Sunshine Over Wildflower Cottage (21 page)

Stel floated back into the kitchen where Maria was waiting, hungry for detail. Then she walked back to reception with a clock in motion inside her, ticking down the one hundred thousand seconds to that kiss. It didn’t sound so long when she thought of it that way.

Chapter 42

Geraldine had only just woken up when Viv and Heath walked into the cottage. She couldn’t stop apologising. Viv told her not to be silly. The bakery had left a basket of sandwiches and a huge tub of soup on the doorstep but Geraldine wasn’t hungry. She had a horrible headache and so Viv pushed her back in the direction of her bedroom. She sat at the dining table and ate lunch alone because Heath was outside speaking to someone on his mobile. It didn’t look a very friendly call either if his pacing up and down was anything to go by.

She was washing up her plate when Heath came back in.

‘Do you think you’ll be able to drive the pick-up?’ Heath asked her. ‘It would help me enormously if you collected the weekly order from the feed store at Fennybridge tomorrow.’

‘Yes, I’ll be able to drive it,’ Viv replied.

‘Thank you.’

‘Why don’t you use the one in Mawton though? It’s so much nearer.’

He didn’t react to the question other than for his jaw to give a slight twitch. ‘Our account is with Walkers at Fennybridge,’ he said. ‘You can’t miss it. Take the top road over the moors, there’s a huge millstone with the word
Fennybridge
chiselled into it and immediately after that, a sign for Walkers Farm. Just sign the docket and they’ll load it in for you.’

‘Righty-o,’ said Viv then she went into the office to check the morning’s emails. She opened the window to let the scents of the garden in. It looked as if hundreds more love-in-a-mist had sprung up overnight and she breathed in the delicate scent and felt blessed for the gift that made her so receptive to it. It was a gorgeous sunny day. On days like that, at uni, she and Hugo would laze in the grass quad and they’d bitch about lecturers and just talk about anything from
EastEnders
plots to the end of the world. He’d question her motives for picking a history degree which would be absolutely no use to her at all when she planned to make her fortune from her nose, he said. She’d argue back that she liked history, and if ever her amazing sense of smell dried up, she could always teach it. He could be pushy and though she knew he had her best interests at heart she wasn’t as intent on world domination as he was. She missed seeing him every day. He wanted her to move down to London. She had decided that she might take him up on it when she was done here.

A ping announcing the arrival of an email made her snap out of her daydream. It was from a bird sanctuary in Suffolk who were interested in ‘procuring the snowy owl’.
Procure
sounded such a cold word. Viv looked the sanctuary up. They seemed respectable enough, but would Ursula take to anyone there? What if they gave up on her straight away and didn’t persevere like they had done here? Heath and Geraldine would have kept trying with her, even though they’d never had a bird so unresponsive to them before.

Viv, you really have to back off here, girl
, she said to herself. She couldn’t afford to get attached to the animals. Or the birds. She had her own small business that she wanted to develop and her plan was to earn enough money to have her own dedicated laboratory. She loved mixing oils; she had never even considered another profession after she found she could get paid for it.

She’d convinced her regular clients that she could provide them with good service, something that was going to go quickly down the pan if she didn’t find some time to fulfil the orders she had on her books. One company – The Little Candle Company which, despite its name, was a massive organisation – had sent her an email that morning asking her to come up with an essence of summer garden. Geraldine’s perfume would have been perfect for that. If only she could work out what was missing from the mix.

Viv told the Suffolk people that she’d be in touch. She’d find Ursula a place that didn’t use words like ‘procure’.

Viv mentioned the bird place in Suffolk to Heath later when they were putting the animals away for the night. She told him that they were interested in ‘procuring the Snowy’.

‘Procuring?’ he asked and muttered something like ‘over my dead body’ and that was all he said on the matter.

