Chapter Eight
Dressing rapidly, Imogen ran her fingers cursorily through her hair and trotted down to the kitchen, with Tango in close pursuit,
for her early morning fix of peanut butter and banana sandwiches.
Surveying the kitchen guiltily while she ate, Imogen decided she just had time for a quick tidy up in Sally’s honor. When
it came to interiors, Sally was hard to live up to. Her kitchen permanently looked like a room set for Elle Decoration magazine with the obligatory—and never used—KitchenAid stand mixer along with a state-of-the-art espresso machine—constantly
used—both displayed on expanses of spotless granite worktop. Imogen’s kitchen, on the other hand, boasted the latest accessory
in knife-scarred wooden bread boards—surrounded by asteroid clouds of crumbs scattered across somewhat sticky, not-very-scrubbed
oak worktops. To complete the coveted lifestyle effect, there were teetering piles of washing up arranged rather too artlessly
for art in and around the deep stone sink.
In a blast of inspiration and energy, Imogen tackled the washing up—plenty of hot water for a change—and was wiping down the surfaces when she was interrupted by the clang of the doorbell. Averting her eyes from the floor that needed a sweep at minimum, and ideally a good mop, she ran to open the front door.
Standing in front of her was Gabriel, his face arranged into the closest thing to a smile she could remember seeing.
Could it really be Tuesday already? She had become totally distracted by the Sally emergency.
“You good?” he said, rubbing his hands together briskly.
Imogen nodded, still mute.
“Car key?” he queried. “Unless you want me to teach you to hotwire your own car?”
Thankfully, her mother had left it hanging on the key hook next to the front door, and she jiggled it in front of his face
in a confident manner she definitely didn’t feel.
“Hang on,” he said, suddenly freezing in mid-turn. “I forgot to ask. Tell me you’ve got a provisional license?”
“Of course,” said Imogen, breathing a sigh of relief that she had applied for it years ago. At the time, it was only because
she looked so ridiculously young—it had been a handy proof of age. It beat having to produce her passport whenever she wanted
to buy a bottle of wine.
Walking to the wrong side of the car and then staring blankly at the passenger door wasn’t a great start.
Gabriel smirked as she scuttled back around to the driver’s side, striking her forehead with her palm in embarrassment.
Sliding into the driver’s seat, her nerves were not improved by Gabriel’s five-minute lecture on the main controls, starting
with the gear stick. There was so much to remember.
“Just work your way through the gears to start off with,” he suggested.
She began to sweat slightly as she rammed the gear stick from one gear to another, taking her hand off repeatedly to look
at the funny little diagram on the knob. Of all the stupid places to put it. As if she had an eye in the palm of her hand,
she thought with irritation.
“It seems a bit stiff,” she said.
“You might want to put your foot on the clutch,” Gabriel suggested with what—she suspected—was a facetious tone.
“Ah, that’s much easier,” she admitted, dreading to think what damage she had just done to the gearbox.
Gabriel remained implacably calm, even after she checked with him for the fifth time which pedal was the brake and which the
accelerator. Setting off, Imogen negotiated the driveway entrance, which seemed impossibly narrow, and was soon bowling down
the lane toward the village, feeling dangerously out of control, even with Gabriel as a steady presence beside her.
He gave a running commentary, calmly observing that she might want to change up from first gear now they had gone a hundred yards and later gently mooting the idea she should accelerate a little. Glancing down, nervous of her eyes leaving the road, Imogen saw she was only going fifteen miles an hour, with her fists clutching the wheel so tightly her knuckles were white. She decided this was quite fast enough for the moment. Coming into the heart of the village, she felt even less confident. They were trundling along the road running beside the village green when she fumbled with a gear change, panicked, braked sharply, and then stalled.
Despite Gabriel’s amazingly calm guidance, Imogen found it impossible to muster the coordination to set off again. Starting
the engine, first she forgot to take the car out of gear and stalled, then she accidentally set off in second gear and bunny-hopped
alarmingly for a few yards before stalling again.
By the time she finally managed to draw away, she was nearly in tears with mortification. To Gabriel’s credit, he was sitting
patiently and implacably beside her. A lesser man would have been terrified, especially if she had—at any point—approached
the speed limit.
For the remainder of the lesson, she was hopeless, miserably certain she would never learn to drive. Her confidence was barely
restored by an uneventful trip along picturesque country lanes back to the house.
“Same time next week?” said Gabriel as she climbed out, knees trembling now the ordeal was at an end. She felt utterly exhausted.
“You must let me do something to return the favor,” she said, turning to him. “This is so kind.”
