Sunshine Over Wildflower Cottage (27 page)

She wondered how long it would be before Leanne asked about the situation with her father’s will. It was ten minutes.

Chapter 56

Viv sat with a hot water bottle on her back against the chair, as Geraldine insisted. She’d panicked initially because her back was her Achilles heel, but really she knew she was fine although she’d probably have a beauty of a bruise tomorrow. She wasn’t hurt half as much as Armstrong must be; she felt so sorry for him.

‘Do you want Heath to run you up to the hospital when he gets back?’ asked Geraldine.

‘No, I’m okay,’ said Viv.

‘That poor boy,’ sighed Geraldine, ‘I could weep for Armstrong.’ Pilot nudged his nose under her arm for affection. ‘I don’t know why Heath ever gave that Leighton girl the time of day in the first place. Attraction or no attraction, it couldn’t go anywhere, could it?’

‘It worked for Alfred and Cecilia,’ Viv smiled gently.

Geraldine huffed. ‘Cecilia was a lady, the last decent Leighton to live in the castle. I bet she’s turning in her grave at what’s been going on.’

‘I heard Antonia say she’d tried to help,’ said Viv. She had been trying not to listen in on their conversation, but admittedly not very hard.

‘Poppycock,’ humphed Geraldine. ‘She thought she had Heath right where she wanted him.’

‘He was sort of allowing her to think that though,’ Viv countered.

Geraldine turned her gentle grey eyes full beam onto Viv.

‘Oh my love, sometimes you haven’t a clue how far you’ve become trapped in a spider’s web until you try and leave it.’ She shook her head as if revisiting an unpleasant memory.

‘Is that what happened to you, Geraldine?’ asked Viv.

‘Biggest spider of them all.’ Geraldine pushed her fingers through Pilot’s fur. His head was nodding as his eyes shuttered down. ‘When my mum died I was a wreck. There had always just been me and her, no brothers or sisters, and I never knew my dad. Oh, I loved her so much and then she was gone. I felt completely lost and alone. I wanted someone to love me again.’ Geraldine’s lips puckered. ‘Some people can smell your vulnerability from miles off. I was ripe for picking by this . . .
man.
Oh he was so kind, so gentle in the beginning. He was everything I wanted, everything I needed as if he’d been made especially for me. He drowned me in love and affection and flowers.’ She laughed. ‘He swept me off my feet, Viv. It was a mad wonderful whirl. Nothing was too much trouble. I was the centre of his world. I was supposed to think that. I was supposed to feel safe. So when little things started to go wrong, I shooed them away because they didn’t belong in my perfect picture of him. I put any blame on my own judgement. It’s hard to imagine you walk into that web yourself with your eyes open and have disabled all your own alarm bells because you want to trust and believe in someone. And even when that spider’s back is turned and you think you’ve got a chance of leaving, you don’t. Because he’s got you on a string and you’ll only be able to go so far before you feel him pulling you back.’ Geraldine placed her coarse hand over Viv’s softer, smaller one. She couldn’t open up all those boxes in her head again. So many of them filled with all the things he had done to her. He’d killed their baby when she’d been growing inside her. He’d made her life a living hell and he followed her into her dreams. There was no respite from him, not even in sleep. She didn’t want Viv to think badly of her, for what she’d had to do in the end.

‘I took some pills, Viv. It was the only way I could think of to escape. And then I woke up in hospital with him beside me, holding my hand. I hadn’t got away from him.’

Viv felt her squeeze. ‘But you did get away, eventually,’ she said.

Geraldine swallowed. She wanted to tell Viv so she did. ‘I tried to kill him in the end. The night I went to prison was the first time in years that I slept properly.’

She turned to Viv hoping not to see condemnation in her eyes, but all that was there was warmth and the gloss of tears.

Ironmist is full of people like me, Viv
, Geraldine wanted to say but she wouldn’t because she couldn’t give up the secrets of other people who lived here, the ones tortured by mistakes, the ones who had been accused of things they hadn’t done but were never able to escape the shadows, people who had helped their loved ones in pain. They’d all been led here by something outside their understanding. She didn’t think they could survive anywhere else.

‘People make mistakes, I know that,’ said Viv. ‘Sometimes they do terrible things when they can’t see a way out.’

She knew it only too well. It was why she had come here.

Chapter 57

‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Ian, as he switched off the bedside light. ‘I could turn that other bedroom into a dressing room. How do you fancy that?’

