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‘Oh. Why? What’s happened?’ Watching the last dying rays of sunshine dip behind trees, she tried and failed to control the tightening sensation in her stomach. She’d reached her apartment now, nodded to Freddie, the doorman, and started the climb to her first-floor apartment. Her words echoed off the plaster walls as she tried to walk and talk and breathe. ‘What’s happened?’
‘This call is expensive, so I’m going to just cut to the chase here. You need to come home.’
‘What? Why?’ Home? She hadn’t called it that for a very long time, and even when she’d lived there it hadn’t felt much like a home should.
There was that long-distance static delay and echo that made it sound as if Tam was considering everything very deeply and then speaking down a hollow pipe. ‘It’s Daddy.’
‘The Judge? What’s wrong?’ Em’s heart jittered. She couldn’t walk and talk and now fret, too, so she sat down on the concrete step outside her front door and leaned back against the cool grey wall, her body refamiliarising itself with all the strange emotions she had whenever she spoke to one of her extended family; frustration, anger, sadness…
‘He’s sick, Emily. We need you. Here.’
‘Umm…’ Go back to England? After all these years? After what happened?
As always, when thinking about The Judge she felt ripped in two. How many times had she tried to please him? How hard had she worked for a glimmer of a smile her way? When she’d needed a dad he’d been so busy being one to his other girls that he’d had nothing left when he looked at her. And yet, even now, after all these years, she felt the same hopeless need to please him. Yet she knew it was pointless, because when he’d married her mother he’d just wanted a wife, not another daughter, too.
She didn’t want to say the words, is he dying? ‘How bad?’
There was that weird pause where she could hear her own words echoed back to her. A crackle. ‘Bad enough that we’ve sat down and discussed it and decided to call you.’ More pause. Static that screeched like the white noise in her head at the thought of going back, at the thought of a zillion stars all converging right now, today, for this. ‘Can you hear me, Emily? Are you still there? Emily…? You have to come back to Little Duxbury.’
Chapter Two (#ulink_30cc6b24-249b-55ff-ae78-3e6598ebc900)
Tam’s voice started to rise a little hysterically. ‘Daddy’s… well… how to put it? He’s gone downhill over the last few months.’
Emily had never called him Daddy. Mainly because he wasn’t hers, no matter how many times her mum had told her to ‘call him Dad, Emily Jane. He’d like that.’ She’d had a perfectly good father, who just happened to have died – and she certainly hadn’t been in the market to replace him any time soon. Or at all, really. She’d just wanted his car accident to have been a huge mistake and for him to come back to her. She’d missed him so much. Still did.
And, sad fact of the matter was, The Judge hadn’t seemed to care about anything Emily thought or needed anyway. And yet, even so, there was a clutch in her chest. He was the only parent, no matter how spurious the connection, that she had left. She hadn’t seen him for years, but the thought of him being gone filled her with surprising dread. ‘So, how bad?’
‘Up and down, to be honest. He has good days and… not so good days.’
Her heart was thumping now. ‘Is he dying? Oh, Tam… is he dying?’
Her stepsister tutted. ‘You always were overly dramatic, Emily Jane. No, he’s not dying. He’s chronically ill.’
‘Oh, good, thank goodness…’ Then she realised that must sound pretty shallow. ‘Not for the chronic illness, obviously, but for the fact he’s not at death’s door.’ And great, now she was babbling again – funny, her stepsisters had always had that kind of effect on her, made her nervous, on edge, as if by filling the silences she was filling the void where normal sisterly love should have been.
To say things had never been easy between Emily, Tamara and Matilda was an understatement. She’d entered their lives kicking and screaming and grieving for her father. Then later, sullenly and silently grieving for her mother.
By the time she was twelve and an orphan in the truest sense of the word – both blood parents dead – she’d been bundled off to boarding school, out of sight, out of mind.
By age thirteen she’d been left on her own to rattle around that huge cold house in the long holidays, Tam and Tilda choosing to visit their glamorous mother in Paris rather than stay in the Cotswolds with a brittle, younger stepsister. She could hardly blame them; she hadn’t exactly been the world’s nicest child to be around. They probably hadn’t, she realised now, known what the heck to do with her.
‘Chronic illness is not a good thing, Emily. Do you know how hard it is being here with him? Tilda and I are exhausted. It’s been a terrible year with Daddy, and now Mummy is going into hospital for cataract surgery. We need to be with her and we can’t be in two places at once.’
