Chapter 21
‘Ooh, Mum, it’s really posh, like Ruby’s house.’ Lola’s eyes widened. ‘Lucky Sorrel living here. I wish—’
‘Stop right there, young lady. Be thankful for what you have.’
‘Well, I’d like to have a house like this. Like Ruby…’
Lola broke off as the huge front door opened to us.
‘Ah, the hockey player.’ George Sattar for some reason was at Kamran’s place.
I supposed I should now say my mum’s place.
My mum and Sorrel’s place. I felt the sharp pain of being left behind once more.
‘Have you taken advantage of those gym passes yet, Jess?’
‘On my list of jobs to do,’ I shouted as he started to move back into the house. ‘And it’s Jessica…’
‘What is?’
‘My name.’
‘Oh, OK, Jess-i-ca.’ He grinned back at me. ‘Now, I can recommend a personal trainer for you.’
‘I’m sure you can.’ I flashed an on-off smile I didn’t feel. Yes, you full-of-yourself tosser, and I can recommend a change of personality for you, I added silently as Lola shot off into the house in search of Sorrel and the much talked about suite of rooms. I followed in after her.
Sorrel was in her new bedroom, her eyes slightly red, Mum and Robyn with coffee, tissues and words of love and comfort attempting to mop her up.
‘Oh, sweetheart, are you OK?’ I swept her up into a hug, missing her already. This was my little sister, for heaven’s sake. The little sister I’d helped bring up when Mum had been too ill to do just that.
‘I’m fine, I’m fine! It will be fine.’ Sorrel blew her nose loudly.
‘Of course it will.’ Mum, Robyn and I spoke as one.
‘It’s just… it’s just I’ll miss you all. You’re my family. You know – all I’ve got.’
‘Of course we are,’ Robyn said, wiping a tear herself. ‘But we’re not going anywhere. We’re here, back home, ready to welcome you back whenever you want to come back. Which, I’d bet any money, you won’t want.’
‘But it’s not really home now, is it? I mean, you’re down in the Dower cottage, Robyn, and Mum will be here, Dean in our house…’
‘I’m still in my cottage, Sorrel.’ I said the words thinking what an awfully unadventurous person I really must be to have moved only into the adjoining cottage from the one I’d been born and brought up in.
‘Yes, well, good. Good. That’s good.’ Sorrel sniffed unattractively. ‘At least you’ll be there, Jess, when I want to come home.’ She pushed the tissue up her sleeve and tried to smile.
‘Huuff.’ Lola made a derogatory noise as she joined us after being waylaid by Kamran. ‘Why would you want to be back down home when you can be here? And in London? I’ve never been to London. My friend Ruby has a room like this. Can I look round? Can I walk into your walk-in wardrobe?’
‘Just think back to this time last year, Sorrel.’ I smiled, elbowing Lola to shut her up – this damned new friend of my daughter’s was getting right up my nose. ‘You hated us all.’
‘I’m sorry.’ More tears and the tissue pulled back down from Sorrel’s sleeve. ‘I didn’t mean to put you all through that. It was just…’
‘Just what?’ Lola leaned in nosily. ‘What were you doing you shouldn’t, Sorrel?’
‘Lola,’ Mum said, ‘I think Kamran could do with some more help in the kitchen with the croissants. Off you go.’
‘But I’m listening. What did you do, Sorrel…?’
‘Go!’ I pushed Lola towards the bedroom door. ‘Has Jayden gone?’ I asked, once I was sure Lola had left. ‘Where did he stay after lunch on Sunday?’
‘He came back with Fabian and me,’ Robyn said. ‘He was heading off to London early the next morning. He’s often in London, Sorrel,’ she went on. ‘He’ll take you out sometimes.’
‘That’ll be a first.’ Sorrel looked surprised.
‘Well, he did with me.’ Robyn smiled. ‘When I was there.’
‘You were always the favourite,’ I said.
‘More accepting, I think,’ Robyn returned. ‘I wasn’t always having a go at him, like you.’
‘I think he’s beginning to realise how cavalier he’s been with us all,’ Mum said. ‘Realises, at last, what he’s got and what he’s missed in not being there all the time you three girls were growing up.’
She trailed off as Kamran put his head round the bedroom door. ‘Just less than an hour?’ he said. ‘Then we need to get off. Got everything packed, Sorrel? I’ll take it down to the car for you.’
‘Joel hasn’t come has he, Kamran?’ Sorrel looked hopeful. ‘I mean, I know he probably won’t, but you know…?’ She walked over to the bedroom window, gazing down at the plethora of cars below.
‘I had a phone call from Andy this morning,’ I said as Kamran took hold of Sorrel’s cases and went back downstairs.
‘Andy?’ The other three turned.
‘Joel’s support worker. I’ve agreed that he can move in as soon as possible.’
‘Who? This Andy?’
‘No! Joel. Just until the end of term so that he can do his GCSEs and get involved in Robyn’s production…’
‘What!’ Lola had come back upstairs. ‘No! I don’t want anyone else moving in now that you’ve made Dad move out. In the bathroom, using my special shampoo as shower gel, eating all the Weetabix…’
‘You were happy for your dad to move back in, Lola,’ Robyn said mildly.
‘Yes,’ I put in, grateful to have some backup. ‘And he was always in the bathroom, using all the hot water, titivating, nicking everyone’s shampoo!’
‘That’s different. It’s Dad’s house. I don’t want to have to share with a boy…
Oh, is that why you’ve moved my things from the box room?
I wanted Ruby to come and stay. She can’t, now we’ve got a…
a… someone who’s in trouble with the police.
