Chapter 5
Chapter five
Rachel
Rachel gazed in weary dismay at the en-suite bathroom she was cleaning. Four wet towels in a sodden heap on the floor; coarse, dark hair filling up the drains of both the shower and the sink; and as for the toilet . . .
“Oy, Juliet,” she called. “Who did you have staying here? A pair of gorillas?”
“Some hikers who are in uni,” Juliet called back up. “They weren’t the tidiest blokes.”
“You should have charged extra,” Rachel answered as she started spritzing the shower stall. “I should charge extra.”
“Shall I put the kettle on?”
“You’d better, and make it a double.”
Twenty minutes later Rachel came downstairs to the kitchen of Tarn House, with its cheerful green Aga and the view of the sheep pasture leading to the dark green fells in the distance. Juliet Bagshaw stood at the sink, rinsing out a teapot, as Rachel bundled the wet towels into the washer.
“You survived,” she said, humor glinting in her gray eyes, and Rachel grimaced.
“Only just. The toilet almost defeated me.”
Juliet held up a hand. “I really don’t want to know.”
“I’m sure you don’t.” The kettle startled whistling, and Juliet whisked it off the Aga’s hot plate while Rachel made herself comfortable at the kitchen table. Juliet was always good for a cup of tea and a chat.
“So,” Juliet said as she poured water into the teapot, “what’s going on with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Lucy said you weren’t yourself at the pub quiz last week.”
“Wasn’t myself?” Rachel tried to joke. “Who was I, then?”
“‘Not on top form,’ were her actual words.”
“I single-handedly answered seventeen of the twenty questions. I’d say that was top form, or close to it.”
Juliet turned around, planting her hands on her hips as she gave Rachel a stern look. “Rachel. Quit it. You know what I mean.”
“Who says I do?” Rachel challenged grumpily. Six months ago Juliet had minded her own business well enough; it was only since her half sister, Lucy, had come to stay, and she’d begun dating Peter Lanford, that she’d started emoting. Right now Rachel didn’t like it.
“Seriously,” Juliet said as she poured the tea into mugs and brought them to the table. She pushed the milk jug towards Rachel. “Is something going on?”
“Nothing more than usual. Lily doesn’t want to study and Meghan is being a lazy pain in the backside. But what else is new?” Rachel poured milk into her tea and stirred it vigorously.
“And what about this Claire West, then?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. What about her?” Juliet raised her eyebrows, an eloquent response, and Rachel blew out a breath.
“All right, fine. Maybe I was a bit snippy with Claire at the pub quiz, but only because she’s so bloody useless.
” Juliet sipped her tea, waiting for more, and annoyed now, Rachel gave it to her.
“Look, I know Lucy’s taken Claire under her wing because Lucy’s like that.
She’s always looking to fix people. But that doesn’t mean I have to. ”
“Of course you don’t,” Juliet answered mildly. “How do you even know Claire?”
“Didn’t Lucy tell you that? We went to primary school together.” Juliet cocked her head, waiting, and Rachel groaned.
“Oh, honestly, Juliet. We used to be friends, all right? Best friends, way back when.”
“And what happened?” Juliet sounded uncharacteristically gentle rather than her usual acerbic self. Letting both Lucy and Peter into her life had softened Juliet, so now Rachel felt like the one with brittle edges, the hard angles.
“We stopped being friends,” she answered. “As you do.”
“Do you?”
“Come on, Juliet. Are you still friends with your bestie from Year Two?”
“I didn’t have a bestie,” Juliet said with a grimace.
“Your BFF, then.”
“Oh, please.”
Rachel grinned, but Juliet kept giving her a knowing, beady look, and with a sigh she continued.
“We just . . . grew apart. I guess.” Or rather, Claire grew apart from her.
Quite abruptly. At least it had felt abrupt, but maybe it hadn’t been.
Maybe it had been more of a drifting as the reality of secondary school approached, and Claire had naturally gravitated towards the girls who would be going to Wyndham.
Rachel had a distinct memory of coming into the school yard and seeing Claire surrounded.
She’d stopped short, and Claire had looked away.
Even now, nearly twenty years later, that memory made her chest hurt.
“It was a long time ago,” she said to Juliet.
“But she still gets under your skin.”
“Maybe a bit . . .” Rachel stared down at the milky depths of her tea, embarrassed by the admission.
What had happened between her and Claire was ancient history, virtually irrelevant.
What grown woman was still bothered by a breakup with a childhood friend?
Before last week she hadn’t spoken to Claire West since they’d both been in school pinafores.
She’d hardly spared her a thought in the last ten years.