“Purely self-interest,” he said. “I’d rather be in the car with you than at risk of being run over by it.”
Rude, thought Imogen, taking a breath in to berate him, but then good manners prevailed.
“Anyhow, I just want to say, it’s extremely kind, and I’m very grateful,” she said tightly.
“Noted,” he replied, with a little bow.
Deciding it was about time she mastered the local buses—clearly passing her driving test was going to take a while—Imogen decided to head into Portneath to meet Sally from the train.
The bus stop, with its little wooden shelter, was near the telephone box library on the green, and the walk in the golden
late summer sunshine was a welcome chance to let her mind drift. Disconcertingly, though, whenever it did, memories of kissing
Gabriel filled it on repeat. Safely on the bus and trundling into Portneath, her daydreaming continued. Mainly it was the
kiss itself she re-created in her head, sometimes allowing herself to imagine what might have come next. Less promisingly,
she would usually move on to wondering first how on earth she could have allowed herself to do it, and then—shamefully—how
soon they would have the chance to do it again.
Arriving in Portneath with a couple of hours to spare, Imogen allowed herself a leisurely browse in Portneath’s brilliantly
stocked art shop, where she loaded up with supplies. She was desperate to start the children’s book that was taking shape
in her head. By the time she had finished, she had spent a fortune, and the train was imminent. She had just enough time to
dive into the supermarket near the station and pick up essential supplies for supper.
Hauling the heavy basket to the nearest open checkout, Imogen shifted from foot to foot impatiently, glancing again at her watch. An improbably dark-haired woman with a scarlet slash of lipstick bleeding into the lines around her mouth was making a fuss of searching through the money -off coupons in her purse while Imogen idly wondered if the hair was a wig or just an overdose of hair dye.
Smiling vaguely at the checkout woman, Imogen eventually loaded her booty into two carrier bags, but she noticed the woman
casting significant, pursed-lipped looks at her wine and then at her bulging tummy. Resisting the temptation to run back for
a large bottle of gin and a packet of cigs to wave in the woman’s censorious face, Imogen paid demurely and left.
At the station, she quickly checked the screen showing arrivals without even breaking her stride. Just her luck, the train
was on time. She arrived at the platform as the train was drawing out again. There were perhaps a dozen passengers heading
for the exit. A second later, they saw each other. Sally waved exaggeratedly and then ran the twenty yards toward Imogen in
comic slow motion, arms outstretched and a daft grin on her face. Even clowning around, Imogen thought, she looked lithe and
elegant in her white skinny jeans and butter-soft suede jacket, cut off at the waist to make her legs look endless. Her hair
was shorter than Imogen had seen it before, curling softly at jaw length with expensively applied color enhancing the natural
coppery tones. Sally made it all look so effortless. Would Imogen ever be able to achieve such a nonchalant, glossy style?
Stupid question.
Close up, though, Imogen saw her eyes were red-rimmed and her skin pale.
“Hello, sweetheart,” she said, clutching Imogen in a too-hard hug. Releasing her after several seconds, Sally put her hand between their two bodies, puzzled at encountering Imogen’s bulging midriff.
“What’s this!” she shrieked, eyebrows disappearing under her artfully streaked fringe.
“Wind,” deadpanned Imogen. “Plenty of time for that later.”
“And over a bloody glass of wine,” Sally shrieked again. “For me, anyhow.”
All the way back to Middlemass, Sally kept up a flow of chitchat—the scenery, the house when they arrived, the gardens, her
bedroom. It was all very much in the manner of “how charming, my friend has chosen to move to a countryside theme park”: cute
but—essentially—inexplicable.
An hour later Sally was showered and changed, and they were pottering over their supper preparations, Imogen drinking tea
and Sally making inroads into the first of the bottles of Chablis.
“Some fresh basil and buffalo mozzarella would absolutely make these pizzas,” said Sally, ripping the plastic wrapping off
the chill-cabinet pizzas Imogen had chosen earlier.
Imogen reached up to the spice shelf and handed Sally a jar of mixed herbs. “Cheddar’s in the fridge,” she added.
“Oooh, sorry!” said Sally, not sounding the least bit repentant. “I’d forgotten the Nigella experience has bypassed the countryside.”
“Actually, you’re wrong, there’s apparently an excellent deli in Portneath. I just didn’t have time to go there today. Also, I’m told there’s a farmers’ market every Saturday and it’s pretty good. I’m going to use it quite a lot when I can drive, I think.”
“Planning to stay, then?” said Sally, giving Imogen a piercing look.
