The Green Hills of Home (11 page)

As soon as the dog had been made
a fuss of, Gwen picked up the phone and tiredly called Sarah. She answered
straight away and wanted to be filled in on everything that had gone on at the
hospital. Gwen found it hard to hold back the tears when she described how weak
and frail her mother had been and how much she’d needed to sleep whilst Gwen
was there.

"Thanks for looking after
Oscar," said Gwen.

"No problem, you know I’m
always happy to help. Anyway, taking him out has tuckered the girls out
completely; they’ll both be begging to be allowed to go to bed at seven."

"Bless them! Give them a
kiss from me won’t you?"

"Will do, I’ll call tomorrow
in case there’s any more news. Let me know if you need a hand with Oscar again."

"Great, speak to you then."

Gwen was just about to put down
the phone when she heard Sarah say, "Oh, wait!" Gwen put the receiver
back to her ear and Sarah continued, "Did your editor manage to get hold
of you? He sounded really concerned."

"Um, yeah, he turned up at
the hospital actually."

"He didn’t!" exclaimed
Sarah, who was obviously surprised. "I mean, I could tell he was worried,
but he left work in London and drove all the way to the hospital here to check
you’re alright?"

"Well, to be honest I think
it was more to do with the fact that I hadn’t had a chance to send some
corrections he’d been waiting for."

"Did he say that?"

"Yes, he did."

"He told you that he came
because you hadn’t sent him some corrections? Why would he do that?"

"I don’t know. I sort of
interrupted him as he was explaining," said Gwen sheepishly.

"He didn’t mention any work
when I spoke to him. He wanted to know exactly what had happened to your Mam,
and who was looking after Oscar. Oh, and whether you’d had to stay at the
hospital overnight."

Gwen was silent, a hollow feeling
forming in her stomach.

"What’s the matter?"
asked Sarah, obviously concerned.

"I think I may have just
done something really stupid. I’d better go."

Gwen put down the phone and
switched the kettle on while she tried to work out what to do. Should she call
John to apologise? Could she really be sure that Sarah was right about his
motives?

A few moments later and Gwen’s
decision whether or not to contact John was made for her as she heard his car
pull up outside the house.

Gwen didn’t need to check at the
window that it was John arriving, the noise kicked up by a clearly delighted
Oscar gave the message loud and clear that the dog’s new best friend was
‘home’. He began barking and scratching at the door as soon as he heard the car
but Gwen managed to force herself to stay in the kitchen until John knocked.
She felt like she had butterflies madly fluttering around in her tummy but did
her best to ignore them. Whilst cross with herself for getting so excited about
John coming back, she had to admit she couldn’t help it. Given the choice she
decided, she wouldn’t be thinking about him at all, that would certainly make
things a lot simpler.

Gwen opened the door. She knew
she should say sorry or at least explain her behaviour, but all she found
coming out of her mouth was a hoarse "Hi."

"Hi," replied John, "May
I come in?"

"Sure," Gwen left the
front door open and self-consciously led the way into the kitchen.

John went to speak, but Gwen knew
she ought to apologise first.

"I’m sorry" she said
cutting him off. "Really I am. I just spoke to Sarah and I think I was
mistaken about your motives for coming to the hospital."

As John didn’t respond to this
Gwen thought she’d better continue.

"She said you came because
you were worried about me."

There was still no reaction from
John. Gwen was desperately trying to come up with something else to say when
finally he spoke.

"Thank you for the apology.
I had these to give to Edith."

John handed over the flowers from
the hospital, "Could you take them to her when you visit her tomorrow
please? I wasn’t sure whether she’d be up to general visitors so thought it
best that I didn’t go in to see her."

"Um, sure" said Gwen,
now so embarrassed that she wished she could just disappear on the spot.

"Right, I must go I’ve got a
long drive ahead of me."

"You’re heading back to London now?" said Gwen in surprise.

"Yes" answered John
crossly. "I’ve wasted enough time today chasing around after you. Send me
the corrections as soon as you’re able."

"Are you sure you don’t want
to stay here tonight?"

"No" replied John
curtly. "Thank you" he added as an afterthought, perhaps realising
that he was now being rude.

John gave Oscar a quick stroke
and then left.

As soon as John’s car pulled away
Gwen turned on her laptop and emailed him the corrections, her earlier
mortification now firmly replaced by familiar rage - there was no way she was
going to allow him the satisfaction of having to ask for them yet again.

Oscar mooched around for the next
few days even more than he had before. Gwen was sure he blamed her for John
disappearing again so suddenly.

Usually Gwen didn’t mind being in
an empty house, especially as Oscar was waiting for her and always gave her a
warm welcome. But tonight she really felt that the place was missing something.
Oscar was as lovely as ever, if a little quiet, but without John there the
house just felt too still and silent.

She wanted to chat to someone
about her day and smell the yummy smells she’d become used to being greeted by
as she came through her front door in the evening.

She reluctantly concluded that
the addition of John turned her house into a home again. As soon as the thought
came to her mind Gwen pushed it away crossly. She didn’t need John to make her
house a home; she should be perfectly capable of doing that herself. She
quickly turned on as many lights as possible, and even lit some candles for the
kitchen table, before putting on some music.

Opening the freezer to see what
there was to eat, she found some leftover chicken casserole that John had made
the week before. She considered chucking it in the bin and starting afresh,
making something from scratch, but there wasn’t a lot of point, there was no
one there to appreciate the statement she’d be making. Plus there wasn’t a lot left
in the fridge – at best she’d be serving up marmite toast with olives on the
side.

She heated up the casserole
whilst filling Oscar in about her day. He seemed to be listening very intently
but Gwen suspected that he was thinking more about the delicious aromas coming
from the stove than her drivelling on about how her mother had managed a little
bowl of soup at lunchtime.

