Chapter 11
The next morning, despite being tired from the day before, Juliet woke early. When she glanced at the clock, she groaned and tried to snuggle down for another couple of hours’ sleep, but after flinging herself from one side to the other, plumping and flipping her pillow and feeling as if her pyjamas were twisting themselves around her like a determined boa constrictor, she conceded that she was going to have to get up. Even then, she found herself pacing the floor of her small dwelling, dissatisfied with anything on TV and throwing her book across the room in frustration as she read the same paragraph four times and didn’t take in what was happening even once. Work might help, she supposed, but when she flicked on the laptop, she was faced with row after neat row of photos of Léo, and she slammed it shut in irritation. Eventually, she settled for standing twitchily in front of the window with a coffee, staring at the unfolding morning and trying to push away images of the previous day, which flashed persistently into her head. She could see Léo vividly, one moment his face still with concentration, the next crinkling with laughter. She felt the touch of his hand burning into her arm as he reached out to stop her eating and exhort her to savour her food, not rush it. Her stomach flipped again, as violently as it had at the time, and she wished she had something stronger than coffee to try and suppress it. Although, she conceded, it was a bit early. Realising her cup was empty, and with nothing to occupy her, she decided to go up to the house. Breakfast preparations would be underway by now, and she could pretend she had had a fit of helpfulness. Anything to stop her standing there agitating for a moment longer.
‘Morning, Dad.’
‘Juliet! Good morning.’ Her father came over and gave her a kiss. ‘It’s very early for you, are you feeling well? We missed you at supper last night.’
‘Yes, Dad, I’m fine, just woke up early. I thought I’d come and help with breakfast.’
Rousseau bellowed with laughter.
‘Did you indeed? There really must be an emergency. Ah well, I suppose you’ll tell me in your own time. Or not.’
‘I don’t have to help. I thought it might be appreciated, but if you’re only going to laugh at me?—’
‘Come on, come on, enough of the wounded martyr. I’d love your help. You can keep an eye on this porridge, if you like. It’s only got a couple of minutes to go, and I don’t want it sticking to the pan.’
Juliet poked at the bubbling mass with a wooden spoon, wondering how on earth she would stop it doing anything it wanted to do. It looked to her like it had a life of its own. Rousseau bustled around the kitchen, piling up trays with food and suddenly vanishing to take it through to the dining room. Eventually, the porridge was the only thing left, and he came over to inspect it.
‘Looks good, Juliet, thank you, my dear.’ He took the wooden spoon from her and turned the mixture one more time. ‘Now, grab that tureen, will you, and we’ll pour it in.’
When the saucepan was scraped clean, he picked up the porridge, and Juliet followed him through to the dining room, where Frankie and Martha were waiting.
‘Ah, here she is,’ said Frankie. ‘We missed you – and Léo – at supper last night.’
Juliet ignored her and sat down.
‘Oh, come on, spit it out. What were you two up to? You can’t have been working all that time.’
‘Knock it off with the insinuations, will you, Frankie? We worked until late, then had something to eat. No story, no gossip, no excitement. Sorry.’
Frankie pouted.
‘Oh, shame. I was hoping you were going to have something to tell us, even if it was only about the femme mariée?—’
She stopped talking as the door opened and Léo came in with Sylvia. They looked puzzled at the guilty breakfasters and loaded silence.
‘Bonjour. Everything all right?’
‘Fine. My sisters were just asking how the photos went yesterday.’
Oh God, he probably thinks I’ve been talking about him. I knew I shouldn’t have simpered all over him last night. Juliet could feel that telltale flush come to her cheeks.
‘It was good. Very good. Your sister is a professional as well as an artist. Sylvia, I’m sure you will think the same when you do your session.’
That was kind of him.
Juliet didn’t look at him but ate her breakfast as quickly as she could. Not quickly enough, alas, for Frankie, who had smelt blood and wasn’t going to let her quarry go that easily.
‘Juliet was just telling us how you had a cosy supper together after the photos. Wasn’t she, Martha?’
Martha flushed. ‘Well, no, not really?—’
‘Oh, shut up, Frankie.’ Juliet shoved her chair back and dropped her spoon on the table. ‘Stop trying to cause trouble. There’s nothing to see, nothing to talk about, do you understand? Nothing.’
‘Are you quite sure? Very defensive…’
Frankie was intolerable in one of these moods, like a cat with a mouse, playing with it just for spite. Well, Juliet wasn’t going to stay in those velvet paws with their barely sheathed claws a second longer.
‘This is ridiculous. I’ve got work to do. Sylvia, maybe we can catch up later to arrange our session.’
Without waiting for an answer, she snatched up her half-full bowl, having learnt her lesson from the growling stomach she had suffered the last time she had stormed out of a family meal, and retired to the kitchen. Bloody Frankie, she somehow always knew which nerve to touch, like a sadistic dentist.
