CHAPTER 9
Joanna
Dorset
Joanna was already feeling as if she had never left home at all.
Supper had been awkward last night – mainly because of her announcement about Martin, she supposed, but she didn’t want to keep lying to everyone about it and they’d have to know sooner or later if she didn’t go back .
. . Mother hadn’t mentioned it since – perhaps that was how she coped with the bad things of life, like the cottage being in such a state of disrepair and losing their father; perhaps she simply swept them under the proverbial carpet and pretended they hadn’t happened?
And that was a relief, because this morning Joanna had work to do.
She finished the article she was working on, did some editing and then ran the vacuum cleaner round the sitting room while Harriet was out collecting eggs and feeding the pigs.
Although Harriet was in a weird mood as usual, there was a sense of peace here at Mulberry Farm Cottage that Joanna relished.
She hadn’t realised how much she had missed being in the country, away from traffic noise and crowds.
It was conducive to writing – maybe even inspirational in its own way.
Perhaps, Joanna thought, she’d lived in London for too long.
Perhaps, after all, it was time for a change.
As for Mother, she didn’t need to be watched all the time; she seemed quite happy reading her magazines and wandering around the orchard.
Joanna wondered if her sister was exaggerating about Mother.
She wasn’t her old self, of course not, but she didn’t seem to pose any threat – either to herself or to anyone else come to that.
Straight after lunch, Joanna headed outside to call Toby.
The mobile signal was better and she didn’t want to be overheard.
She edged through the damp and cobwebby porch.
Numerous pairs of wellies stood amongst Harriet’s gardening tools, piles of old animal blankets, and an assortment of buckets.
The shelves along the wall were crammed with baskets and egg boxes, glass jars and clay pots.
It was a mess, but a comforting mess. Joanna supposed it was all so familiar to Harriet and Mother that they no longer even registered it.
‘Yes, sweetie?’ Toby seemed pleased to hear from her. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘You mentioned some travel brochures. Before . . .’ Before she left London, before she came here, before her husband told her he had been seeing another woman. It had only been a couple of days, but it seemed an awfully long time ago already.
‘Oh, yes, the travel information job.’ There was a pause. ‘You said you weren’t interested, Jo.’
Ah. Had he offered it to someone else then? ‘Things have changed,’ she told him. And how. ‘I’m very interested now.’ She felt guilty, planning to leave when she’d only just got here, but this was her job, this was a way she could help.
‘OK.’ She could hear him tapping on his computer. ‘Let me check to see if they’re still available.’
She waited.
‘Yeah,’ he said at last. ‘All yours if you fancy it.’
Joanna exhaled. Oh, she fancied it. ‘So, can you remind me what the job entails?’ It had gone in one ear and out the other. Last time she and Toby had spoken, she had been focusing on work she could do without going away. Now, though . . .
‘Galileo want a series,’ Toby said. ‘‘They’re being commissioned for tourist information offices abroad. City travel brochures with a theme. Three now, but they’ll probably want more at some point later down the line.’
A theme. Joanna thought fast. ‘And definitely still available?’
‘I kind of put them to one side,’ he admitted. ‘I thought it sounded like just your sort of thing, then you said no, so I was going to offer it to Sean, but he’s just taken on a big project and can’t spare the time . . .’ She heard him shuffling some papers.
‘I’ll do it,’ she said.
‘The money’s not bad,’ he added. ‘It’s some sort of sponsorship thing.’
Thank goodness. She had always tried to help Harriet and Mother out a bit financially but what with their mortgage and her own unstable income, not to mention Harriet’s pride, it had never been easy. Now, though . . . ‘What sort of theme?’ she asked.
‘Something that hasn’t been done before,’ he said. ‘A new angle. Walking behind the scenes. Something away from the obvious.’
‘So they have no idea what they want?’ Same old story, she thought.
Toby chuckled. ‘They will when we give it to them, sweetie. I’m telling you, this is a decent commission. Who knows where it could lead?’
But Joanna didn’t want to look too far ahead.
‘Which cities?’ she asked. It was too much to hope.
Of course, she didn’t want to go away so soon.
She’d promised to help out and she would.
But on the other hand, Harriet wouldn’t want her around all the time; she’d made that clear.
And if Jo was bringing in enough money to make a significant contribution .
. . it would make sense. This could be her base.
Just for a short while. Until she’d decided what to do about Martin.
‘Anywhere in Europe,’ Toby replied.
‘Italy?’
‘Perfect.’
Joanna smiled. Italy always was. She thought of Emmy’s letters.
