Chapter 7
SEVEN
Jules was sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of wine when a man in a blue shirt walked past the window.
‘Hello,’ he said, leaning over the half-open stable door to the kitchen. ‘You must be Jules. I’m Guy. How are you doing?’
Jules scraped her chair back and wished she didn’t look so unkempt for her first meeting with Carrie’s boyfriend.
‘Um, I’m okay, thanks, not too bad. Please come in.’
He opened the lower part of the door and allowed a brown Labrador to precede him into the cottage.
‘Sorry,’ he said as the dog came over and sniffed the side of her knee. ‘I should have checked. Are you okay with dogs?’
‘Fine,’ Jules replied, stretching her arm to fondle a soft doggy ear.
‘That rude mutt is Wilbur.’ Guy chuckled. ‘Come here, Wilbur. Where are your manners?’
Wilbur plonked himself down by the range, made a disgruntled huffing sound and put his head on his paws.
‘Thank you for letting me stay here,’ Jules said, standing awkwardly and wondering what to do with her arms now the dog had left her side.
‘You’re very welcome. It’s nice to meet you at last. Carrie talks about you such a lot. Just sorry that it’s not under happier circumstances.’
Jules swallowed and nodded.
‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘I hope everything’s okay for you. Rita’s fantastic, of course, and now Carrie’s on board, too. Well, the place should be perfect, but everyone’s different and there’s bound to be the odd thing you need that we’ve forgotten to cater for or something that goes a bit awry.’
‘No, everything is perfect. It’s just so welcoming and peaceful and having Carrie here last night was an extra comfort. I’m sorry to drag her away from you.’
‘Don’t apologise. I wouldn’t have expected her to do any differently.’ He glanced through the sitting room door. ‘Is she around?’
‘Oh, she’s just wandered up to the gardens to find you.’
‘We must have missed each other. I came the back way because I was working in the woods over to the right.’ He checked his watch. ‘Do you mind if I wait until she gets back? There’s no point sending a message. It probably won’t come through until much later, if at all.’
Jules wondered if he registered the ridiculous alarm she felt because he then slapped his thigh and called Wilbur to his side.
‘I’ve got a few things to do in the garden in the meantime. Carrie won’t be long and then I’ll leave you in peace.’
And with a reassuring smile he strode outside and headed towards the little shed to the right of the weeping willow.
Jules watched from the window as he extricated a few tools and strolled over to the rockery, dropping on to his hands and knees in order to fork through the soil.
She should have at least offered him a tea.
This was his house, for goodness’ sake, and she was staying in it for free when he could be getting a good income in peak season.
What on earth must he think of her? She was just pouring some milk into a small jug and setting it on a tray next to a steaming mug when Carrie burst back into the kitchen.
‘Is Guy here?’ she asked.
‘In the garden,’ Jules replied. ‘I’m just making him a drink.’
‘Oh, that’s nice. I bumped into The Major who said that Guy was heading here to find me and then we got chatting or I’d have been back sooner. Thought I might have missed him again.’
‘Nope, he’s still here, waiting for you.’
Jules watched enviously as Carrie’s eyes lit up when she looked out of the window towards where Guy was carefully pruning a small plant.
‘What do you think?’ she asked. ‘Do you like him?’
She placed her palms together as if in prayer.
‘Please say you like him!’
‘We’ve barely met,’ Jules said and then, seeing the disappointment cloud Carrie’s features, ‘but yes, he seems lovely.’
‘Is there enough tea in that pot for me?’ Carrie asked. ‘We can take it into the garden and you can get to know him better.’
‘It’s you he wants to see, not me,’ Jules said, pouring an extra mug and handing the tray to Carrie. ‘Besides, I’m not up to small talk at the moment. There’ll be plenty of time for us to bond, I’m sure.’
She didn’t like to add that she really couldn’t bear to be around other people’s happiness right now.
People said that happiness was infectious, but that wasn’t always true.
If you were feeling in the depths of despair, seeing other people’s joy could make you feel even worse.
She felt churlish and small-minded and while deep down she really was pleased for Carrie she just didn’t need happiness shoved in her face, however unintentionally.
She hoped to God that Carrie didn’t ask him to stay for supper.
‘I’ve booked us in,’ Carrie said, later, after Guy had finally gone.
‘To what?’ Jules asked, panic immediately forming a clenched ball in her stomach.
‘A day course at The Pottery.’
Jules stared at her in disbelief. How could she have done this?
‘Why?’
Carrie came over and placed her hands on Jules’s shoulders.
