Chapter 33
‘It’s probably best if I get off,’ Mollie said, once she’d released the catches on the cat carrier. ‘Too many people, even if he knows them, might spook him.’
‘Thanks for bringing him over, Mollie,’ Bella replied. ‘I’ll keep you posted about how he is.’
‘Do.’ Mollie gave Bella and Noah a last smile before heading hurriedly out of the front door, closing it quickly as she left.
‘Well,’ Bella said brightly. ‘Do you want to coax him out, or shall I?’
Noah regarded the carrier in a manner that suggested a man-eating tiger, and not an aged Bengal cat, was about to emerge. ‘I think I’ll let you take one for the team, if you don’t mind!’
Bella smirked. ‘Don’t tell me a poor defenceless old moggy’s got you all of a flutter? Are you a man or a mouse?’
‘Pass me a piece of cheese.’
Bella sank to her knees and peered into the carrier where Monty crouched. ‘Come on, darling, it’s all right. You’re home now.’
For some reason that he couldn’t quite place, Noah felt his throat start to constrict as he heard Bella’s soothing tones.
He’d been holding back a lot since his grandfather had passed away, and something about being back here in the cottage, and having Monty back here too, had made the emotions start to bubble. He cleared his throat.
‘Do you mind if I put the kettle on?’ he asked. ‘I could do with a cuppa after the drive.’
‘Sure.’ Bella glanced quizzically up at him.
He got the feeling she’d noticed the odd expression on his face, but she didn’t press him.
He was glad. They weren’t that well acquainted, and he didn’t feel comfortable baring his soul, especially when he couldn’t quite put his finger on why he was feeling the way he suddenly was.
Hurrying from the living room and into the kitchen, Noah boiled the kettle and stared out at the overgrown mess of his grandfather’s back garden.
At some point he was going to have to tackle that, too.
He’d have to look into getting a landscape gardener in to take down the worst of it.
In the months since his grandfather had stopped being able to take care of his cherished garden, the place had gone haywire.
The grass was about three feet high, the honeysuckle that had been carefully pruned all the time his grandfather had lived in the cottage was now tumbling over the fences and across the flower borders, and the borders themselves, although a riot of colour, were wild and weedy.
It would take some time, and some money, to sort it all out. More time. And more money.
‘How do you like your tea?’ he called through to Bella, whom he could still hear trying to coax Monty out.
‘Milk and one sugar, please.’
By the time he’d made two mugs, he was feeling a little more settled.
He was learning that grief was an ever-evolving thing.
Sometimes it crept up on you and ambushed you when you least expected it.
Other times, when you thought you were going to react to something, like when his mother had sent him an old photograph of himself, Joel and Marc in the very garden he’d just been looking at, with his grandfather in the background, waving, he’d been able to smile, and hadn’t been caught at all.
Navigating the triggers was tricky, when you didn’t know what a trigger could be.
‘How’s he doing?’
Bella turned and looked at him, and Noah’s breath caught in his throat at the shine in her eyes.
She really did have the most gorgeous blue eyes, he thought.
It had been a feature of hers that the photographer who’d done the album artwork for the CD in the kitchen had captured, but in person they were even bluer, and much friendlier.
He’d snuck another look at the CD while the tea was brewing and resolved to see if Isabella Indigo’s album was available on Spotify for his drive home tomorrow.
If Bella wasn’t comfortable with him listening to it while he was here, he’d try to listen to it in his own time.
‘Thanks.’ She gestured to the table, and he put the mug down on it, on one of the bird-patterned coasters his grandfather had used. ‘He’s determined not to come out yet but give him time.’
They sat down in the two armchairs, both transfixed by the creature in the carrier. At first, Monty showed no signs of wanting to come out at all, but gradually, as Noah chatted to Bella, he started to emerge.
‘Don’t make too much of a fuss of him at first,’ Bella murmured as a tentative nose poked its way out. ‘Let him get his bearings.’
‘I’m quite happy to keep my distance!’ Noah joked gently. He didn’t fancy the rough edge of Monty’s claws.
Bella had put a couple of Dreamies cat treats down near to the opening of the carrier, and Monty, driven by the scent, gradually approached one of them, giving it a sniff before devouring it.
‘Good boy!’ Bella soothed. ‘Look, Monty, you’re home.’
They both watched as Monty edged out and sniffed the carpet, and then the air.
Padding further away from the carrier, he began to explore the living room, rubbing his cheek against the small table between the two armchairs, and then curling his tail around the edge of Bella’s chair.
Monty seemed to be patrolling the room’s perimeter as he strolled to the window, then, with a spring belying his eighteen years, jumped up onto the sill.
