A Recipe for Love

Chapter Twenty

Another two days passed with Bella going through the motions. She’d put on proper clothes and let her nan drag her along to an anti-war sewing circle, and a ‘save the swans’ riverside litter pick. She moved around the kitchen with no sense of joy, aware that her nan was watching her intently. ‘Bella darling?’

Her nan was sitting at the tiny kitchen table, sipping a mug of oversweetened tea. ‘What?’

‘I think it’s time we talked about what you’re really doing here.’

‘Nothing. I’m making a snack.’

‘You’re making sad cheese on toast,’ her nan pointed out. ‘Which you also made yesterday and the day before. You’re depressed.’

‘Eating cheese on toast does not mean I’m depressed.’

‘Comfort cheese on toast does. You went and got plastic cheese specially didn’t you?’

‘I’m fine.’ Bella laughed merrily to prove her point, which even she could hear did sound a little bit strange.

‘No. Come and sit down.’ Her nan pulled out the mismatched chair alongside her. ‘What are you running away from?’

‘I’m not running away.’

‘Then why aren’t you still in Scotland with mystery boy?’

‘I told you. That didn’t work out.’

Her grandma narrowed her eyes slightly. ‘And why haven’t I seen your phone in your hand since you got here?’

‘What do you mean?’ She knew exactly what her grandmother meant. Normally when she was back home she was glued to her phone, messaging people to find her next opportunity, scrolling job sites for interesting gigs in interesting places.

‘You know.’

‘Just taking some time out. Like a digital detox.’

‘Bella, you’re avoiding something. Or someone.’

‘I’m not.’ Bella stormed out of the room, marched into her bedroom and found her phone in the bottom of her rucksack. She turned it on in front of her grandma with a flourish. ‘Look. Not ignoring anything.’

‘Good.’

Bella’s skin physically prickled as she waited to see what notifications popped up. Had Adam tried to call her? Had he messaged? Not that it mattered. She wasn’t desperate for him to call. She wasn’t in limbo because she’d run away without a word; every inch of her wasn’t desperate for him to call her back. That wasn’t who she was at all. She’d done her best. Things hadn’t worked out. And now she’d moved on. She wasn’t about to get hung up on what might have been.

She slammed the phone down on the kitchen table. She wasn’t looking at the notifications. She didn’t need to. She wasn’t waiting for, or avoiding, anything. It was just a phone. Her phone trilled. Once, and then twice, and then again and again.

Her grandma raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you going to get that?’

Bella shrugged. ‘I’m sure it’s not urgent.’

‘You can look.’

‘I don’t need to look.’

Her nan raised her hands in a signal of surrender. ‘All right then. Well I’m out to Maya’s for the meditation circle this evening. I’ll be back about nine. Unless you want to come.’

Maya was one of nan’s longest standing friends and a lynchpin of their local social circle. Normally Bella would go along and let everyone coo over where she’d been most recently and where she was heading next. She shook her head. ‘I’m fine here.’

She waited with a level of self-control worthy of a much better woman until she heard the click of the Yale lock as her grandma closed the front door behind her, before she picked up her phone. The waiting proved, didn’t it, that she was genuinely chilled about who might have called or messaged.

She swiped away a couple of unused app notifications and a demand that she updated a whole load of other stuff and concentrated on the list of messages and missed calls. Six missed calls. Three from Darcy Lowbridge. Two from Flinty. And one from Veronica. Nothing from Adam. Not that she cared. That was over. Better for everyone that he didn’t get in touch.

She opened her messages. Jill was at the top of the list. Six new messages. Bella read them quickly backwards from the most recent.

Today: Call me?

One day ago: Don’t want to keep bothering you, but

are you OK? Don’t want to intrude but hope you’re all right. Let me know

if you need to chat.

One day ago: Missing you here. Hope you’ll be back

soon. The prayer group missed your cakes!

Two days ago: Just been up to Lowbridge to deliver

the study books for prayer group. It’s not the same without you. I’m

sure everyone misses you.

Two days ago: Just checking in. Hope you’re all

right xxx

Three days ago: You’re barely on the train and I’m

already texting. Hope you’re OK. Keep in touch and let me know if you

need ANYTHING!!!!

Jill was a sweetheart, obviously, and it was kind of her to say that everyone missed her, but she was a bloody vicar. She had to be kind didn’t she? It was basically part of her job description. And not everyone had tried to get in touch with her.

She flicked down to the next message from an unknown number.

