Chapter twenty-seven #2
Lewis nodded. ‘Ellie’s been hunting out funding from the most extraordinary places. I’ve had residents walk in here with family members, saying how heartbroken they’d be to see Rosemount close, and offering investment then and there. Actual cheques. It’s incredible. Incredible.’
It was perfectly credible to me that some people would put a cash price on not having their father-in-law and his banjolele installed in their spare room indefinitely, I thought, but didn’t say anything.
‘I’m waiting for an update from Kevin.’ He gestured at the phone on his desk. ‘He said he’d call before close of play today.’
‘And you have to let Eric know about your business plan when? Friday?’ Two days away.
He nodded, and raised double crossed fingers.
‘It’s a strong business plan.’ I’d double-checked the figures and Lewis had sprinkled the copy with some top-quality management-speak that even Christian would love.
But it was also realistic, reinforced with proposals for community outreach, history projects with local schools, gardening schemes and so on.
Lewis had poured his heart into it, as well as his business experience.
It couldn’t have been more Lewis Levison if he’d attached a moustache comb to the front cover.
‘I couldn’t have done it without you,’ he said sincerely.
‘Don’t be daft.’ He’d said that before, and I didn’t know why – all I’d done was make some suggestions.
It probably hadn’t needed the three sessions we’d spent with our heads together in the library; we could have finished it in one afternoon, if Lewis hadn’t kept having ideas about memorial gardens and therapeutic choirs, and we hadn’t kept going down conversational rabbit holes about mug cakes and tandems. And just . . . sharing some long looks.
I’d been having some thoughts about Lewis.
They crept up on me, and were all the more disorientating for their surprise quality.
Our last session on the business plan had taken place on a warm afternoon, and Lewis had rolled up his shirtsleeves, as if jokily indicating the seriousness of the task in hand.
Something about the way he did it, the brisk folding action, and his strong, tanned forearms, gave me a giddy lurch in the pit of my stomach.
His forearms! Had I started to think like Isabella the Victorian portrait painter now?
I changed the subject, unable to look at Lewis and feel what I was feeling about his forearms at the same time. ‘Any news on Linda?’ I asked. ‘And how’s Bill?’
‘Oh, Linda’s—’ Lewis started, and then the phone rang.
‘Might be Kevin,’ I said. ‘Better answer it.’
Seeing me about to leave, Lewis made a ‘wait!’ sign as he picked up. ‘Lewis Levison! Ah, Kevin, hello!’
I didn’t want to put him off by staring, so I checked my phone for work emails.
Christian had accepted my resignation, and I had so much outstanding holiday that I could have stopped then and there, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t leaving clients high and dry.
Quite a few of my clients had been gratifyingly distraught at my news, and if I’d wanted to go freelance, I could probably have set up a decent roster of private individuals, but after deploying my new strategy – asking myself aloud, ‘Beth, what do you want to happen next?’ instead of immediately asking someone else – I’d decided a clean break was what I needed.
I was faintly aware that Lewis hadn’t spoken for a while, so I looked up to see him standing at his desk, staring out over my head, stricken.
My heart flipped over. What had happened? What had Kevin said?
‘What?’ I mouthed.
He shook his head. ‘Yes, I appreciate that. Yes, but we are about to be reinspected and I’m very hopeful that . . . No, well, of course I can’t guarantee it, but I’m confident that . . . No, OK, I see.’ A long pause. A frown. A rub of the face.
God, this was awful! What was Kevin saying?
‘OK. Well, I appreciate the time you’ve taken to explore every avenue, and if anything changes then I’d . . . Fair enough. No. OK. Well, thanks again for your time, Kevin!’ he finished on a note of positivity that was evidence of his manners, if not his acting skills.
Lewis hung up the phone and we stared at each other across his desk.
‘It’s a no,’ he said, somewhat redundantly.
Before I knew what I was doing, I was across the room and wrapping my arms around him in a hug. It seemed the only possible response to the desolation on Lewis’s face.
‘You gave it your best shot,’ I insisted, into the shoulder of his suit.