Viv took Pilot for a short walk up the hill after all the animals had been tended to. It was a beautiful evening. The full moon sat in a velvety blur of different blues sandwiched with Turkish Delight pink. There was a warm breeze in the air that had ruffled through the thousands of love-in-a-mist flowers. Viv sucked it into her lungs and knew that she would mix this before she went to bed and call it
Summer Moon.
She knew her customers and Jeckson and de Vere would love it. They paid good money to a short freak with an oversensitive nose, she chuckled to herself. She might have had a childhood full of too many hospital appointments but she was certain that whatever had gone wrong in her mother’s womb and caused her twisted spine had also given her payback in the form of her enhanced senses. It would earn her a fortune over the course of her life. She might even end up in that glossy magazine herself, seated on a buttoned sofa; a narrative running underneath the photo about how rich and accomplished she was. Just like one of the Leighton girls.

Chapter 43

The next morning Viv found herself sitting in Ursula’s aviary doing nothing but holding out a piece of meat.

‘Are you sure you want me to do this?’ she asked Heath. ‘I feel a bit guilty doing nothing whilst you’re cleaning out the cages.’

‘It’s important,’ said Heath, as he tended to James, the great grey owl who had a huge round moon of a face. ‘And don’t worry, if you feel guilty you can turn over the compost heap later on. I wouldn’t want you to feel as if you were missing out.’

‘Why don’t you ask Nicholas Leighton if he’ll build you a new sanctuary?’ asked Viv.

Heath stared at her as if she were mad. It was a look she was getting used to seeing.

‘That way all the animals would stay together, wouldn’t they?’

‘You don’t get it, do you?’ said Heath. ‘He wouldn’t give us a penny more than he has to. His “people” offered to help find the animals new homes – which I obviously refused to let them do because how can those corporate . . .
idiots
be trusted – but if you think he’d build a whole sanctuary for us, then you’re . . .’ he rotated his finger at the side of his head. ‘Besides, even –
even
– if he had a mental aberration and offered to do that, it still wouldn’t be here, would it,
here
on this land where it should be.’

‘So you didn’t ask him?’

Heath gave a weary sigh.

‘If you must know, yes I did ask.’ His voice was tight and Viv could tell that it pained him to admit he had. It must have taken him a lot of effort to swallow that amount of pride.

‘He said no, then?’

Heath gave her a look not unlike the look Ursula was accustomed to giving him. ‘Surprisingly enough, Miss Blackbird, he did refuse.’

But you asked because you’d do anything to keep this place together
, Viv said to him silently.

‘He’s very rich isn’t he?’ she asked him.

‘Very.’

‘Why would he want to build a housing estate here? You’d think he’d prefer this area to be quiet, wouldn’t you?’

Heath blew out his cheeks. ‘To answer your first question: because people who lived here would want things and he’d supply the shops and restaurants and make even more money. To answer the second question, the valley bowl is far enough away from his estate not to cause him a problem.’

‘But what if —’

Heath was obviously tired of her questions. ‘Look, Ursula isn’t playing ball today so why don’t you go and pick up the feed. I can finish off here by myself.’

She had broken her promise not to press him, so Viv didn’t argue. She walked obediently back to the cottage, changed out of her wellies and into her ankle boots and set off in the pick-up.

It was a lovely drive on the top road. Even flooded in sunshine, the moors looked bleak, mysterious and full of secrets. In August they would be a sea of purple heather, but she would be long gone then. And so would Wildflower Cottage.

A pheasant ran across the road, cutting off her train of thought. Viv stamped on the brake and the vehicle lost control, stopping just short of a ditch. Her heart jumped into her mouth.
Concentrate, concentrate
, she snapped at herself. She needed to clear her mind of everything but driving. Which was easier said than done.

She picked up the feed and headed back, but decided to call in at Mawton en route. She pulled into the car park near St Francis Church, as she had done last time she was here, and walked down the main street, intending to have a sandwich at the café, but it was full. They did have a selection of takeaway sandwiches for sale though, so she bought an egg mayo, a bottle of fizzy orange and looked for somewhere to sit and eat it in the sunshine. Some people were sitting in the pretty grounds of the church: a man in a suit tearing into a baguette, two old ladies sharing a flask of tea. She walked past them and sat at the next available bench, which was tucked away in a corner out of the way. She unwrapped her lunch and began to eat it. Gentle scents drifted to her on the fluttery breeze: freesias, violets, sweet peas. She tilted her head back and let the sun warm her face. It felt as if it was leaning down close to her, holding her cheeks in its hands and, like a caring parent, was telling her that everything was going to be all right. Her mind emptied of all but the feeling of heat on her skin and she could easily have drifted off to sleep. A breeze stirred its fingers in her hair and wafted more floral perfume towards her, this time a dense rich scent which she recognised immediately: grand prix roses. Huge velvet-headed roses with tightly packed petals that pulsed out a bouquet of myrrh, musk and wild fruits with a distinctive shadowy note of spices. Viv pulled it into her nostrils as if she were savouring the breath of a rich, deep wine.

