Paradise Fields (38 page)

‘I think so.' Where maths was concerned, Nel's brain went fuzzy, and she found it terribly hard to concentrate. She could do sums perfectly well when she needed to, if she didn't know she was doing them, like adjusting a recipe or deciding how much paint to buy. But now, because it was important (and because, she was forced
to admit, her brain was addled by unrequited love), she felt tired and out of her depth.

‘So, you could do it the easy way, and have a thousand plots of a square metre each. Charge, say, a hundred pounds each, and you've got a hundred grand, just like that.'

‘No! Not just like that! For a start, I couldn't find a thousand people to sell plots to, not if I had from now until the next millennium, let alone by April the first; and for a second, I couldn't charge a hundred pounds for each plot! I was thinking more like twenty quid.'

Sam did some more dabbing onto his calculator. ‘OK, five hundred people—'

‘No, Sam. Think fifty people, possibly a hundred, two hundred at most. How much would I have to charge?'

A few seconds later, he said, ‘Well, to get ten thousand pounds – that was the amount? You need to find two hundred people and charge them fifty quid a throw. Can't say fairer than that.'

Nel rested her face in her hands. ‘Two hundred people! That's an awful lot.'

‘Well, don't worry. Some people will buy more than one plot.'

‘They're not allowed to!'

‘Why not?'

‘Because I deliberately made it be like that so Chris Mowbray couldn't buy up all the plots himself.'

‘Oh. Chris Mowbray is a bad thing, is he?'

‘Definitely.'

‘And talking of bad things, who's this Jake guy Fleur keeps going on about?'

‘He's definitely a bad thing.'

‘Fleur didn't seem to think so. Says he's much nicer than Simon.'

‘In some ways, I suppose . . .'

‘Personally, I don't think Simon's a bad bloke, I just don't fancy him as a stepfather.'

‘I would never inflict anyone on you whom you didn't like, but he wouldn't be a stepfather, really, not now you're this age.'

‘Mum, Simon's been a stepfather every time he's come into this house and I've been here. I know he means well, I know he does it to support you, but he does it. Asks about uni, whether I'm going to lectures, have I got a job, that sort of thing.'

‘Oh God, I'm sorry.'

‘The sort of stuff you don't ask me.'

‘But the sort of stuff I would quite like to know.'

Sam grinned. ‘Mum, you know I'm a good boy, really.'

His mother smiled back, feeling she should make the most of this quality time with her eldest child. ‘Cup of tea, darling?'

Sam glanced at the clock. ‘OK, quick one. Shall I make it?'

‘That would be lovely! You're so sweet to me!'

‘It's easy to be the good son when I'm not here much. Especially as you might give me some money, Mummy.'

Nel sighed and reached for her handbag. ‘Sometimes I think you children think those words are interchangeable.'

‘There you are,
Mummy
.' Sam put down the tea, and Nel handed over a ten-pound note.

‘Very expensive café, this.'

‘Yes, but you get therapy thrown in. What gives, Ma?'

‘Simon has asked me to marry him.' Nel could see
her son controlling his reaction. ‘I'm not going to, I don't think.'

‘Why not? Don't worry about us kids. We'll cope. But what's wrong with him?'

It was a relief to talk about it. ‘Well, apart from the fact that he's always known that I don't want to have a permanent relationship while you kids are still at home . . .' She frowned, suddenly. ‘And yet he asked me anyway, and came up with a ring.'

‘A ring, eh? What does my sister have to say about that?'

‘She doesn't know. Simon asked me not to tell her.'

‘Why not? Does he think she'll talk you out of it?'

‘I think so.'

‘And will she?'

‘She doesn't have to. I think Simon only wants me for my house.'

‘That's a bit unfair, isn't it?'

‘I wish it was, but we were bumbling along, nothing much happening, and then, when this whole building fiasco erupts, he's asking me to marry him. Well, I told him the very first time we went for a drink that I wouldn't be interested. The two things can't be unconnected.'

Sam shrugged and looked at the clock again. ‘So tell me about this Jake bloke, then? Fleur likes him.'

