Chapter Forty-one
What upsets me isn’t that he went to see his sister, or that he stays there for a week. It’s that the emoji wasn’t meant for me. The little red heart had filled my own heart with hope, just for an instant before it deflated and shrank with disappointment.
“What’s the matter with you?” Shirley toys with her packet of Virginia Slims.
Evan has declared Kendric House a smoke-free zone.
This means smokers like Shirley –who says she’s too old to change her ways – must go far enough away from the house so you can’t smell the smoke.
I can always tell when Shirley is dying for a ciggie because she starts handling her lighter or cigarettes.
“Nothing is the matter with me.” I’m in the ballroom, having just finished another Saturday night partners’ dinner. Evan gives us the analytics – as he calls them – of our trial opening.
The test run had four times as many visitors as we’d hoped for. The social media knock-on effect has resulted in a thousand followers and almost as many sign-ups for our mailing list. Evan shows us pie charts and bar charts and projections for future events. Etc, etc, etc.
Let me summarise. We’re going to be successful and attract a lot of attention. We all need to think about hiring extra staff and plan for a much better summer than we ever expected. The official opening of Kendric House and Gardens is now set for the second May bank holiday.
Three of the Perllans have asked to stay on. Ashe and Schaefer want to work in the gardens. Amani, whose flair for social media was responsible for our great success, will work with Ricky directly under Evan’s supervision as part of the Kendric House PR team.
Everyone is excited. Everyone is happy. Everyone except Osian, who isn’t here. And me. My mood has deflated like a balloon you find behind the sofa three days after the end of a party.
Not even the promised apple crumble excites me.
“You should be made up,” Shirley says in her soft Yorkshire accent. “Everyone says you smashed it over Easter. So why do you have a cob on?”
“Just tired.” I push my chair back from the table.
I glance around me, but I’m like a car going round a roundabout, unsure which exit to take or where it wants to go.
“You looking for something?” Leonie asks.
Yes, my lost mojo. My sense of purpose. My peace of mind. “Just need a little fresh air.”
“What is it with you and Osian?” Gethin leans over and asks loud enough for several heads to turn.
My own heart bounces against my ribs.
Gethin, always ready with a joke, says, “You’re both only happy outside. Preferably elbow deep in mud.”
“Maybe.” I smile but only with my lips.
His joke has given me a good excuse to walk out.
In the garden, waiting for my heart to slow down, I go all the way to the middle where the new trellises are.
The climbing roses are sending out new shoots – lots of new shoots.
With a bit of care, they should grow enough to cover the arches of the trellis and by midsummer we’ll have a tunnel of roses.
Unlike Osian, these roses will repay my love and attention with beautiful love of their own.
My eyes sting with tears. Will plants be my only true love affair? My most successful relationship?
Choosing a picnic table under one of the arches, I sit, swing my legs over the seat then fold my arms on the table to cushion my head. In a minute, I’ll raise my head and give myself a harsh pep talk. In a minute.
“Doggers?” The voice startles a little gasp from me.
Leonie and Shirley join me on the bench. They have a platter of mini tarts, a thermos flask and a stack of paper cups.
“You missed coffee and dessert,” Leonie says, placing the platter on the table. “Haneen made apple crumble which was eaten right down to the last crumb. So these are some of my experiments. What did we call them? Deleted scenes.” Her gaze flicks to my folded arms on the table. “Are we intruding?”
Leonie is too nice, so I shift to the side, making room on the bench, and give her a weak smile. “I think we called them offcuts.”
“These are delicious.” Shirley pops one in her mouth.
Dessert is the furthest thing from my mind just now, but I play along. “Are these Jammie Dodgers?”
“Sort of.” Leonie swings a leg over and settles herself beside me; Shirley takes the seat on the other side of the picnic table.
“I’ve experimented with different fillings. So we have the traditional raspberry heart shapes but also”—she pushes various small biscuits around the platter—“Apricot hearts, lemon curd suns, frangipani stars, blueberry stars, and these were supposed to be pistachio leaves.”
I try one. Crumbly biscuit and nutty pistachio cream. “My God, these are delicious.”
“She’s a genius baker.” Shirley pours us coffee from the thermos. “And she only started baking a few months ago.”
“Did someone tell me you used to be an actress?” I can’t imagine Leonie doing anything but running a café.
Shirley eats her apricot dodger and quickly washes it down with coffee before reaching for her cigarettes.
“It’s actually ‘actor’,” Leonie says simply. “Most people say ‘actress’ so I don’t trouble to correct them. But the politically correct term is ‘actor’.”
