by Lorna Peel
She got up at half past eight in the morning, saw that Heaton was still in the armchair in the living area, and went to the electric kettle.
As if realising himself that he wasn’t alone, he stretched and opened his eyes. “What time is it?” he asked groggily.
“Half past eight.”
He nodded and fixed his eyes on her. She flushed, pulled her bathrobe around her, and switched the kettle on.
“I called here at eight last night. Mrs Fields was on her way out. I must have fallen asleep,” he explained, peering down at the blanket with some surprise. “Thank you for this.”
“Tea or coffee?”
“Whatever you’re having.”
She reached for the coffee jar. “I’m afraid I’ve only got cornflakes.”
“Have you cried yet?” he interrupted softly, getting up and leaning towards her on the breakfast bar.
She nodded. “Yes, I have. Or would you prefer toast?”
“I really don’t mind.” She looked up at him in despair and he shrugged. “Toast, then.”
She felt him watch her make the breakfast then he pulled out a stool and sat next to her at the breakfast bar.
“I can’t remember much of yesterday afternoon so thank you for all you did.” She began to smear low-fat spread onto a slice of toast. “And for staying last night.”
“Not at all. Glad I could help. Where will your mother be buried?” he asked.
“St Margaret’s Churchyard. Most of my family are up there.”
“Is there anyone you have to notify?” he added.
“Mum’s sister, Sally. Mum and Dad’s friends at the rugby club. They were very good, going to see her regularly. Dad and I’ll probably plan to have a few drinks there with them after the funeral.”
And so it was arranged. After driving her father and herself to the church in a fabulous Jaguar which had belonged to his father, Heaton sat in a pew at the back of the church. Again, it was comforting to know that he was there with them. After the burial, he drove them to the rugby club where she and her father were quickly surrounded by their friends and her father’s former work colleagues.
“…And then at the opening of the Mining Museum when you went on and on and on for twenty-five minutes.” Gavin, an old school friend of hers, laughed.
Sophia and her father smiled at the memory.
“Who was it that had to go up and tell your dad that Lord Heaton was making a speech, too?” Gavin asked.
“That was Mum,” she replied. “I was still in London and don’t think anyone else dared to.”
“Your poor mum.”
“Yes.”
“What will you do now, Sophia?” Gavin asked. “Go back to London?”
“No.” Following Gavin to the bar, she accepted a drink from him. “I can’t leave Dad.”
“I heard you were up at the abbey? Is that true?”
“Yes, I’m the tour guide.”
“What did your dad say to that?”
She smiled and looked for him. He was walking with an old friend to two vacant stools further along the bar. “Not much.”
“Not much of a fan of the Heatons, is he?”
She quickly glanced around for Heaton. She found him in a dark corner nursing what looked like an orange juice. Strangely enough, no-one seemed to notice he was there. “No, not really. But I like it there.”
“You do?” Gavin’s eyebrows shot up.
“Yes. I have a good job and a lovely flat.”
“But the Heatons?”
“What about them?” she demanded. “Lady Heaton is very pleasant and so is Lord Heaton. Unless you know something I don’t?”
Gavin shrugged. “He seems to be a bit of a recluse.”
“He works very hard to keep the place going.”
“He could give the place to the National Trust or English Heritage and buy a nice semi somewhere.”
Somehow she couldn’t really see Heaton in a nice semi-detached house anywhere. “It’s been in his family since the dissolution of the monasteries, Gavin. I think it’s the last thing he’d want to do.”
“So it’s coach parties, then?”
She nodded. “Yes, and they’re proving very popular.”
“I’d love to hear your dad’s views on you working up there.”
“Yes, well, I’ve got to have a job, haven’t I?” she cried and everyone’s head turned. She flushed. “Sorry.”
“Ms Nelson?” She heard Heaton’s voice and turned. “Are you all right?”
“What the hell is he doing here?” Tony muttered loudly from a little further along the bar and, beside him, her father coughed in embarrassment.
“Lord Heaton was kind enough to drive Dad and me today,” she explained. “He’s been very kind.”
“I bet he has,” another voice muttered.
She saw Heaton tense, quickly put a hand on his arm, and felt him relax.
“Tony, Gavin, this is Lord Heaton. Lord Heaton – Tony Giles and Gavin Vickery. Tony is married to my best friend Michelle. Michelle couldn’t come as Cathy, their daughter, is ill. Gavin’s dad used to work with my dad at the mine.”
“I bet you’ve never been in here for a drink before?” Gavin asked him.
Heaton tore his eyes away from Tony. “No, I can’t say that I have. My father used to go to The Swan occasionally.”
“The Swan?” Gavin echoed. “Very nice. And what about you?”
“I’m afraid I don’t really have the time.”
“No, I don’t really have you down as a pint of bitter man. Maybe a gin and tonic?”
“Whisky, actually,” Heaton told him.
“Whisky, eh? Something like Glenmorangie? Laphroaig?”
Heaton smiled. “As long as it’s a single malt, I don’t mind.”
“As long as it’s a whisky, I don’t mind,” Gavin grinned.