Lewis’s arms wrapped around me, one sudden, eloquent squeeze, pulling me very close: I breathed in the warm, clean smell of his skin under that disarmingly attractive aftershave and was suddenly, acutely, aware of the sensation of my skin touching his, my forehead against his neck.
His neck was smooth, and warm, and I could feel the pulse in his throat.
Stop it, I told myself, as the tingles spread through me. This was absolutely the worst time to have thoughts like this. The poor man. This was the end of his job, maybe his career. Stop it, Beth.
I pulled away, just as he did too.
‘Sorry,’ said Lewis, rather thickly, ‘I was just . . . I’m disappointed. Not just for me, for everyone.’
‘Me too.’ I fussed with my hair to break up the tension, and it was a good job I did, because at that moment, Pam knocked on the door once – a very cursory knock that might lead a cynical mind to think she’d been listening behind the door for the end of the phone call – and burst straight in.
‘So? Have you heard from the mortgage broker yet?’ Her eyes were bright with hope, and I knew this was the cruellest part of all for Lewis.
He’d let his team believe he could do it, he’d basked in their confidence, and now he had to let them down.
They weren’t going to get their Wonderful Life ending after all.
Lewis glanced across at me, and I knew he didn’t want me to see this painful conversation.
But I was here for him. I was going to stay, no matter what.
I gave him an imperceptible nod of support, and he turned back to her.
‘Pam,’ he said calmly. ‘It’s not great news. Sit down.’
On my way home, I got a call from Zara, the world’s most lackadaisical estate agent, to inform me I finally had a moving-in date for my new flat.
‘The tenants’ sale has completed,’ she trilled, ‘so they’re moving out this week, and it’ll be ready for you as soon as it’s been signed off our end.’
What? My head spun. ‘When did that happen? It’s very short notice.’
‘I left messages,’ Zara insisted unconvincingly. ‘I mean, I think they were on your phone . . .’
I had had no messages. Whatever, the deep-cleaners would be going in at the end of the week, the same day as Lewis’s deadline, and I could move the following Monday.
I should have been thrilled, but I wasn’t.
Even if I wasn’t drained from that meeting with Lewis, the thought of moving thirty miles away from the Wild Dog Café and its lemon tarts, from the municipal gardens, from the shops on the high street, from Rosemount, Lewis and Martine – it gave me that dank ‘end of the holiday’ sadness.
Not only were Tomsk and I on nodding terms with nearly every dog on our routes, but I’d lined up meetings with a local nursery chain and a farming co-operative, both looking for an accountant.
My therapeutic massage course was starting the following week, and Rachel at the rescue had grabbed me for some volunteer sessions; the post-walk bacon sandwiches, she assured me, were worth it alone.
Longhampton was starting to feel like home.
But, I reminded myself, turning into Coleridge Drive, this wasn’t my home, was it? It was Fraser’s home. He was the reason I’d come here, and he’d always be part of the story if I stayed. If I was going to take control of my own narrative, I needed to strike out on my own.
I parked outside number thirteen and sat for a moment, taking a long look at the house I was going to miss so much.
The funny thing was, Fraser wasn’t even the first thing I thought of now when I saw this house: I thought of Martine’s chatty late-night calls, the blackbirds singing in the garden, the way the roses smelled sweeter last thing at night.
I’d come here hoping to bump into Fraser, but it had been bumping into Martine that had changed everything. It was Martine I’d miss the most.
I wondered how I should tell her about my impending move.
It maybe wasn’t a great time for her to be on her own; hopefully she and Kay would find their own way back to one another, and their memories and their special connection, but maybe that road would be rocky.
Maybe it wouldn’t lead anywhere at all. I was the only other person who knew – if there were tears or accusations, or doubts and distress, how would Jackie interpret that?
I thought of Martine sharing her life story with me surrounded with her family’s boxes of junk, how her face had lit up, then darkened, as she talked.
She still wanted to do something, to be important in her own right.
And she still could, but not if she was trapped in the lies she’d told her family.
I felt cold. Was I abandoning Martine at the worst time?
‘Beth,’ I said aloud, ‘what do you want to happen now?’
