Chapter 6
SIX
Ellen had had a terrible night’s sleep. Even after she’d waited to watch Abigail return safely to her halls of residence on the phone screen, she’d lain awake wondering about where she’d been and reflecting on her own evening here in Spain.
When she’d finally slept, it was fitful and full of dreams of Robert and Lucy laughing and drinking and ignoring her.
Which is why she’d ended up sleeping later than she usually did.
When she woke up, the bed was empty and, on the side table, a scribbled note.
I’m going for a walk on the beach. Didn’t want to wake you.
After waking so often, how had she slept through him leaving?
He must’ve crept around like a mouse, not wanting her to wake up and join him.
This walking was a new thing, too. Often at home – when he was home – he’d take himself off for a stroll in the evening, just as she wanted to settle down and watch something on the television. As if he was avoiding her.
Poised and fresh, Lucy was in the kitchen, taking warm pastries from the oven, their sweet bready aroma filling the air. ‘Perfect timing. I thought we could have breakfast out on the patio?’
‘That sounds lovely, but Robert isn’t here. He’s gone for a walk.’
As she lifted the pastries into a linen-lined basket, Lucy smiled. ‘I know. I saw him as he left and gave him a map. I think he was going to the beach so he’ll be gone for another hour at least, I’d guess.’
It was distinctly uncomfortable that Lucy knew more about her husband’s whereabouts than Ellen.
That they’d been up and chatting while she slept through it.
Wearing a white crochet dress over a swimsuit, Lucy looked at least a decade younger than Ellen and was in full make-up already. ‘Have you been for a swim?’
‘Yes. Thirty lengths every morning. It’s marvellous exercise. Do you work out?’
Ellen had started and given up on more exercise classes than she could name. She always meant to keep at it, but the sheer repetitive routine of them left her unenthusiastic until lethargy eventually won. She crossed her fingers behind her back. ‘I enjoy yoga.’
Lucy grinned. ‘Wonderful. Me, too. I have a spare mat, maybe we can do a sun salutation together?’
Clearly, that had been the wrong thing to pick. ‘Hmmm. Maybe. Can I help you carry some of this outside?’
At the centre of the breakfast table, a heavy mason jar full of pink and yellow wild flowers with dark-green stems contrasted the white linen and pale-blue sky.
Both their delicate scent and the perfectly thrown-together arrangement could only be achieved by careful selection.
Lucy had already laid the table with heavy white pottery plates, artistically mismatched coloured glass tumblers and a glass jug of freshly squeezed orange juice.
Ellen felt slovenly for having slept while all of this was being prepared.
A lukewarm sun slipped across the back of her neck as she set down the basket of freshly baked croissants that Lucy had given her, each one a perfect crescent.
‘I assumed you were coffee rather than tea?’ Lucy came from behind her with a steel coffee pot and a jug of cream.
‘Yes. Coffee would be great, thanks.’
Beyond the low wall surrounding the property, the sea was as smooth as turquoise glass and the morning sun was starting to warm Ellen’s face as she slipped on her sunglasses.
She had to relax. She was here in this beautiful place with the potential to reconnect with an old friend.
She needed to stop this petty jealousy and enjoy these few days.
‘You really do have a lovely home here.’
Lucy placed the coffee pot on an iron rest and then slipped into the seat opposite. ‘Thanks. But I can’t take the credit really. It’s all Joe. He has an eye for things. He sees an old wreck of a building and can picture it once it’s restored. He looks at the bones, he always says.’
Lucy picked up the basket and offered Ellen a croissant, which she placed on her plate. ‘What time will he be here today?’
‘Lunchtime, hopefully.’
Ellen was curious about the man who had tamed Lucy into this level of domesticity. ‘Have you been together a long time? I don’t even know when you got married.’
As Lucy poured coffee into two white cups, a rich nutty aroma filled the air between them. Before she replied, she pushed a cream jug in Ellen’s direction. ‘We got married when our daughter was two. Our elder daughter that is. She’s a doctor, actually. We’re very proud.’
She threw the last statement away as if it were a self-deprecating joke, but Ellen could see from the sheen in her eyes that the pride was real. ‘That’s amazing. You deserve to be proud. How old is your daughter?’
Lucy sipped at her black coffee before she replied. ‘Charlotte is twenty-five. My millennium baby.’
Behind her sunglasses, Ellen frowned. Twenty-five? That was only a year younger than Grace. ‘So you must’ve had her only a year after we left university?’
That year had been a blur for Ellen. She’d graduated with a small bump hidden under her black gown and then she and Robert – with a lot of help from their shocked but supportive parents – had moved into a small two-bedroom house.
Motherhood had hit her like a steam train: Grace had been a fitful sleeper and a fussy feeder.
Likely because Ellen was twenty-two and didn’t know what the heck she was doing.
‘Yes.’ Lucy picked up a croissant from the basket and pulled a tiny piece from one end. ‘I was travelling when I found out I was pregnant.’
Ellen had a vague memory of Lucy planning a trip in their final year.
At the time, she’d tried to persuade Ellen and Robert to go with her, but – even before they’d discovered the pregnancy – they were both looking for graduate positions and Ellen wouldn’t have had the money to take time out.
‘Do I know Joe, then? Was he at the university with us? Or did you meet him while you were travelling?’
