by Penny Parkes
Tilly clasped Alice’s hand in gratitude. ‘I have no idea how people are going to react. Plum’s so mellow about all this. She’s been out for years and I think she must have forgotten how big a deal it is.’
‘Is it, though?’ Alice queried. ‘I mean, after everything you’ve been through over the years, is it really so extraordinary that this is what makes you feel good? And besides, maybe it’s just Plum that you love? Doesn’t necessarily mean that any other woman out there would float your boat.’ She paused. ‘Should I just shut up now?’
Tilly laughed. ‘Why change the habit of a lifetime now?’
‘Well, you are,’ Alice retorted. ‘So, if I may be blunt, is this why you’ve been playing fast and loose on the dating scene?’
‘Shagging anything that moves?’ Tilly countered. ‘Maybe? I don’t know. It just felt like I was always looking for something – you know, to feel more? Something better? To feel in the moment? After all that hideousness at uni with that entitled prick, and then giving up the baby? Maybe in hindsight all the serial shagging should have been a red flag, but it’s counter-intuitive, you know . . .’
‘I do,’ said Alice. ‘But you need to promise me you won’t lose Plum just because you’re afraid. Go and find her, Tilly. Tell her what you told me. If she’s half the woman I think she is, there really won’t be an issue.’
‘If she’s half the woman I think she is, then I’m finished with men,’ Tilly said awkwardly, gathering her things and pausing by the door. ‘Thank you, Al. For understanding, I mean. Even if I don’t just yet.’
As the door swung shut behind her, Alice realised that she’d only once before seen Tilly look so vulnerable and that even now, it was a wonder that Alice was the only person who knew about her child. About how that child had come about. She could only hope and pray that Larkford would live up to her expectations and provide the accepting home that Tilly so obviously needed.
*
‘Stay in bed with me,’ said Jamie, gently but deliberately sliding his hand over her waist. ‘If I’m going to chuck a sickie to stay home with you, there’s not much point if you’re not here.’
Alice stretched in sated happiness, delighted with their impromptu liaison. Poor Teddy Kingsley’s lunch menu hadn’t stood a chance. ‘Are you saying that last night wasn’t worth it?’ she teased him. ‘Besides, I’ll see you after work, and again at bedtime . . .’ This time, it was her hands doing the teasing and Jamie groaned in surrender.
‘Argh, you’ll be the death of me, Walker. I have to fly back tonight and you know it. Even though I would do anything to spend every Sunday eating toast in bed with you, and every Monday morning waking up beside you. It’s just not possible at the moment,’ Jamie said, with slightly less conviction than he had on his last visit home.
‘We need a plan,’ said Alice. ‘Holly’s always making plans and lists – maybe we should do that?’
‘My list is pretty simple actually,’ Jamie confessed. ‘Find a replacement for me in Donegal so I can come home to my girl. Oh, and find a full-time job to come home to. That part-time offer from the training centre just isn’t enough.’
Alice frowned. ‘They sent you to Donegal on a temporary placement and then cut your hours for when you get back? That’s pretty shitty by anyone’s standards.’
Jamie looked fairly ambivalent about the prospect. ‘There’s been a change of management, and a change of funding. I rather suspect I’m better off elsewhere.’ He paused. ‘I’ll be a dog walker if I have to. I just need to come home now.’
‘Well,’ said Alice, trying not to overwhelm him with her delight, ‘I gather Connor has quite a few now . . .’ She giggled, as he tickled her in reply.
‘Argh, come on, woman, stop talking about other men when you’re in bed with me.’ He leaned forward to kiss her, stopping abruptly at the expression on her face. ‘Al? I was only joking.’
Alice shook her head. ‘Connor! Shit . . .’ She sat up in bed and started to pull on her blouse. ‘I was going to call in before afternoon surgery.’ She hunted around for her shoes, feeling ridiculously guilty. ‘I can’t believe I forgot.’
‘He’ll understand,’ Jamie said, confusion writ across his face. ‘I can pop in this afternoon if you like, while you’re at work?’ He paused, obviously waiting for Alice to reply. ‘Or is this a doctor thing? A mate thing? A date?’ he ventured. ‘Alice? Earth to Alice?’