‘He's not “in the frame”, as they say, Sam.'

Sam chuckled. ‘You do have some quaint expressions, Ma. So?'

‘So, what? I said, he's not an issue.'

‘Tell me anyway. So I know what Fleur's talking about. Apparently he's the one who kissed you under the mistletoe?'

And the rest, she thought. ‘Sam, if I have to give you a rundown on everyone who kissed me under the mistletoe, which would be rather a strain on my ageing memory—'

‘Don't give me that baloney. Fleur said he came here and helped you make a cake.'

‘Oh yes. Well, he did. But he ruined the first one, it was only fair.'

‘She said he was really fun.'

‘Yes, he is, but he's younger than me, and he's not really interested, and I'm never going to see him again, so he's not relevant.'

‘To what?'

‘To my life. Now, don't you think you ought to be going? Your friends will be waiting.'

Sam got up and took his jacket from the back of the chair. ‘Not like you to urge me out drinking.'

‘Anything to stop the third degree, Sam. Don't forget to drink plenty of water.'

‘Cheers, Mum.'

The solicitor recommended by Jake was fatherly and kind. His offices were also a lot more elegant than Jake's were when Nel last saw them.

‘Mr Demerand told me you might get in touch. It's about dividing a ransom strip currently owned by the local hospice so it can't be bought by developers?'

‘That's right. We also need to make it so people can only buy one bit each. Otherwise the developers would just buy them all themselves. And we also have to be sure that the land is safe from future hospice committees who may want to sell it.'

Mr Tunnard put his pen down and regarded Nel over
the top of his spectacles. ‘Mrs Innes, there's something I feel I should tell you.'

‘What?' Nel had had so many shocks lately that her heart jerked every time anyone said anything to her in that confidential, almost doom-laden, voice.

‘The legal expenses of such a thing would be high. There's a lot of paperwork involved.'

‘You mean I'd have to factor that in to the price of each plot?'

‘No, you couldn't do that.'

‘So you're asking me how I'll pay?' For a moment, she allowed herself to speculate on the value of a certain aquamarine ring hidden in her knicker drawer.

‘No. I'm telling you that Jake Demerand has asked me to act for you
pro bono
, for nothing.'

‘Oh – he shouldn't have done that! It's not fair! Unless you're devoted to the cause, why should you?'

‘Because Jake agreed to give me his time in lieu.'

‘Sorry, I don't understand.'

‘I'll make a note of the hours I do, and then he'll do those hours for me, when I need him to.'

‘So . . .'

‘So it's Jake who's working for nothing, not me.'

‘Oh.'

‘I'm telling you because I got the impression from Jake that you didn't have a very high opinion of him. Now, I don't know Jake well personally, but professionally I know him well enough to be certain that he's a thoroughly good man.'

Feeling this was an opportunity, Nel asked him, ‘I thought he'd been involved in some scandal about selling off old people's homes or something.'

‘I know the case to which you're referring. But he was on the losing side. One of the good guys.'

‘I see,' she said, to stop herself saying ‘oh' again. But she didn't see, really.

‘In this case, he could hardly offer to do the work himself, when he's involved with one of the developers.'

‘No, but why did he want to? Why get involved with this bit at all?'

Mr Tunnard raised a bushy eyebrow. ‘I really couldn't say, Mrs Innes.'

‘
IT'LL BE EASY,
don't worry about it,' said Fleur, who was painting her toenails in the sitting room, her nail varnish balanced perilously on the arm of the sofa.

Nel was watching the bottle, ready to catch it if it wobbled, having abandoned the notion of asking her daughter to beautify herself in her bedroom, the bathroom, or indeed, anywhere except the drawing room.

‘Darling, I'm not selling pints on a Friday night! I'm asking people to donate fifty pounds to charity. That's quite a lot. When those lovely young men stop you in the street, they never ask you to sign up for more than a couple of quid a month.'

‘And you've already asked lots of people already.'