One day ago: Hi. This is Cath from the cookery

school. Hope you don’t mind but Jill gave me your number. Me and Claire

had great fun doing trial day. Darcy said the evening course was paused

for a bit. I’m really sorry to hear that. I wanted to talk to you about

something you said you might do for lads who know nothing about cooking.

I really want to send my two boys – well they’re 19 and 22 but still

boys to me! They can barely light the hob. You would work wonders. See

you soon x

Flinty next.

Today: Where are you? Seriously, people need you

here. You can’t just bugger off.

One day ago: Where are you?

Two days ago: Where are you?

Three days ago: Where are you?

Well that was direct. The last unread message was from Pavel. That one took a second to open. It was a picture message of Nina grinning at a massive chocolate cake. Bella scrolled down to the caption.

Tried your recipe again without the blood and fire and it turned out

great. Mum loved her cake. Thank you!

Bella half-smiled at Nina’s beaming expression. Next she had to bite the bullet and listen to her voicemails. Only two new messages. The first was from Darcy. ‘Hi Bella. It’s Darcy.’ She giggled tinnily on the recording. ‘I mean you know that, don’t you? I saw you put my number in your phone, so it’ll have said who called you. Or will it? When you get a voicemail does it just say the number? I’m not sure. Anyway it’s Darcy. Which you definitely know by now. Oh my goodness. Listen to me! Anyway I know you were a bit shocked when Adam said he was selling, and well we all were, and I know how much work you put in, and what it’s like when you’re not from a place like this at all, and you’re trying so hard to fit in and make it work, so we all understand if you felt a bit overwhelmed and needed to get away. But we’re worried about you. And… well Adam is…’ She stopped. ‘We’re all worried about you. Just let us know you’re OK sweetie. OK?’

Adam was what? Clearly not sufficiently devastated at her disappearance that he could be bothered to call her himself. Adam was obviously fine. Better, if anything, without her.

Second new message. ‘Bella, it’s Veronica. I don’t know what you’re playing at but it’s frankly ridiculous. Phone me back.’

Bella deleted the message. Veronica was not the boss of her. She turned her phone face down on the bed, because she wanted to, not at all out of some strange feeling that Veronica was in the phone and might somehow rise up out of it and tell her off for not following instructions.

Adam spent the rest of the day in the garden. He cut back weeds, started harvesting produce that was at risk of turning overripe. He tied up the tomatoes and the peas and beans. It was after ten when the light finally began to turn hazy and he stepped back to assess what he’d achieved. There was still work to do, lots and lots of work, but that was always true in a garden. One of his father’s great pieces of wisdom was to tell him that a garden was never finished. It was a living breathing thing that you merely took care of and tended. There’d always be more to do tomorrow.

He was wheeling a final barrow over to the compost pile when his grandmother came into the garden. Adam braced for the lecture on why he was wasting his time out here when there were things to be done. Instead she sat silently on the old bench next to the gate and simply waited for him to join her.

‘I’m surprised you haven’t been out here more since you came back.’

‘I couldn’t face it.’

‘And now you can.’ Veronica nodded. ‘Time changes things, doesn’t it?’

He knew where this was going. ‘You think time will change how I feel about selling Lowbridge.’

‘Perhaps.’ She brushed an imaginary piece of lint off her trouser leg. ‘I didn’t say time changes everything though, did I? I suppose it all depends how you really feel about this place. And how Miss Smith really feels.’

He wished that question was still relevant. ‘I don’t think Bella’s coming back.’

‘Have you asked her?’

She’d been very clear how much he’d let her down already. ‘No.’

‘Then shall we not rush to conclusions? Time, as I say, can change a lot of things.’

Veronica in reflective mood was unnerving. ‘I thought you’d be furious with me.’

‘I was.’

‘And now?’

‘I’m mostly cross with myself.’

‘Why?’

‘I could see how hard all this could be for Miss Smith. I didn’t think about how it might be for you. One assumes that those who were born to this somehow know how to manage it all.’

Adam almost laughed. ‘I should though, shouldn’t I?’

‘I think coming here is different for everybody, but then we can’t really avoid putting our own experience onto everyone else. For Darcy, you see, Lowbridge was an escape. For your mother, it was a trap. And for your father it was a duty, which he took very seriously, but who am I to say that he wouldn’t have been happy, happier even, somewhere else entirely?’

Adam couldn’t picture that. His father, in Adam’s memory, had been the epitome of the idea that the laird and the place were all part of the same whole. ‘What is it for you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What is Lowbridge for you?’ he asked again. ‘Escape or trap?’

