Chapter 13
That same evening, Marc had finally got some time away from the children, and met his brother, Noah, at the local pub, the Star and Telescope, for a meal.
The pub, which had long traded on the illustrious heritage that Lower Brambleton had as a site of special astronomical interest, was a charming, long, low-beamed building.
Its alcoves were stuffed with brass telescopes and other astronomical paraphernalia, much of it salvaged from the old observatory that had been demolished several years back to make way for a modern, yet tasteful, housing estate on the flat top of the hill that overlooked the village.
There were framed prints of the observatory itself on the wall, black and white photos going back to the late nineteenth century of the founding members of the observatory, and – a more recent and poignant addition – a facsimile of the entry in the International Journal of Astronomy naming the late Martin Ashcombe and his wife, Laura, as the first astronomers to discover an eclipsing binary star on the wingtip of the Volucris constellation.
This was a discovery that had only come to light in the past five years, but gave much-deserved recognition to the Ashcombes, who had been tragically killed in a car accident some three decades ago.
The ceiling of the pub had been painted to resemble the night sky, with dark, velvet blue punctuated by bright white and yellow stars. The effect would have been claustrophobic, had the walls not been painted a clean white. The décor was a little hokey, but friendly and welcoming.
‘God, this is nice!’ Marc leaned back in his seat in the pub’s snug after an extremely hearty meal of steak and ale pie and mash, washed down with a generous glass of Malbec. ‘I can’t remember the last time I ate out without the kids.’
Noah grinned. ‘Well, you’ve been in the village for a bit, now, so it’s late for a welcome supper, but I figured you could do with a break. And Bella jumped at the chance to babysit the boys – she fell in love with them the moment she met them.’
‘It was sweet of her to take them to meet the mogs at the sanctuary first.’ Marc smiled back.
‘Both of them were so excited! I hope, when we get home tonight, I don’t find any furry new additions!
’ Noah’s partner, Bella West, was a singer, but she also held down a job at Purrfect Paws, the local cat sanctuary and boarding centre, when she wasn’t doing gigs around the UK.
It was Noah and Marc’s grandfather’s cat, Monty, that had brought Noah and Bella together.
Bella had moved into Jack Hathaway’s old cottage, just down from the pub, when Noah was getting the house ready to put it onto the market after Jack’s death.
Monty, miserable and pining for Jack at the cattery, had spent his last days back in his old home, and Bella had been his custodian.
Looking after Monty had brought Noah and Bella together, and although the cat had passed away, both Noah and Bella imagined he was perching at the other end of the Rainbow Bridge, looking down imperiously upon them and giving one of his distinctive Bengal yowls.
As Marc looked at his brother, he thought how incredibly happy Noah looked; happier than he had in years, in fact.
He knew that it was a no small part due to Noah’s relationship with Bella.
When Marc first met Bella he’d been surprised that Noah had fallen quite so hard for her.
She was not the type of woman that Noah had gone for in the past with her dyed cherry red hair, her passion for animals and the countryside and, to top it all, a successful music career.
But as Marc had got to know her, they’d become friends, and so when Marc decided that he had to leave France, it was logical to move closer to Noah and Bella.
She gradually got to know the boys as well, and they loved her sense of fun and the fact that, whenever she did a gig, she always brought them back a souvenir from whichever place she’d been to.
Noah himself had become a full-time resident of Somerset, although he still owned the flagship branch of Noah Hathaway Estates in Fulham, which was being run with great efficiency and enthusiasm by his previous second in command, Ruby, and her deputy, Violet.
Having had several conversations with Noah lately though, Marc knew that Noah had no intention of going back to London.
Noah Hathaway Country Estates had more business than it could reasonably handle and he was already looking to upscale its tiny office in Lower Brambleton, which he shared with Mollie Wakefield’s charity shop.
The two brothers had grown closer in recent years.
Tessa’s death, while not unexpected, had still been a shock to the whole family.
And in some terribly sad way, it had brought the brothers back together after nearly a decade of living very separate lives.