‘I know, but I didn't say how much they'd have to fork out, and most of those people were farmers' market bods. A lot of them are very hard up as it is. Why should they pay to stop a building they're never likely to see from being pulled down?'

‘You have to tell them about the children. Lay it on thick.'

‘You know I'm hopeless doing things like that.'

‘You mean you cry.'

‘Well! Even you, Hard-Hearted Hannah, must feel just a little bit sad.'

‘Of course I do. But I don't actually have to cry about it in public.'

‘No, well, nor would I if I could help it.'

‘Is it because Dad died, do you think?'

Nel shook her head. ‘No. My hormones were shot to pieces when I was first pregnant, and they never recovered. It was years before I could watch the news without weeping.'

‘
Really?
I hope that doesn't happen to me when I get pregnant.'

‘You're not planning on getting pregnant, are you?' This was all she needed, suffering acutely from a broken heart, having to find two hundred people with fifty pounds to spare, organise a jamboree for the hospice combined with a farmers' market, plus a teenage daughter expecting a baby. Just at that moment, she didn't feel she could offer appropriate support.

‘Derr! Of course not! I haven't even left school yet! Let alone gone travelling and gone to uni.'

‘That's all right then.' Now the toenails were a suitably vivid pink, Nel took away the bottle and screwed on the lid.

‘Did you thank Jake, by the way?' Fleur was now doing damaging things to her hair.

‘I told you. I tried to. I went to his office, the moment after I left the other one, but he wasn't there. What else can I do? I haven't got his telephone number.'

‘You could try and find his telephone number. Someone must know it. Did you ask at his office?'

‘Darling, you don't ask for people's home telephone numbers at their offices! It would look desperately needy for a start, and they wouldn't give it to you anyway.'

‘I bet they would if you explained.'

Nel shook her head. ‘I wrote a letter and sent it. That will be fine.'

Fleur shook her head, her mouth full of hairgrips. ‘It's not the same as saying it face to face, or on the phone.'

‘No, it's better. More polite.'

‘You're just being cowardly. Do you think I should have my eyelashes tinted?'

‘What's wrong with mascara? No, I'm not.'

‘What?'

‘Being cowardly. I just don't want to see him. There's no point.'

‘You really like him, don't you?'

Nel knew this question had a lot more weight than it might have sounded. She sighed. Was there any point in trying to protect her daughter from how she felt? No, she decided. If Fleur was old enough to have sex (which, as her mother, she doubted), she was old enough to know about men who used you and then left you. Except had Jake used her? If so, for what?

‘Mum? Do you really like Jake?'

‘Yes, I do. He's – well – lovely. And we did flirt, I admit that. But there's nothing more to it than that. On his part, anyway.'

‘How do you know that?'

‘Oh, honey! It's not rocket science! He's younger than me! He's extremely attractive, he's single, why would he want me?'

‘Mum! It's not rocket science! You're very attractive, you're a widow, why wouldn't he?'

‘Darling, it's so sweet of you to say that I'm attractive. But it's only because I'm your mother, and you
love me, that you think so. To the rest of the world I'm just frumpy, overweight Nel.'

‘If Viv could hear you she'd go mad! You're not frumpy – at least, not when I'm around to check you're not, and you're not overweight! Lots of people fancy you!'

‘Lots of people are very kind to me. And why shouldn't they be? I'm kind to lots of people, and what goes around, comes around. But I'm not a sex symbol.'

Fleur opened her mouth to disagree but then shut it again. It was hard to think of your mother as a sexual being – harder, possibly, than thinking of your daughter as one. ‘You probably are to the right person,' she said after some thought.

‘Yes, I probably am. But probably not to someone like Jake, who could have anyone.' And has had me, she added privately, to torture herself.

‘Well, I'm off out now. Why don't you give Viv a ring and get her to come round, share a bottle of wine?'

In spite of her despair, Nel laughed. ‘Why do I let you get away with telling me how to run my life?'

Fleur scooped up the accoutrements of her beauty regime into a bag. ‘Because I've got one, that's why.'

‘Are you telling me to get a life?' Nel was indignant.