‘The other bedroom?’ exclaimed Stel. She didn’t even know he’d been in it. ‘That’s Viv’s room.’

She felt Ian’s hands slip around her back and start stroking her and she knew he was starting his sexual routine. She was tired and didn’t want to tonight. And that encounter with Al was sitting heavily with her. Too much had changed in a short time and she wasn’t sure she liked things moving so fast any more.

‘Viv’s gone. Are you going to be one of those mothers who keep a shrine to the children?’

He started caressing her breasts and kissing her neck.

‘Did you notice the For Sale notice outside next door’s house?’ asked Stel.

Ian stopped his ministrations and flicked on the bedside light.

‘Stelly, have you noticed that I’m trying to make love to you and you’re rabbiting on about For Sale signs? Talk about a passion killer.’ He laughed. ‘Now, I’m putting the light off and we’ll start again.’

‘Ian . . .’ she pressed her hand against his naked chest. ‘Not tonight, eh. I’m a bit tired.’

‘I’ll make it quick.’

‘No, not tonight.’

‘What’s this about?’

‘Nothing, I’m just not in the mood.’

He stared at her, eyes roving over her face, then his eyebrows lifted in realisation.

‘Oh, I see,’ he nodded. ‘You’re upset about Al.’ His tone was soft, understanding so she presumed it would be all right to be honest.

‘I am a bit. He was so . . .’

Ian swung his legs out of the bed and reached for his underpants.

‘I’ll go home,’ he announced gruffly.

‘No, I . . . don’t do that.’

‘I should go.’ He pulled on his socks quickly, grabbed his shirt.

‘Why?’ Stel scrabbled on the carpet for her dressing gown.

‘Look. I really like you, Stel, really like you,’ said Ian, fastening the buttons up on his shirt at full speed. ‘I thought that maybe, just maybe, you were feeling the same way about me that I was about you. Yes, it’s early days but I want to be with you. I think about you all the time and I’m sorry I suggested that a space that no one uses any more would make a lovely dressing room’ – he pulled up his trousers so fast that he slightly toppled – ‘for you, not for me, for you. When you’re our age, what’s wrong with moving a bit faster?’

‘Nothing,’ said Stel. She didn’t want him to leave her. ‘I was just tired . . .’

‘No you weren’t, you were thinking about him next door.’ Ian’s voice raised as he sneered at the dividing wall.

‘I wasn’t,’ Stel protested. ‘Oh please, don’t go.’

‘I am going to go and I’ll see you tomorrow at work. It’ll be hard but we can be civil to each other.’

He was finishing with her. She jumped out of bed. ‘Oh Ian, don’t end it. What have I said?’ She felt panic claim all her limbs, they felt shaky and numb.

‘Look, it’s fine. You can move on to Al next door and I’ll take Meredith up on her offer.’

‘What do you mean, what offer?’

Then despite her sobbing and pleading, Ian raced down the steps and out of the front door. He’d had four large glasses of wine but still he zapped open his car and drove away whilst Stel stood in the doorway with tears coursing down her face.

Why did she have to mention Al? Why couldn’t she just have had sex with him and then gone to sleep? It wasn’t as if it would have been the first time she’d laid back and thought of England.

She cried herself to sleep like a distraught teenager, replaying the night in her head where she kept her mouth shut and had sex and a nice cuddle and then she woke up still in a relationship.

Chapter 58

Stel was late for work because it took her half an hour to get rid of the puffiness under her eyes which had resulted from a night of little sleep. She plastered on a smile at the hospice door, marched in wearing the outfit that Ian said she looked her best in and hoped she could hold it all together. She just wanted to see him and tell him she was sorry. She couldn’t bear it if he went off with Meredith. What was it he’d said, that she’d ‘made him an offer’?

‘Have you seen . . . Ian this morning?’ she asked Maria casually, when the nurse passed by the desk.

‘Meredith was chatting him up in the kitchen five minutes ago,’ laughed Maria, not realising the effect her words would have on Stel. ‘You want to watch that minx.’

Stel’s heart plummeted right down to her toes.

‘I’ll tell him you’re looking for him, shall I?’ said Maria.

‘Please,’ said Stel, the smile shaky on her lips.

It was lunchtime before Stel managed to get a break on that very busy morning, to learn that Ian was taking his lunch at the pub. With Meredith.

*

Viv’s arm was extended, food in her hand. Ursula was in one corner of her aviary, Viv in the diagonal opposite. There was an impasse though; nothing was happening.