Curled up in armchairs either side of the woodburning stove in the study, they watched the flames in companionable silence.
Full of pizza, and with the initial urgency of news sharing over, Imogen was well aware Sally had so far avoided the big Alistair
discussion. Instead, supper had been spent exclaiming over the baby to come, sharing her own birth experience with Ed. “Bloody
undignified and hurts like hell. Make sure they give you lots of drugs,” had been Sally’s advice.
“So,” Sally announced at last, pouring herself another glass, “he says he still loves me, a hundred percent, but he’s not
sure if he’s ‘in love’ with me,” she continued. “I mean, please! And then, as if that trite rubbish wasn’t insulting enough,
he ‘reassured’ me there wasn’t anyone else!” She laughed mirthlessly. “I swear to God! He actually said, ‘I just want you
to know that there isn’t anyone else,’ as if that’s supposed to make me feel better. As if, somehow, the fact that I’ve become
boring and irrelevant—even though he isn’t even screwing his secretary—makes it less horrible.” She sighed shakily. “I mean, since when was ‘complete celibacy is preferable
to sex with you’ a positive thing to hear?”
Tango, sensing negative energy, uncurled himself from the rag rug in front of the stove and slunk out of the room, the end
of his tail twitching in annoyance.
Imogen searched for something comforting to say. “I’m so sorry, Sal, but... he’s only saying how he feels, isn’t he? I mean, all marriages get a bit stale sometimes, don’t they? Don’t they?”
“Not yours,” said Sally bitterly. “Widows get the sympathy, not potential divorcées. At least you know he died loving you!”
And then, “Sorry. That’s a completely horrible thing to say,” she added, stretching out a hand in apology. “It’s appalling
to lumber you with my problems now with what you’re going through.”
“What are friends for?” said Imogen. “Anyway, he didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?” said Sally, peering at her blearily over the top of her glass.
“Didn’t die loving me. I thought he did... but I was wrong.”
“No.” Sally was certain. “Imo, you mustn’t think that. For all his faults...” She paused, clearly running through a long
mental list of them. “I mean, he completely adored you, Imo. Put you on a pedestal, really... even if I did think he was
a bit of a pompous twat. I never doubted his devotion. Nor should you.”
Staring into the flames, Imogen remembered how Sally had described Nigel before they had met. He had been invited to one of
Sally and Alistair’s dinner parties. Then a last-minute dropout had left Sally on the phone to Imogen an hour before the guests
were due to arrive, begging her to make up the numbers.
“There’s this boring old fart of a solicitor Alistair has to suck up to,” Sally had told her. “He’s about thirty-five going on sixty, but he’s the only unattached man there, and it’ll look so obvious if the numbers are wrong. Please come, Imo.”
Racing across London from her digs in Camden to Sally and Alistair’s house, Imogen had arrived after a hasty shower and change
of clothes into the only thing she could find that was clean and didn’t need ironing. Unfortunately, this meant wearing an
elasticated minidress in startling black and red horizontal stripes. It had made her look like a tart even when it was new.
Since then it had shrunk in the wash, so wearing it meant hauling the skirt down to less X-certificate levels every few minutes.
Sidling into the drawing room after giving the dress a hefty hoick south in the hallway, Imogen had discovered the other guests,
including Nigel. Nigel, in a pin-striped suit, was standing in front of the fireplace drinking whiskey. He was rocking on
his feet, one hand in his pocket, the glass in the other, proclaiming on capital punishment (he was in favor) to Alistair,
who was standing with his head on one side. Rather than looking at him while he spoke, Nigel’s eyes were fixed on a point
above Alistair’s head in the way of people who are not particularly interested in other people’s views and dislike being interrupted
to listen to them.
Sitting opposite Nigel at dinner, Imogen had felt herself being cursorily assessed. He had asked the routine questions about
her job—nonexistent at the time—and her interests, for which she shyly mentioned her ambitions as an artist. She remembered
how he had weighed her answers briefly and then seemed to dismiss her, turning to the advertising executive on his left to
share his views about the property market.
She had been amazed when Sally reported the next day that he had asked for her number. Granted, it was only to offer her a job, but that had at least demonstrated he had remembered her telling him about her unfortunate—and quite unfair—dismissal the week before. He later admitted that setting her up with a job had given him the chance to keep her close while he planned his next move. The rest—as they say—had been history.
“He pursued you relentlessly,” said Sally, poking the fire and chucking another log on, diverted from her own problems and
reaching for the bottle of wine for a refill. “He was so besotted I don’t see how he could possibly have been having an affair. What makes you think it?”
