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And as far as I’m concerned, the day she left for Paris, leaving me with an avalanche of debts, was the day she relinquished all rights to being my cherished baby sister. Let alone my business partner.
I will do this alone.
Without help from anyone.
I know that Mum has weekly phone conversations with my sister and, at times, I can tell she’s itching for me to ask her how Sienna’s getting on. But I don’t because I’m really not interested.
After Mum says her goodbyes, I stand there in the conservatory, staring out into the inky blackness, clutching the handset to my chest. I feel silly now for having reacted so violently to the ring of the phone.
Angry tears prick my eyes.
I will not live in fear of Dominic!
An owl hoots and my heart leaps into my mouth.
Suddenly the shape of the hawthorn tree, in my little patch of back garden, looks ghostly and sinister – a black, looming figure with clutching hands reaching out towards me …
I close the door on the darkness beyond the windows. Then I go round the rest of the house, swishing curtains shut and turning on lights until the place could seriously outshine Blackpool Illuminations.
But only once I’ve unplugged the phone and checked that the doors are locked can I finally breathe easily.
Barricading myself in makes me feel safer.
But as I kick off my shoes and start chopping salad for supper, the spectre of Dominic and his threats still hangs over me.
Turning a key in a lock is not going to banish him from my life. If only it were that simple …
Next morning, I’ve got my meeting with Miss Polar Ice Cap, aka Cressida and her groom-to-be, Tom.
They’re getting married in June.
So far, I’ve only spoken to Cressida on the phone. But today I’m meeting them in person to get to know them and chat about the wedding arrangements.
Cressida made it clear that strict schedules – and people being on time – were a top priority of hers. Which means spotting the white meter van out in the street just as I’m about to leave for our meeting fills me with double panic.
I can’t possibly leave now and risk having my meters read, so that means I’ll be late for Cressida.
Feeling sick, I scamper up the stairs before meter man has a chance to spy me through the glass in the front door. Then I rush into the bathroom and peer cautiously out through the frosted glass.
Evading meter readings is a vital part of my life. It’s not that I don’t pay my gas and electricity bills. Of course I do. But the thing is, my direct debit amount has been way too low ever since I moved here.
Before I arrived, there was an oldish lady living here who obviously didn’t use much power because the estimated monthly bill was very small. And some glitch in the system meant I carried on paying this tiny amount each month, while thanking my lucky stars for old Mrs Jennings and her frugal nature.
I always knew they’d catch up with me eventually but I sort of kept brushing the thought away. (I was having to cope with other, more pressing demands for money.)
And then they did. Catch up with me. A couple of months ago, a stern official letter arrived.
I read it in the car before I set off for an appointment with one of my brides. I was running late, as usual, but seeing those stark words requesting up-to-date meter readings as a matter of urgency sent a bolt of cold fear through me. I thought I was going to be sick. I had to put my head back and do the breathing exercise Mum’s friend, Annabeth, taught me until I felt well enough to drive. I’ve been on high alert ever since, dreading a second letter demanding the readings.
Now, I take another peek out of the bathroom window. The white van’s gone. Phew! I dive downstairs, grimace at my reflection in the hall mirror to check for lipstick on teeth, grab my briefcase, coat and keys and hare out to the car.
Of course, all that furtive hiding malarkey has made me late.
I turn on the engine and roar off, managing – by some miracle and obliging traffic lights – to screech to a halt outside Cressida and Tom’s only two minutes late.
She answers the door before I ring the bell, and I get the distinct impression she’s been pacing and checking out of the window since first thing.
‘Ah, you found us!’ she exclaims with a tight smile and a pointed glance at her watch.
Cressida is tall and very thin. She’s wearing a dark grey tracksuit and her brown hair is cut in an angular bob that makes her rather broad face seem even more so.
She ushers me through to the living room.
‘Do sit down, Miss Peacock. Coffee?’
‘Er, yes please.’
She nods and disappears, and I hear her calling sternly up the stairs. ‘Tom? The wedding photographer is here.’
I glance around the room. Everything is immaculate. Just like its owner. I open my briefcase and get out my sample wedding albums and my notebook and pen.
Minutes later, I hear a tray clanking in the hall. ‘Tom? Could you come down?’ An icy pause. ‘Now please?’
I wince slightly, feeling vaguely sorry for the groom-to-be. It’s fairly clear who wears the trousers here. Already, I’m picturing how she’ll be on her wedding morning.
Normally a nice chilled glass of champagne is enough to calm everyone down. For Cressida, I’m thinking horse tranquilliser.