She cringed and Tony shuffled uncomfortably. Further along the bar, her father just stared at them stony-faced.
“Can I get you one?” Heaton offered nevertheless. “Ms Nelson?”
“Thank you, but I’m fine with this.” She held up her glass and gave Gavin a hard look.
“No, thanks,” Gavin mumbled. “I have to drive home.”
Heaton nodded. “Good to have met you both. Excuse me.”
“This club is members only,” someone said loudly and she looked over in the voice’s direction.
“Well, in that case, I should leave, too, seeing as when I last checked I wasn’t a member or a rugby player either.”
She heard a harrumph and no more was said. She watched as Gavin’s eyes followed Heaton back to the table in the corner.
“Well.”
“Gavin?”
Reluctantly, he turned back to her. “Very nice.” He laughed at her surprised expression. “You didn’t know I was gay, then?”
She flushed. “No.”
“He’s not…?”
Her flush deepened. She hoped not but she had no idea. “I really don’t know. It’s not really the sort of thing you ask your employer.”
“You could ask him on my behalf, though,” he suggested.
“I don’t think so, Gavin. I like my job.”
“Sorry. Didn’t realise I was treading on your toes.”
“Gavin, for God’s sake.” She sighed, put her glass on the bar, and made a beeline for the door. Out in the car park, she took a few deep breaths to calm herself.
“Would you like to go home?” a deep voice asked anxiously.
She turned and stared at Heaton in his pristine black suit and tie. God, she hoped he wasn’t gay. “Yes, but I can’t. You go, I’ll get a lift back.”
“Sophia?” It was her father’s voice. He stood behind Heaton and looked at them both before continuing. “You go if you want to. Tony’s going to give me a lift home.”
“No, Dad, it’s all right.”
“Sophia, go. Come and see me soon, though.”
She nodded and kissed his cheek. He took a long la
st look at Heaton before going back inside.
She and Heaton got into the Jaguar but before he started the engine she spoke. “Thank you for all your help.”
He smiled. “Not at all.”
“No, I mean it. I was absolutely dreading all this; Mum dying, the funeral, the drinks afterwards, so thank you.”
“Do you really want to go home?” he asked.
“Why?”
“Well, I thought that if you wanted to, we could go for a spin up on the moors?” he suggested.
“Do you think the car’s up to it?”
“Well, as long as we keep to the main roads, yes.”
She smiled. “I’d love that.”
“Good.” He started the engine and drove out of the car park.
She settled back into the leather seat, alternating her gaze between the moors and his face.
“This car doesn’t get out much, does it?” she asked.
“No, a bit like me. So this will do us all good. It’s a bit strange driving a car older than you are.”
“Why, how old is it?”
“Nineteen Sixty-Nine.”
“It’s lovely,” she told him sincerely.
“Yes, it is. My father loved it, taught me to drive in it, which was quite brave of him. The worst was having to do a hill start. I thought I was going to roll all the way back down to the bottom.”
“I’d say it was a lot safer than the girly car I had to learn in.”
“I don’t know about that,” he replied. “This car doesn’t have any mod cons.”
“Well, this is such an enormous tank of a car, if you did have an accident, you’d have been more protected.”
He pursed his lips. “Yes, I suppose so. Did that man upset you?” he added suddenly.
“Gavin? No…well, a little. I shouldn’t have allowed him to get to me.” She glanced out of the passenger door window as the car slowed until he pulled into a gateway and turned the engine off.
“Have you given any thought as to what you’ll do now?” he asked. “You came back up here to be near your mother.”
She turned to him. “Unlike you, I’ve still got a father,” she said, then closed her eyes for a moment and squirmed. “Oh, God, that was awful of me. I’m so sorry. I’ll be back to work the day after tomorrow.”
He shook his head. “That’s far too soon. I could be a stand-in, if need be, and bore them all silly.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Are you suggesting that Lady Heaton and I are boring?”
He smiled. “I think I’d better rephrase that.”
She laughed. “Well, we could always dress you up as a monk.”
He stared at her and she froze with horror at what she had said.
“Not a suit of armour?” he suggested and she relaxed. “There is one somewhere.”
“I don’t know how you’d get up and down the stairs in one.”
“Mmm. Better keep me as the very last resort, then.”
“We will,” she assured him. “I’d love to see the suit of armour, though.”
“I think it might be in the attic somewhere. You haven’t seen the attic, have you?” he asked and she shook her head. “I must show it to you, then. I haven’t been up there for ages myself. I used to play hide and seek up there with Stephanie and Andrew.”
“Andrew?”
“He’s the son of Des’ predecessor,” he explained. “He managed to escape and have a career. Lives in Leeds now. Not far from Stephanie, actually.”
“Oh, I see.”
“He was the first to tell me that Simon was hitting Stephanie. Otherwise, I’d probably not have known until the miscarriage. We don’t get on, Simon and I,” he said with a humourless smile. “Never have. He claims to be an artist but he seems to be on a one-way ticket to self-destruction. Anyway, I will show you the attic, just remind me or I’ll forget.”
