Your Roots Are Showing (15 page)

“Right. Next time don’t eat for at least two hours before we go. What did you have, anyway?” Tessa was jogging on the spot in a thoroughly ostentatious fashion, like some kind of vindictive games mistress.

Lizzie dropped her head and crossed her fingers.

“Bread and cheese.”

“Doesn’t sound like much, but remember, dairy’s not a good choice before you run. No salad? No fruit?”

“Oh . . . and an orange.” Okay, a chocolate orange, but Tessa didn’t need to know every last little detail.

“Good. And I hope you’ve been drinking lots of water. Right, let’s go. Best just to run through the pain.”

Lizzie straightened up gingerly. “Ouch! But surely it’s time to go back now? First time out — mustn’t overdo it.”

“Lizzie, we haven’t even reached the bottom of the
lane
. The
house
is still in sight. Come on, let’s at least get onto the main road. You’ll thank me later.”

“Honestly, Tessa, I don’t think I like this. I’m not cut out for it.”

“Shut
up
, Liz, and get running. Remember, you need the endorphins to jump you out of the depression. All part of the campaign! Save your breath for
breathing
.”

Tessa began to jog away toward the end of the lane. With an enormous sigh, Lizzie gritted her teeth and shuffled after her.

“Run through the pain,” she whispered to herself, and if she’d had any spare breath at all, she would have laughed out loud. Derisively, of course, not mirthfully. Right now, she was “running through the pain” every minute of her life, just getting herself out of bed and living through each James-less day. Did she really need to be running through some completely gratuitous pain as a
hobby
?

Still, at least relentless physical pain made a change from the relentless mental stuff.

Running and walking by turn, they inched their way through the most excruciating half hour Lizzie had endured since the birth of the twins. They didn’t cover an awful lot of physical ground — Back Lane was just around the corner when they crossed the main road and began working their way homeward — but by the time Lizzie reached the safe haven of her cottage again, she knew she had to knock this whole running scheme on the head before Tessa got completely carried away.

Lizzie sat on the steps dry heaving while Tessa did a stretching exercise that involved wedging the ball of one foot on the edge of the step and then ramming the heel downwards. “You really should be stretching yourself, Liz,” Tessa remarked. “You’ll be sore tomorrow if you don’t. Got to move that lactic acid around.”

“I’ll be sore tomorrow, whatever I do. Are you finished? Can we
please
go in and get some water now?”

Moments later they stood in the kitchen drinking tap water from bright red plastic mugs.

“So that’s it, then,” Lizzie said after her third cupful. She slammed the mug down on the counter. Tessa’s eyebrow twitched. Lizzie never slammed things. “My first and last run. That’s my final word and I don’t want to talk about it.”

That evening, over at the barn, Lizzie took a sip of bitter green tea and grimaced. “Gosh, this stuff is revolting. And you say it’s supposed to work wonders?”

Ingrid Hatter took a swig of her own brew and nodded sagely. “Absolute wonders. Stops your stomach from absorbing the fat in food. Another piece?” She held up a heavy plate of fudge. Lizzie did a quick scan and selected the largest chunk. The sugar exploded on her tongue and she sank back blissfully in Ingrid’s battered kitchen chair.

“So, have you had a good day with the little people out from underfoot?”

Lizzie shrugged. “So-so.” She didn’t feel the need to go into detail.

“Did you manage to get through all the stuff you wanted to do?”

Again, Lizzie shrugged. “Kind of.” Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to come down to the barn after all.

“It must have been jolly awful to see your husband this morning,” Ingrid remarked out of the blue. “I thought you looked quite shaken when I saw you sitting there on the doorstep.”

The fudge seemed to catch in Lizzie’s throat. She began to cough. Ingrid stood up and patted her on the back. “Have a sip of tea,” she advised.

Lizzie took a gulp and coughed a bit more.

“It . . . it wasn’t so bad,” she said at last. “It was fine, really. It’s not as if I haven’t seen him at all since . . . since we split up. He came to the house a few times in Laingtree to take the twins out. No, I’m quite used to seeing him. It really doesn’t upset me.”

“No, of course not. Why would it? Here, have a tissue. Now . . . do you have any plans for tomorrow?” Ingrid was shamelessly nosey. Lizzie wondered why she couldn’t help liking her, nonetheless.

