Chapter 13
Casey had considered cycling up to see Nigel on her day off, but in the end, she decided to treat her thighs to a taxi. Vern answered the door wearing peach velour leisurewear and a pair of navy-blue moccasin slippers.
“Hello, Casey, love, come on in.”
She was ushered into a wide rough-plastered hallway with gray flagstones underfoot, a wall-mounted coatrack and a bench seat on one side and a mahogany console table on the other.
Nigel and Vern’s style was practical and homely with splashes of pizzazz, one of which was the ten-foot papier-maché giraffe reaching nearly to the top of the stairs and dwarfing the Christmas tree next to it.
“He’ll be pleased to see you,” Vern went on. “And I’ll be able to get the animals sorted while his nibs is occupied.”
“I take it he’s not the best patient.” Casey smiled knowingly. Nigel was a doer. Enforced rest could not be going down well.
“That, my dear, would be an understatement.”
Casey placed her boots in the shoe rack and wriggled her socked toes to warm them on the underfloor heating.
“Would you like to stick around and stay for some dinner?”
“Oh, I’d love to, but I promised I’d have dinner with Nate and the kids…” Despite living in his garden, she hadn’t seen him to discuss the football club yet, and she was anxious not to delay it for much longer.
Vern threw his arms into the air theatrically. “Invite them up too! It’s been ages since we’ve all been together.”
“Okay.” Casey warmed quickly to the idea.
Maybe an evening with friends would relax him enough for her to be able to broach the subject.
“Thanks, I’ll text him now. But Vernita Marcasite will have to make an appearance, or the kids will complain,” said Casey, knowing full well that Vern would be only too happy to oblige.
“Well, huzzah, darling,” Vern drawled. “You know me, any excuse to put on a tiara. His Royal Highness is in the sitting room. I’ll make a pot of tea.”
Ms. Vernita Marcasite had been a favorite drag queen on the Soho club scene for more than thirty years until she retired from the stage.
Now she was an influencer with a solid following on Instagram and TikTok, posting videos of herself attending to their sheep, two troublesome pygmy goats, a brood of chickens, and some very bossy geese, which she insisted behaved better when she wore a feather boa.
Her kitchen gardening videos were particularly popular.
Nigel said you could take the queen out of the theater, but you couldn’t take the theater out of the queen.
Casey fired off a quick text to Nate and knocked before opening the door to the sitting room. “How’s the invalid?” she asked as she poked her head in.
“Casey!” Nigel greeted her from his position on the sofa, his legs up on a pouf, his back ramrod straight with the help of several cushions stuffed behind him.
Though his tone was jolly, his smile was tight, and she could see he was in pain.
The TV was turned down low—a Hallmark Christmas movie playing—and beside him on the sofa was a pile of newspapers and a book of crosswords. He made to move them, wincing.
“No, no, it’s fine,” she said, crossing to the cushioned window seat; it was her favorite place in the house because it offered views over the fields and the town below.
On the wall above the crackling fire in the hearth was a giant portrait in oils of Nigel in a white T-shirt and chinos holding an old-fashioned muscleman barbell, while Vernita Marcasite in a ruffled gown posed beside him, one manicured hand across his chest, the other resting on his shoulder, one foot popped up behind her.
In real life, Nigel was markedly taller than Vern, but in the portrait, with her stiletto shoes and wig that rose off her head in a billow of silver, Ms. Marcasite towered over him.
“Any news on a replacement for me yet?”
“Nobody’s replacing you, Nigel.”
“You know what I mean. You shouldn’t be there on your own. There ought to be a security guard.”
“I’m fine,” she said, thinking that Margo was probably more help in a crisis than any stand-in guard. “Ooh, before I forget,” she said, reaching into her bag and leaning across to plop a can of pina colada and two Christmas crime novels down beside him.
“Aww, bless your heart, thank you,” said Nigel, picking up the books and hungrily reading the blurbs on the back. “You didn’t need to get me anything, but I’m very grateful that you did. So, how’s work been?”
“Ummm…” Talking about Margo was obviously off the cards. Had Jared come clean about the keys yet? She didn’t want to risk mentioning it if he hadn’t. In just a few days the secrets were racking up. She decided to swerve the topic entirely. “Ajay knows about the meme.”
Nigel’s eyes widened. “How? Did he recognize you?”
“Kind of. We went out for breakfast and that stupid song came on the radio…”
“Whoa, hold the phone. You two went out for breakfast?” Nigel couldn’t hide his delight. “How did that come about?”