‘Oh. I…’ She shook her head, and Adam thought for a moment she was going to demur, briskly change the subject and move on. ‘Perhaps both,’ she said. ‘You know that I grew up in the village.’

Adam nodded. He could remember being taken to see Great-Granny Hetherington, Veronica’s mother, when he was a tiny child.

‘So in that sense I didn’t move very far at all, but it was still a different world. I was very young and I wanted…’ She shook her head. ‘I wanted certain things that I think would have broken my mother’s heart, so accepting your grandfather’s proposal felt like a way out.’

Adam stared straight ahead, not meeting his grandmother’s eye. ‘Did you regret it?’

‘Regret is a waste of time. And I had your father and then he had you and I loved being involved in running the estate and planning events, but one wouldn’t be human if one didn’t wonder about the road not travelled.’

‘What should I do?’

She shook her head. ‘I can’t tell you what to do.’

This time Adam did laugh. ‘When did that start?’

His grandmother shot him a look.

Adam watched Dipper’s progress around the garden for a moment. She darted up and down the rows, stopping to sniff and scuffle out interesting scents here and there, before settling in front of the door to his father’s potting shed. ‘She’s still looking for him everywhere.’

Veronica followed his gaze. ‘Perhaps she is. Perhaps she’ll find him, or enough of the memory of him to carry on.’

‘Do you miss him?’

His grandmother shook her head. ‘Missing him isn’t the right word. It’s not enough. I know I can be a little…’ She glanced at her grandson. ‘Well, anyway. He was still a child to me. I don’t quite know who I am here without him.’

‘You never seem like you’re struggling.’

‘One does what one must to keep going.’

Dipper padded away from the shed and trotted over to their bench. Adam ran his hand over her back. ‘What if I’m not good enough?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I can’t stop thinking that this place isn’t right for me.’ That wasn’t it. It was so close, but it wasn’t it at all. ‘That I’m not right for this place,’ he corrected. ‘How do you know?’

She reached over and took his hand. Adam froze slightly. His grandmother had never been one for hugs or passing touches. She turned his hand over in hers and traced a fingertip over his dirty soil-laden nails. ‘I think you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.’

‘I can’t just be a gardener here.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘Because I have to be the laird.’

Her face softened. ‘Actually I really shan’t tell you what to do this time.’

‘Really?’

‘I am sorry to disappoint. I will say, though, that when I was young I felt as though I had a very stark choice. One path or the other. Black or white. But time does change things. The world is different now. Things that were unthinkable when I was a girl are commonplace. Don’t get yourself into a trap because you think things have to be wholly one thing or the other.’

‘What will you do if I do sell?’

Veronica let out a long sigh. ‘I think I shall do the same thing either way.’

That made no sense. ‘What?’

‘I have had a good life here. I raised my son, but he’s gone now.’ She shook her head slightly as if willing away tears. ‘I’m hoping it’s not too late for me to take a detour along that other road.’ His grandmother patted his hand. ‘I’ll let you get on.’

Dipper raised her head to watch Veronica go and then settled herself back down at the Laird’s feet.

Bella didn’t cry. She never cried. It was a point of pride, and occasionally disbelief when she told new friends in bars in far-flung places.

But she was crying now. Big violent sobs were shaking her whole body and she had no idea why. She’d made the right decision. She’d reached the end of the road in Lowbridge and it was time to go. There was no point dwelling on any of it, and dwelling on things was not at all Bella’s way, and yet the tears were falling down her face in a vast and unstoppable flood.

‘I knew you weren’t all right.’ Her grandma was standing in the doorway to Bella’s room.

‘I thought you were out.’

‘I was. Now I’m back.’

‘You’re early.’

Her nan shook her head. ‘Actually I’m late.’

Bella checked the time. Half past nine. That couldn’t be right. She couldn’t have been sitting here with tears streaming all evening.

‘What happened up in Scotland, love?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Bollocks.’ Her nan sat down on the bed next to her. ‘Your aura’s all squiffy and you’re lying to me. You never lie to me.’

Her nan always knew.

‘You told me the first time you got high and the first time you got laid, and trust me, that was not a story any grandmother needs to hear. So what aren’t you telling me now?’

‘There’s nothing to tell.’

‘Humour me.’

Bella wiped her nose on the back of her sleeve. ‘Everything got messed up, and things had run their course. So I came home.’

‘What’s messed up?’

She might as well tell her. There was no point keeping it herself, but where could she even start? ‘It’s too hard to explain.’