Lucy looked over Ellen’s head and smiled. ‘Just in time for breakfast, Robbie. How was your walk?’
Trying not to let that long-forgotten pet name grate on her, Ellen turned to greet her husband. His crisp white t-shirt and linen shorts were an odd choice for exercise. He didn’t even look out of breath.
He took the seat beside her and poured himself a glass of orange juice as if it was a regular everyday activity to sit down to breakfast together.
‘It was good. The sea looked amazing this morning. There were some young families on the beach already. It made me think of when we used to take the girls to the south of France and Abigail would wake up with the dawn.’
It was a lovely memory. Although it was hard work at the time having a toddler who thought sleep was for wimps. They’d take it in turns to be the one to take Abbie out of the house so that she didn’t wake an eight-year-old Grace. ‘I remember it well.’
Lucy was quick to prick the bubble of their pleasant reminiscence. ‘You always did love travel, didn’t you, Robbie? With that and your studious nature, I always envisaged you carving out a career finding cures for tropical diseases.’
Like many people from his background – those that didn’t have to worry about money – Robert had taken a gap year before starting university and had pretty much covered three continents. ‘Well, sometimes life has other plans. I’m a drug runner now.’
This was the joke Robert often made about his job in medical sales, but Lucy didn’t laugh. ‘It’s such a shame you had to take that job.’
All three of them knew the reason that Robert had to start work immediately after university, but he headed off the awkwardness by turning the subject to Lucy. ‘How were your travels after you left? Did you get to Thailand?’
She grinned at him. ‘Yes. It was just as fabulous as you said it was. We had this amazing beach hut on Ko Phayam.’
Robert practically jumped out of his seat. ‘June Horizon? Incredible, isn’t it? And did you get to Vietnam?’
This was the most animated Ellen had seen Robert in months. She knew as well as Lucy that he’d always loved to travel, and they’d been on some great holidays with the girls, but the months he’d spent backpacking in Latin America, Asia and Australia had been something she’d always envied.
Lucy held up her hands. ‘Oh my goodness, you are NEVER going to guess who I saw in Vietnam. Do you remember that guy who fell asleep in the hallway? That first day of Fresher’s Week?’
Robert rubbed at the stubble on his chin before a smile spread over his face. ‘That was the first night, wasn’t it? We were trapped in that room for ages.’
Ellen tried to get involved. ‘Who was that?’
Flushed with the pleasure of a shared memory, Robert turned to her. ‘I must’ve told you. Some guy got really drunk on his first day and fell asleep in the hallway outside my room. We couldn’t get out until he woke up.’
He definitely hadn’t told her that story before, because she would have asked what Lucy was doing in his room on the first day. ‘Goodness. Would I have met him?’
But Robert had turned back to Lucy. ‘How did you recognise him?’
‘I didn’t. There was this hostel and he was there and we got talking and just worked it out. He was hilarious about it. I got a photo with him and I was planning to send it to you like a postcard when I got home and had the film developed but…’
How might she have ended that sentence? But you had a baby by then. But we’d fallen out of touch by then. Robert hadn’t picked up on the passive aggression. He was shaking his head, lost in memory. ‘Good times.’
Ellen was tiring of this nostalgia trip. ‘Sounds like you had a great time on your travels. Grace might be going to Dubai soon, actually.’
In the middle of taking a croissant from the basket Lucy offered him, Robert banged his forehead with the heel of his hand. ‘I forgot to tell you. Grace called when I was walking back. She was a bit upset.’
Ellen’s heart sank. ‘Upset? Why? What’s happened?’
He shook his head slowly. ‘Nothing to panic about. I think it’s something to do with her boyfriend. She was calling me to see if I was with you. You weren’t answering your phone.’
Her mobile was in her bag, underneath the table. But when she checked it, the battery had died. ‘What did she say? Have they had an argument?’ Though she’d hate for her daughter to be upset, having him out of her life would be a good thing in the long run.
‘Something about him standing her up last night, I think.’
Grace was an adult, but Ellen still couldn’t bear to think of her being upset so she pushed her chair back to leave. ‘I’ll go and stick my phone on charge and send her a message to check she’s okay.’
Robert seemed unconcerned. ‘Finish your breakfast. I spoke to her about it and she’s fine now.’
She could just imagine that conversation. Robert was a great dad, but affairs of the heart were not his forte. ‘I’ll just go and put my phone on charge, anyway. I won’t be a minute. Sorry, Lucy.’
‘No problem. I’ll put some more coffee on while you’re gone.’
As well as wanting to plug in her phone – and send Grace a quick text message – Ellen was more than ready to take a break from listening to Lucy and Robert’s shared history.
They had only known each other for a couple of days before she’d arrived on campus.
Listening to Lucy, you’d have got the impression that they’d known each other years longer.
Hearing that Lucy had gone ahead with her travel plans also made Ellen curious about the birth of her elder daughter.
On her way back to the bedroom, she ran the numbers in her mind to work out how quickly Lucy must’ve met Joe – and fallen pregnant – to have a twenty-five-year-old daughter.
Was she being purposefully vague in avoiding Ellen’s question about when and where they’d met?
Either she’d met him on her travels or when she was still at the university.
Though she couldn’t remember a Joe in their crowd, it was possible that he was a friend of a friend.
Could it be that she and Robert knew him already?