Me and Mr Jones (10 page)

Chapter Eight

God, Lilian could be a cow, Emma thought, as Izzy swirled out of the kitchen, dragging her two bewildered-looking children in tow. That poor woman – the way Lilian had spoken to her was absolutely unforgivable.

‘Well, of all the . . .’ Lilian spluttered now, as Charlie ran after them. You could hear raised voices from the hall and then the front door banging – not slammed, exactly, but certainly shut very firmly. And that was that.

‘How
rude
,’ Lilian fumed. ‘Honestly! I don’t know
where
Charlie finds these women, I really don’t. None of them have ever had manners, not a single one.’

She stalked out, nose in the air, and Emma and Alicia were left staring at each other. ‘What a total . . . bitch,’ said Alicia.

It was the first time Emma had ever heard Alicia bad-mouth their mother-in-law, and she felt like punching the air. Thank you, God. Maybe she had found an ally among the Jones clan after all these years. ‘I can’t believe that just happened,’ she agreed. ‘It was like seeing a car crash in slow motion.’

‘It was brutal,’ Alicia said, aghast. ‘Those poor little girls! What the hell was Charlie playing at, bringing them here? He must have known what would happen.’

‘And of course he gets away with none of the blame, as usual,’ muttered Emma before she could stop herself.

But Alicia was nodding in agreement. ‘As bloody usual,’ she echoed with surprising viciousness.

They caught each other’s eyes and grinned like conspirators. There was something different about Alicia, Emma thought, and not just her swishy new hairdo and make-up. The two women had never had much to say to each other in the past; Alicia always seemed so preoccupied with her family and tended to let Hugh do the talking for them in any family get-togethers. She seemed feistier than usual today, though, as if she’d suddenly discovered her own backbone.

‘Hey, do you know what this big talk’s all about?’ she asked, remembering David’s anxiety on the subject.

‘No idea,’ Alicia replied. ‘But I know Hugh’s been worrying.’

‘David too,’ Emma said. ‘Come on, let’s make this coffee so that we can find out what the hell’s going on.’

‘The thing is,’ Eddie began, with a sideways glance at his wife, ‘we’re not getting any younger, your mum and I.’

Charlie had returned looking chastened, and now the adults were all around the dining-room table, the children having been ensconced upstairs in the private living area in front of the television. The only guests currently booked in – a Mr and Mrs Ashburton from Devon – had gone out for a day trip to Dorchester and wouldn’t be back for hours.
Here we go
, thought Emma warily, sipping her coffee as her father-in-law spoke.

‘And . . . well, basically, we just feel that this place is becoming too much for us to keep going,’ Eddie went on. You could have heard a pin drop every time he paused. ‘So we were wondering . . . well . . .’

‘We’d originally thought we could hand it on to one of you, keep it in the family,’ Lilian said. ‘Business is ticking along; there’s no debt. But you know we’ve always tried to be as fair as we can with you boys, and we decided it would be wrong to give it to just one son.’

‘So,’ Eddie said with a heavy sigh, ‘unless one of you wants to buy it from us, unfortunately we’re going to have to sell up.’

Oh God. This was big. Not on a par with cancer or heart disease, as David had feared, thankfully, but still pretty seismic.

‘Sell the house?’ Charlie looked devastated. ‘Oh no. But this is . . . this is
home.
’

‘I know, son,’ Eddie said. His mouth twisted downwards unhappily. ‘But it’s a lot of work for us. We’d like to retire before long, and move somewhere smaller that doesn’t take so much cleaning and looking after. A . . . what do you call them again? Those houses with no stairs. Little flat things.’

‘A bungalow?’ Hugh prompted.

‘A bungalow – that’s the chap.’

Nobody spoke for a moment. Emma couldn’t tell what David was thinking, but his eyes were far-away. She knew how much he loved this house, steeped with so many childhood memories. The first time they’d come here he’d taken great delight in showing her the fireplace where they’d hung Christmas stockings as children, the hallway where he and Charlie had practised rollerskating on wet days (until Charlie had crashed into the front door and cut his head on the letterbox, and they’d since been banished to the drive). He’d pointed out where Eddie had built them a treehouse in the garden, and the low roof below his old bedroom window onto which he’d climbed out and jumped down from, in order to meet his mates, despite being grounded.