‘Hmm?’ Alice looked up, distracted and flushed with remorse. ‘I just need to check . . .’
Jamie pulled on a t-shirt and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. ‘Is he okay, Al?’
Alice stopped, one shoe in her hand, hair swinging into her eyes. ‘I honestly don’t know,’ she said, almost on the verge of tears that her professional responsibilities had been so easily ditched in favour of a nooner with her boyfriend. ‘It might be nothing. Just a feeling really.’
Jamie knew better than to question one of Alice’s intuitive feelings, even apparently realising that today was not a day to tease her as he usually would about whether there was the hint of Orkney witch in her ancestry.
‘He’s been struggling a bit lately,’ Alice said after a moment, weighing up how much was in the public domain, and could reasonably be shared. Certainly her conversation with Holly only this morning about high-functioning depression was protected by privilege, no matter how much she might welcome Jamie’s insight on the situation.
Jamie nodded. ‘Tough call. I mean, as a doctor, you can’t treat grief, right? But then, who’s to say that’s all it is?’
Alice glanced up sharply, wondering if she’d said too much, stunned as always by Jamie’s instinctive ability to grasp a situation.
‘I had a client once,’ Jamie said quietly, slipping into his jeans. ‘We thought he’d turned a corner, perked up, seemed brighter . . . But it was just because he’d made his decision.’
Alice roughly pulled her hair back away from her face. ‘Fuck,’ she said simply, running from the room.
‘Wait, where are you going?’ Jamie said, chasing after her in his bare feet.
‘Connor’s!’ she shouted back over her shoulder, as she ran down the stairs, Coco at her heels.
*
Alice arrived at The Big House to find Kitty hammering on the front door to no avail. ‘No sign of him?’ she asked helplessly, having somehow convinced herself of the worst possible outcome on the run over here. She had seen, in fact, in her mind’s eye the defence she would have to make for her abject failure to spot the signs before it was too late. Jamie’s comment had propelled a vague niggling concern into hyperdrive.
‘But the dogs aren’t barking either,’ Kitty said gently, spotting Alice’s face. ‘So don’t go there. He told me he was fine. I called him last night after the Christening no-show – I heard Cassie Holland bragging about that horrible radio phone-in, so I was worried. But he promised me he was fine.’
‘But you obviously didn’t believe him, or you wouldn’t be hammering on his front door in your lunch break,’ countered Alice astutely.
Kitty gave her a sideways glance, before setting off towards the back of the house. ‘Come on then. We’ll just break in.’
‘What?’
Kitty shrugged. ‘No big deal. I do it all the time if there’s an animal in distress and the owners aren’t around.’ Alice was lost for words as Kitty rootled around among the plant pots and pebbles by the back door, coming up triumphant with a slightly rusty, but nevertheless effective key. ‘Don’t look too shocked,’ Kitty said. ‘Aggie Peal used to get me round whenever she had hospital stuff going on.’
They walked into the kitchen together, the closed windows and total silence so unusual as to make them both pause. ‘He’s not here,’ Alice said unnecessarily.
They looked at each other, the same thought clearly occurring to both of them, as they ran from the room, calling his name, checking the house from top to bottom. Breathlessly, Kitty leaned against the kitchen table and gave Alice an embarrassed lo
ok. ‘Guess we might have overreacted,’ she said. ‘I mean, the dogs aren’t here either. And neither is his ridiculous car.’
‘Right, yes. Quite,’ managed Alice, equally out of puff.
They both looked up expectantly as the back door flew open, only to be disappointed. ‘Only me,’ said Jamie. ‘Any sign?’
The girls shook their heads, an uncomfortable feeling still hovering in the room. It hadn’t felt like an overreaction, Alice realised. Worrying about Connor’s well-being felt authentic, a little part of her subconscious mind now flagging up all the reasons she should, quite rightly, be worried about him. Even the pictures on the dresser were a stark reminder of just how different Connor looked these days to the happier times captured on film. The change so gradual, over the last year, that they could certainly be forgiven for missing the weight loss, but to have missed the hollowness in his eyes?