It was a sign all right, but she could hardly believe her luck.
She had googled the three cities and linked them in to the UK.
If Emmy and her father had travelled from the UK to Venice, then Lisbon, then Prague, then back to the UK again, the shape of their journey was uncannily like an egg timer, an hourglass, the sands of time . . . ‘And Lisbon?’
‘Good choice.’
She imagined Toby whisking through his mental index of travel hotspots.
‘Berlin?’ he suggested hopefully. ‘Vienna?’
‘Or Prague?’ she said.
‘Yeah, maybe.’ Less enthusiastically now.
Oh, yes. She thought of Emmy. Definitely Prague.
‘I’ll check that for you,’ Toby said. ‘And the theme?’
That was easy. Emmy had done that part for her. She thought of the bridges, the pause, the moment in time. ‘Bridge walks?’ she said.
‘Bridge walks?’ Toby sounded even less enthused at this.
‘Past to present,’ Joanna went on smoothly. ‘A moment in time. A decision. A new way of seeing. A pathway.’ She was improvising, because she hadn’t yet thought this through.
‘Hmm, sounds interesting – possibly.’ Clearly, he wasn’t convinced.
Joanna was in the kitchen garden now and she watched as Harriet emerged from the porch. She was wearing faded blue jeans, scuffed shoes, an old tweed jacket and a yellow scarf. Bohemian wasn’t the half of it. Joanna tutted. ‘Hang on a sec, Toby.’
She switched her mobile to mute. ‘Want to borrow?’ She indicated her own chestnut-coloured leather jacket hanging on the peg.
What, she wondered, was Harriet’s pathway this afternoon?
And could it conceivably have something to do with that man whose image she’d seen on Harriet’s computer screen last night?
Harriet hesitated. ‘All right then,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’ She took off the tweed number, hung it up and put on Joanna’s, carefully, as if it might bite.
‘Bye. Have a good time.’ She smiled at Harriet’s expression and turned her attention back to Toby as she unmuted the phone. ‘Sorry about that. My sister.’
‘A moment in time?’ Toby made a noise halfway between a grunt and a sigh.
‘A pause,’ Joanna confirmed, remembering Emmy’s words.
‘I trust you, Jo,’ said Toby. ‘Don’t let me down.’
‘Great. And of course I won’t.’ Joanna crossed her fingers.
‘But—’
‘I’ll make it work, Toby,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry.’
She waved at her mother, who had come to stand in the kitchen doorway. ‘Just coming,’ she called out to her.
‘You sound busy, sweetie,’ he said. ‘Where are you exactly?’
‘Dorset,’ she told him. ‘A family visit.’
‘Right. OK. I’ll email you the style and word count notes.’
‘Thanks.’ Synchronicity, thought Joanna. Sometimes that was what life was all about. Being open to opportunities, catching them at the right moment.
‘And just so you know,’ Toby added.
‘Yes?’
‘You need to get online and book a flight pronto.’
‘Pronto?’
‘Yeah. The first one needs to be done yesterday.’
*
Joanna was thoughtful as she went back inside.
She put the kettle on for tea while her mother sat down at the old kitchen table.
Mother might be in denial about Martin, Joanna thought, but she seemed happier now that she had all her chicks back in the nest – for a while at least. And maybe she knew something about the mysterious Emmy?
‘Mother, do you know who painted the Venetian picture in my bedroom?’ she asked her as she waited for the kettle to boil.
Her mother frowned. ‘I don’t know, darling,’ she said at last, an expression of defeat flitting across her features. ‘Is it important?’
‘No, not at all.’ Joanna warmed the teapot and spooned in the tea. ‘I just wondered if it might be one of our ancestors.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so, no. I can’t think of anyone who was an artist.’
Joanna decided to come clean. ‘I found some letters in the attic,’ she confided.
‘Letters?’
‘From someone called Emmy?’
Her mother shook her head.
‘To someone called Rufus?’
She shook her head again.
Joanna poured the tea. ‘Never mind, Ma,’ she soothed. ‘It’s a bit of a mystery. But you know me.’
Her mother smiled. She was on safer ground here. ‘You always liked reading Agatha Christie books,’ she pronounced triumphantly.
‘I did.’
She’d been right. A mysterious family secret was exactly the kind of distraction that Joanna needed to stop her feeling maudlin about the end of her marriage – if it had ended, that was.
She would find out the identity of Emmy and Rufus and she would follow Emmy’s pathway – at least until she had a clearer pathway of her own.