Sliding between the net curtains that provided a small amount of privacy from people passing the front of the cottages, he tightroped along the windowsill before jumping down again and mooching across the carpet, sniffing in corners and swishing his tail from time to time as he made progress.
Noah and Bella looked at each other, and Bella gave Noah a thumbs up. ‘So far so good.’
They both sipped their tea, transfixed by Monty’s journey around the room. Bella, more attuned to cat behaviour, especially Monty’s, than Noah was, caught his eye. ‘I think he’s looking for your grandpa.’
Noah swallowed, that wave-like feeling of loss he’d had in the kitchen catching him off guard again.
‘I think you’re right. Even though Grandpa’s not been here for ages, Monty can probably smell him.
’ He blinked hard. This wasn’t the time to lose the plot, not in front of someone he barely knew.
Clearing his throat, he added, ‘How’s he doing, in your professional opinion? ’
Bella snorted. ‘I’m not really a professional – just a willing employee!’ All the same, she seemed to sense that he wanted to move the conversation on, and added, ‘He’s doing OK. Give him time.’
‘We all need time,’ Noah replied. He caught her eye again, and a kind of understanding passed between them. Noah felt a jolt at the empathy in her eyes. He suddenly found himself wanting to get lost in her comforting gaze.
‘It’s so peaceful here,’ Noah said, to break the subtle tension that had built between them. ‘It must be quite a contrast to life on the road as a musician.’
Bella grinned self-deprecatingly. ‘It’s exactly what I need!’
‘Seriously, though, would you have carried on if, er, things had been different?’
‘You mean if my record label hadn’t dropped me off a cliff?’ Bella, to his relief, was smiling when she said it.
‘Well, yeah.’ Noah smiled back in what he hoped was a supportive way. ‘Would you want to be playing arenas?’
Bella sighed. ‘Now that’s a question.’ She glanced towards Monty, who was sniffing about, but seemed to be finding his paws once again.
‘I loved the music, and I loved being onstage, and I suppose, if it had been a few years later, I might have had more of a career. There’s a lot of pull towards nostalgia these days, and Isabella Indigo’s sound was definitely retro.
But back then? Wrong vibe, wrong time, wrong person.
’ She shook her head. ‘They packaged me as something I could never be, and eventually that took its toll.’
‘Difficult second album syndrome?’
Bella grinned. ‘Yeah. I wanted something more folk and rock – they said they’d only keep me if I delivered something more pop based. I couldn’t face it, so they dropped me.’
Noah noticed how Bella’s eyes lit up when she talked about the music, and he found he liked seeing her like that. ‘Do you still write songs?’
‘Not for ages,’ Bella replied. ‘I liked my old stuff a lot, but I felt as though I needed a different direction. When I stopped working for the label, it was as though my inspiration dried up, too. I finally had the chance to do what I wanted, and I couldn’t write.
By the time I worked out that artists were using YouTube to create their own fanbase, I was too late.
The market was saturated, and I was out of date again. ’
‘So when I popped in to say goodbye to Monty before, well, you know, that song you were singing? Was that one of yours?’
‘Yeah. I thought it might make him feel better, you know.’ Bella blushed.
‘I thought it was beautiful.’ As he said that, his voice caught. He swallowed hard. ‘Sorry,’ he laughed nervously. ‘I’m a bit up and down at the moment.’ It was as close to an examination of his own headspace and emotions as he was going to get.
‘Thank you.’
Bella’s quiet tone made him look directly at her again, and as she raised her eyes from where she’d been watching Monty’s progress, their gaze held.
His heart sped up, and he again had the urge to reach out and touch the blush that lingered on her face.
He gave himself a mental shake. Proximity didn’t mean attraction; logically, he knew that.
It would be more than awkward if he made an approach to her and she brushed him off – they had to share this space, after all.
‘Well, he looks as though he’s beginning to find his feet again.’ Noah got up from the armchair, purposely breaking the connection between them. ‘I’ll pop out and grab my stuff from the car.’
‘Be careful to close the front door,’ Bella said. ‘As Mollie told us, this might be Monty’s home, but he’s been away from it a while. We need to keep him in, at least for a few days.’
‘Will do.’ Noah hurried out into the hallway.
While he grabbed his bag from the boot, he couldn’t get the conversations with Bella out of his mind.
When they’d first encountered one another, he’d written her off as a rackety lightweight.
Now, having spent more time chatting with her, she seemed so much more interesting to him.
They were completely different people, but somehow they had to make this living arrangement work.
He worried now, though, that having noticed how attracted he was to her, it was going to be even trickier.