Chapter 11
11
‘Sorry, I haven’t had a chance to see much of you,’ Jade called as Finn came down the attic stairs later that evening.
‘It’s all right. I know you’re busy.’
She was standing in the open doorway of Ben’s bedroom, and when he reached her he could see that the boy was in bed. By the look of it there was a dog in there, too – although it was hard to tell it was a dog and not a hearth rug until it scrabbled a paw out of the covers.
Jade followed his gaze and smiled.
‘Mickey’s not supposed to be up here, but he’s keeping Ben company until he falls asleep.’
‘So I see,’ Finn said softly, wondering if Ben was missing his mum. ‘Mickey looks more fun than a bedtime story.’
‘I have those too,’ Ben told him, sitting up gleefully. ‘Auntie Jade’s a betterer reader than Mum. We had a long story, didn’t we, Auntie Jade?’
‘Yes and it’s definitely bedtime so I think you should snuggle back down.’ Jade’s voice was gentle and Finn felt the edge of a memory, a long-ago painful memory of his own mother, and the awful, aching emptiness he’d felt when she’d gone. He swallowed. ‘Sweet dreams then, mate,’ he said, stepping past Jade and going downstairs.
He heard her say, ‘Don’t leave the light on too long, sweetheart. I’ll leave this open in case Mickey wants to come down.’
Then she followed Finn downstairs and into the warmth of the little back room. An Ed Sheeran track was playing – so she was a romantic at heart, then – and an open fire was snapping and crackling in the grate.
‘Wow, I haven’t seen one of those for years,’ he murmured, breathing in the scent of woodsmoke and stepping across the room to warm his hands. ‘Dad used to have a real fire when I was small, but then he got a grant from the local authority and had central heating put in.’
‘Not the same, is it?’ she said, looking at him with pleasure and gesturing for him to sit on the chair beside it.
‘Ben’s a nice kiddie. Do you often look after him?’
‘Not as often as I’d like to. Callum’s father’s not well and they’ve gone to help out. His parents have a restaurant in Dundee. Also there’s a chance they might be longer than a week, and they didn’t want him to miss any school. Besides, it’s a pretty long haul for a six-year-old.’
‘Yes,’ Finn murmured, watching her face, which was animated when she talked about Ben. There was so much he wanted to ask her, like why she ran this place all alone and why she didn’t have any children of her own, when she so obviously loved them. It was an odd life for a young, attractive woman.
‘I was brought up round here,’ she said, pre-empting him. ‘My mother owned four hotels. She wanted me to go into business with her – run one of the hotels – but I’m afraid I disappointed her. All I ever wanted was to work with animals. So I persuaded her to let me go to vet school in Bristol. ’
He wondered if she still felt guilty about that; it was never easy to go against your parents’ wishes. He’d never gone against Ray’s, but then despite the fact that Ray wasn’t very good at anything touchy-feely, Finn had always known his father loved him, in his gruff, no-nonsense way. There was something in Jade’s voice that told him she’d had a very different relationship with her mother.
‘I should think it’s very hard work being a vet,’ he prompted, resting his elbows on his knees and leaning forward.
‘Yes.’ There was a hint of sadness in her eyes. ‘But I never got that far. Mum had a stroke, you see, and I came back to look after her. Then she had another stroke – a fatal one this time. It was a huge shock. By the time I’d sorted everything out, I’d realised my life had moved on – I decided not to continue with studying.’
Finn nodded slowly, remembering the first time he’d seen her at the cemetery. She’d been pretty cut up then, a year after she’d lost her mother. There was a part of her that was still grieving. He could see it in her eyes.
‘Was your dad involved in the business as well?’
‘No, Dad left when I was small. I don’t remember him.’
Her face was shadowed now, as though she was looking inside herself, at something she’d rather not see.
‘That must have been tough,’ he said quietly, wondering if he should change the subject. He didn’t want to push her. It was obvious Jade was deeply troubled about something in her past.
Then she turned back to him and said in a voice that was a little too bright, ‘Anyway, Finn, we’re here to talk about you, not me. What’s your background? Do both your parents live in Nottingham?’
Thrown at this swift change of subject, he hesitated. In some ways his background mirrored hers. Only it had been his mother who’d left. Finn could barely remember her. She’ d left when he was six years old and he’d had nightmares about it for years. Ray had provided for him materially, but he’d never been an emotional man. Finn had spent many a childhood illness longing for the touch of his mother’s hand, gentle on his forehead, the scent of her hair as she leaned over him in bed. Now and again he still had nightmares, waking up drenched in sweat and feeling an overwhelming sense of loss.
He coughed. He hated talking about his mother, but he felt obliged to say something.
‘My parents split up when I was young, too. My mum was from Belfast, hence my name, and she went back when they separated. I haven’t seen her since and neither has Dad.’
Jade nodded, and he thought with a stab of irony that it was a shame that the first thing they should find common ground on was painful memories.
‘You don’t have any other relatives in Nottingham? No other ties?’
‘I was living with someone for a while,’ he said, guessing this was what she wanted to know. ‘But things didn’t work out.’
He didn’t elaborate. That was all he planned to tell her about Shona. To say anything else would have been tantamount to telling her what an idiot he was with women.
‘Then I got made redundant at the end of January. I was lucky. I had a reasonable pay-off, and Dad needed someone to sort out the cottage, so I thought I’d take some time out. Plan what to do next with my life. Besides which, I’ve always liked it down here. I used to stay with my grandparents a lot when I was younger.’
There was a small pause and then the lounge door swung open and Mickey appeared with something white and lacy dangling from his mouth. Before either Finn or Jade could move, the dog trotted across to him and deposited what turned out to be a bra in his lap .
‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ Jade was out of her chair, her face aflame with embarrassment. ‘He must have been in the washing basket again. He’s a terrible thief.’
Finn handed the bra to her, feeling almost as embarrassed as she was and deciding he didn’t know her well enough to make some light-hearted remark about women’s underwear. ‘No worries. Er – I’ve a reference here from my previous employer. I can’t give you any references on the house-sharing front, but I’m fully housetrained…’
‘Thanks.’ Jade stuffed the envelope and the bra into the pocket of her fleece without looking at him and he knew she was aware of what he hadn’t said: Despite what your vet may think of me .
She got up and went across the room and proceeded to remove half a dozen items of clothing, mostly socks from what he could see, from the dog basket.
‘You’ll have to keep your door shut, or everything will end up in his basket – or in the garden if you’re unlucky, down some hole he’s dug.’
Finn smiled, relieved they were off the subject of anything too personal. He listened while she outlined the routines of the sanctuary and how she saw him fitting into things.
‘Sounds fine,’ he said, yawning. ‘I guess I’d better turn in if I’m going to be any use to you tomorrow.’
He lay in the unfamiliar room looking at the scattering of stars beyond the skylight and thought about his grandparents’ cottage. It felt odd that it now belonged to new owners. A young couple who’d modernise it and repaint, wiping away all traces of the past.
Finn had salvaged one or two things. A flat cap that had belonged to his granddad and a blue and white silk scarf that had belonged to Gran, both items that held the scents of their previous owners. Finn had held them to his face and breathed them in and then wrapped them away in a box under his bed, hoping that might preserve the scent. He’d also kept an album of old photographs, some of them black and white, stretching back to the sixties. His grandparents’ wedding photo was amongst them.
It wasn’t much for a lifetime of possessions. A life that had been very well lived. But being in Arleston still, even if it was temporarily, made Finn feel closer to them than if he’d said goodbye to the village for good.