While Joel, their younger brother, was still living in the Emirates, he, too, was in more regular contact with Marc and Noah.
Neither of them ever thought that Joel would return to the cloudy and rainy shores of the UK permanently, but whenever Joel had business in London, he tended now to take a detour for a couple of days and pop down to Somerset to see Noah and Marc.
Tessa, who had always dismissed Joel as a bit of an idiot, would’ve been surprised, but hopefully pleased that the brothers had all pulled together in Marc’s hour of need.
‘So are you all unpacked then?’ Noah asked.
‘Getting there.’ Marc shook his head. ‘I don’t ever want to have to move house again! Shipping all that stuff back from France was enough of an experience to make me never to want to have to repeat it!’
‘I don’t blame you.’ Noah smiled sympathetically.
‘I honestly don’t know how Bella does it.
She basically lives out of a suitcase when she’s not living with me – either cat-sitting for that ever-growing list of clients of Mollie’s who want their little darlings looked after in their own homes, or heading up country to perform to one man and his dog or, thankfully, more recently, larger venues in bigger cities.
She seems permanently to have that half-packed suitcase in the corner of our bedroom.
’ Noah shuddered. ‘I certainly couldn’t do it. ’
‘Never thought I’d see the day when Noah Hathaway was putting down roots again!
’ Marc teased. ‘Especially not in the back end of beyond. I mean, for me it makes perfect sense: picture-postcard house, pretty village, steady job…’ He trailed off, feeling uncomfortable.
The one thing that was missing from this picture was, of course, Tessa.
Trying to quell the sudden pain of what might have been, Marc lifted his glass to his lips.
There was no point in dwelling on it when he was spending time with Noah.
This was the future, and he’d better get used to it.
As if he’d sensed the direction of Marc’s thoughts, Noah gave him a sympathetic smile. ‘I’m glad that you’re here. It’s nice to be living close together again after all these years. Now if we could just get Joel to relocate…’
Marc laughed. ‘You’d have more chance if Somerset wasn’t so damned murky in the winter! You know how he feels about terrible weather. One look at what’s going on outside, and he’d run for the hills faster than a stag with a stick of dynamite up its arse!’
It was Noah’s turn to laugh. ‘You really are cutting loose now the boys are out of earshot, aren’t you?’
‘You haven’t heard anything yet! Those two have ears on elastic. I smacked my thumb with a hammer when I was putting a bookshelf together in the living room yesterday. Liam’s been taking the opportunity to mimic my bloody, bastard, bollocking hell at every chance he gets!’
‘Ah, kids. Can’t live with ’em…’
‘You’ll see,’ Marc added.
Noah shook his head. ‘Not for a while yet, thanks. Too much to do first.’
‘That’s what Tess and I kept saying.’ Marc looked down into his glass. ‘I can’t help regretting that we waited so long before we had the boys. If we’d made the decision earlier to have kids, we’d have had more time with them together.’ He swallowed down the unwelcome thoughts.
When he looked back up at Noah, his brother’s eyes were full of sympathy.
‘I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, you and the boys.
Losing Tessa was such an awful thing. I know that sometimes it can’t feel that way, but you’ve done the right thing by coming back, being closer to somewhere we all loved growing up.
I mean, let’s face it, there wasn’t much point in moving any closer to Mum and Ted, so you might as well be living where I can keep an eye on you! ’
‘What, you mean our darling mother wouldn’t have been overjoyed at the prospect of having her grandchildren nearby?
’ Marc managed a grin this time. Their mother and her second husband weren’t what you could call involved grandparents.
They had met Liam and Luca a couple of times over the years, but their mother used to admit she was never the maternal type, even when her own boys were small.
The fact that she’d had three sons never ceased to amaze Marc, Noah or Joel.
‘Nah. I think you made the right decision.’ Noah raised his glass of Guinness Zero and clinked it against Marc’s wine glass. ‘To new beginnings.’
‘New beginnings.’ And as he echoed his brother’s sentiment, Marc felt happier than he had since he’d moved to Lower Brambleton.