Just because he’d been functional, didn’t mean he hadn’t been struggling.
Alice glanced around, uncertain what to do next, as Kitty tried his mobile yet again.
‘We should go to Dorset,’ said Jamie into the silence.
‘What? Why?’ Alice said. ‘Why do you say that?’
Jamie held up a bundle of paperwork that had been left spread all over the kitchen table. ‘Because I’ll wager that’s where Connor’s gone. Look – all these sale contracts, deeds of title . . .’
‘He’s selling the estate?’ Alice checked.
‘He’s getting his affairs in order,’ said Kitty at the same time and they looked at each other in confusion.
‘I’ll drive,’ said Jamie, pulling his car keys from his pocket and heading for the door.
Chapter 35
Alice blew her fringe from her eyes and pulled over to the side of the road, if it could even be called that. ‘And you’re quite sure we’re going the right way?’ she asked Jamie in the seat beside her, a large-scale Ordnance Survey map flapping in the welcome breeze as she wound down the window allowing the stifling heat in the car to dissipate.
They’d taken shifts driving in the end, through the most awful conditions, never quite sure that the snowy lanes were heading in the right direction and the further south they drove, the less evidence they saw of the promised thaw. It was some testament to their concern that they had persevered, grateful to the sturdy four-wheel drive, that even so skidded occasionally and made their hearts race.
And now, poised near the top of yet another hill, Kitty leaned forward between the front seats, pointing to the tiny icon on the map that apparently represented the only dwelling for miles around, among the rolling hills and valleys of deepest Dorset: Connor’s Dorset estate.
They all looked at each other for a moment, no doubt all thinking the same thing – was it any wonder that an ambulance had been unable to reach Connor’s wife in time? As the crow – or helicopter – flew, civilisation was but a twenty-minute hop away, but following these winding single-track lanes, Alice had lost all sense of direction.
‘Well, if he wanted to hide away, he chose the right place at least,’ Jamie said quietly, squinting at the map and turning it this way and that to pinpoint their own location. He looked ahead doubtfully, as Alice put the car into gear on the steep slope and pulled away. ‘According to this, it’s just around the next bend, but I don’t see how . . .’
They crested the hill and words caught in their mouths; the view opening up before them was breathtaking, so remotely wild and unspoiled. A narrow driveway wound down to the valley below, branching away from the lane itself, flanked by frosted, pollarded beech trees, their very presence disturbing the occasional flurry of a bold pheasant making a break for it. At the bottom sat a whitened oasis of lawns surrounding a sprawling house, Connor’s much-blighted and forlorn Range Rover the only sign of life.
‘Are you ready for this?’ Alice asked, glancing back over her shoulder as they approached, still unclear as to the exact nature of Connor and Kitty’s friendship. Having spent the last three hours in the car together, Alice had an even deeper respect for their lovely vet, sharing the absolute commitment that Kitty brought to her work and her animals, not to mention her obvious affection for Coco.
From where Alice was sitting, it was entirely possible that Kitty’s concern might be just as much for Jamieson as for Connor, and she couldn’t help thinking that would be a missed opportunity. But this was no time for matchmaking. They genuinely had no idea what they were walking into and it was no coincidence that Alice had restocked her doctor’s bag thoroughly before they left. One heard such awful things about rock stars hitting ‘rock’ bottom that she wanted to be prepared. Whether anything could prepare them for what lay ahead was anyone’s guess and she squeezed Jamie’s knee gratefully, thankful for the moral support.
Nobody, not even Connor’s Estate Manager, had seen or heard from him since the radio show. Only Kitty had briefly spoken to him on the phone, and was now replaying the conversation in her head on repeat in case she’d missed something crucial. It had taken all of Alice’s resolve to accept that not every story had a happy ending and there was a voice in the back of her head urging her to brace for the worst.
Isolation.
Depression.
Humiliation.
Never a winning combination.
A flurry of barking caught them all unawares, as they parked the car, a veritable pack of mismatched hounds hurtling around the corner of the house in greeting, their excited breath in hot puffs of misty air. Jamieson loped along behind Agatha Peal’s excitable troop, targeting Kitty for his affection, his tongue lolling and his tail thwacking so hard against Kitty’s thighs it would doubtless leave bruises.