“Yes, you’re right. Sorry.”
“Why?” Shirley asks as she extracts a slim cigarette.
“It’s like doctor, dentist, scientist, lawyer. The term should be neutral,” I explain, because this is a subject close to my heart. “If you create a special word for women in these professions, then when you say doctor, people imagine only a man.”
Shirley lights her cigarette and draws on it deeply, an expression of bliss on her face. “You know, you should talk to Vanessa; she’s the radical feminist here.”
Vanessa. Smooth silver hair in a neat twist. We’d had that discussion about date rape and women’s right to change their minds. The day after Osian changed his mind about sleeping with me.
And just like that, the temporary good mood crumbles like one of the half-eaten Jammie Dodgers.
These are nice women who’ve come to keep me company, yet I can’t think of one thing to say. Leonie must sense my mood because she just sits beside me, quietly companionable.
Finally, it’s Shirley who breaks the silence. “When’s Osian coming back?”
The worst question.
“No idea.”
“No?” She looks sceptical.
“He doesn’t tell me his plans.” I can’t stop the note of irritation. At the question and how it forces me to admit how marginal I seem to be to Osian’s decisions.
The two women exchange a look, then Leonie turns to me.
“You can tell us to mind our business, but you can also talk to us. Promise it won’t go further. Have you two had a fight or something?”
I try for a bright voice. “Nothing like that. He’s just gone to see his sister. I think we both needed a break after Easter.”
“So what’s going on?” she asks, very gently.
“Nothing.”
Shirley pins me with a sharp stare. “You seem very upset over this nothing.”
Suddenly I don’t have the strength to even lie. I drop the pistachio dodger onto the plate. “It is nothing. That’s what’s upsetting me. Nothing is going on. He doesn’t… there’s nothing there.” I pick up the paper cup and gulp down coffee, filling my mouth to stop more words coming out.
“You know we’re not supposed to gossip,” Leonie says. “I mean, Haneen comes down pretty hard on anyone for that. But this is fairly common knowledge. We all thought you two were having a thing and just didn’t want to announce it to the whole community.”
“No. He doesn’t want me.”
Shirley lays a hand over mine. “Is that what you think, my lovely? That he doesn’t like you? Because you couldn’t be more wrong.” She glances towards Leonie, as if asking her to agree.
“Evie, since you came here, he’s a changed man. He never used to smile. But whenever your name comes up, he gets this faraway look and smiles to himself. His face lights up when you come into a room.”
Like a little girl, I want to question them. When, how, where? And are they sure?
But they don’t know everything. “I don’t know.
We are very good friends. He may even like me.
Sometimes it feels like it could be more.
” The memory of his warm breath when he whispered things to me at the lecture.
The feel of my hand in his when he led me to meet the charity people.
“But I don’t think he wants to take it further,” I tell them.
Shirley narrows her eyes. “I see. He’s been blowing hot and cold, has he?” Her voice is almost businesslike; she could be bargaining with an estate agent. “And you’re too scared to pin him down and tell him to stop messing you about.”
Is that what I am? Too scared?
She doesn’t wait for my answer. “No, you’re too scared. You treat him like a precious sparrow.” She extends a finger out slowly, as if for a bird to land on. “Gently, gently! Don’t frighten him or he’ll fly away.” She drops her hand. “Don’t you?”
Probably.
Wordlessly, I stare at my hands in my lap.
“You’re all big talk about feminism, but when it comes to standing up for yourself and saying, ‘Bugger this for a game of I-don’t-know-what. Do you love me or don’t you?’, you’re a shrinking violet.”
Her words sting me so much that my head snaps up and defensive words begin to form in my mouth, but then Shirley stands up and collects her ciggies and lighter, preparing to leave. “Why don’t you go inside and ask him?”
We both stare at her.
She gestures with her eyebrows towards the house behind us. “He’s back. His light just came on.”
I spin in my seat to look. West wing, second floor, fifth window. She’s right. His lights are on.
My heart leaps painfully, but I turn forward again. “It’s okay. I’ll stay here.”
“You okay?” Leonie asks softly when we’re alone.
“No. But I’m not going to run to him.” My answer is sharp with injured pride. His unexpected reappearance on top of Shirley’s stinging remarks.
“I mean, he buggers off without a word then comes back when he’s bloody good-and-ready and I’m supposed to run to him?” I sound angry, but my real anger is at myself.
Leonie wraps her arm around me and squeezes me affectionately. “I get it. Really, I do.”
Her kindness brings me too close to tears.