Tom, who was apparently upstairs working, proves to be an amiable Geordie with a wicked sense of humour, the complete opposite of his fiancée.
We drink our coffee as Cressida perches on the edge of her seat and goes on and on about the absolute ‘deal-breaker’ of having people with their eyes closed in photos. ‘So I’m thinking at least fifteen takes of every group shot, just to be on the safe side,’ she concludes.
I nod reassuringly at them both. Lots of brides are anxious that I might not take enough shots, and I get that. I’d probably feel exactly the same if it was my wedding. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you have plenty of choice. I always take multiple shots of everything, from different angles and distances, so that we end up with as near perfect a photo as we can possibly get.’
She eyes me sternly. ‘Yes, but near perfect isn’t quite good enough, is it?’
Tom, who’s been lying back in his seat, taking it all in with a look of mild amusement, obviously catches my panic. ‘I wouldn’t worry too much, pet. I get that every night.’
Cressida glares at him like a teacher warning a naughty pupil.
Totally unfazed, her husband-to-be leans forward, takes her hand and gently kisses it with a smile that’s full of affection. ‘I’m joking, like.’
Cressida bats him away but I can tell she’s pleased.
Not that she’s ready to let it go. ‘But I’m right, aren’t I, Tom?’ she snaps. ‘We expect the best. The very best.’
‘Eeh, calm yer tits, pet!’ He smiles and rolls his eyes at me. ‘It’ll be all right on the night. I’m sure our Miss Peacock here will do a marvellous job.’
I leave an hour later, feeling as if I’ve sat a theory exam and only just scraped a pass mark.
And I’ve still got the practical to go …
FOUR (#ulink_27603830-8f30-5090-9e6b-f1d37d0c867c)
A flurry of weddings over the next few weeks keeps me even busier than usual – so much so that I start to feel I’m neglecting Mum.
But at last, a few days before Ron and Andrea’s wedding extravaganza, I finally grab an hour or two to pay her a visit.
Driving south out of Willows Edge, after a few miles the road climbs steeply and that’s where you get the best view of Clandon House. It was a familiar landmark in my childhood. When Dad was driving us back from days out, I always looked out for it as we crested the hill because that meant we were nearly home.
It seems slightly surreal – but somehow perfectly natural – that Mum should now be living there.
It’s a lovely country house, built in the nineteenth century and developed ten years ago into eight apartments. The adjacent stable block has also been renovated into flats and Mum rents a bijou, two-bed place. I had grave reservations when she first decided she wanted to move there. The rent would take a large chunk out of her modest income and now that Dad was no longer here, I wanted her to have the cash to be able to socialise. Make new friends. Not be stuck in admittedly lovely surroundings but without the finance to enjoy her life.
I agreed to take her for a tour, hoping she’d change her mind.
But in the end, the big smile on her face – as she happily planned where her furniture would go and we took an amble around the leafy grounds – actually changed my mind.
I hadn’t seen my mum smile like that in two years – not since Dad died.
Now, a year later, I’m heartily thankful for Clandon House.
I didn’t even need to worry about a social life for Mum. The country estate is popular with retired people – and in the year she’s been here, Mum’s been made to feel right at home, especially by Grace and Annabeth who both have apartments in the same block.
Driving through the main gateway, I catch sight of Gareth and wave. He’s removing an overhanging branch from a tree near the entrance and I wind down my window, noticing he’s had his dark blonde hair cropped shorter than usual. It suits his tanned complexion.
Gareth and his small team take care of the gardens here at Clandon House, as well as at Mallory’s Newington Hall.
‘Is the lady of the manor at home today?’ I ask, smiling at him through the car window.
He wipes his forehead with the back of a huge, well-used gardening glove and grins at me. ‘She is, as a matter of fact. But I’d try over there first.’ He indicates the woodland area to the right of the main hall.
‘Was she in her tracksuit?’
He nods. ‘She disappeared into the trees with a couple of the other ladies about twenty minutes ago.’
‘Thanks, Gareth. How’s the shoulder?’
He was single-handedly moving a dresser for Annabeth last week and he ended up tearing a ligament. It must have been agonising, but to hear him talk, you’d think he just had a nasty bruise.
‘Ah, nothing wrong with it.’ He brushes off my concern. ‘But don’t tell the doc I’m still at work,’ he adds with a mischievous wink.
Laughing, I tell him I won’t.
I carry on up the winding driveway and park outside The Stables.