Juliet hadn’t cooled off much once she had finished eating and decided to try to walk off some of her fury before starting work. Leaving the house, she went to collect her bag and jacket, as the spring morning hadn’t quite warmed up yet, then set off towards the woods. They started to work their soothing magic as soon as she stepped into their shady gloam. She had never felt frightened in these woods, rather reassured and somehow protected as if any enchantment they might hold was more nurturing than threatening. Once out of sight of Feywood’s gardens, she paused and took some deep breaths, letting the earthy smell fill her lungs and expelling the toxic anger and worry she had let consume her. A woodpecker drummed somewhere overhead, and a blackbird appeared to look at her inquisitively before hopping away. Why had she let herself get so confused and overwhelmed? Léo had been nothing but kind and respectful yesterday, she had enjoyed the day and yes, she had felt attracted to him. It was only natural, he was gorgeous, she wouldn’t pretend to herself any longer that she thought differently, although she’d die rather than admit it to her sisters. But what had shaken her, she knew, was not the attraction itself, but the repulsion and fear that squirmed alongside it. She had seen herself soften and melt as he guided her senses with the food and wine, and while that felt divinely sexy, and she longed to sink into it luxuriously, it simultaneously jolted her awake. Was this how it had been with Toby? She had locked away the memories of just how he had led her into such submission to him, but she remembered what it had become, how she had been disallowed, eventually, to choose things for herself, make her own decisions, have her own likes and dislikes, her own opinions. Everything was under subjugation to Toby, and if it wasn’t, it was wrong. And she would suffer then, from cruel, cutting words reminding her that she was too stupid, too lacking, too rigid to think for herself. He would laugh at her, question her round and round in circles until she found herself agreeing with him, apologising. But how had it started? Maybe it had been like this, with honeyed words and her own glad capitulation. She stamped her foot on the soft moss, scaring a robin that had been inspecting her from a branch. Well, it couldn’t happen again. Léo didn’t seem anything like Toby, she had to admit that, but he had seduced a married woman, and wasn’t that how these men operated? Clever and subtle, knowing how to manipulate you and exploit your insecurities. Juliet picked up her bag and began striding through the woods again, this time letting them fire her up rather than calm her. No, he would not worm his way in. This time she would be her own fierce advocate. She would have to be professional but no more, no more.
Passing through a final small glade that she knew well, as a favourite place the three sisters had come to as teenagers to drink disgustingly sweet alcohol and practise snogging on their local boyfriends, she soon left the wood and crossed the boundary of her family’s land, emerging onto the road into the village. She made straight for the village shop where she bought some food that she could keep in her room, so that she didn’t always have to go up to Feywood for meals if she didn’t want to. Admittedly, the choices were scant, but she wasn’t planning on doing it regularly; she just wanted the option to make her own choices once in a while. It had only been a short time, but she was starting to find the sense of obligation stifling. And besides, it was the perfect way to avoid Léo. Non-perishable items started stacking up in her basket: melba toast, jam, long-life milk, cereal, tinned tuna pasta salad that reminded her of aeroplane food and some biscuits and crisps. She almost avoided the latter, as she had no off-switch when it came to crisps and her tailored trousers were already tighter than they had been when she was living in London on a diet of coffee and gin, but she had a sense of rebellion – against what, she wasn’t sure: her family, Feywood, her old life, herself? She shrugged and threw in another brightly coloured tube of delicious reconstituted, salted potato. She knew this stuff wasn’t good for her, but hell, it felt good to be in control of it. No mother or Toby peering over her shoulder and asking her if she reallyneeded it. She dropped in a bottle – wait, two bottles – of wine and headed for the counter. Oh God, it was the shop’s owner on duty – a particularly odious man who had sneaked to her parents on more than one occasion over her purchases. He smoothed his few remaining strands of hair across his bald spot and peered at her over his glasses with his small, dark eyes.
Juliet glanced at him, still wearing the same beige, bobbly cardigan he had sported for the last twenty years, its pockets stuffed with half-used tissues, and sighed. ‘Hello, Brian, lovely day.’
Brian peered into her basket.
‘Hmmmmm. Having a party, are we?’
‘Nope! All for little old me.’
‘Won’t be so little if you eat all this by yourself.’
‘No, maybe you’re right. It is an awful lot. Actually, quite hard to carry. Perhaps I’ll put it back and get the big supermarket to deliver instead.’
Juliet knew that one of Brian’s biggest hatreds – and fears – was the competition from delivery services. She believed in shopping locally when she was at home but missed the blissful anonymity of some non-judgemental delivery driver turning up at the front door with her guilty pleasures. Even the one who had delivered nothing but a bottle of champagne, some pretzel sticks and a sixteen-pack of loo paper – the time she had preloaded her online trolley to save her delivery slot then forgotten about it – didn’t bat an eyelid.
Brian glowered at her and snatched the basket towards him, scanning the items at speed and stuffing them into bags, before she could make good on her threat.
‘Enjoying being back at home, are you?’ he asked pointedly, as he slid the wine bottles into a bag.
‘It’s marvellous,’ said Juliet, touching her card to the reader. ‘I’m so glad I chose to return.’
‘Nothing to do with Feywood crumbling around Rousseau’s ears, then, and you being the last hope of providing some money to prop it up for another few years?’
