Chapter 7
HELENA PULLED ON her running gear then scooped up a pile of dirty washing to bring downstairs.
As she passed the side table on the landing she knocked over a framed photo and stopped to pick it up.
It was of Noah and Raffy. She paused and looked at it for a second, remembering taking it as they sat laughing on the beach last summer.
They were similar in so many ways; the most striking difference their eye colour.
She imagined for a moment what her and Noah’s child would have looked like, had they had one.
She still lived in hope that one day they might.
She imagined her dark hair and pale skin combined with Noah’s piercing green eyes.
What a beautiful combination that would make.
A primal longing kicked her in the guts, as it sometimes did when she allowed her body clock to tick loudly enough to perceive its cries.
There was something undeniably primitive about the instinct to reproduce.
She placed the photo down, remembering working up the nerve to ask him if he wanted more kids.
His answer had been a resounding no. He had no interest in returning to the sleepless nights and chaos of a newborn.
A cruel part of Helena could imagine only too easily that, with Kate being otherwise occupied, he wouldn’t have had his usual level of care and attention.
She knew how much that would have annoyed him.
He told her he’d only ever wanted one child.
He and Kate had never planned to have more.
He was pretty set in his ways. Helena knew that when he had made his mind up on something it was unlikely she’d be able to change it.
But she lived in hope. It was something she had always wanted.
Though if he never changed his mind, she knew that she loved Raffy as much as anyone could love their stepchild, and she would have to be content with that.
After all, the psychic had told her she’d meet a handsome man and have a curly haired child, but she hadn’t specified that the child would be genetically hers.
She came downstairs, dumped the laundry into the machine, and found Raffy and Noah on the living room rug, playing with Lego.
‘I thought I’d go for a run,’ Helena said. ‘If that’s okay with you two?’
‘Sure.’ Noah was always happy to see her working out.
‘We’re building Buzz a spaceship,’ Noah laughed, glancing down at Raffy who was squinting at a selection of Lego pieces, deciding which would work best for the tip of the rocket.
Noah was wearing a pale green T-shirt, his dark hair still dishevelled from sleep, making him appear far younger than his thirty-eight years.
‘Looks great, lucky old Buzz!’
Raffy glanced up and grinned, revealing yet another empty gap where a tooth should be.
The air felt a lot cooler today, a welcome relief after the scorching weather they’d been having.
She set off at a gentle pace, warming up before she tackled the hill at full sprint.
Having passed Podge and Perkins, grunting contentedly as they rootled through the mud in their pigsty beyond the village hall, she raced up the hill to the church as many times as she could, walking back down each time to catch her breath and allow her heart rate to return to a pace resembling normal.
She had added hill sprints to her repertoire on Noah’s insistence.
He had explained that hill-running was the fastest and most effective method of burning fat.
When they first met, he had explained how he found spare ‘blubber’, as he called it, a serious turn-off.
She knew that he expected her to keep herself in as good shape as he did.
He noticed even the slightest weight-gain immediately, and never failed to comment on it.
The last thing she wanted was for him to find her unattractive, but then she couldn’t imagine there were many women who would want that.
She supposed that most guys simply weren’t as fussy, or perhaps they didn’t notice their partner’s weight.
Unfortunately for her, Noah was not one of those men.
She wished that he would be less critical, she just wanted to eat whatever she felt like.
What she wouldn’t give to indulge herself with a whole spread of her own freshly baked pastries and cakes, or to give her rigorous exercise regime a miss every now and again.
Unlike Noah, who was one of those naturally slim and muscular people that could maintain a six-pack with a carb-free diet and a couple of sessions at the gym each week, she had to do exercise most days to maintain a physique that Noah deemed acceptable.
Sometimes her willpower caved and she would steal Raffy’s cheddars or sneak some extra chips into the oven when she cooked his tea and wolf them down when no one was looking.
But then she always felt guilty afterwards, knowing how Noah would disapprove.
Left to her own devices, she would still do the odd bit of exercise, but perhaps something more gentle.
She would love to try yoga, especially for the mindfulness aspect, but Noah dismissed it as pointless.
So, she did high intensity workouts, following buff men in tight Lycra as they urged her to feel the burn on YouTube, and hated every minute of it.
And she ran. Luckily, she found getting out of the house and setting off wherever she felt the urge to go a liberating experience.
She particularly loved running in the woods, breathing in the musky sweetness of pine needles crushed underfoot and listening to the wind as it whispered through the leaves.
In lieu of her true love, baking, it had become an escape from her responsibilities back home, and a time she had begun to consider as sacred.
As she ran, she began planning out their meals for the week in her mind.
She needed to do the online shop when she got back, ready to arrive the following morning.
She hated meal planning but Noah expected her to come up with new ideas all the time.
He complained when she repeated recipes but also got annoyed if she spent too much on ingredients.
She found herself spending hours scouring the internet for new recipe suggestions, Noah liked to be as healthy as possible.
If she lived alone she would be quite happy on a diet of pasta and scrambled eggs on toast; she found the continuous preparation and planning of meals exhausting.
As she slowed her pace, running along the village green towards the turning for Banham Cottage, she saw one of Margery’s terriers racing towards her, bouncing off the tarmac like a miniature mountain goat.
She glanced about, looking for Margery, but there was no sign of her.
Besides, the dogs were never allowed out without their leads.
Realising that it must have escaped, she scooped the dog up and tucked it under her arm as she walked back up the track, her breathing gradually returning to normal.
The gate to Hazel Cottage was ajar, and, as Helena nudged it further open, she could see how rotten it was.
It needed replacing, the wood was soft and soggy with mould.