I want to stay. I want Martine to fulfil her dreams. I want Lewis to save Rosemount.
And then it came into my head, fully formed.
‘Oh!’ I said, again aloud. Then, as the idea started to take solid shape, and I began to panic that this wasn’t any of my business, and it might not work, and argh, how do you even suggest it, I made myself leave the car, knock on the door, and tell Martine straight away.
She didn’t seem surprised to see me at the door, and ushered me into the sitting room, where the tea tray was out, and her laptop was open.
It was amazing to think that only a matter of weeks ago, I’d brought a panicking, frail old woman home, a woman who’d nearly fallen over the coffee table.
The present Martine was in full technicolour, hair freshly blown out in that flattering bob, red lipstick in place, glasses on a chain around her neck.
She’d returned to life. Her natural bustling bossiness had reasserted itself, in a good way.
‘I know what you’re going to say,’ she said. ‘It’s about Rosemount, isn’t it? The owners are putting it up for sale.’
‘How did you know that?’
She looked momentarily self-conscious. ‘Kathleen told me. No one’s told her officially, I think they’re trying to be kind to her after Hugh, but someone called Eunice Stafford’s been holding meetings. It’s such a shame. What’s Lewis doing about it?’
‘Between us, he’s trying to form a company to buy it. But he’s struggling to get funding because of the inspection failure.’
‘Oh dear.’
I took a deep breath. My heart was racing, and there were parts of my brain yelling at me for doing something that might backfire, but I had to do it.
What if Fraser goes mad at you? What if Jackie accuses you of robbing them of their inheritance?
‘Martine,’ I said, ‘you told me the other night that you wished you could do something that would change the world a little bit. Well, it might not be the whole world, but you could change everything for the residents at Rosemount.’ I felt as if I were at the top of a diving board, looking down.
A long way down. ‘That money Ray put in trust for charitable projects – why don’t you set up a charity and buy Rosemount, then run it as a not-for-profit operation? ’
She looked at me, and said nothing.
Had I offended her? Had I gone too far? Was I being as bad as everyone else in her life, telling her what to do?
I thought of Lewis and pushed on, my heart hammering.
‘Lewis won’t be able to raise the money on his own.
But his team believe in him, and the residents believe in him.
And backed by someone like you, who really understands the area, he could make Rosemount a centre of excellence.
You’ve got the ideal committee experience, you could direct the charity exactly as you wanted it. It would be your legacy.’
She put her glasses on, and regarded me through them. The stare went on for a minute, then more.
Oh God, I thought, I’ve overstepped.
Finally, she spoke. ‘Is that possible?’
‘Absolutely.’ Ellie had investigated not-for-profit care homes; I’d read her printouts.
‘And . . .’ Martine hesitated. ‘Do you think I could do it?’
I nearly laughed. ‘Yes. I do. But you don’t need me to tell you that.’
‘I wouldn’t want to be a figurehead,’ Martine went on, as the idea slowly became a reality in the room. ‘I’d have to be personally involved with strategy. I might end up there myself, after all, so I want to be sure Rosemount is somewhere I’d want to live.’
‘You’d consider moving? Leaving Coleridge Drive?’
Martine made a ‘yes/no’ head movement, as if it was still an idea she was considering.
‘I always hated the idea of being moved into one of those institutions, where I didn’t know anyone, but everyone has to eat soup together and pretend to be interested in handbell ringing.
But now I have a friend there . . .’ A tiny twinkle.
‘After all, I remember living in a shared house with a lot of strangers and it was wonderful.’
I was reminded of Martine’s expression, when she talked about ‘the cherry on the cake’ of Ray’s betrayal, corralling her inheritance and making a trust in his own name.
Well, that topped it. That she could use that trust to spend the rest of her life living with the woman she’d had to give up – perfect.
‘I have one condition, though,’ she said. ‘I’d like you to be a trustee. I need someone I can, well, trust. Someone who understands the numbers, but also . . .’ She hesitated. ‘Also the people involved. Could I persuade you to do that?’
It was my turn to consider, but only for a second.
‘Yes, Martine,’ I said. ‘I’d love to.’