Despite the good news that her
mother was improving steadily, the days were beginning to drag for Gwen and she
knew she was waiting around hoping that John would come back to Wales. She was constantly restless and trying not to think about how few weeks she now had
left until she’d be forced out of her home.

She thought she’d been quite
happy with her busy little life, but now she felt that something was missing –
and she suspected that that something was her handsome editor.

She was moping around almost as
much as Oscar now and seemed to be checking her email all the time in the hope
of some communication with John.

John was still debating whether
he should go back to Wales or not. If he was truthful to himself he knew he
could probably do a lot of what was left via email now.

He was once again lost in his
thoughts about Gwen when there was a sharp knock on his office door and Paul came
in, immediately demanding to know how work on Gwen’s book was going.

"Good; I’m just emailing
Gwen now," replied John, refraining once again from taking Paul to task
about his rude manner.

"You busy this week?"
asked Paul, gruffly.

"As always," answered
John cautiously.

"Move around a few
appointments and get back to Wales as she won’t come here. I want that book on
the shelves and the next one written as soon as possible. We’re not going to
make this company any money spinning around on our office chairs all day."

John managed to bite his tongue
and stop himself from telling Paul exactly what he thought of him. If there was
one thing that John really couldn’t stand it was being bossed around, and yet
he couldn’t help but feel pleased as he organised matters that he would soon be
on his way back to Gwen and her home. He’d felt restless since returning to London. It was even harder to relax than normal at home and John just couldn’t seem to
settle. His mind frequently wandering to Gwen, wondering what she was doing or
thinking and how Edith was. When he watched the news at night he found himself
checking the weather for Wales rather than for London.

At times he did try to resist
these thoughts and push Gwen from his mind, though he more and more accepted
that Gwen was what his brain wanted to dwell on and stopped fighting it so
much. He no longer played down Gwen’s attributes to himself – he accepted that
he found her beautiful, intelligent and captivating: a mixture that he had
never before discovered in a woman – but now was not the time for a
relationship, he must put any attraction for her aside and keep her at a
distance. Besides, he’d made a fool of himself the last time he saw her, and
that certainly wasn’t going to happen again.

It would still be a little while
before he was ready to admit that he, John Thatcher, loved Gwen: loved her in a
way he’d never considered possible and with feeling that he’d thought himself
incapable of succumbing to.

It was later that day, at the end
of one of the longest weeks of Gwen’s life, that she received an email from
John stating simply:

I am available from Monday 21st
until Friday 25th August, kindly let me know if you are able to come to London for these dates. If not I shall organise accommodation near you.

John Thatcher

Editor, Black Horse Publishing

He’s obviously annoyed then
thought Gwen to herself. She still felt guilty, but she had apologised.
Contrarily, she was both elated to hear from him and exhausted by their
difficult, often tempestuous relationship.  She couldn’t leave her mother but
she was tempted to let John stay in a bed and breakfast, at least then he’d
leave at the end of each day and she might be able to distance herself from him
a little. But she knew that most places would still be all booked up, and
anyway, they tended to work on late into the evening because of her having to
fit in the tearooms and hospital visits. John needing to leave to get back to a
bed and breakfast before they closed the doors for the night would just be
inconvenient.

She quickly typed off a reply,
not giving herself the chance to change her mind: she needed to mend her
working relationship with John; getting her book ready to be published was so
important, she couldn’t jeopardise that by quarrelling with her boss.

Dear John,

Thank you for your message. I
can’t travel to London so it would be great if you could come to me. We’ll be
able to get more done if you stay here, and I know Oscar would love to see you.

Monday’s fine.

Gwen

He responded almost immediately:

I’ll be with you by about 11 on
Monday. Please ensure that you clear as much of your schedule as possible
before I arrive.

John Thatcher

Editor, Black Horse Publishing

Gwen had prepared herself for
John still being a little grumpy when he arrived, but received a much frostier
reception than she’d expected -  she wasn’t really surprised, she’d long since
given up attempting to gauge John’s moods. She knew from past experience he’d
calm down eventually, and since the argument had been her fault, she was
content to wait out the storm.

They quickly settled down to work
and fell straight back into their usual routine. The only real difference being
that Oscar lay closer to John’s feet than ever, as if afraid he’d lose him
again. John seemed to relax as he spent more time in the house and his apparent
anger with Gwen dissipated, as she’d known it would.

The person he’d become over their
weeks together was in many ways so different to the man she’d met in London. Still driven by some inner need and incredibly focused, nonetheless it almost
seemed that the city was being discarded, sloughed off like an unwanted skin.
He was happier and more content now, more at ease with himself, country life
and her.

Once again, Gwen would let Oscar
out in the morning whilst John got the laptops on and the coffees ready. John
also joined Gwen a couple of times to visit her mother, who was continuing to
do as well as could be expected, though still blissfully ignorant of the
impending fate of the house. Gwen knew that it did her mother good to have some
‘fresh blood’ to chat with and the pair got along terrifically, with John being
very thoughtful and kind. He was never without a gift for her when he visited,
whether it be something practical, like ear plugs to keep out some of the ward
noise at night, or just some delicious chocolates. On the evenings when Gwen
went to the hospital alone, John and Oscar had taken to going on long walks
together. He was gradually becoming very much a member of the family and his
one week stay was extended to a fortnight.

John lifted his mug to his mouth,
took a sip of coffee, and performed his usual grimace. Accustomed as she was to
this, Gwen didn’t pay him any heed, but today this was followed by the thud of
John’s mug hitting the table with the proclamation, "Right, I’ve had it. I
can’t take this anymore. We are going out. Where’s the nearest decent kitchen
store?"