A Place in the Country (8 page)

“Oh, no!” Caroline stared blankly at the hand he held out for her to shake. A nice, square, long-fingered hand, nails clean and everything, even though he was a manual laborer.

“I don't usually get that kind of reaction,” he said mildly.

“Oh,” she said. “It's just that my ex's name is,
was,
James.”

“Is? Or was?” He was laughing at her.

“Hmm, what I meant is that he
was
my husband.
Now,
he is my ex.”

“If it makes it any better I'm usually known as Jim. Jim Thompson.”

It did make it better; easier anyhow. “Okay, Jim,” she said. He was definitely easy on the eye, as she had noticed in the pub. Medium height with a compact body that looked muscled from hard work and not merely from a workout at the gym; dark hair short-cropped; lightish-brown eyes that seemed to see everything, notice everything anyhow, because the next thing he said to her was that she was wearing that same yellow sweater the night he'd first seen her in the Star & Plough.

“Never forgotten it,” he added, with an admiring grin.

Caroline wavered for a second or two, trying to decide whether to be insulted or grateful that she had been appreciated. Smiling, she decided to allow herself to be appreciated.

“It's long past its sell-by,” she said, folding her arms over her breasts where the sweater definitely stretched too tightly. She told herself she had to stop eating Maggie's leftover tacos, sneaking downstairs late at night, followed by that little wraith of a blind cat, who she'd found also appreciated a cold taco.

Then, with a smile that included Georgki, who had not uttered a word since the first shocked, “Lord save us,” she asked what they thought of her barn.

“Lotta work,” Georgki said, heaving his bulk over to the wall and running a hand over the stone, which crumbled under his touch. “Beautiful, though,” he added, making Caroline's heart sing. At last, here was someone who saw the beauty she saw.

“Can be done, though. Maybe.” Georgki took in the sagging plaster ceiling held together by a crisscross of scabby black beams. “The bones is good.”

She said, “Yes, I think the bones is good too.”

“Georgki is a stonemason. He's the best.” Jim went and looked at the stove. “Okay, so we'll get the equipment and lift her out of here. Send the poor old thing back to her maker.”

Jesus came in to see what was going on. He was acting as Caroline's contractor, he knew what he was talking about and exactly what was needed to put this wreck back into shape. He also knew what workers he needed and how to lay his hands on them. Certainly one way was via Jim Thompson, who knew everyone, from electricians to plumbers, to backhoe drivers, floorers, and roofers. And of course, Georgki, the best stonemason in all of Oxfordshire, who, while Jim was conferring with Jesus, said to Caroline, “I like this place. It speaks to me.”

Caroline was thrilled. She asked him what it said.

“It says thanks Lord, I have good heart.” He thumped his chest with a hand big as a soup plate. Georgki must have weighed all of two hundred and fifty pounds and when he struck himself on the chest, it rattled. For a second, Caroline thought he was going to fall over in a heart attack, but he grinned and said, “Just some bits of stuff where they fixed my bones after the war.”

“What war?”

“Oh, long ago now. In Serbia, when there was wars there. I am Russian, from Ukraine, but that's where I ended up, in Serbian hospital. They very good to me. I like.”

Serbia? A hospital? Metal bits rattling?
A Russian stonemason, who was only the best in the area and who, it turned out, was booked into all eternity by those super-rich, newly-moved-to-the-Cotswolds international wives, who needed him to restore their enormous old country houses that made Caroline's little barn look as though it belonged in a toy shop.

“I come to you for good price,” he said, without even asking
if
she wanted him, or, as importantly,
telling
her what that price might be.

Caroline was beyond caring. He was the best. He would create her new home. It was a done deal. She put her trust in him.

Besides, she thought as they shook hands, or rather when Georgki covered her hand with his and squeezed so tightly she had to stop herself from gasping with pain; besides, it just might change her daughter's mind when she told her it was all arranged and their barn would, before too long, become a proper home.

