Sunshine Over Wildflower Cottage (37 page)

Gaynor laughed and the hollow dry sound echoed off the tiles. ‘Don’t tell me you’re thinking about suing me. Not on the day of your own father’s funeral.’

‘No, of course not. I didn’t mean . . .’

‘Oh I know exactly what you meant,’ said Gaynor, strong and angry. ‘You’ll get your money when you’re thirty or when I’m dead and buried, whichever comes first. Don’t you worry, you’ll be able to waste everything your father and I worked all our lives for on fish lips and Stella McCartney frocks but you’re on your own for a few years now. And if that takes me off your Christmas card list then so be it.’

She glared at her daughter, fire spitting from her eyes. Her daughter glared back: their eyes battling for dominance.

‘Oh for fu—’ Leanne huffed like a frustrated four year old. ‘There’s no point in hanging around, is there? I’ve said goodbye to Dad so I’ll just go.’

‘That’s up to you,’ said Gaynor, her voice brittle.

‘Bye then.’ Leanne paused, giving Gaynor the chance to change her mind. She knew that behind the flint expression, her mother was on the brink of begging her to stay for the night. They’d talk and make friends and look at old photos, have hot chocolate and cry a bit.

And she was right. Gaynor did want all those things, but the alcohol in her system was serving to strengthen her resolve rather than weaken it at the moment. So Leanne Pollock strutted out, heels tapping an angry, spoiled tattoo on the tiles. The door crashed against the wall and as it made a thump back into its wooden frame, Gaynor could feel the reverberations rattle all the way down to her heart.

Chapter 83

‘Everything all right, Viv, duck? What did the doctor say?’ asked Geraldine, as Viv walked in through the door.

‘Yep. Back’s just bruised, that’s all,’ Viv answered. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

Heath was sitting at the table reading the newspaper. He had Phantom the young barn owl sitting contentedly on his glove, acclimatising to people and noise. She clacked her beak and flapped her wings when Viv got too near for comfort.

‘Steady,’ said Heath.

‘Doing a spot of
manning
, I see,’ said Viv, with a smile.

‘Oh very good,’ said Geraldine, clapping her hands together. ‘She’s picking up the terminology.’

‘More barn owls in captivity than there are flying wild,’ replied Heath, with a grumble. ‘I wish I could teach everyone about bird care as quickly.’

‘Crikey, was that a compliment?’ Viv gave a dramatic mock-gasp. ‘Tea, anyone?’

‘Yes please,’ said Geraldine, wondering why Viv was so perky after a visit to the doctor.

Heath’s thoughts were otherwise engaged. There were exactly six weeks to the end of the lease on Wildflower Cottage. Nothing was going to save them now and he needed to start moving the animals out to new homes. There could be no more delaying of the inevitable. The sooner they settled in, the better. He’d had a call from the Owl Sanctuary near Northallerton. They presently had a place for the snowy and the great grey owls and gave him first refusal. If he didn’t take those places within three days, they would offer them to someone else. It was a good sanctuary, Heath couldn’t afford to pass it up. He’d made an appointment to take them up there on Wednesday morning but he’d kept that to himself. He knew Viv would be devastated but she’d be leaving here herself when they all had to move out of Wildflower Cottage. He couldn’t bear to think of what state Geraldine would be in. She would cry, he wouldn’t, but a piece of his heart would break off with every creature that left its home here.

Viv left the others under the pretence of catching up with some paperwork in the office. She needed to be by herself for a while and she’d find it difficult today making polite chit-chat, even with the lovely Geraldine. The events of the whole morning were churning around in her brain. One minute she felt shining and triumphant, the next grubby and manipulative.

Her actions had been a necessary evil, but she hadn’t felt good about wielding a staff of power over the Leightons, however they’d treated her, and others she cared for. She was the sanctuary’s only hope and she had to save it or she would never again have been able to sleep at night.

And she knew that she’d given the Leightons the chance to earn a zillion points of goodwill and likability. She imagined they’d play the press like a cheap guitar. They would continue to reign as the perfect, gorgeous family with everything. No one need ever know about the oddball in the closet.

There had been not one note of warmth sounded in the symphony of their showdown. Not one shadowy memory of a vulnerable little girl had crept over their hearts in the whole twenty-three years, she knew that.

You should have died.