‘Is she still in Paris? You’re going to Paris to be with her, then? Both of you?’
‘Yes.’ There was a heavy sigh and Em felt it all the way across the Atlantic. ‘We did have a carer booked for him, but she’s fallen and broken her leg and so now we’re stuck. And don’t ask if one of us can stay in Little Duxbury, because we just can’t, okay? Tilda really needs to get away and it looks as if I’m going to have to look after everyone. As usual.’
Emily had clearly missed an awful lot of their lives. She felt a little pang in her chest. ‘I’m sure you’ll do a sterling job. What’s wrong with Tilda?’
‘Nothing that a few days away won’t fix, I’m sure. She just needs some time out from that useless husband of hers. So, as you can see, we have no one else to ask. We need you to come back and do your bit.’ There was another pause. Then a very quiet, and somewhat difficult, ‘Please’.
Emily knew what that single word would have cost Tamara. They’d never wanted her before. They’d definitely never begged her to come home. ‘I don’t know, Tam. It’s been such a long time, I doubt he’d want me there, honestly. Is it high blood pressure? Because, I might even make it worse. You know how it is between us.’
‘Now, now, we need to put all that water under the bridge. We need to pull together.’
She was right, of course; it would be selfish to think otherwise, but a large part of Emily – admittedly, the cowardly part – really didn’t want to go back and confront their past. Not at all. It wasn’t just about how she’d left things with The Judge either… it was pretty much the whole village. She’d probably succeeded in offending all of them at some point, in one way or another. Troubled, her head teacher had labelled her in yet another parent-teacher interview. Disruptive, manipulative…
And yes, she’d been all those things, but mostly she’d just been a sad little girl who missed her parents and their hugs so badly it physically hurt. Moving to New York and reinventing herself had meant she could leave all that hurt behind. But no matter what she did, it was still there in her memories of Little Duxbury and, no doubt, in its memories of her.
But maybe it was being around Brett and his lovely supportive family that made her yearn for something like he had, or maybe it really was just time to try to make things better between them all. She found herself saying, ‘Yes, yes, you’re right, we do need to move on.’
Which would be a whole lot easier said than done.
Tam sighed. ‘Good. Well, I should tell you, he’s changed a lot… not been himself for a while.’
‘So, why didn’t you tell me before now?’
‘It’s been insidious, a bit of memory loss here, an easily explained confusion there. A tendency to repeat himself. Christ, don’t we all? But now we can’t ignore that he’s actually got a real problem. He’s fine physically, you know, he can manage his… self-care – that’s what they call it – if you remind him. But he can’t cook or… anything much.’ Another pause. Then, ‘So you’ll come?’
‘I don’t know…’ But as she said the words, guilt rolled through Emily’s stomach. Even though he’d done as little of his duty towards her as he could, he’d at least not seen her be homeless.
‘When do you leave for Paris?’ She began to mentally pack things for a cooler climate.
‘Sunday.’
‘Sunday? This Sunday? That’s madness. It’s what? Four days away? I can’t just –’
‘You can just, Emily. One week, that’s all we’re asking. One week to help us out. You’ve been doing exactly as you please your whole life.’
Because she’d had no one else.
‘Well, I have a few things I need to sort out. We’re in the middle of some important campaigns…’ It all sounded like feeble excuses, because what kind of person put work before a sick relative? But even so… there were things she needed to put in place before she upped sticks and left the country.
Work, and Brett.
Brett. Her skin prickled at the thought of him kneeling in the restaurant.
His proposal had, for a few minutes, been pushed out of her head by more pressing things. But now, coupled with this call, she felt as if everything she knew was tilting off balance.
The weekend at his parents’ would have to be put on hold. She looked down at the ring, the symbol of their promise, and that little frisson of panic still bubbled away in the bottom of her gut.
Tam interrupted her thoughts. ‘Sunday, then. That’s sorted. Email me your arrival details.’
‘But –’ The line was suddenly as dead as she had believed her family relationships to be.
‘Shit.’
Despite Emily’s bad feeling about this she was already working through the logistics. Even she couldn’t imagine The Judge being ill and left to cope on his own in that rambling mansion.