‘What do I do? She’s not coming,’ said Viv.

‘Whistle,’ said Heath.

‘I can’t whistle.’

‘Oh for goodness sake just try. She needs some encouragement.’

Viv put her lips together and blew.

‘That’s pathetic,’ said Heath.

‘I told you I couldn’t.’

‘Good grief, woman. Why the hell did this beautiful bird pick you?’

Viv chuckled and Ursula’s head cocked to the side.

‘She can recognise your voice. Try again.’

Viv blew. It was easier if she made a staccato sound. ‘Ursula.
Phew-phew-phew-phew-phew
.’

After a few whistling attempts, Ursula eventually responded. Her wings lifted as her feet pushed off from the branch. For a moment the feathers fanned behind her like an angel’s. Her eyes fixed forward and she dropped down with a bump on Viv’s glove, beak to the meat, pulling it, gulping.

‘Try walking slowly,’ said Heath, advising from outside.

‘She weighs a ton,’ replied Viv with a grin, putting one foot slowly forward in front of the other.

‘That’s it, that’s it,’ said Heath, excitement rich in his voice. ‘She’s eaten. She has no reason to stay on your glove other than because she wants to.’

Viv did a full lap of the aviary and Ursula only flew off when Viv started to move too fast.

‘I just don’t get it,’ said Heath, scratching his head. ‘The most awkward, ridiculous, arrogant bird in the place . . .’

‘What about Ursula?’ Viv barked with laughter.

‘Her as well,’ replied Heath, opening the door for her. Viv stretched her back. It was aching.

‘Armstrong hurt you, didn’t he?’ asked Heath.

‘Not as much as Antonia Leighton hurt him,’ said Viv. He hadn’t come that morning to help them. He was in one of his dark places. In fact, there was a depression that seemed to have settled over them all since Antonia’s visit. A stagnant weight that even chased off the lovely mist.

The hawks and the eagles were in the arena, sitting on perches in the sun.

‘Come on, Viv, help me,’ said Heath. He was all too aware that the events of the weekend had left them under a cloud. ‘There is only one way to cheer things up on a miserable day. Bathtime.’

There were a stack of deep trays at the side of Frank’s aviary. Heath dragged them out, distributed one next to each bird. They began squawking and dipping.

‘They know what’s coming. Get one of the hosepipes, Viv, and fill them up with water.’

Viv unwound the pipe and started to fill up the tray at the side of Heath’s hawk Sistine. She tried to claw the water, stamping in the stream, pushing her head into it.

‘They love this,’ replied Heath. ‘Far more than owls, who are notorious for being scruffy sods.’

‘Don’t you call my girl a scruffy sod,’ said Viv and flicked the hosepipe towards him.

‘Oy,’ he said and laughed.

When all the baths had been filled, Viv sat on the bench and watched the floorshow. The birds loved the water, tossing it over their heads, settling their beautiful feathers into it, savouring the cool respite from the warmth of the day.

Viv recalled that she had just referred to Ursula as
my girl.
The bird might have started bonding with her, but had Viv not realised how much she was bonding with Ursula? She was growing close to them all: Geraldine, Armstrong, Wonk, Bertie, the horses . . . She looked across at Heath holding the hosepipe so that Sistine could play in the spray and she wished she could stay in this beautiful bubble of an afternoon where the world was good to this place and the people and the animals that lived here. Heath could be stroppy and bossy and rude but he was fundamentally a good man, a kind man, a gentle man. Unfortunately, she had bonded with him too.

*

Stel was operating on two levels that day. On the surface she was performing her duties, directing people to where they needed to go, answering phone calls. She was the model of efficiency. Underneath was chaos, a mess of insecurities, jealousies, rage and sorrow. And as much as she went over the events of the previous evening, she could not for the life of her work out why the situation had flared up like it had. It had to be because she admitted to thinking about Al whilst Ian was touching her. Did he think she was trying to make him jealous? Was he hurt because she didn’t want to have sex with him? Annoyed with himself that he had invested too much too soon in their relationship? Her brain was telling her that these were signs that he liked her a lot. So then why was he avoiding her and making no secret of the fact that he had taken Meredith out?

Five o’clock could not come fast enough. But beyond that yawned an evening of loneliness and mental torture. Internally she was black and blue from beating herself up, for being the catalyst of her own misfortune. What woman starts talking about one man when she’s having sex with another? No wonder he was cross.