‘Well we’re not in any hurry. You can take your time.’

Bella took a deep breath in. Her nan wasn’t going to let her get away with breezing over the details. ‘So I met this guy in Spain…’

One hour, two glasses of wine, and eleven exclamations of ‘An actual castle?’ later, Bella had got past the point where she’d set about saving the fortunes of the Lowbridge estate, and up to the point where the cookery school was past its rather eventful trial day and starting regular classes, and where the castle was bustling with community groups and meetings. That’s where Bella stopped.

Her nan refilled both their glasses. ‘Go on.’

‘It’s stupid.’

‘I said, go on.’

‘I… I was starting to feel like I could make a home there.’ Bella waited for her nan’s inevitable laughter.

‘What’s stupid about that?’

‘Seriously? Settling down. Making a home. It’s not exactly our style is it? You raised me to be an adventurer.’

‘Adventure doesn’t have to mean moving around the whole time. We had plenty of adventures right here.’

‘I guess.’

‘And I have a home.’ Her nan smiled slightly tipsily. ‘You, darling, are my home.’

Bella rolled her eyes.

‘I’m serious! Anyway, it sounds like everything was going marvellously. What on earth are you doing back here?’

‘It turned out,’ Bella’s tone hardened as she explained, ‘that Adam didn’t want any of that. He walked in one day and announced that he was selling the whole place.’

Her nan frowned. ‘And he hadn’t talked to you about it?’

Bella shook her head.

‘I am so sorry. I can’t imagine how much that would have hurt.’

It had. It had hurt so much.

‘And it was a complete shock?’

‘Well I knew he’d had an offer, but I never thought he’d take it.’ Bella sipped her wine. ‘I thought he was happy.’

Her nan took a long sip of wine. ‘Well, not perfectly happy I wouldn’t think.’

‘Why not?’ Adam had every reason to be happy. He had a castle. He was an actual baron. He said he loved Bella and she was working so hard to make everything work.

‘Well his father just died, for one. And you said his business partner in Edinburgh needed him back there.’

‘Well yeah, but…’

‘What happened to make him actually decide?’

‘I don’t know.’ It had all been so out of the blue.

‘You didn’t ask?’

‘I…’ Had she asked? ‘Well his mum turned up. I think Veronica thought the whole thing was her fault.’

‘Is he close to his mum?’

‘I don’t think he’d seen her since he was a kid.’

Bella’s nan let out a long sharp breath. ‘I love you darling.’

‘I know.’

‘I’m going to say some things now that you might not want to hear.’

Bella steeled herself. This was why she hadn’t talked to her nan. It was because, although she knew she’d get sympathy and she knew she’d get love, she would always also get truth.

‘Well, his father died, he gave up his whole life to move back home, he’s grieving, trying to adapt to this whole new role, and then the mother he hasn’t seen for decades shows up out of nowhere and he freaks out and his fiancée leaves him.’

‘That’s not what happened.’

Her nan’s voice was soft. ‘Which bit did I get wrong?’

Bella went over the steps her grandmother had laid out. ‘Well, it’s not so much wrong as…’

‘As not the way you see it, which is fine. It doesn’t mean you’re wrong either, but you promised this lad you were going to be part of his life.’

‘Which means he should have talked to me before he decided.’

Her nan nodded. ‘Of course he should. Should you have talked to him before you did a bunk though?’

That was different. ‘He made this huge decision without mentioning it to me. It was like none of what I’d been doing mattered to him.’

‘And that sent you fleeing down here with your tail between your legs.’

‘And why’s that a surprise? It’s what I do, isn’t it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I run away when stuff gets tricky don’t I? Never stay in one place for too long. Pick up and ship out as soon as stuff gets hard.’ Bella took a deep swig of wine. ‘Like mother, like daughter.’

Her grandma shook her head. ‘Is that what you think?’

‘Well if the cap fits…’

‘You are nothing like your mother. Your mother is an addict. Simple as. When she’s clean she’s great. She loves you. Loves us both. When she’s using she’s lost. I nearly broke my own heart trying to fix that and I only stopped when something more important came along.’

‘What?’

‘You. I couldn’t make things right for your mam, but I could take care of the only thing, apart from the drugs, that she really loved. Looking after you was the only thing I could do for her, and it was easy. I fell in love with you the second I saw you.’

Bella let her nan squeeze her hand. It didn’t change anything though. ‘I’m still like her in the running away though.’

‘You don’t run away from things.’

