so well.’

‘I was on autopilot. In too much shock to cry. But I do remember how glad I was to see you there.’ She also remembered how upset he was, and that he made no attempt to hide his feelings. She liked his uncomplicated honesty. He was the complete opposite of his brother, who was the most devious person she knew. Felicity used to say that Harriet judged Dominic too harshly, that she expected too much of him. ‘He can’t help being the man he is,’ Felicity said. ‘We’re all the sum of our experiences.’

In that case, Dominic must have had some pretty awful experiences, because he always behaved abominably.

A burst of laughter from Will Hart’s table had them both turning to look. Harriet rolled her eyes. What was it about middle-aged men - especially the moderately good-looking ones - and attractive young blondes? Changing the subject, she said, ‘So how’s your love life, Miles?’

He looked surprised by her question. ‘Non-existent. And you? How’s it working out between you and that guy you mentioned at the funeral?’