Poor David. He would be sad to see it go. He turned to her now and, instead of the dismay she’d expected, there was a flicker in his eye that she hadn’t seen for a while, an almost tangible air of excitement. ‘What do you think, Em?’

She hesitated, taken aback. ‘Of what? Your parents moving out?’

‘About us taking this place on. We could do it, couldn’t we?’ His words tumbled out in a rush. ‘I mean, you’d have to give up your job, but you hate it anyway – you’re always saying. We could move down here and make a fresh start together, keep the B&B going. What do you reckon?’

She stared at him, incredulous. What did she reckon? She reckoned it was a terrible idea, that he must have lost the plot if he seriously thought otherwise. The last thing she wanted was to be stuck miles from civilization, cooking breakfasts for complete strangers and washing sheets every day.
No freaking way
, she thought with a shudder.

‘Um . . . I don’t . . .’ she began, but stumbled, aware of everyone’s eyes on her. Lilian’s face in particular was alight with hope.
Forget it, love
, Emma wanted to say.
It’s never going to happen
. She was sure they didn’t have enough money to buy a house like this, for starters, however much David might want it. ‘Well, we’d need to think about it,’ she replied after a moment. ‘This isn’t something we can decide here and now, is it?’

‘Of course,’ Eddie said, but he seemed disappointed, as if he’d been hoping for closure by the time they’d finished coffee. ‘Hugh? Alicia?’ he prompted. ‘You’ve been very quiet.’

Alicia hesitated and turned to Hugh. She didn’t want this place either, Emma could tell a mile off, and yet the two of them were surely the only ones who’d be able to afford it.

‘This is rather out of the blue,’ Hugh blustered. ‘And with our jobs, and the children’s school . . . Well, we’re settled where we are, Dad.’

‘I could do it,’ Charlie offered.

An awkward silence greeted his words, no doubt because, like Emma, every single other person around the table thought that actually Charlie could
not
run a B&B, given his track record. He could barely manage his own life competently, let alone oversee a business. He wasn’t exactly dripping with ready cash, either.

Lilian and Eddie exchanged a glance, then Eddie cleared his throat. ‘That’s kind of you,’ he began diplomatically. ‘But . . . well, it’s a lot of work, day in, day out – that’s all. Especially for one person.’

Hugh cleared his throat. ‘No offence, Charlie, but have you got the money to buy out Mum and Dad?’

Charlie coloured. ‘I could raise it,’ he said. ‘I could!’

Nobody spoke, but Emma could almost hear the pantomime-style chorus of ‘Oh no, you couldn’t!’ that they were all thinking.

‘Or we could pitch in and run the business between us,’ he went on doggedly. ‘This is a family, right? And families pull together. We can’t have you two struggling along on your own. If we all lend a hand, then we can get this ship back on course.’

No one seemed to know how to respond to this display of magnanimity. Emma, for one, didn’t believe him for a second. Charlie never did anything for anyone out of simple decency or family-feeling – it wasn’t his style. Look at the pathetic progress on the so-called holiday chalets out the back! Besides, she didn’t think Lilian and Eddie were asking for people to merely lend a hand – they had said, clear as day, that they wanted out.

There was an awkward silence. ‘I could help out in the meantime,’ Alicia offered with a somewhat resigned expression. The sparkle had vanished from her eyes. ‘I could do some of the washing and ironing for you. And . . .’

Hugh interrupted before she roped herself in for any more chores. ‘This is something we all need to think about,’ he said rather pompously. You could so tell he was the eldest of the brothers; he could never resist taking the lead. She knew it got on David’s nerves sometimes. ‘Now that we know how you feel, Mum and Dad, we can pitch in during the short term, but longer-term we need to weigh everything up carefully. Emma’s right, we can’t rush into a decision today, however willing we are to save the family business. We need to take a more measured approach, think it all through. When, for example, would you like to move out, ideally?’

‘I think we could manage one more summer,’ Lilian said, steepling her fingers together. They were rough and gnarled, Emma noticed, dotted with liver spots, the skin almost translucent in places. Hard-working old-lady hands that had scrubbed and cleaned and polished year after year. Hands that were ready for a rest. ‘Don’t you, Eddie?’