It occurred to her that, even though she had been neighbours with Margery for over three years, she had never even set foot on the pathway leading up to her house before.
All she could really see of Hazel Cottage was a large hedge that stood either side of the gate, concealing much of the cottage behind.
The front garden was completely overgrown with weeds, though a smattering of wild flowers gave it a pleasingly rustic appearance.
The stone cottage in front of her was completely different from her own thatched, white-washed Tudor one.
It was two-up, two-down with a tiled roof and a small chimney that veered off slightly to the left.
‘Margery?’ Helena called, wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. ‘Are you home?’
She knocked on the blue front door, also in need of a lick of paint, and waited, listening for any sounds from within. The silence was immediately broken by a series of short, sharp yaps as the other two dogs raced up to the door. She could hear their claws clattering on the floor.
The dog she was holding squealed and tried to jump out of her arms but Helena held on tightly, calling out once again for Margery. There was no response, though she felt sure she had heard someone approach the door.
‘Margery? Everything okay? I’ve got one of your dogs here… It was out on the road…’
She waited a minute or so but there was still no response. As she reached out her hand to try the door handle the door opened a crack to reveal Margery standing awkwardly on the other side of it. It seemed oddly dark inside.
‘Oh Tammy!’ Margery scolded. ‘How many times have I told you not to run off like that?’ A pair of glasses dangled from a colourful beaded chain, swinging around her pendulous bosoms, encased in a bottle green jumper.
She looked rather pale, like a mole coming up for air, catching its first glimpse of daylight.
‘They have a mind of their own, don’t they?’ Helena laughed.
Margery kept one foot wedged behind the door, leaving a gap of only a few inches through which her arms stretched out to take the proffered dog. She clearly wasn’t about to invite Helena in for a cup of tea and a neighbourly chat.
As she muttered her thanks and made to close the door, Tammy, determined to continue her bid for freedom, leapt down to the ground with a high-pitched yelp.
This clearly alarmed Margery, who darted down to grab the little dog before it could run off again.
She must have moved her booted foot in the process, because the door swung open several inches further, allowing Helena to catch a glimpse inside before the door slammed shut in her face.
‘Cheerio!’ Margery hollered through the wood, followed by ‘Thanks again!’
Helena was left standing there, surprised by the cursory dismissal.
She blinked several times, trying to work out whether she had imagined what she had just seen inside.
The light was so dim it was hard to know whether her eyes had deceived her, but it had seemed as though the entire hallway was piled with newspapers, cardboard boxes, and what looked like stacks of post. Helena couldn’t imagine what on earth anyone could possibly want to keep all that for.
Her mind spun as she thought of possible careers Margery may have had resulting in a collection such as that – perhaps she had been editor of a national newspaper, and had kept each addition for posterity?
But that would only explain the papers… She suddenly realised she had absolutely no idea about her neighbour, about any of her neighbours for that matter.
It was such a shame. She thought back to what village life would have been like a hundred years before, with everyone chatting to each other as they queued up at the old village shop and the post office, with barn dances in the village hall and the church being a hub of community just like the pub was now.
It would have been impossible not to integrate.
After three years in Hambleton she had grasped a few people’s names, and the odd bit of gossip that she caught at the school gate, but generally, she knew little to nothing about anyone.
Perhaps she should make more of an effort?
She knew Noah hated the thought of socialising with their fellow villagers, but perhaps she should, she didn’t have to include him.
He was always at work, anyway. She didn’t know why he was so reluctant.
Whenever he had met her friends back when they’d first started dating, or when he got chatting to people at the Crooked Hook, he always seemed to enjoy it, coming across as nothing other than the most charming of conversationalists.
It was only when they got home that he would complain that it had been a waste of his time, how he disliked enduring small talk with people he had no wish to know.
Helena decided that she would try to engage Margery in conversation when she saw her out and about with the dogs, perhaps she could help her have a clear out.
Maybe she found it hard to keep on top of chores.
Did she have no family to take care of her?
Helena felt a wave of guilt wash over her as she pushed open her own front door to reveal a light, airy clean hallway with nothing but a wooden table and a pot plant.
‘Good workout?’ Noah asked as she came through to the open-plan living area off the kitchen.
Helena bent over to kiss him. ‘Not bad!’ she smiled. ‘Moved on to the train set now Raf?’
‘It’s a steam engine,’ he corrected. He was sprawled out on his tummy next to his train set, making some impressive sound effects as he negotiated his train over a bridge.
‘I had rather a strange encounter with Margery. I found one of her dogs out on the road so I popped around to take it back in…’ Noah was looking at her with a vacant expression as if he couldn’t imagine why she thought he would be interested.
‘She would barely open the front door, but from what I could see the hallway was crammed from floor to ceiling with junk.’
‘And?’
‘I was thinking perhaps I should offer to give her a hand with the housework… I’m not sure she’s got any relatives. She always seems to be by herself.’
‘Helena. How many times do I have to tell you to mind your own business? Who gives a crap if some old woman needs to tidy her house? What has it got to do with us?’
She had known that this was exactly what he would say and wondered, not for the first time, why she had bothered telling him.
She finished the glass of water she had poured herself and went upstairs to shower.
As she lathered her skin with a citrusy soap she decided to ignore Noah.
She would make more of an effort to get to know her neighbours, starting with Margery.
He didn’t need to know about it, after all.
If Margery were her mother, she knew she would have wanted her neighbours to keep an eye on her, to make sure she was okay.
Now she came to think of it, there was absolutely no way her mother wouldn’t have already befriended everyone in the village by now.
She bit back a wave of tears at the thought of her.
That deep longing was like a splinter of glass under the skin, in some ways it may have healed over with the passage of time, but it was always just as painful.