‘Not at all. Thank you!’
She trilled a goodbye as she swept from the shop, as confidently as she could pretend to, then marched down the road and turned into the nearest place she could sit down and gather her thoughts. That happened to be the graveyard, which suited her dark frame of mind perfectly. She sank onto a convenient bench and contemplated the stone in front of her, some poor unfortunate who had, at twenty-five years of age, ‘drowned while bathing in the Boca Grande, Mexico’ in 1860. She was unable to dwell on this, or anything else, as a deep voice drifted across the cemetery.
‘Juliet! Marvellous to see you.’
She looked up, a smile at the corners of her weary mouth. She would recognise that dear, familiar voice anywhere.
‘Father Benedict!’
The vicar came bounding towards her, and she stood up to be enveloped in his enormous, warm hug. The smell of frankincense, furniture polish and old books lingered, as ever, on his vestments, and she thought of how much she had paid in the past for a candle to evoke that very thing. It seemed ridiculous, now, to have burnt a forty-pound candle in her London flat, when all she had needed to do was to come home.
‘How are you, my dear, dear girl?’
The tall, bearded vicar held her at arm’s length and inspected her. She never minded his scrutiny, his advice, his occasional admonitions. Never had. It was funny how some people you just trusted.
‘I’m all right, thanks.’
‘Okay being back at home? Bit different living there without Lilith.’
‘Yes, very. I’m enjoying it, getting plenty of work done.’
‘Hmm, good. Well, I was going to come up to Feywood this week to seek you out, as it happens. And look! Put in my path, right here on church land. I wonder who could be responsible for that, eh?’
Juliet wasn’t sure where she stood on the subject of God and his interventions in the world, but she loved the way Father Benedict always credited the Almighty for every ‘God-incidence’, as he called them. Today, she wasn’t going to argue.
‘I needed to get away, and this was the perfect sanctuary.’
‘Of course it was. Now. What did I want to talk to you about, you might wonder?’
‘I do.’
‘Well, it is something of a favour. You are aware that Lammas is fast approaching?’
Juliet frowned as she delved into her memory for this particular reference.
‘Lammas? Oh, isn’t that something to do with bread? Isn’t it also called Loaf Mass?’
‘That’s right. I knew you’d remember. You loved it when you were a little girl, trotting up to the altar with your plaited loaf.’
Juliet did remember. It had been her favourite of the church’s festivals, beating even Christmas for her, which had always been fraught due to her mother’s pernickety, critical attitude towards presents. It was almost impossible to get her something she liked, and she would never hide her disappointment that you thought she was the kind of person who would like… that. Even if you pushed the boat out and found something special, she would complain that she had no use for it, and that you shouldn’t have wasted your money. If you got nothing at all, she went into a monumental sulk about not being loved, and if you got a pretty or amusing token gift, then she would be deeply offended at your lack of care. One year Juliet knew for a fact that she had hit the jackpot with a particular pair of earrings she knew Lilith had admired, were a reasonable price and she had to take a special trip to buy. True, her mother couldn’t find anything to complain about, but she had never once worn the earrings, and after her death, Juliet had found them stuffed down the back of a drawer. She knew that the issue, whatever the hell it was, was to do with her mother and not with her, but the memory was still painful. Lammas, on the other hand, she remembered with joy.
‘Yes! Every year Aunt Sylvia would patiently help me shape the dough, and every year we said we would practise for next time, but we always forgot. I used to love putting it in the church with all the other loaves – there were some amazing shapes. My little plait was very simple in comparison.’
‘But nonetheless welcome.’ Father Benedict smiled warmly at her. ‘I do hope that, now you’re back, you’re going to bring a loaf to the church on the first Sunday in August? It’s only a month away. Maybe try something a little more ambitious this time?’
‘Oh, gosh, I don’t know about that. I mean, I haven’t made bread for years – probably not since the last time I did it with Sylvia.’
‘Well then, this is your golden opportunity. Sylvia always brings something down, but I had very much hoped it might be you again. I’m sure Sylvia would be as willing as ever to guide you, but I know that she does have a lot on at the moment. She might be glad of a year off. I’m sure you could make a wonderful loaf, dear Juliet.’
Juliet couldn’t help but smile at the vicar’s gentle but very persistent manner. And he was right. Sylvia was so busy and had been looking tired and pale. Maybe it would be fun to join in with this aspect of community life again. It had always been ‘her’ thing and brought back no memories of her mother, who had been completely uninterested, much to Juliet’s relief.
‘All right, Father Benedict, I’ll give it a try. But I can’t guarantee it will be edible.’
‘Process not product, my dear, process not product. I have a feeling it will be nourishing for you no matter how it tastes. There is more to our daily bread than flour, yeast and water, you know.’
The vicar patted her hand and stood to go. Juliet sat for a while longer, feeling calmer and even enthusiastic about making her Lammas loaf. The idea crept into her head that she could enlist Léo’s help, but she huffed loudly at the thought. She didn’t need him; she could do this on her own. It would be the best loaf in the village.