 

chapter 15

Issy decided not to go
down for dinner. Caroline found her in her room, still in jeans and boots, and with Blind Brenda, her new love object, clutched to her chest.

“What's up, sweetheart?” she asked, knowing there was trouble.

“I hate it.” Issy turned her face away.

“You hate our barn?”

“It's not
our
barn. It's
yours,
Mom. All
yours.
I'm never going to live there.”

“Oh?” Caroline kept her voice neutral. What was wrong with Issy? She'd just found a way to get them a home and now she was acting like she was being tortured.

“And so where will you live then, Issy?”

“As soon as I'm sixteen, I'm off to boarding school.”

Issy hugged the cat tighter, practically flattening it against her chest, trying to keep back the tears of anger, of frustration, of helplessness at not being old enough to run her own life, the way she wanted it. “In the breaks,” she said, “I'll just get on a plane and go back to Singapore. You can bet when I show up my father will be so pleased to see me, we'll be happy together. Without you.”

“And if he isn't?” Caroline felt her own anger rising.

“Then I'll just stay where I am. At my home. The Star & Plough in Upper Amberley.”

Eyes locked, they stared silently at each other for a long moment, Issy seething with despair and anger and a loneliness she knew her mother could never understand. Only Sam
really
knew her, and maybe Lysander, the student she'd met in Oxford, and who lived in London and whose own parents had gone through a divorce when he was ten years old.

“The trouble with you,” she yelled, “is you still think I'm a little kid you can boss around, tell me what to do.”

“I never ‘bossed' you.” Caroline stopped herself just in time from yelling too. “I was a good mother,” she added quietly, wondering where she had gone wrong and become the “bad mother.”

“Yeah. Right. You always knew best. Mothers—as a breed—just don't get it.”

Issy was lying on her back with Blind Brenda still clutched to her chest.

Caroline leaned over and shoved Issy's booted feet off the bedcovers. “Well, I
am
your mother, and like it or not, I'm all you've got. And I've gotten you this far in life without deserting you.”

“Like my father, you mean?” Issy glared at her, her face red, her eyes angry. “May I remind
you,
Mother, you left
him
.
I,
did not. You took me with you because you didn't want him to have me. You wanted to
hurt
him. You wanted out and you
used
me. So now I'm stuck.”

She clutched the cat even tighter, but it sensed conflict and struggled free. “See, even the fuckin' cat can't stand me,” Issy yelled.

Caroline sank onto the bed next to her, but Issy pulled away and turned her back.

Caroline got up and went and sat on the chair. She put her hands to her face. She could
not
cry. She
must not
cry. She was the strong one, the responsible one, the mother.

Blind Brenda went and sat at Caroline's feet. She picked her up then went to lie down next to Issy. She pushed the little cat over the bump of Issy's back, saw her arm reach out to hold it.

“I'm so sorry,” Caroline said softly. “Trust me, baby, I love you. I know you're almost grown up but you're still my girl. I don't mean to treat you like that, it's just that…” She sighed, thinking of what to say, how to say it … “It's just that I'm a mom. I'm learning on the job. It's the only way moms know. I can only hope I'm doing the right thing. I
believe
I'm doing the right thing, but you must understand, I have to at least
try.
I can't depend on your father, I have to look after you. Won't you at least give me a chance?”

A tiny meow broke the silence. Issy's back unstiffened and she sat up. She said, “Oh my God, Mom! Blind Brenda
spoke
! Her first
meow
!”

And then she turned over and hid her face in her mother's shoulder and cried.

 

chapter 16

The barn was finally cleared out;
the black-varnished beams were stripped. They smelled of whatever was used to remove the paint before they were sandblasted, which would cause another mountain of dust, similar to, though possibly not as large, as the one Georgki was creating every evening when he blasted the stone walls clean of ancient grout and filth and a great many spiders, for which Caroline was deeply thankful. She would rather face a dragon than a spider, especially in bed at night with bare feet.