So why all the angst and anger now? It didn’t make sense.
“She really gets to you,” Juliet observed.
“No.” The denial was both instinctive and necessary.
“She doesn’t. Honestly. We were best friends, I know, but I’m not so pathetic that it matters or hurts me now.
It’s just . . .” Rachel hesitated. She didn’t talk about her childhood very much.
She never mentioned her father, or the way he’d left without a hug, a note, or even a backwards glance.
In the ten years since his abrupt departure, all of the Campbell women preferred to pretend he’d never existed.
“That time in my life was hard,” she finally told Juliet, each word drawn from her with reluctance.
“My mum broke her back right as I was leaving Year Six and Lily was only tiny and my dad was out of work. It was hard. Anyway,” she said, her tone turning deliberately dismissive, “I think seeing Claire again after all this time brought it back. So it’s not her. It’s just . . . that time of life.”
Which sounded plausible, although Juliet didn’t look as if she was buying it.
And the truth was, it was about Claire, at least in part.
Claire with her perfect hair and teeth and clothes and family; Claire with parents who’d bought her a car and a flat in London and who were there.
Who took care of her. Who made her life easy.
But that was a dangerous way to start thinking. “Anyway,” Rachel said, injecting a cheerfully brisk note of moving-on-now into her voice, “what’s up with you? How are things with Peter?”
Just the mention of Peter Lanford’s name caused Juliet’s cheeks to turn pink and her eyes to brighten. Rachel suppressed a laugh. Before Peter, Juliet had never been so obvious. So happy. It was cute, if a little saccharine.
“They’re fine,” she said. “Just fine.”
“That’s all you’re going to tell me?”
“What do you want, details?”
“Well, yes, actually. A few, at least. Come on, Juliet. For ten years you’ve lived in this village and barely said boo to anyone.”
“That’s not fair—”
“All right,” Rachel conceded, “you’ve growled boo to a few people. You haven’t been the friendliest of people—”
“I tried,” Juliet protested. “I’m still trying. No one changes overnight, you know. And if you think I’m going to just go ahead and spill all the details of my love life—”
“Ooh,” Rachel couldn’t resist teasing. “Love life.”
Color deepened in Juliet’s cheeks as she rose from the table. “Right, then. This conversation is officially over.”
“Are you and Peter serious?” Rachel pressed. “I mean, it has been six months, and neither of you is getting any younger—”
“Thanks very much for reminding me.”
“Are you thinking marriage yet?” Rachel asked, grinning. “The whole nappies-and-bottle routine? You know . . .” She propped her elbows on the table, leaning forward as she made her eyes go wide. “Babies.”
Juliet gave a shudder. “Don’t mention babies.”
“You don’t long for the pitter-patter of little feet?”
Juliet stared out the window at the muddy pasture, her gaze turning distant. “It’s not that. But it’s . . . complicated. I’m not sure babies are in the cards for me. I’ve got limited fertility as it is.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that,” Rachel said, dropping the joking tone. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine, honestly.” Juliet cleared their mugs and dumped them in the sink.
Rachel saw something brittle in the way she moved, and she wished she hadn’t pressed quite so much.
Clearly Juliet had sorrows in her life she hadn’t shared with Rachel, which was hardly unexpected.
The woman had been a completely closed book until six months ago.
“What about you?” Juliet asked. “I hear you were getting rather cozy with Rob Telford at the pub quiz.”
“What!” Rachel sat up straight. “Lucy again, I suppose?”
“No, not Lucy.” Juliet’s mouth curved in a small smile. “Kate Barton, from Hillside Farm. I buy eggs off her.”
Rachel let out a groan. “She was in the year above me at school. Is nothing private in this place?”
“You’ve lived in this village all your life and you’re only realizing that now?”
“No,” Rachel conceded with sigh. “Just having a moan about it.”
“Kate said you were wearing a sexy top and leaning over the bar while you talked to Rob.”
Rachel could tell her friend was enjoying this. “And that constitutes flirting, I suppose.”
“Not just flirting. Kate’s mother is wondering when you’re getting married.”
“Juliet.”
“You know how things are in Hartley-by-the-Sea,” Juliet answered, unrepentant. “Really, you ought to be surprised there isn’t a notice in the parish magazine, grateful that the church hasn’t been booked. Yet.”
“Thank heavens for small mercies.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m not really interested in Rob Telford,” Rachel said as she traced a pattern in the weathered wood of the kitchen table with one finger. “I just wanted a distraction.”
“Poor Rob, then.”
“I’m not all that sure Rob Telford is interested in me. Anyway, I don’t have time to date.”