Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
After the cathedral visit, the three of them dined at a restaurant down by the river. On the walk back to their hotel afterwards, Benedict paused to catch his breath and clutched his side.
‘I’ve got a stitch. Knew I shouldn’t have helped Stella to finish her sticky toffee pudding…’
‘But Daddy, you didn’t help Stella at all. You just scoffed the lot!’
Benedict kissed his censorious son and the little boy scampered the last few yards to the hotel, leaving the two adults to catch up.
‘I hope you don’t mind spending your evening in our room. I thought Daniel might have lasted past seven o’clock, but he’s absolutely shattered, despite all appearances to the contrary.’
‘It’s fine by me. I’m not much of a one for night-life to be honest.’
Daniel raced upstairs, dragging Stella by the hand, and showed her round what turned out to be more of a suite than a room, with two bedrooms, a bathroom and a sitting area, complete with a small chaise longue.
‘All that was left at the last-minute,’ said Benedict. ‘Take a seat. I ordered a bottle of red earlier and thought that once his nibs falls asleep, we could have a glass and watch a film. Do you want to pick something while I read a bedtime story?’
‘No problem, but if you hate it, then don’t blame me.’
‘I’m willing to take my chances. Right, sir, let’s get you ready for bed.’
With that, he picked his son up by a leg and an arm and carried him off to the en suite where there was a good deal of giggling and not very much toothbrushing by the sound of things. Daniel gambolled back into the room wearing some blue tartan pyjamas and bounced into bed singing a song that Stella didn’t recognise. There’s a child who won’t be sleeping anytime soon, she thought to herself as she waved goodnight. During story time, she busied herself looking for a film to watch that they’d both enjoy. Nothing depressing, but also nothing with love, sex or romance, which would be mortifying to watch.
Benedict returned from tucking Daniel into bed and put the book down on a side table.
‘Well, that was easy,’ said Stella.
‘It’s not normally, believe you me. He was sound asleep before I’d managed to read three pages. I’d expected more of a battle but I think the big dinner did for him.’
‘I’m almost out for the count myself and probably won’t need to eat again until Christmas. Now, on the film front, I’ve narrowed it down to a documentary about a donkey sanctuary – which I promise is more uplifting than it sounds – or a film about a pilgrimage across Europe where the pilgrims have to walk on their knees. As an added bonus, that one has subtitles.’
‘Hmm, maybe we’ll skip the box in that case.’
Benedict held up a bottle of red wine and when Stella nodded, he opened it and poured them a glass each. He joined her on the chaise, which was snug to say the least. The wine was so perfectly close to blood temperature that she felt she was inhaling it rather than drinking it. She started to melt, but wasn’t sure whether that was due to the wine or the company. Stella was suddenly conscious of Benedict sitting close to her – so close that she could feel the warmth from his body, and close enough to breathe in something reminiscent of nutmeg or sandalwood. She didn’t trust herself with another glass of wine inside her and decided not to drink any more. It was hard thinking of something to say and she contemplated putting on the donkey sanctuary documentary to cover the awkward silence but was spared by Daniel announcing that he needed another wee.
‘Sorry, Stella. I’ll just get him sorted. That last milkshake might have been a bad idea. Help yourself to more wine if you like.’
She shook her head. ‘Another glass will knock me out. I’m a one-glass limit as a rule, and I already had a glass with dinner.’
While Benedict was otherwise occupied, she ran through her plans for the following day. First, an early morning walk to her old home. Her parents had rented an attic flat in a Victorian townhouse perched on a hill near the railway station. It had a long garden running down to the road behind it, but that belonged to the people who owned the house and her family were never allowed to use it, so her parents used to take her to the park across the road. Short of knocking on the door, there was no way of knowing whether the house was still owned by the same people, but she guessed that anyone who wouldn’t allow a little girl to play in a huge garden they never used probably wouldn’t welcome her inside years later to relive her childhood. Instead, she’d content herself with standing outside the house to see what she could remember, and she’d lay some flowers.
She was glad that Benedict and Daniel had come along, and it had made a difficult journey much easier, but she needed to do this final part by herself. All day, she’d been so busy that there’d not been time to think or reflect. Now, tired and mellowed by the wine, she started to feel a bit raw, thinking about her mother and father. It had hit her today in the cathedral, when they’d stopped and lit candles and wrote prayers for their loved ones. Seeing all those other candles burning had brought home to her the certain knowledge that loss was inevitable: to love someone was to risk losing them.
These feelings threatened to overwhelm her. The wine had been a bad idea on top of returning to her family’s birthplace and in close company with this man and his son who shared such a similar wound. She closed her eyes to hold back the tears that were threatening to fall.
Stella was awakened by a ray of sun coming through the heavy curtains, so she pulled the covers over her face. She felt thick-headed and anxious, probably due to the wine from the night before. What was odd though, was that she couldn’t remember returning to her room. Suddenly, a small form landed on her and knocked the wind out of her.
‘Mmmppphhh,’ was all she managed to say.
The small form pulled back the blankets and stared at her.
‘Stella?’
‘Daniel?’ How did you get in here?’ If she was going to sleep in hotel rooms without bothering to look her door, she’d better think about becoming teetotal.