She threw her phone into her bag and pinched the top of her nose. Took a deep breath and blew it out. Her eyes were on the brink of leaking, but she would not cry about this. It was shock, that was all. A shock about The Judge, and a shock about the proposal.
Emily never cried. Living with The Judge she’d learnt pretty swiftly that crying never achieved anything; it certainly didn’t harness sympathy and was a pretty useless thing to do.
But in a few short hours her life had taken a detour into Crazyville.
She’d said yes. Brett was a good guy, a great guy in fact. Most women would jump at the chance of spending the rest of their lives with him.
Even so, underneath the excitement of what the future held for her, that little panic bubble would not go away. Was it a bad sign that she hadn’t jumped in and told her stepsister about her engagement? That it hadn’t been at the forefront of her mind? That even now there was a small part of her that wanted to keep it to herself until she’d worked things out in her head?
Worked out what exactly?
She didn’t really know. There was just a little niggle that wouldn’t go away.
So maybe, just maybe, some time away from New York would be a good thing. She could fix things with The Judge, and get things back into perspective.
Just maybe going back to Little Duxbury would be a good thing for all concerned.
***
It turned out that fog could do real damage to an airline’s schedule, so Emily was running late… very late indeed.
After landing at Heathrow she tried Tam’s phone but there was just a voice message and a whole lot more static.
Stuart, Tilda’s husband, was no help, either, with his gruff, ‘They left at five.’
‘What? What do you mean? They’ve left already?’ Emily was trying to make herself heard over the tannoy of one of London’s busiest train stations. Although her loud voice was probably more panic-fuelled than forced.
‘They said they couldn’t wait any longer or they’d miss their plane. You’re her sister, right? The runaway one?’
Em sighed. ‘Really? That’s all you know about me?’
‘Well, a few other things, too –’
‘Best not to go there; trust me on this,’ she cut him off, laughing.
She guessed that was what happened when you opted out of family engagements and moved far away; people talked and history was rewritten in whatever form they wanted. It was reinforced by those recounting it and loaded with emotions that instead of lessening, seemed to deepen and grow. Plus, she had crept out of Duxbury Hall in the middle of the night without leaving a note, so what did she expect?
‘But yes, that’s me. Not quite the tearaway I once was, to be honest, so I hope I don’t disappoint anyone. I did hope Tam and Tilda would be able to give me some kind of handover… The Judge’s routine, his medications, that kind of thing.’
‘Sorry, I don’t know anything.’
Me neither.
Work on the positives. ‘Okay, well… how hard can it be, right? Maybe they left me a note. The good news is, I’m at Paddington station. My train’s arriving at Little Duxbury at eight-fifty-nine. Oh, and I’m going to need some help getting to the house with my suitcase.’
‘This house? Oh, no, you can’t… you can’t stay here.’ She could actually feel his anxiety reaching down the phone.
‘Oh, no, don’t worry, really, I’m going straight to The Judge’s. I’ll just need a…’ The station display flashed up the designated platform for her train. ‘Okay, it’s here, I’ve got to run. I’ll Uber when I get there.’
There was a pause, through which she could have sworn she heard the cogs in his brain turning. ‘Er… Uber?’
Now alarm bells were ringing so loudly she had to take notice. There was no welcoming committee. No one to hand over any details. She’d have to get to know The Judge all on her own. No buffer. Just a straight-out family reunion with the man who hadn’t ever wanted her in his family in the first place.
Plus, no Uber? Little Duxbury had obviously not moved out of the eighteen-hundreds. ‘It’s a… Look, never mind. I’ll just get a cab.’ Probably attached to a horse, but she’d take whatever the sleepy village threw at her.
Except…
There was radio silence when she got off the train. The only passenger to do so. Clearly, she was the only person in the entire world wild enough to be going to Little Duxbury on a Sunday night.
She sensed that any minute there’d be tumbleweed blowing down the dark main street, but even the tumbleweed had grown bored of the place and hotfooted out. Sitting on her case she raised her arm in various directions trying to get some reception for her cell phone, but the blobs on the screen weren’t reassuring. No service. Just brilliant.
No taxis. No service. No sister, step or otherwise, to meet and greet. No one. So much for the universe being good to me, Frankie.