Viv switched on the ancient computer and read the emails. She wanted to hit delete on all of the correspondence that related to finding the animals new homes, but she forced herself to wait for the final clearance. Leighton’s brain would be working like every department in GCHQ simultaneously. If anyone could find a loophole, he would. Why the hell hadn’t she said twenty-four hours instead?

Chapter 84

A little old lady holding a serviette, points gathered together in one hand to form a knapsack, squeezed Linda’s hand.

‘I’m so sorry for your loss,’ she said.

‘Oh it’s not my husband,’ said Linda, scanning the room for Gaynor. ‘I don’t know where she is.’

‘My mistake,’ said the old lady. ‘You look so much alike.’

Stel snorted down her nose. Gaynor and Linda couldn’t have differed in more ways: one dark and slim, the other blonde and rotund. Linda and Stel watched the old lady return to the buffet table, where she picked off some quiche and added it to her serviette stash.

Mavis Marple loved a funeral. This was her favourite place for a buffet as well. They made the best salmon and broccoli quiche at the Farmer’s Arms. She had a black book in her handbag to remind her what to choose and where.

‘Ghoul,’ tutted Linda. ‘I bet she hasn’t a clue who Mick was and is just here for the bloody sausage rolls.’

‘Do people actually do that?’ chuckled Stel, swiping another glass of white wine from the tray of a passing waitress. Oh, she really shouldn’t. Look what drink had done to her the last time she’d indulged, but somehow she didn’t care today. She wouldn’t be able to drive back from Linda’s as she was over the limit already, so she might as well have a few and pick up the car tomorrow. She’d drunk just enough to feel relaxed and on the right side of fuzzy and she was ever so glad to be in the company of her friends again. She wanted to get hammered and tell them all that she didn’t know what the hell was going on in her life and that she felt as if something heavy were pressing down on her chest and she couldn’t breathe.

‘You all right, Stel?’ asked Linda. ‘Really all right?’

‘Well, apart from that bug . . .’

‘Stel, this is me you’re talking to.’ Linda said sternly. ‘I’m a bit worried about you if I’m honest. You just don’t seem yourself lately. It’s not this new man of yours, is it? You’ve not gone and landed another arsehole, have you?’

Stel wanted to spew it all out. But here was not the place and if she started talking she might not be able to stop.
Another arsehole.
She was so predictable, she thought, with an internal shake of the head. Everyone would think her such a fool for having walked into it. She was fifty-bloody-two, for Christ’s sake. For once, she would act like a grown-up and sort out this mess herself. No one need ever know she’d been taken in yet again.

‘Everything’s fine, love. Honest.’ Stel raised her glass before sipping from it. ‘I promise I’d tell you if it wasn’t.’

*

Gaynor noticed a slight shift in the shadows under one of the cubicle doors. Seconds later, that door opened and out walked Caro, who flinched.

‘Oh Gaynor, I thought you’d gone out,’ she said. She’d been trapped in the cubicle for the whole of that exchange between mother and daughter. She genuinely hadn’t wanted Gaynor to know she’d been party to it.

Gaynor groaned. Of all the people to have heard. It would have to be
her.
Caro Richmond with her Mercedes-bloody-Benz, her successful business, A-star engineer son, perfect fucking husband, and her smartarse gorgeous daughter.

‘I’m sorry,’ Caro went on. ‘I covered my ears so I wouldn’t hear . . .’

‘Yeah, course you did,’ laughed Gaynor dryly.

‘I really didn’t want to be in on that conversation, Gaynor.’

‘No doubt you found it all very amusing.’

‘Not at all.’ The sympathy in Caro’s voice was like a fork down the blackboard of Gaynor’s pride.

‘Of all people to hear first hand what a bitch of a daughter I’ve raised, it had to be you, didn’t it, Caro?’

Gaynor’s hip bumped into the sink and the pain blossomed. Everything hurt. She felt pain in every part of her. She felt as if someone had flayed her and then thrown vinegar and salt on her.

‘Gaynor . . .’

‘Oh don’t Gaynor me,’ came the growled reply. ‘I bet you were thinking, “Oh I’m so glad my Marnie isn’t like that”.’

‘I wasn’t thinking that at all, Gaynor. I was thinking what a shit day you were having—’

‘Oh please spare me the nicey nicey act,’ shrieked Gaynor. ‘Why do some people get all the luck and others don’t?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Caro. ‘It’s just life, isn’t it?’

‘Just life, you say.’ Gaynor gave a dry laugh. ‘Must be marvellous being you.’

Caro knew that Gaynor was spoiling for a fight. She was upset and half-drunk and she needed something to pound.