As she stood to go, the scent of the roses drew her, challenging her to find them. She walked steadily down the path, trying not to look like a bloodhound on a quest. She’d walked too far, the scent had dissolved; she turned back and it was there again. Forwards now, leaving the path, passing ranks of stones until she saw them three rows up, five across: tied in a bunch, their perfect blood-red petals facing the tall, grey headstone, bright against the darkest green leaves, their long stems laying across the heart of the person who lay beneath. Viv had impressed herself being able to pick them out from so far away.
In Loving Memory of Emily Sowerbridge, Precious wife.
Viv looked at the dates and worked out that Emily had died on her seventieth birthday. Today she would have been eighty. Hence the beautiful birthday roses with the card amongst them in an old man’s scratchy scrawl.
Emily. You are missed every day.
What must it be like, thought Viv, to meet someone who came into your life and never left it, even after death separated you. She wondered if Heath thought about Sarah or if Antonia Leighton had supplanted her in his affections.

Viv strolled back to the path viewing the different-shaped stones and reading the inscriptions. Some were very old, dating back centuries, the writing weathered and barely readable. One had a cameo photo of a smiling old gent. The sight of a small, white stone carved into a heart pulled her to a halt. Apart from the dates of the incumbent’s birth and death days, there were just four words:

SARAH BERNAL
BELOVED DAUGHTER

She died aged twenty-five, four years ago. Was this another Sarah who had died at such a young age, or could this be Heath’s wife? But if it was, why wasn’t it her married name that had been chiselled into the stone?

Viv’s brain started to spin with the intrigue of it all. Heath, Geraldine, the animals . . . she had to stop them slipping into her heart when she wasn’t looking and making her care about them. Because she had the potential to be their worst enemy of all.

Chapter 44

Stel buzzed around cleaning the already immaculate house. She was so jittery about the evening to come that she had to use up all the adrenalin-fuelled nervous energy or she would have exploded. Then she changed outfits four times because her jeans looked too casual, her dress looked too dressy, her trousers made her bum look big – leggings and long top it was then; flat shoes, hair up and dangly earrings. She gave herself an appraisal in the mirror and wondered if she should have chosen the jeans ensemble instead, but time was moving on.

The pasta was ready for the oven, the table was set, she had decanted a bottle of Merlot like a proper wine buff. She’d even dropped an old penny in the bottom because she’d read at the weekend in the
Sunday World
supplement that it made it taste more expensive. Then she sat on the sofa and waited and wished she had never invited Ian Robson to her house. She was so tense that an evening in her pyjamas watching an old
Columbo
seemed a much more sensible idea.

She thought she heard a car and jumped to her feet. She opened the front door and peeked out to see Al from next door walking up his path, holding his biker’s helmet in his hand. He’d had a mid-life crisis and bought himself a Harley Davison. Mid-life suited him though – he’d never been as happy, as well-off, or as fit.

‘Hello Stel,’ he smiled, but then Al was always smiling. Ever since he ditched that bitch of a wife anyway.

‘Hello Al,’ she smiled back.

He sniffed. ‘Not half a nice smell coming from your house. You cooking me dinner?’

‘I’ve got a date,’ bubbled Stel, with a childish giggle.

‘Have you? Well, good for you, pet. Hope he’s treating you well.’

‘He is,’ she nodded.

‘He’s a lucky fella. I hope he knows that. You look lovely, all sparkly.’

Stel was just about to say that he didn’t look bad either. He was dressed in his biker’s leathers and he wore them well. She wondered if he’d ever thought, when he was sitting in their front room eating fish finger sandwiches and trying his best not to appear as if he hadn’t eaten for a week, that one day he’d own his own business, live in a lovely house and ride around on a piece of metal that would have grown men crying with envy. But he started talking again.