No missed calls or texts from Brett either since she’d landed at Heathrow. Things had become a little frosty once she’d told him she was taking a week’s break due to family circumstances. She’d hardly painted a picture of childhood idylls and The Waltons, so she understood why he’d be confused she wanted to suddenly help a sick old man she hadn’t spoken to in over a decade. Especially when she’d chosen to do that over going to his parents’ house and celebrating their engagement in Boston.
After ten minutes of sitting in the whipping wind she realised there was nothing more for her to do but walk the mile or so to her old home. Thank goodness her suitcase had wheels.
She walked slowly, unused to the eerie silence, broken only by the rrrrr rrrrr rrrrr of her suitcase over the uneven pavement. The darkness cast shadows from the oak trees that lined the road, past the post office that was still there. Even in this light she could see the sign needed replacing – currently it read P s Off, which at least made her smile amidst her jangling nerves. One of the two pubs, which had always been the life and soul of the little community, had closed down and was sitting empty.
Turning Heads, the hairdresser’s, was still there, though – she’d once had fun cajoling Debbie to dye her hair a deep acid purple to the shock of her family, and at the cost of a school suspension. The doctor’s surgery was still there – minus graffiti – and the corner shop was still next door.
She skirted the line of pretty thatched cottages that edged the large village green where summers had been spent at the annual fair. And where, in the autumn, they’d spent Bonfire Nights roasting marshmallows and burning their fronts as their backs froze in the icy north easterlies.
It was still a quintessential English country village, adored by its inhabitants; all except her, who had arrived at the age of eight, an outsider who had never quite fit in. But maybe that was more about her than the place. You couldn’t force a square peg into a round hole, after all – and that was how she’d always felt. An outsider.
It seemed as if nothing had changed.
In the light of twelve years’ absence and working in two of the busiest cities in the world, she could see the quaint, old-world charm and the picture-postcard prettiness. There were no neon lights, no noise. It was surprisingly peaceful. She’d bet everyone else here had actually lived the idyllic childhood she’d craved.
She only hoped they had short memories, or that peace would be shattered by the return of the prodigal stepdaughter. She almost smiled at the thought.
Up ahead there was a solitary figure.
Maybe she’d spent too much time in New York, but she knew better than to walk towards a man in the shadows even in a tiny village in the Cotswolds. She slowed, her heart hammering just a little too quickly against her ribcage.
‘Er… Hello?’ she ventured, infusing her voice with a strength she didn’t feel. It wasn’t like her to be spooked so easily, but the place was so dark, so quiet, so unlike NYC where there was always noise, a pulsing beat, always light. Thankfully, she found the torch app on her phone and lit the air.
The hunched figure was muttering, peering not at Emily but at something in the hedgerow. ‘Chip? Chip? Come on, you daft bugger – stop hiding.’ He stopped as the sound of her suitcase rattled towards him. Then he turned, very slowly; there was a drip on his nose and a shake in his voice. He looked Dumbledore-old, and not in any way scary; in fact, if anything, he seemed a little dazed. And quite polite. He shielded his eyes against her light. ‘Hello, can you help me? I’ve lost my dog. Perhaps you could shine that torch over here?’
‘I’ll try.’ Dropping her suitcase handle, Emily inched closer. Whoever the man was, he was ancient and frail. His hands were shaking, which wasn’t surprising given he was only wearing pyjamas. It was May but there was a cruel chill in the air along with a scent of smoky coal. ‘Are you sure your dog’s around here? It’s quite dense undergrowth. I’m not sure you should be out here, sir, dressed like that. You’ll catch pneumonia.’
She sounded like her old late grandma with a hint of Yank. She’d become, she realised, the sum of her city experiences with her highlighted hair, expensive clothes and homogenous transatlantic accent, and was probably unrecognisable these days as that volatile teenager she’d once been. ‘How about I get you home?’
‘Not until I’ve found my dog. Chip? Chip! C’mon boy!’
‘Do you live – wait a minute…’
There was something about him that was hauntingly familiar. Not the scruffy beard, or the stoop, or the wild mane. It was the deeper timbre of his voice. That was the only giveaway, though. The last time she’d seen this man he’d been stylishly dressed in a Savile Row suit and sporting a super-close shave. His eyes had bored into her with such animosity, such overinflated importance, such emptiness. Abhorred by reports of her behaviour he’d been about to throw her out, but she hadn’t given him the satisfaction. You can’t throw someone out if they’ve already left.