‘I do know what today must be doing to you. I know you’re in pain, so please, let’s just leave it at that and go back out into the bar.’ She took her arm and pushed her gently forwards. Gaynor shrugged her off.

‘How the hell could you possibly know what I’m going through? You’ve never had a moment’s pain in your bloody golden life.’

‘Gaynor. Don’t. Really.’

But Gaynor’s resentment was a springy jack clown that wasn’t yet ready to go back into its box. It was having too much of a good time, squeezing out all that built-up festering anger.

‘Pain? What do you know about pain? The only pain you know is when you break your frigging fingernail opening a tin of caviar.’

Despite the humourless situation, Caro laughed and threw back her head as if addressing the ceiling. ‘What do I know, eh?’

Gaynor stabbed her finger at Caro. ‘You’re the sort who’d win the lottery without buying a bloody ticket.’

‘Have you ever stopped to think, Gaynor, that some of us have had our shit early on?’

‘Shit, you? What, did you fail an A-level and your mother bought you a pony to compensate? That sort of shit?’ Gaynor was laughing hard now. This is what being mad must feel like, she suddenly thought. It was liberating not having a conscience, just hating and spitting.

But Caro had had enough. Ever since Mick had run off with Danira, Gaynor had fermented this absurd resentment against her. She’d even started to feel guilty that she had all the things that Gaynor was missing out on. It was going to end today, she decided.

‘Grow up in a nice house, did you, Gaynor? With a nice loving mum and dad? Food in the cupboard, nice bed to have nice dreamy sleeps in?’

‘Lovely,’ smirked Gaynor. ‘Not by your standards though. I didn’t get foie gras in my lunchbox.’

‘What do you know about me, Gaynor? What do you really know about my life before I met you? I’ll tell you, shall I? You know nothing. You’ve presumed a lot, but you know nothing.’ Caro stared right into Gaynor’s brown eyes. ‘I’m a Bellfield, Gaynor. A fucking Bellfield.’

The name was too big for Gaynor’s head to absorb it in one. It took a while for her brain to compute and then it consigned it to spam.

‘Yeah, right,’ she humphed.

‘Oh, I’m a Bellfield all right. Scum of the earth. Father in prison, hardly knew him. Mother bringing back men at all hours. Try sleeping in a house where you pray that she doesn’t pass out and those men come into your room at night. Then imagine being dragged to a struck-off doctor paid extra to keep his gob shut because my dad would have killed her if he’d found out what she made me do. Knackered my insides. I could never have children of my own after that. When I met Eamonn he was a widower with two little kids. So don’t you tell me about pain, Gaynor Pollock. And don’t you tell me that I don’t deserve some love and security because I’m fucking well overdue.’

Caro exhaled as if it were the breathy equivalent of a full-stop. Gaynor’s mouth was moving, but no sound was coming out. But plenty was coming out of Caro now.

‘You’ve had plenty to say in the past, is that it now? Are you going to fucking shut up?’

Caro sounded like a Bellfield. There wasn’t a trace of her usual refined accent.

‘I had no idea,’ said Gaynor then, numbed by shame.

‘I didn’t want you to have an idea,’ said Caro. ‘I don’t want anyone knowing what shit I came from. It’s not a badge of honour being a Bellfield.’

Gaynor’s head fell into her hands and she sobbed. ‘I am so sorry. I’ve been such a cow. A jealous, nasty, horrible cow.’

‘Yeah, you have,’ said Caro, stepping forwards to put her arms around Gaynor. She felt the hold reciprocated. Gaynor had had an awful year where things just got a bit mad and distorted. A true friend could handle that but sometimes a hard word was the kindest one.

Together they walked out of the toilet and back into their friendship.

Chapter 85

Stel was full of boozy bravado until Linda rounded the corner of her street and she saw Ian’s red car. Then any nerve she had built up toppled like a stack of fog cemented with dust. As she waved Linda off with a smile, inside she was screaming for her friend to turn back and help her. She had to persuade Ian to leave. The fact that she was shaking as she walked up the path because she hadn’t taken her make-up off told her everything that was wrong about this relationship.

Ian didn’t look up as she walked meekly in to her lounge. He was studying something on his phone.

‘Had a good time?’ he asked.

‘Well. It was a funeral,’ she said. She mispronounced it
foo-neral.

‘Had some wine, have we?’ he joked. He sounded normal and with some relief she felt her guard ratchet down a notch.