‘I do.’ Of course Bella did. ‘I never stay in one spot.’

‘Because you’re running towards something.’

What? ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well you went to Spain cos you were offered a job there. You went to Brazil because you met people who invited you to that festival. You went to Scotland because you…’ Nan hesitated. ‘Because you fell in love?’

Bella could see her knuckles whitening from her grip on the glass. ‘But it didn’t work out.’

‘Are you sure you gave it a chance?’

That wasn’t fair. ‘I did everything I could. Adam…’ This was the thing that had sent her away, wasn’t it? ‘Adam gave up on us.’

‘Did he?’

‘He chucked everything we were doing away.’

‘And that was awful. Of course he should have talked to you.’ Her grandma stroked Bella’s hand. ‘Grief can take people differently though.’

‘He didn’t seem like he was grieving that much.’

‘Unless he’s made of stone I promise you he was, and if he wasn’t letting it out then it was sitting, waiting somewhere in here.’ Her nan pressed a hand to her own chest.

‘But if he really loved me that should have been enough.’

‘That’s not how grief works, darling. I mean it must have been an insane couple of months for him. He lost his father, and then his mother turning up, and suddenly being responsible for this whole estate and everything.’

‘I tried so hard.’

‘And then you ran away.’

‘I couldn’t make it work.’

‘Look.’ Her nan stood up and got a second bottle of wine from the fridge. ‘I can’t tell you what to do. If you really think this thing is over and you’d rather walk away that’s your decision.’

‘Yeah. It is.’

‘But I am going to make you hear me out. You told this chap you were going to marry him.’

‘It was a holiday romance.’

‘Shhh.’ Her grandma snapped her fingers together in a ‘button it sunshine’ gesture. ‘I’m not done. You told him you were going to marry him. That’s a commitment. And that means that it’s not about trying to make it work. It’s about dealing with whatever happens regardless of whether it works out like you pictured it or not.’

Bella knew better than to talk back to her nan, but she’d had enough of being lectured from Veronica. ‘I’m not taking romance advice from you,’ she muttered.

‘Very wise.’ Her nan nodded. ‘But I’m not talking about romance. I’m talking about a commitment. Like I made to you.’ She reached out and touched Bella’s cheek. ‘I was fifty when your mam first left you with me. I wasn’t looking to raise another baby, but I loved you with every bit of me and I committed to making it work, to being the person who would never leave you struggling. That was my promise. When you said yes to this posh lad’s proposal, that was yours. If you’d actually gone down the aisle with him you’d have signed up to sickness and health and better or worse, wouldn’t you?’

‘I guess.’

‘And he does one, admittedly huge, screwed-up thing a few weeks after he’s lost his dad and you decide he’s given up on you.’

‘He didn’t even talk to me about it.’

‘I hear that.’ Bella’s nan narrowed her eyes. ‘What else is there?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Really?’

Well, there was the thing that had been sitting deep in Bella’s gut since the very moment she walked away from Lowbridge. Bella closed her eyes.

‘Tell me.’

‘I think maybe I got caught up in the estate and the village and all the things we could do.’

‘And?’

‘And, before I went he kind of said I was more in love with Lowbridge than with him.’

Her grandmother nodded. ‘And was he right?’

‘No.’ The certainty of Bella’s answer crystallised something inside her. ‘No. I love him.’

‘What about him?’

‘I love how good he is with his hands.’

Her nan shook her head. ‘I don’t think I need those sorts of details.’

‘No. I mean, he’s practical. He’s a gardener, and he can just sort of look at a plant or a piece of land and know what it needs. He nurtures things.’ Bella shook her head. ‘That sounds silly.’

‘Not at all.’

‘And he thinks about things. Too much probably, but he doesn’t just rush in. He weighs things and he worries about letting people down.’

Her grandmother placed her hand over Bella’s. ‘It sounds as though deciding to sell would have been really difficult for someone like that.’

‘That’s what I don’t understand.’

‘So maybe if you talked to him?’

‘You think I should go back.’

‘I think that’s up to you.’ She paused. ‘What was the hardest thing when your mam used to disappear when you were a kid?’

‘Not knowing. Like when she was here I never knew how long she’d stay and then when she went I never knew if it was for good this time.’

Her grandmother didn’t respond.

‘This isn’t the same.’

‘No, but you have a chance to at least give him some closure. And you too. And then you can see what you want to run towards rather than turning into someone who runs away.’ She sat back. ‘Which is not who I raised you to be, young lady.’