Chapter Thirty-Four #2
There were five rickety chairs in the shade.
Cath sat there with the Brennans, leaving Jake to take care of the fire.
She thought she’d make time to talk to the young man, just the two of them, later, but now she was content to sit here, listening to birdsong, watching Alex become more and more adventurous.
It felt as if she’d handed over all responsibility to the Brennans. She had no real decision to make.
She turned down the offer of wine or beer. ‘I have to drive back.’
‘You could stay!’ Tessa said. ‘There’s a room in the house, or you could camp out here. It’s all made up and ready.’
For a brief moment she was tempted. But Paul wanted to get back to London as soon as possible, and besides, he’d never had to look after either of the boys on his own overnight. So, she thanked Tessa and shook her head with a little laugh and said it wouldn’t be possible.
There was a fridge in the outdoor kitchen with lemonade and ginger ale. She took a can, without remembering what she’d chosen. Everything seemed like a dream.
When the food was ready, Jake joined them at the chairs, carrying plates of meat.
Tessa laid out salads on a trestle table, and there was steak for the adults and sausages for Alex.
Good bread. Cath called her son to eat, and he came a little reluctantly because he’d been having such a good time, but then he seemed ravenous.
He’d been picking at the hotel food, but here, in the fresh air, he devoured everything put in front of him.
Tessa and Bob looked on, pleased; it was clear to them that the lunch was going well. Their awkwardness seemed to have faded.
‘An American couple were staying in this pod.’ Bob’s words jolted Cath back to reality, to that hyper-vigilance that seemed to have been part of her life for so long. ‘The Kinzalows. They just up and left at the beginning of the week. I suppose they thought they were being tactful.’
Jake seemed to start at the Americans’ name too. Cath wondered if Hannah had talked to him about Elizabeth, and if so, what story had been told.
‘It would be a lovely place for a holiday,’ Cath said. Her tone bland. She could do this. She’d had a lot of practice.
‘Oh, my dear, you’d be very welcome any time.
If you do decide to sell Tide House. As our guests of course.
’ Tessa Brennan got to her feet and started clearing plates.
Cath noticed that she was still wearing the flowery apron.
It seemed such an unlikely garment for the farmer that she couldn’t help smiling.
Tessa invited Cath into the farmhouse for coffee.
‘I thought you might like to see it. Hannah spent a lot of time there.’
Cath could have spent all afternoon in the sun by the river, but she was curious too, to get a glimpse of these lives, and she knew that Paul could only cope with a child for so long. Soon, he’d need to get back into work mode, his eyes on a screen, his phone to his ear.
She walked back to the house with Jake. Tessa and Bob went ahead with Alex, telling him about the farm, each holding a hand and swinging him between them, treating him as if he was a much younger child, but making him laugh. The sound raised Cath’s spirits.
She was glad to have a few moments alone with Jake. ‘Thank you for making Hannah so happy,’ she said. ‘It’s good to know that she had someone to talk to, to confide in.’
‘I loved her.’ Jake stopped for a moment. ‘I would have asked her to marry me, you know. If I’d had the chance.’
She reached out and took his hand briefly, before quickening her pace to catch up with the others.
They sat at the kitchen table. The window was wide open, letting in a faint smell of cow and hay.
Cath was feeling more relaxed than she had since Hannah’s death – she could imagine Hannah here in this big, cluttered room so different from the sleek kitchens in London and Tide House.
Alex, though, was bored and restless. He wriggled away when she sat him on her lap.
Cath was about to change her mind about the coffee and take the boy straight back to Torr, but Jake swept him away with a promise of computer games in his room or hide-and-seek in the barn.
Cath watched them go. ‘What a lovely boy! You must be so proud of him.’
Now they were properly alone, it seemed the Brennans had questions for her. They too were curious. She couldn’t resent their gentle probing. She’d be interested in the investigation too, if it weren’t so close to home.
‘Have the police got any closer to finding out who did it?’ Tessa was pouring coffee, her back to Cath. Perhaps that seemed less intrusive, less like an interrogation.
‘They don’t tell us much,’ Cath said, which was true enough. ‘There are lots of questions but not many answers.’
‘They seemed very interested in that American couple, the Kinzalows.’
‘Yes,’ Cath said. ‘They asked us about them too.’
She was relieved when Alex came rattling down the stairs, ready, it seemed, to go back to the hotel. They all walked out into the yard, and hugged, before she got the boy into the car to drive back to Torr.
As Cath approached the Fisherman’s Arms, she had to stop to let a vehicle into the pub car park.
The garden was full of holidaymakers, their faces greasy with sun cream or pink with peeling skin.
The car drove to the side of the pub, to a place of overspill parking, and she watched the driver get out and open the back door for a woman who looked very different from the drinkers in their shorts and skimpy skirts.
The woman wore a yellow and white cotton dress, pinched in at the waist, and she carried a yellow handbag over one arm.
Cath couldn’t see her face, but the style and the car identified her at once.
This was Elaine Cauldwell, and Cath could only believe that she was here to cause trouble.
She waited until Elaine had walked into the pub and then she drove into the car park.
‘What are we doing here, Mummy?’ Her son’s voice was lazy, untroubled. His hours in the fresh air had made him sleepy.
‘We’re just popping into the Fisherman’s to see Mag, pet. To say goodbye before we go back to London.’
He didn’t answer. He had a comic on his knee, but his eyes were almost shut.