‘I was already in here. Why are you in Daddy’s bed, Stella? Where’s my daddy?’
‘Umm, that’s a good question, and I hope to have an answer for you any minute now.’
Oh, surely not, and especially not with Daniel barely ten feet away. She pulled the blankets closer to her, wondering where Benedict was. Obviously, he couldn’t bear to see her this morning and had scarpered. No wonder she’d woken up feeling anxious. This was bad. While she was agonising, Benedict entered the room, carrying a cup of coffee and a glass of milk.
‘Good morning, sleepyheads. Thought I’d pop down and fetch you both a drink.’
He passed the milk to Daniel, who gulped it happily, and held out the cup of coffee to her. Stella froze. How could she take the cup from him and remain decent? Had he no consideration when his little boy was right next to the bed? This was too embarrassing for words, and Benedict seemed to be enjoying himself at her expense.
‘If you have a headache,’ he said with a smirk, ‘I can go and get you something for it.’
Now that she was wide awake, Stella didn’t have a thick head any more, but was glad of the excuse to get rid of the Redmans while she made herself decent and nipped to the loo.
‘That would be good, thanks. And maybe you could take you-know-who with you.’
‘Back in a tick. Come on, Dan Dan, give me a hand.’
As father and son left the room, Stella took her chance and crawled out of bed, only then realising she’d worried unnecessarily about her modesty. She was still fully dressed, apart from her trainers, which were placed neatly at the side of the bed. What on earth had been going on? In the bathroom, she smoothed her hair and splashed her face, before returning to find Benedict waving a small packet.
‘Hotel reception – very helpful people. We’re going to have breakfast downstairs before we go and explore the castle if you’d care to join us.’
‘Thanks, but not for me. After a nice long shower in my own room, I’ll be straight out for the morning, but don’t let me stop you two.’
‘Fair enough. How about you, Daniel?’
‘Not yet, Daddy. I need to watch two cartoons.’
‘I see. Well, two cartoons it is and then we’ll go and eat.’
While Daniel guffawed at the antics of colourful monsters on the small screen, Benedict owned up that Stella had nodded off and he hadn’t the heart to wake her so he’d picked her up and put her in his bed, fully clothed.
‘I did take your shoes off or you’d have had a very uncomfortable night. Your trainers took quite a bit of unknotting, I must say. Triple knots.’
Stella looked at him over her coffee. ‘And where did you sleep?’
One eyebrow twitched and there was a ghost of a smile.
‘I spent the night on the chaise longue.’
‘On the chaise short, more like. It’s barely long enough for two people to sit down on so how did you manage to lie down on it?’
‘I didn’t,’ he said. ‘My feet and most of my legs spent the night on the floor.’
‘You should have woken me up and turfed me out.’
‘It’s not a problem. Plus you’d have missed Daniel’s wake-up call.’
‘Oh, the full-on aerial assault. Yes, wouldn’t have missed that for the world.’
It was early and most of the shops were shut so the streets were still quiet and Stella enjoyed the peaceful morning air as she walked around the city in search of flowers. As it was Sunday, it didn’t look like anywhere was going to open, but she found a mini supermarket with a small selection of cut flowers. Armed with pink, yellow and white roses, she set off to find her old home. Her only home, really.
She strolled past the front gate as casually as she could and glanced into the garden. The door was still painted a dull red and the curtains in the owner’s living room were the same brown velvet that she recalled from her childhood. In all likelihood, it hadn’t changed hands, and as much as she would have loved to set foot in her old home, she really couldn’t face asking and being turned down. Instead, she walked down the terrace, back the way she’d come, remembering all the happy comings and goings from this house over the years, when she’d never once suspected what lay in her family’s future. Often, she’d wondered whether her mother had foreseen the car crash in her own chart. She suspected not, or they wouldn’t have moved so far away from home where their young daughter knew not a soul.
At the bottom of the terrace, Stella turned left and made her way around to the back garden. The terraced houses were built into a steep hill, with long gardens tumbling down from them. Because they were built into the hill, from the front, they appeared only two or three storeys high, but from the back, many of the houses had five or six storeys. Most of the sprawling gardens were overgrown with trees and shrubs so at least she wouldn’t be easily observed from the house. She approached the back gate and stood for some time, staring up the sloping garden to the house looming over her with its grand bay windows. It was just possible to make out the garret flat that had been her home until the age of twelve. Always, she’d wondered what might have happened if her family had never left and moved to Wiltshire. Perhaps her parents would still be there now, boiling strange herbs for tea, sewing their own clothes and stargazing. But they had moved, and they had died, and nothing she could do, say or think would ever change that.
When she was a girl, no one ever used these back gates due to the steep access, so she doubted the people living there would notice her flowers tied to the gatepost and they’d hopefully stay there for a while. She wound a piece of ribbon round and round the stone gatepost, fastening the roses securely. Then, her breathing ragged, she kissed her fingertips and pressed them to the stone, thinking about her parents and giving thanks for the years they’d had together and grieving for the years they’d lost. Weighed down by a heavy sense of loss, she said goodbye to her parents, wishing that she didn’t have to lose them all over again.