Gareth is another reason I’m so glad Mum lives here. He’s the sort of bloke who’ll go out of his way to help. He’s already fixed a leaky tap for Mum and climbed in through a window when she locked herself out once. His easy manner and strong physique have many of the Clandon House ladies coming over all unnecessary, as Mum would put it. But he’s too modest to ever pick up on the signals.
A widower in his early fifties, he retired from the police force when his wife died five years ago and turned his lifelong hobby into a job. I doubt he needs the money. I suspect he set up his gardening company to keep himself busy, and because physical work in the open air really suits him. Actually, it was me who got him the job at Clandon House.
I first met him at Newington Hall, where he gardens for Mallory’s folks, and when Mum said the gardener here was retiring, I had no hesitation in recommending Gareth and his small team.
I joke that his real job is to keep an eye on Mum when I’m not here. And he jokes that really he’s only here to stop himself falling off his perch now he’s retired. Although from the healthy tan and the twinkle in his eyes, I’d say he’s a long way off that. It’s lovely to know he’s on hand if Mum ever needs him.
I shrug into my parka against the chill of the March day and walk across the gravel at the front of The Stables then along a path that takes me into the little wooded area.
The first person I spot is Annabeth. A tall, auburn-haired woman in her late fifties, she’s looking trim in navy track pants and a pink T-shirt and as I watch, she bends to the grass and performs a carefully controlled headstand against the trunk of a horse chestnut tree. My eyebrows rise in admiration. The last time that I did a headstand was in the school playground. I’d probably need a crane lift to get my legs up there now.
Then I spot Mum, several trees away, psyching herself up to do the same. I have to hand it to Annabeth. Under her influence, Mum seems game for anything these days. She’s exercising much more, and even her fashion sense has undergone a make-over. Today she’s wearing the peculiarly youthful, bang-on-trend grey and white patterned tracksuit she picked up a few weeks ago on eBay. Since being forced to tighten her belt financially, Mum’s turned bargain-hunting into something of a hobby. I grin to myself. Today’s edgy outfit is rather more ‘Snoop Dogg at the O2 Arena’ than ‘lady of a certain age’. I love that, at sixty, she doesn’t care a jot.
For her first attempt at a headstand, her legs get no higher than a foot off the ground, and the second is not much better.
Mum scrambles up to remove her glasses and passes them to silver-haired Grace, who’s standing nearby, hands on hips, watching their antics with a mixture of amusement and incredulity. To be fair, despite being slightly older – she turned sixty-three last year – Grace is just as fit, and would probably be joining in if she hadn’t recently had keyhole surgery on a painful knee joint.
On Mum’s third attempt, just as her legs are about to come back down to earth, Grace springs forward, grabs her ankles and hoists them up so that her feet actually make contact with the tree trunk. Their precarious balance is short-lived, however. I’m not sure if it’s the shock of suddenly seeing the world upside down, but Mum starts to list to one side, and she and Grace end up on the grass, shrieking with laughter.
Mum spots me and waves.
‘I haven’t done a headstand since I was about ten,’ I laugh, joining them. ‘What on earth are you up to?’
Grace snorts and murmurs, ‘Ask Annabeth. This is her crazy idea.’
‘Shh!’ whispers Mum, with a quick glance over at Annabeth, who’s still upside down, her eyes closed, I suppose in a sort of meditation.
‘We’re rebalancing our energies by communing with nature,’ Mum says loudly, so Annabeth can hear, but winking at me.
‘It’s the rush of blood to the head I worry about,’ says Grace. ‘Look at that one.’ She nods at Annabeth. ‘She’ll be there for ages, and it’s all in aid of a better sex life.’
‘No, it’s not,’ calls Annabeth calmly. ‘It’s to relieve stress.’
‘Why would you need stress relief?’ calls Grace. ‘You lead a charmed life.’
‘I live next door to you, don’t I?’ replies Annabeth.
Mum laughs and gets to her feet, then helps Grace up. ‘You probably think we’re bonkers,’ she says to me.
I grin. ‘Must be something in the water here.’
Her eyes sparkle with mischief. ‘Oh, do I embarrass you, darling?’
‘Of course. But isn’t that your job?’ I joke. ‘As a parent?’
To be honest, she could prance around on the lawn doing the dance of the seven veils stark naked and I’d cheer her on. It’s such a relief to see her so happy and upbeat these days.
‘Come on. Hurry up,’ says Annabeth, passing us at speed. ‘That programme’s on in a minute.’
‘What programme?’ I ask, as we follow her back to The Stables.
‘It’s about Princess Anne,’ says Mum.