“I will,” she replied. “I’m sorry about what I said about your father, it was awful of me.”
“I heard what your father said to you about children.”
She flushed. “Oh.”
“I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but he has a point about not leaving it too long.”
“At least you don’t have a biological clock. Mine is rapidly counting down, according to Michelle, but considering my mum was forty-two when she had me, I think I have a bit of time yet. Do you feel under pressure to get married and have children?”
He shrugged. “It has never been mentioned. Especially now. It’s just automatically expected of me. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about.”
“You mentioned something before…about you and Lady Heaton…oh, look, just tell me to mind my own business.”
“No, it’s all right. Lady Heaton and I rarely speak now, that’s all,” he told her, confirming what she had suspected.
“I’m sorry.”
“You make it sound like it’s all your fault.” He smiled sadly, started the engine and drove them over the moors in a roundabout way back to the abbey.
Changing out of her navy blue suit into jeans and a jumper before cooking herself some pasta, she found herself relaxing a little. The funeral was over and neither Michelle nor Danielle had come. Sadly, she had been relieved. Evening sunshine was flooding into the flat and she opened the window fully. She ate then went for her phone, pulled one of the armchairs into the sunshine, and rang an old friend in London.
“Kitty, it’s Sophia. How’s the weather down there?”
“Sophia?” Kitty exclaimed. “How are you?”
“I’m okay. Mum died the other day, though.”
“Oh, Soph, I’m so sorry. Look, Lee’s here. Do you want to speak to him?”
Why the hell would I want to speak to him? “No thanks, Kitty. Lee and I are well and truly over.”
“Does that mean you’re not coming back to London?”
“I don’t know,” she replied truthfully. “How is London these days?”
“Oh, the usual. We all miss you, though. You sound as though you could do with a break. Can you come down for a few days?”
“Dad needs me and I have a job up here.”
“Surely they could spare you for a few days?” Kitty asked.
“Maybe.”
“Well, there’s a bed here for you if you come.”
“Thanks, Kitty. I’ll think about it. I could certainly do with some serious retail therapy, anyway.”
“So, what’s it like on the man front up there in the frozen north?”
She laughed. “Quiet. They’re not all like Sean Bean.”
“More’s the pity. Oh, there’s someone at the door. Better go. I’ll talk to you soon.”
Sophia ended the call and rested her head back.
When she woke it was dark and cold. She got up and heard the phone fall to the floor. She retrieved it, left it on the chair, and went to close the window. Reaching for the handle, she looked over at Heaton’s office and saw him fast asleep at the desk.
She closed the window, went downstairs and out into the yard, leaving the door on the latch. Quietly, she pushed open the door of Heaton’s office. He was using the PC keyboard as a pillow, his glasses halfway down his nose, but her eyes were drawn to the smouldering half-smoked cigarette in an ashtray beside his elbow. She sighed, reached for it, stubbed it out then saw the drawings laid out on the desk.
An excellent pencil drawing of a nude woman reclining on a bed. And a nude woman looking back over her shoulder. The third showed the same woman with a man in the throes of sexual intercourse, her face contorted in ecstasy. The dark-haired man was more roughly drawn but it was clearly a self-portrait. Either Heaton hadn’t finished the drawing or he was solely concentrating on the woman. Her.
Chapter Four
Sophia gasped and backed out of the office into the stable yard, blood rushing to her face. Stopping in the middle of the yard, she stared up at Des’ flat. Des and Helen were silhouetted against the curtains. They kissed, embraced, and disappeared from view. Des’ off
ice was directly under their flat but Heaton’s was directly opposite and if she could see right into his office… Colour flooded her cheeks…those directional spotlights… What if he had seen her struggling with her aerobics exercises or getting ready for bed?
She spent the next half hour turning the lights this way and that, hoping it would solve the problem, before going to the window. Heaton was still asleep in his office. She sighed, went back downstairs and across the stable yard, and knocked.
He woke with a jump and peered at her bleary-eyed. There was an imprint of the keyboard down his left cheek and she couldn’t help but smile.
“Go to bed,” she told him slowly.
“What time is it?” He quickly gathered the drawings together and put them in a drawer.
“I don’t know, I fell asleep in a chair myself.” She found a clock above the door. “One o’clock.”
He sighed, took off his glasses, and rubbed his cheek before shutting down the PC. Then he saw her glance at the cigarette. “I needed one.”
“Why?”
He looked startled. “I am trying to give up but it was a moment of weakness – a craving.”
“Why now?”
He pulled an exasperated expression and she was sure that he was finally going to tell her to mind her own business. “I overheard your telephone call this evening,” he said instead. “The window was open. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right, it wasn’t top secret. It was Kitty. I shared a house with her and a few others in London.”
He made an ‘oh’ face. “So are you going back?”
She tried to meet his eyes but he could hardly bear to look at her.
“Do you want me to?” she asked quietly.
“Thomas?” There was a knock at the door and she bit back a curse. “Thomas?”
“Excuse me.” Getting up, he went to the door and opened it. Lady Heaton stood outside wringing her hands. “What is it?”