Her dad will never let her come to stay if he knows that. ’ Lola’s face was thunder.
‘Everyone deserves a second chance, Lola,’ Mum said, patting Lola’s arm, as she continued to look mutinous. ‘Is breakfast ready, darling?’
‘Listen, Sorrel, I told Andy to bring Joel over to my place with all his things and, if he’d time, to drive up here for an hour first.’ I looked at my watch. ‘Not sure he’s going to make it.’
‘They’re just ten minutes away,’ Sorrel said, a big smile on her face, checking her phone. ‘They should be able to be here before we set off.’
‘George is here,’ I said to Robyn as we walked into the kitchen. ‘For some reason.’
‘Oh, is he?’ Robyn pulled a face. ‘I feel really torn. The thing is, I rather like him now.’
‘Do you? Why?’
‘He’s actually really interesting to talk to. You know, a bit like me: we both thought we’d got where we wanted to be – him with his tennis and me in the theatre – but then…’
‘But then?’ I took my eyes momentarily from the brunch laid out for us on the huge kitchen island, my mouth salivating. I realised I’d not eaten a great deal the past few days, even at my own Sunday lunch. Mind you, I was jolly hungry now; felt I could devour everything in front of me.
‘…but then,’ Robyn went on, ‘then I remember he’s behind the plans to knock down St Mede’s.
A bit like fraternising with the enemy when he’s in school and I end up chatting to him.
The rest of the staff seem to think I’m his mate and go off into a huddle over the custard creams, talking about me in the staff room.
’ Robyn laughed and then lowered her voice.
‘You sure about having Joel to stay, Jess? I feel we’ve held a gun to your head. ’
‘Well, yes, you have.’ I raised an eyebrow. ‘You lot all bugger off somewhere lovely leaving me with Dean next door and a drug-pusher in my box room. As well as an eleven-year-old who thinks she’s already fourteen. So, where’s Fabian this morning?’
‘Gone to see his sister in Harrogate. Oh, wow, what a spread. D’you eat like this every morning, Mum, now that you’re living up here? And who’s prepared all this?’
Mum smiled. ‘Kamran’s the foodie round here. Well, he and George – they both put together this little spread. Come on, fill your plates.’
‘George did…?’ I glanced across at George Sattar, who was chatting to Lola, making her laugh at something.
The bloody man was popping up everywhere I went, looking me up and down, commenting on something or other.
Aware not only that I’d lost quite a bit of weight, but also that George was at the table and I didn’t want any comments from him if I piled my plate with the carbs I’d normally go for, I hesitated before diving in.
‘Eggs are fabulous, Jess-i-ca,’ George called down the table, elongating each syllable of my name. ‘Protein to set you up for those gym sessions and hockey on Thursday?’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ I said, placing one of the delicious-looking eggs royale on a plate, my mouth watering at the smoked salmon and silky hollandaise atop the golden-yolked poached egg.
‘One of my own eggs,’ George said, nodding at my plate as he piled a fragrant-scented kedgeree onto his own.
‘Really?’ I muttered. ‘You’ll be in the papers – first man ever to ovulate.’ Oh God, what was the matter with me? That was such a crass thing to come out with. ‘I didn’t realise Frozen were into fresh produce now?’ I amended politely.
‘No, no.’ George laughed. ‘My girls are responsible for these. Kamran lets me put them up, here in his garden.’
I stared. Was George Sattar into trafficking women?
And Kamran – and obviously now Mum – were going along with it?
‘Oh,’ I said, understanding. ‘You keep chickens? You? You keep chickens?’ George Sattar was the last person on this planet I’d have suspected of keeping hens.
Couldn’t imagine him for one minute out there, foraging for eggs.
Too busy developing Frozen’s assets as well as not wanting to get chicken shit on his pinstriped suits and shiny black brogues.
‘Me! And bees,’ George added, grinning, obviously enjoying my dropped jaw as he nodded towards the golden honeycomb dripping into a dish. ‘The other people in my apartment block would soon be complaining and trying to get me out if I had my girls and the bees out on the balcony down there.’
I was saved from having to come up with a response to this by Sorrel walking almost shyly to the door where Joel and Andy stood standing, both slightly embarrassed, I could tell, at coming into what was, after all, a family gathering.
Kamran immediately came forward, ushering the pair in, taking jackets, offering coffee, indicating they should take a plate and eat.
Joel, in a navy sweatshirt and chinos, his hair neatly braided into cornrows, left Andy’s side, making his way towards Sorrel, more interested in making his goodbyes than the refreshments on offer.
Oh, but he was such a good-looking boy. I understood completely what my little sister saw in him and how hard it was going to be for Sorrel to leave him.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, they’re only sixteen, I tutted to myself, forgetting how I’d fallen so in love with Dean when I was the same age.
‘Andy?’ Mum was saying. ‘It is Andy, isn’t it? Do come and have something to eat. It’s quite a journey from Castleford and back.’
‘Well, I don’t have to go all the way back there – I’m based in Midhope – and I’ve already eaten, thank you. I just need a couple of words with Jessica…’ He broke off as Joel and Sorrel came back into the kitchen.
‘Ten minutes, sweetheart,’ Kamran was saying, and I realised I loved the way this man had taken on my little sister, as well as my mum. ‘We need to get going soon.’
Both Joel and Sorrel were looking subdued, and for a minute I wondered if Sorrel was going to say she was staying – she wasn’t going off to any new school in London. She wanted to stay here with Joel.
But Joel had turned. Was staring at the man standing at the table who was chatting to Robyn. Staring at George Sattar with a look on his face I wasn’t quite able to decipher.