Eddie nodded. ‘We’ve already got lots of bookings for the summer, and it would be nice to say a proper goodbye to our guests,’ he said. ‘But come the autumn, we’d like to move on.’

‘Yes,’ Lilian agreed. ‘One last summer – and that’s our lot.’

Emma could feel David looking at her with the same eager, imploring face, and her heart sank. She took his hand and squeezed it, guilty that she didn’t share his excitement, especially when he hadn’t been so animated for weeks. But could he really not tell that the idea of them taking on the business left her completely cold?

‘Well, that gives us a clear timetable at least,’ Hugh said. ‘I can carry on doing the books for you until the autumn, and Alicia’s kindly offered to help with the laundry. Charlie, maybe if you could aim to have at least some of the holiday chalets completed in that time, and—’

‘What I could do,’ David put in, ‘is help smarten the place up, while I’m out of work. Whenever rooms are empty, I could redecorate and get them looking their best. I can help Charlie with the holiday chalets too – and whatever else comes up.’ He looked at Emma. ‘It would be good to have something to do.’

Her heart turned over, knowing how miserable he’d found it being unemployed. Being active and busy again might be just what he needed. ‘Great idea,’ she agreed. ‘And then if you two
do
decide to sell up after the summer,’ she went on to his parents, ‘at least the place will be looking wonderful. You’ll certainly be able to get a better asking price if everything’s been freshly painted and decorated.’

‘Good, excellent,’ Hugh said approvingly. ‘How does all that sound?’ he added, turning to his parents.

Eddie nodded. ‘Very sensible,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

‘Yes, thank you,’ Lilian said, pressing her lips together suddenly as if she felt emotional. ‘That’s an enormous weight off my mind, I can tell you.’

Charlie was the only one who didn’t seem happy. Emma got the feeling he was sulking because nobody had taken seriously his initial offer of shouldering the business single-handedly. Even David talking enthusiastically to him about how they could transform the barns over the next few weeks didn’t draw the youngest brother out of his pique.

Get used to it
,
Charlie
, she found herself thinking unsympathetically.
You can’t have everything your own way.

Emma hadn’t realized just how keen David was to get started with the paint rollers and dustsheets until he broke the news that she would be driving back to Bristol alone that evening.

‘What . . . you’re not coming back?’ she asked in surprise. ‘But . . .’
But what about the shagathon?
she wanted to say, but the words stuck in her throat. Oh God, he’d forgotten that this was the crucial time for conceiving. Dare she remind him? What if he shrugged it off?

‘You don’t mind, do you? I just want to
do
something, Em. I want to feel useful again. Dad’s got some spare painting overalls he can lend me, so I might as well get stuck in straight away.’

How could she say no, when he put it like that? How could she start nagging about ovulation windows and fertility, when he was cheerful for the first time in weeks? ‘Of course I don’t mind,’ she said untruthfully, after a moment.

It was the right reply to give, but nevertheless there was a hollow ache inside her as she hugged him goodbye later on. And as she drove away, all on her own, waving over her shoulder, the tears were brimming before she’d even reached the main road.

There went another egg, wasted and unfertilized. And here came another long, miserable four-week wait racking up ahead of her. She was starting to get the feeling that maybe this was never going to happen. Perhaps she was destined to remain childless and barren for the rest of her life. Maybe it would serve her right for—

She gripped the steering wheel tighter than necessary.
Don’t go there, Em.

All the same, she wished she’d had the nous to persuade David to return with her now, wished she’d said,
Actually, why don’t you come home tonight, pack a few things and then head back in the morning?
That was a perfectly reasonable request, wasn’t it? And then she could have seduced him back at the flat; he’d have been up for a farewell shag, surely? She wouldn’t even have had to say the word ‘pregnant’.

Damn it. And now it was too late, and she would spend tonight alone, while her husband (and his sperm) was fifty miles away. Bloody Eddie and Lilian, she thought, banging her fist on the steering wheel. Wrecking everything, as usual! Did they want another effing grandchild or not, for heaven’s sake!

The only tiny thing that comforted her, the only meagre crumb of solace that kept her going, was the knowledge that back at home, the Oh Baby! forum would be waiting for her on her computer. Those women would understand, even if her own husband didn’t.