“Shopping. And some gardening, I expect, if it doesn’t rain. I want to spray weed killer around the shed.” Lizzie blew her nose.

“Any chance you’d come and help me with a car boot sale in Tonbridge? Normally Sarah gives me a hand, but she’s staying over with a friend tonight.”

Sarah was the teenage girl with braces and a way with children. Ingrid’s husband, Clive, was away flying a jet to Johannesburg. He seemed to be away more often than not.

“Gosh, I’d really like to, but I promised myself a lovely morning at the mall. Retail therapy. Maybe even a manicure and a pedicure.” Lizzie blushed at the feebleness of her excuse, but really! She could think of nothing more dismal than a morning at a car boot sale in Tonbridge.

“Righto. Just as long as you’re not at loose ends. Don’t like to think of you mooning around that house all by yourself.”

Lizzie suppressed a giggle at Ingrid’s turn of phrase.

“Ingrid, don’t worry. I’ll be fine, I promise.” She gave an enormous yawn, partly as a way to ease herself out of Ingrid’s kitchen, partly because she felt bone weary. “Anyway, I’d better get going now. I’ve got to . . . clean out the children’s toy boxes while they’re away. They never let me throw away all that plastic rubbish from the fast-food places.”

“Golly, it’s all go with you, isn’t it? Another piece of fudge for the road?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” said Lizzie. She chose a big one.

“ Toodle-oo, then. And the offer still stands if you find yourself at loose ends in the morning . . .”

But Lizzie didn’t find herself at loose ends in the morning. She went to bed early and woke up late feeling stiff but strangely rested, and decided that she owed it to Ingrid to take herself off to Bluewater for some serious self-indulgence.

She didn’t like shopping for herself anymore — the lighting in change rooms was just too brutal. But she could, at least, shop for the house. Back Lane Cottage — a blank canvas, if ever there was one — opened whole new shopping vistas.

She’d never been able to buy much for their house in Gloucestershire. You didn’t just go out and pick up a few priceless antiques and an original oil painting or two on your local High Street. When she’d walked into Mill House as a bride, the place had been fully decorated, a lovely fait accompli — not something to be mucked around with by an amateur like herself.

James had tackled the redesign of the original house as one of his earliest projects, possibly before he’d even started shaving. The risk his parents had taken in giving him such leeway had been richly rewarded. He could so easily have destroyed the place’s worth by tampering with its structure, but instead he’d added significant value. On its completion, Mill House had been rented out as a luxurious Cotswolds holiday cottage.

As a graduation present, James’s parents had sold him Mill House for pennies on the pound. For years, the house had been a nice little earner for James, ensuring that even as a junior partner at his first job with a firm of architects, he’d been a man of independent means. With Mill House as security, he’d been able to wangle enough money from the bank to start his own architectural firm before he was thirty.

It was a charming house, but Lizzie had never quite shaken the feeling that she herself was a permanent houseguest there. Even after she’d emptied the spare bedroom of its four-poster bed, painted it yellow, and filled it with nursery furniture, she still hadn’t felt as if the place really belonged to her.

But Back Lane Cottage — awkward, plain, and colorless — was a place she knew she could put her stamp on. To that end, she bought a tasseled table runner in jewel tones, a toffee-colored chenille throw, a big, lined wicker basket monogrammed
Laundry
, some paper-and-bead lamp shades, and a bright, flower-shaped rug for the children’s room. She also bought a vase and three bunches of tulips.

She hurried home with her purchases and began working on the house feverishly. She knew you could never undo a person’s first impression of something, but she didn’t want James to think she’d rented a complete dump.

She vacuumed the murky carpets, mopped the kitchen floor, opened all the windows, hung lamp shades over naked lightbulbs, draped the throw over the sofa, arranged the tulips on the dining room windowsill, spread the runner on the fold-up table, and chucked all the laundry into the lovely new basket. Then she picked up and tidied away the children’s clutter before arranging the new rug between their mattresses.

After an unusually virtuous lunch — an apple and scrambled eggs on toast — she went out into the gray but mild afternoon and began her pesticide campaign against the nettles.