‘Because I think it will do you good. Take you out of yourself as my grandma used to say.’
‘I’m not sure that I can.’
‘Why? Have you got something else planned?’
‘No, it’s just that… I-I don’t want to be taken out of myself. I don’t want to be taken out anywhere. I want to stay here.’
She felt like a little girl begging not to go to the drama classes her mother had booked her into ‘because it would be good for her confidence’ even though she didn’t know anyone.
‘It’s just for a few hours. It will be fun.’
Carrie went to the fridge and poured two glasses of water while Jules sank on to a kitchen chair before her legs collapsed beneath her.
‘I’m sorry, Carrie. I really don’t think I can. Not at the moment.’
Carrie placed the glasses on the table next to her and pulled out a chair. She took Jules’s hands between hers.
‘You, above and beyond anyone I’ve ever met, are the woman who can do anything she sets her mind to,’ she said softly.
Jules shook her head.
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Not anymore. That was the old me, before…’
Carrie’s grip tightened.
‘I know that life can kick you in the stomach, Jules, and I know how hard it is to pick yourself up from that, but trust me with this… like I trusted you, when you sent me here to a place without Wi-Fi, a barely functioning phone signal and not knowing a soul within a hundred-mile radius.’
‘I’m just not ready to meet people and have to explain things.’
‘It’s a pottery course, not a confessional. You won’t have to explain anything.’
‘Can I at least think about it?’ she asked.
‘Of course you can. As long as you talk yourself into it and not out of it because I really don’t want to let Lance down. He might have been able to fill those two spaces with other people at the last minute.’
‘You’re putting pressure on me. That’s not fair.’
‘Life, my sweet,’ Carrie said, ‘is far from fair. You don’t get to our age without finding that out several times over.’
Jules woke early, made herself a cup of green tea and took it into the garden.
She walked barefoot across the bejewelled grass towards the view of the sea.
There was a haze in the distance, a sign that the day was going to be hot.
She was just about to sit down on the strategically placed bench when she spotted an egg balancing between the slats.
She picked it up, expecting it to be cold, but it was still warm.
‘Hi!’ a voice called. ‘Jules, you haven’t seen a hen in your garden, have you? Mainly white like all of the others, but with a particularly pretty lacy black hackle.’
‘Sorry to be ignorant, but what’s a hackle?’
‘It’s those markings around the neck. I think it looks a bit like one of those Flemish collars from the seventeenth century.’
Tasha was standing on tiptoes and looking up over the hedge towards her. Jules held up the egg.
‘No sign of a hen, but I’ve found this and it’s still warm.’
‘Evidence!’ Tasha said with a grin. ‘Was it on the bench? She hasn’t done that in forever. She’s a pretty intelligent bird except when it comes to where she lays her eggs. It could easily have rolled off.’
‘Shall I bring it around?’ Jules asked. ‘I can’t exactly throw it to you!’
‘No, keep it. We’ve got quite a few already. Dad lets the girls out really early at this time of year and they usually lay within the first hour.’
She held up a wicker basket carefully stacked with light brown and cream eggs.
‘Is that your job, collecting the eggs?’ Jules asked.
‘I don’t think of it as a job,’ Tasha said.
‘I think of it as a bit of time to myself and I do love the chickens. People think they’re dense, but they’re not.
This breed, the Light Sussex, are really sociable and clever.
Did you know that they have been here for nearly two thousand years?
Isn’t that amazing? Granny says they could even have been here when Jesus was alive although people think they might have been first bred in Britain around the time of the Roman invasion in AD43.
There’s a cool Roman villa at Brading. You must go if you’ve got time. The mosaics are amazing.’
She hesitated and tugged at a bit of hair.
‘That’s if you’re interested in that sort of thing. Some people aren’t. Sorry, if I’m boring you.’
‘You’re not boring me.’
Jules thought that no fourteen-year-old could ever be boring. You just had to draw them out, listen to them, find out what they were interested in.
‘And I’ll keep my eyes peeled for your hen.’
‘Thanks. Sussexes are a curious breed and Scattihen, that’s the one I’m looking for, she’s a bit too nosy for her own good. Granny says the fox is bound to get her one day.’
‘Oh no! That would be awful. We must find her.’
‘She’s probably found somewhere shady to rest or some good bugs and worms to eat. If she’s not back later, do you mind if I stop by and look around the garden?’
‘No. Come around now if you like.’
‘I can’t. Jo’s picking me up to go to the pottery. Scatti’s obviously okay because that egg’s fresh. I bet she came to meet you and left that as a present.’