Chapter 4
FOUR
‘I’ve picked up some extra provisions,’ Carrie said, when she returned. ‘I’d done a food shop, but it was mainly enough for just you to start with.’
Jules sat at the kitchen table and watched Carrie unpack.
‘I’m sorry. I’m being such a nuisance.’
‘Of course you’re not,’ Carrie replied, placing a packet of risotto rice on the counter.
‘I bet Guy thinks that I am. You’ve only just moved in together and I’m here being pathetic and not wanting to spend a night on my own.’
‘You are not being pathetic, and he doesn’t mind. He’s going to have supper with his gran. They’re very close. She virtually brought him up.’
‘I remember you saying.’
‘I’ll introduce you to her while you’re here. She’s a lovely lady.’
Jules felt herself flooded with anxiety again. She really didn’t know what was happening to her. She wasn’t a nervous person. The opposite, in fact.
‘Please don’t.’
Carrie looked up.
‘Not yet, so you don’t have to worry. I know you need some quiet time.’
Jules nodded. She wanted to be alone, but not be alone. Quiet time meant time for thoughts. Did Gavin feel guilty or had he just seen her as a way to get some more money and a bit of sex, actually a lot of sex, and now he was satisfied in more ways than one?
‘Jules!’
Carrie clicked her fingers in front of Jules’s face.
‘I’m going to make a tomato risotto and I picked up a couple of pieces of sea bass to go with it. Is that okay?’
‘Yes, fine. Nothing tastes right at the moment though.’
‘I could cook you something really rank then and it wouldn’t matter,’ Carrie joked. ‘Like that cold cucumber soup I made when I first moved in with you. Remember that?’
‘How could I forget it!’
‘Or the curried eggs. God, they made us fart!’
‘They were disgusting, too.’
Carrie pulled a bottle of wine out of the fridge.
‘I don’t know about you, but I could do with a glass of something. I’m whacked.’
‘I’m sorry. It’s such a long way from here to Manchester and you’ve done the journey twice in two days. You really shouldn’t have.’
‘Yes, I should, but I wouldn’t say no if you’re up to chopping a couple of shallots and then taking a turn stirring the risotto.’
Carrie took out two tall wine glasses from the glass-fronted cupboard and half-filled them with a grassy-scented wine.
‘To you,’ she said, handing one to Jules.
‘To friendship,’ Jules replied, clinking her glass against Carrie’s.
‘I’ll drink to that as well,’ Carrie said, taking a double gulp.
Twenty minutes later, as Carrie carefully added more stock to the risotto and Jules gently stirred, it occurred to her that at this particular point in time there couldn’t have been a better dish. There was something about the process that was meditative and soothing.
‘I saw a girl earlier,’ she said, ‘by the barn. About fourteen. Very pretty.’
‘That’ll be Tasha,’ Carrie said. ‘Rita’s granddaughter.’
‘Her mother was looking for her.’
‘Christabel. She’s always looking for Tasha and Tasha is always trying to escape.’
‘She did look as if she was hiding.’
Carrie stooped to extricate a large hunk of parmesan from the fridge.
‘Don’t blame her.’
‘I didn’t give her away.’
Carrie threw her a smile.
‘Good for you.’
Jules briefly felt proud of herself, as if she, too, had bestowed some breathing space to someone in need.
‘I felt as if she needed protecting. Maybe it’s because I used to hide at her age as well. I wasn’t very good at it though. Mum always found me.’
‘You didn’t have a hundred-acre farm to take advantage of. A three-bedroomed semi in Sidcup doesn’t offer the same scope and your mum does have that famous sixth sense of hers.’
Jules pulled a wry face and stirred the rice. The fragrance of tomatoes and fresh thyme from the garden, mixed with the saltiness of the fish in the frying pan, wafted up to her. She had to admit that even for her grief-compromised taste buds it smelled good.
‘I suppose I’m sort of hiding now,’ she said.
‘Not hiding, incubating,’ Carrie said, removing the pasta bowls from the bottom oven of the range. ‘There’s a distinct difference.’
Jules bit into a grain of rice. Incubating. She liked that. It made her feel less like a victim.
‘This is ready,’ she said, lifting the pan on to a hen-shaped metal trivet.
‘Fish, too,’ Carrie said. ‘Perfect timing. We make a good team.’
Carrie began to serve.
I’m going to make an effort to eat this, Jules thought, not just for Carrie, but for myself.
Jules lay in bed. Wow, it was dark. The clouds had gathered during the evening and now rain pitter-pattered against the window.
Her sleep patterns were all over the place, partly due to the night shifts at work and partly due to Gavin.
She got up and sat on the little window seat, peering out into the night.
Everything always seemed so much worse in the small hours.
It was beautiful and comfortable here and Carrie was being so kind, but she couldn’t stay long.
She needed to do something, to keep busy, to earn some money.
‘I don’t want to mention the elephant in the room,’ Carrie had said as they cleared the table after supper, ‘but he hasn’t got access to your bank accounts, has he?’
‘No!’
‘You’re sure? He hasn’t looked over your shoulder and seen you type your pin number into the machine or ever ordered anything on your card.’
‘Once or twice, but he wouldn’t…’
‘Maybe not, but better to be safe than sorry.’
So she’d made Jules call the bank there and then to put a stop on her account. She should have done it before, of course, and Carrie said it was lucky that he hadn’t used her credit card details.
Funny that she couldn’t even feel fortunate for that.
Funny that as soon as you got away from somewhere you realised what you really should be doing, should have done or not done.
But she was too tired to think about anything to do with her old life.
She yawned and padded back to bed. Give in, a voice whispered as she sank back against the soft pillow, allow yourself to be looked after for a change.
That’s really not so hard. Is it? Actually, Jules thought, yes, it is, but she closed her eyes and finally drifted off to sleep.