“Well, he, ummm…” She was saved by the doorbell ringing just as Vern came back into the room with a tray of tea things.
“Get the door, would you, Casey love?” Vern asked, clearing a space on the coffee table with his foot so that he could put the tray down.
Casey did as she was asked and found Ajay and Jared standing on the doorstep.
“Oh,” said Ajay, his eyes going wide. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Jared gave her a stony glare and then looked at the doormat.
“I popped in to see how Nigel was doing.”
“Good. Right. We’ve come to see Nigel too,” Ajay replied, nodding his head toward Jared.
So, he hadn’t come clean yet.
“I haven’t told him anything,” she said quickly, not wanting either of them to think that she was a snitch. “I’ve only just got here myself, but I wouldn’t have anyway.” She looked at Jared, who was still avoiding her eyes. “That’s not my call.”
“Thanks,” said Ajay on his sullen nephew’s behalf. He smiled at her apologetically. “Could we come in?”
“Of course!” she said, stepping aside just as Vern came back out into the hall.
“Hello!” Vern greeted them. “This is a nice surprise. Everything all right at the cottage? The boiler’s not playing up again, is it?”
“Ah, no, no, everything at the cottage is great. Perfect,” Ajay answered. “Jared wondered if he could have a word with Nigel?”
Vern cast a curious glance at Casey and then said, “Well, isn’t he popular this afternoon! Come along in now.” He ushered them into the hallway. “You’re warming up the garden stood there; I need the heating more than the hellebores do. You go on into the sitting room, and I’ll make more tea.”
“I’ll help you,” Casey offered. She wasn’t about to gate-crash Jared’s confessional.
Ajay and Jared took their boots off in the hall and padded into the sitting room.
Ajay looked back and gave her a smile before pushing the door closed.
Vern managed to hold in his curiosity until they reached the cozy farmhouse-style kitchen.
He refilled the kettle at the sink and then turned to her, one hand on his hip and an expression like he was chewing a toffee. “Spill it,” he said. And so, she did.
The second tea tray sat between them on the kitchen table.
A plate of biscuits, a date and walnut loaf cake, and a butter dish sat beside the teapot with its lid off waiting for the boiling water.
It had been ten minutes. There hadn’t been any raised voices coming from the sitting room, which Casey took as a good sign.
She had never known Nigel to shout, other than for joy, but there was a first time for everything, and finding out that one of your tenants stole your keys and broke into your place of work might have done it.
She had more expected Jared to throw his teddy in the corner; he looked like a kid who carried a thunderstorm around inside his chest. But all they heard was the deep murmur of serious voices.
“I hope they sort it out,” said Casey quietly. “I honestly don’t think Jared meant any harm. I think he was just lonely and trying to make some friends.”
Vern gave her a knowing smile. “Oh, you don’t need to worry about that. I think my better half has found himself another bird with a broken wing to take care of.” His expression was soft.
“Jared?” she asked, unable to keep the skepticism out of her voice. He didn’t strike her as someone who would take kindly to being cared for.
“Nigel sees people with different eyes. Where you or I see a rebel without a cause, he sees a potential hero in waiting.”
They were chalk and cheese: Vern often loud and acerbic to Nigel’s quiet stoicism, but they each held a deep appreciation for the other’s temperament and somehow, they complimented one another perfectly.
It had felt like an alien concept to her at first, having grown up around the battlefield that was her parents’ marriage, but she had come to realize that what Nigel and Vern had was what a relationship ought to be—it was what Nate and Grace had had for all too short a time.
“Hang on a minute,” Casey said, sitting up straight. “Was I a bird with a broken wing?”
“Oh, darling,” Vern drawled. “You were a bird that had been run over by a truck.”
She sniggered. “I guess he does adopt creatures in need.” It was a running joke that it had been Nigel’s idea to start a smallholding that would help them toward self-sufficiency and bring in some extra money when Ms. Marcasite retired.
Only, when it came to it, he couldn’t bear to send any of the animals for slaughter and now they had a flock of sheep aging gracefully in the fields, along with a menagerie of rescue birds and other animals.
“He does,” agreed Vern, his sharp eyes turning dreamy just for a second. “As our three hundred pets can attest to. Thank God I’m a TikTok sensation or we’d never afford to feed them all.”
“Thank God you’re so modest,” Casey quipped.
“Modesty is overrated; I’m fucking fabulous.”
“That you are,” she agreed seriously.