He was enveloped in a sort of canvas shroud with a visor covering his head and shoulders. He looked like a moving tent, blaster held out in front, a fine spray of dirt and old stone drifting round him like a cloud.

Caroline stood, arms folded, in the open doorway. The doors themselves had been removed and were propped against the outbuilding, currently known as “the cottage.” She had to get back to the pub where she was expected to cook steak pies.

Georgki pushed up his plastic visor and said to her, “We go out tonight. There is pub in Pangbourne. On river. Swans. You'll like. And they do good food, in a basket. I buy wine.”

From under the up-tilted visor, he gave her a smile of beaming sweetness and she realized he was asking her out on a date. “Pangbourne is a long way, the other side of Oxford,” she said quickly. “In Buckinghamshire.”

“Oxfordshire. I know for certain.”

“Hmmm, right, well … actually, Georgki, I'm supposed to work tonight. Remember? I have a job? Tell you what though, why don't you come to the pub later and I'll fix you one of my chicken pot pies. My treat.”

She saw his big shoulders droop under his tent and hated herself for doing it. “Tell you what,” she said, “tomorrow, I'll bring a picnic. We can eat it here, just you and me. I'll bring the wine you like…”

“Beer,” Georgki said quietly. “Remember I like beer.”

Of course she knew that, how could she have forgotten! “So, let's settle for the pub tonight then. I'll buy you a Sam Adams,” she added, with a warm smile that she really meant, she was so grateful he'd cared enough to ask her out.

“Watneys,” Georgki replied, and slammed back his visor, switched on his blaster and got back to work.

He did not show up at the pub that night, though, and Caroline worried she had hurt his feelings. But he was back at work the next afternoon, and nothing more was said.

*   *   *

The following day,
Caroline drove into Oxford to get her hair cut. When she got back Maggie sat her down at the table, gave her a cup of coffee and said she had three things to tell her.

“Three? I've only been gone a few hours.” Caroline fluffed out her hair. “What do y'think?”

“Expensive,” Maggie said. “But worth it.”

“Thank God.” Caroline slumped into the chair nearest the fireplace and swung her jeaned legs over the arm. “What do you mean,
three
things? What's happened?”

“Nothing bad. First, Issy's been invited to a party Saturday night. By a boy. A seventeen-year-old. Name of Lysander Tsornin.”

“Seventeen! That's too old! And anyway, how can anybody be called
Lysander Tsornin
? Who is he? And how does she know him?”

“School, parties, other girls, they all know each other, you know how it is.”

Caroline thought how much she apparently did not know. Of course she drove Issy and Sam to the movies in Oxford, and she knew after they went to a café for spaghetti or whatever was cheapest, but they were still too young to go clubbing. They hung out at their friends' houses, but she always knew exactly where they were.

Maggie said, “Issy was afraid to ask you, so she asked me to. It's an overnight party, she's been invited to stay at the house.”

“
Lysander asked
her to stay at his house!”

“It was the mother who called, not the boyfriend. Mrs. Tsornin. Arabella Tsornin to be correct. She left her number if you want to call.”

“Mom?” Issy was standing in the doorway, radiating anxiety. “You won't mess it up, will you? I can go, can't I?”

“You can go if Sam goes too.” Caroline quickly decided two was definitely better than one.

“But Sam's not invited.”

“Oh? And why not?”

“Well, Lysander is kind of
my
date.”

She twisted her hands together, her face scrunched. “Mom, I've got to do some things on my own. I'm going to be sixteen in a couple of weeks.”

So she was, Caroline had almost forgotten. Or at least she had put it out of her mind. This would be her second birthday without James being there to celebrate.

“You're asking to go to a party with a seventeen-year-old boy I don't even know, and stay overnight at the house of people I don't even know?”

“But you
can
know them, Mom. Just call them.”

Maggie handed her the piece of paper with the Tsornin number. Caroline saw the area code. “London? You mean the party's in
London
?”

“I can get the train to Paddington,” Issy said quickly. “All you have to do is drive me to Oxford station.”