‘Morning,’ said Connor quietly, appearing from the same archway, filthy wellington boots and a shabby Puffa waistcoat making him almost unrecognisable. Together with the beginnings of a beard and deep shadows under his eyes, it suggested that personal hygiene had not been high on his agenda but Alice couldn’t have cared less. The wave of relief at seeing him alive, if not well, made her clasp the car door for support.
‘You found me then.’ His tone was ambivalent, as though he would have been unmoved either way.
‘Of course we found you!’ exclaimed Kitty, striding forward to pull him into a hug and ignoring his cat-like stiffening response. ‘We were hardly going to let you fester down here for ever, were we?’
Connor glanced around, his glazed eyes following the stunning elevations and copses that marked out his territory, falling to the dogs milling affectionately at his side. ‘I can think of worse ways to go, actually. Touring springs to mind.’
‘Hmm,’ said Alice noncommittally, still attempting to find her equilibrium. Even in this sweeping rural paradise, it was clear that Elsie’s maxim held true: you can be miserable anywhere if you take yourself with you.
It was now their job to persuade Connor to come home to Larkford, where there was no doubt that a little love and support would help to get him back on the path to happiness.
Assuming he forgave them for letting him down.
Assuming he was prepared to give them another chance.
‘Any chance of a cuppa?’ said Jamie easily.
‘Or something to eat? It’s very nice down here, but have you any idea how long it’s been since we passed a coffee place?’ Alice urged herself to manage nonchalance. There had been enough drama already.
There was a flicker of amusement in Connor’s eyes that buoyed Alice immediately. ‘That’s rather the point, though, don’t you think?’ Connor said, with a small gesture towards the heavily frosted woodland and snow-covered hillsides surrounding them. Agatha’s dogs were clearly on message already, gambolling and haring around the sweeping lawns and shrubberies, knocking loose showers of snow and in Seventh Heaven at the freedom.
Filthy wet paw prints led the way into the kitchen – a jaw-dropping statement of cream-painted wood and granite, somewhat undermined by an array of half-empty baked bean cans, some with forks sticking out of the top
, not to mention an entourage of empty wine bottles in varying shades and a flurry of annotated sheet music spilling all over the table.
‘Taking good care of yourself then, I see,’ said Kitty, giving Connor a sideways glance.
Jamie pulled open the fridge and gagged slightly at the whiff of curdled milk and God only knew what else. ‘Okay, well, have you got any coffee at least? I’d settle for some beans if that’s all you’ve got? I’m bloody starving.’ His stomach rumbled a crescendo, endorsing his statement.
Connor hesitated, emotions flickering across his face, almost as though offering coffee or sustenance might in some way obligate him, an implied acceptance of the terms of their visit. He wasn’t a stupid man and he could obviously tell that the three of them hadn’t driven all this way on a social call.
He flicked on an impressive coffee machine, which gurgled and chuntered into the silence. ‘Why did you come?’ he asked.
Alice was ready, primed with a tactful answer, sticking to the plan.
She had not accounted for Kitty’s emotional reaction at Connor’s obvious decline. ‘To bring you home,’ Kitty said firmly, stepping forward and clasping both his hands. ‘To bring you back to your friends, to the people who care about you. And to stop you doing anything you’ll regret.’
Connor said nothing, merely pulled his hands away and busied himself with the complicated machine, flicking coffee grounds everywhere as he did so with trembling hands.
Kitty cast an anguished glance over at Alice, yet waded in again with both feet. ‘What about Jamieson? He needs veterinary care.’
‘There are other vets in the country, Kitty,’ Connor said, his back turned and his words muffled. ‘He and I are doing just fine. We’re cut from the same cloth, the old boy and me.’
This taciturn, scathing Connor wasn’t one that any of them recognised and Alice thought, yet again, that bringing Lizzie or Will might have been a better solution. After all, Connor barely knew the three people in this room, owed them nothing, not even an explanation – and yet . . .