Working in the garden made her think of Bruno. She wondered idly what he was doing with himself this dull Sunday afternoon, and had half a mind to call him up and ask him to help with the spraying, or possibly to get started on the exterior tap he’d promised to install. But somehow she couldn’t do it — not today, when she was expecting James in the early evening. It wasn’t that she felt guilty about her friendship with Bruno. It was just that it would be very awkward if he were there when James turned up.

After Lizzie had emptied three bottles of poison onto the weeds she stopped for a breather. By now the sun had broken through and the day had turned almost hot. On an impulse, she went inside and unearthed an old bikini from her pile of clothes. She must have brought it from Mill House by mistake. She hadn’t worn it in years, but she was still able to fit most of her chest into its faded purple supportive cups. The effect was probably a bit indecent, but it didn’t matter because there was nobody around to see. Gathering a blanket, a pillow, and a magazine, she went out and settled down in the sun. She’d give herself about twenty minutes just to relax, then go in and get cleaned up.

She decided that she’d offer James a cup of coffee to wake him up for the long drive home. Really, it was high time they started acting more naturally around each other. It would do the children good to see them sit down together and have, if not a cozy chat, at least a civilized conversation — one in which she hoped the word “divorce” wouldn’t figure.

The glare of the pages began to dazzle Lizzie. She closed her eyes and became deeply immersed in a relaxation exercise she remembered from years ago, when she used to go to an aerobics class. The best part of that whole class had been the bit at the end, when you were allowed to lie on a mat and listen to dreamy music while squeezing and releasing various bits of your anatomy.

She was squeezing and releasing her left buttock when a shadow fell over her.

She opened one eye. At first, blinded by the sun, she could see only a dark shape. As the silhouette came into focus, she realized it had curls.

“Bruno?” She sat bolt upright, hands flying protectively to her chest. “For heaven’s sake, what are you
doing
here?”

He held up a box of tools. “It’s the perfect day to put in that tap.”

Before Lizzie could remonstrate, her eye was caught by a flurry of activity in the bed where she planned to plant a few carrots and peas. Bruno’s infernal collie, noticing the newly turned soil, had taken it upon herself to excavate still further. The animal’s front legs whirred in a blur of movement as she threw out a cloud of dirt behind her.

Following Lizzie’s eyes, Bruno put his fingers to his lips and gave an ear-splitting whistle. The dog stopped digging immediately and came bounding over, snout covered in black earth, tail slapping foolishly from side to side.

“Stupid bloody dog,” Bruno muttered fondly. “Sorry about that, Lizzie. Anyway, you just carry on with your sun worship and I’ll get started on the tap. We said the corner near the oil tank, didn’t we?”

Lizzie, her hands still crossed over her chest as if she’d been caught naked, began shaking her head adamantly. “Not a good idea, Bruno. Not a good idea at all. Look, it’s very kind of you to come out on a Sunday and offer to do this, but I just can’t have it. You’ve got to take Madge and go home, please.”

Bruno frowned and set down his toolbox. “Go home? Don’t be silly, Lizzie. I’m here now; I might as well stay and do the work. I’ve gone out and bought all the bits too. Let’s just get it done so you can water your garden like a normal person insead of lugging around watering cans. I see you haven’t watered the violas today, and no wonder.”

Lizzie stood up, draping the blanket around her shoulders like an enormous scarf. “No, no, I can’t have you here today. You see . . . you see, my husband will be over later on. Bringing the kids back.”

She held his eye for a long moment. As comprehension dawned, his lip twitched slightly. “Ah,” he said. “I see. Awfully compromising if he arrived to find a strange man fitting a tap in your garden. Practically the same as being caught
in flagrante
, in many circles.”

Lizzie went pink. “Well, you must admit, he’d probably think it a
bit
odd,” she said defensively. “I couldn’t pass you off as some sort of contractor either, because everybody knows they don’t work on Sundays.”

“What time is he coming? This husband?”

Lizzie shrugged. “Six or seven. It’s a long drive.”

“Look, it’s not even four yet. This is a one-hour job. I’ll be out of here long before he’s off the motorway.”

Lizzie looked at him doubtfully. On the one hand, she’d give anything to shoo him away so that she could compose herself for her next encounter with James. On the other hand, it was going to be a long, dull afternoon unless she had some sort of distraction. Bruno and Madge were a fairly sizable distraction.