Getting up, Imogen produced the mystery woman’s letter from the desk drawer. She handed it over, then went back to sit down,
watching Sally’s face as she read it.
Casually puzzled at first, Sally quickly froze, only her raised eyebrows giving away her surprise. Reading it through again,
she muttered extracts from the letter aloud.
“ So wonderful to see you last night... I completely understand there are obstacles I have to let you remove before that
can happen. ” Here she snorted in outrage, giving her friend a sympathetic glance. Finishing the letter, Sally paused reflectively.
“Bloody hell!” she said at last. “Do you know who this woman—this Victoria person—is?”
“No idea. A secretary? Another lawyer he met somewhere? Who knows... Actually,” she added slowly, weighing up whether to
mention it, “it ties in with something I overheard at Nigel’s funeral. You know Richard, Nigel’s boss?”
Sally nodded.
“I overheard him talking to a retired partner of the firm at the reception after the funeral. The old man was talking about a blond woman he had seen Nigel with. Said he had assumed that she was Nigel’s wife. I asked Richard about it afterward, and he was obviously embarrassed. He didn’t want to talk about her at all.”
“Probably because he didn’t know anything,” said Sally reasonably. “Still, the fact is, I just can’t imagine Nigel doing this.
You know it takes a lot for me to say something nice about him, but honestly, Imo, if I had to choose, I’d make him the least
likely person I know to have an affair.” She brightened. “Maybe it’s an old love letter from before you were married.”
“I thought of that,” said Imogen, “but look, the date on it is just a couple of weeks before he died. Anyway, what about the
‘obstacles that have to be removed’? I take it that refers to me.”
“Are you going to do anything about it?”
“Like what?”
“Well, I mean, are you going to try and find this Victoria person? See what she looks like?”
“Would you?” said Imogen.
“Yeah,” Sally said. “I think I damned well would.”
“I can’t possibly give her this,” Gabriel protested, handing back the letter.
“Why ever not, dear boy,” said his uncle Godfrey, who was the one nominated by the other trustees to come up with the plan
of action over the whole difficult business.
“Because she isn’t expecting it. She has no idea, and it’ll be devastating.”
“That’s as may be,” said Godfrey, who was pretty uncomfortable about it himself, “but let us not forget, the estate needs this money very badly indeed. I would go so far as to say it’s our only hope.”
“It can’t be,” Gabriel argued. “We’ve just had a massive cash injection from selling Storybook Cottage in the first place.
We can’t need to impose this on her as well.”
“Death duties, dear boy,” Godfrey reminded Gabriel, who sighed.
“Middlemass Hall can’t afford to lose its relationship with Cavendish Conferences,” Godfrey went on, “and there are some very
worrying mutterings from them. I’ve constantly got that Louise woman on the phone about one thing or another—if you ask me,
she’s an absolute harpy... I only wish I could afford to ignore her, but someone has seen fit to put her in charge. We
need to carry out these repairs, or they will take their business elsewhere. And then Middlemass Hall will be in a pretty pickle.”
Godfrey, looking quite red in the face, took a long drink of water and then slapped his glass down on the table with a little
more force than was necessary.
“I say,” piped up the family solicitor, “it does seem a bit—well—odd. After all, this thing dates from when Storybook Cottage
and Middlemass Hall were all owned by the same family. It’s a pretty opportunist thing to have in the Storybook Cottage deeds
now, expecting the owner to pay a fortune for repairs at the Hall.”
“There is nothing opportunist about it,” Godfrey protested, stung at the criticism. “The liability is there, fair and square, and it’s something I am bound to say they should have brought up during the conveyancing. It’s too late now. ‘Caveat emptor,’ as they say.”
“?‘Buyer beware’ is all very well,” said Gabriel, “but this woman—who is recently widowed, by the way—is alone and expecting
a child. I can absolutely assure you, she is not expecting a massive and ruinous bill from an estate she doesn’t even have
a stake in. I mean, who would?”
“You should consider your priorities,” said Godfrey. “If you seriously think you owe a greater obligation to this woman than
you do to your own family and estate, then fine. Remember, you are not alone in the decision-making, Gabriel. Your father
appointed us all to help you, and help you we will, even if we are not always in agreement as to how we do it.
“I am passing this letter to the new owner of Storybook Cottage and propose that it be dealt with before our next meeting
in a month’s time,” he went on, with a glare of finality. “Now, if we are quite finished, the next item on the agenda is the
issue of persistent rent arrears from our tenants in no fewer than three of the estate cottages, which is the last thing we
need in our financial situation...”