Love Life

by Nancy Peach

  Henry thought it likely that Morris would only need a couple of days on the rehabilitation unit and then Tess would be able to take him home.

  “I can’t take him now?” Her face fell. “Or maybe a little later today?”

  “No can do, I’m afraid. We’ll need to keep a close eye on him for the next forty-eight hours. You can pop in and see him whenever you like though. He’ll be fighting fit and back home before you know it. Flo will talk you through all the post-operative care protocol when you collect him. For now, I suggest you head off and enjoy the rest of this sunny Sunday, hey?”

  Tess was suddenly overwhelmed with emotion and gave Henry an enormous hug. “Thank you so much for everything you’ve done,” she said, her voice muffled into his tweed blazer which smelt reassuringly of horses and hay.

  “Steady, old girl!” Henry laughed, patting her on the shoulder. “Absolute pleasure, no bother at all.”

  He showed her back out to the car with a promise to call her if there were any further developments.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Tess was entirely unprepared for the view of the Russell residence, which was indeed just up the hill from the vet’s practice. As she cornered round the leafy lane that circumnavigated the estate she caught a glimpse of the main house, a Georgian manor in mellow stone nestled amongst smaller outbuildings, including a carriage house and stable block. She pulled to a stop on the gravel drive, half expecting a butler from a Merchant Ivory production to emerge from the main portico and open her passenger door. She sat for a moment in the car just gazing in awe at her surroundings: the lawn rolling down away from the house towards a thicket of trees, the neatly trimmed box hedges that bordered the drive, the sash windows reflecting the early sunlight and lending a cheerful openness to the façade.

  “I know, Jane. Don’t say a word,” Tess murmured under her breath.

  Although the house was beautiful, something about its splendour, along with the acres of prime land it sat in, bothered her. It wasn’t normal. Who could actually live somewhere like this and not grow up to feel that they ruled the world? It smacked of elitism, public schools and old boys’ networks, and further underlined some of the reservations she had about Edward Russell – although interestingly, she reflected, not about his mother, who always wore her wealth lightly. Tess had encountered a few extremely rich characters at medical school, often failed Oxbridge applicants who had been on the receiving end of extraordinarily expensive educations and who surrounded themselves with a peer group of identical friends. Medicine, however, was a great leveller, and most of these individuals, if they could hack it, were brought down to earth when faced with the realities of the lives of working people. They learnt how hard it was for the majority to make ends meet and started to claw back some of their humanity as they realised that their careers were dependent on helping those less fortunate than themselves. But people like Edward, she thought ruefully, never had to mingle with the proletariat. She stared again at the house, comparing it briefly with her own family home, and feeling that she would in all honesty much rather be there.

  However, she realised that the longer she sat there pondering the class system, the more intimidated and nervous she was going to feel about speaking to him, so she picked up his scarf and got out of the car, closing the door behind her with a decisive slam. She made her way round to the back of the house, where she found a weathered rear door with iron boot scrapers at either side. She knocked hard against the door panel and found that it was ajar. With some trepidation she nudged it open and called out, “Hello?” Almost immediately there was a cacophony of noise from within the house – barking and the scrabbling of claws across tiles – and she was nearly knocked off her feet by a pack of dogs hurtling into her, tails wagging. The first three dogs were rangy setters, their knobbly heads knocking into her thighs as she fussed over them. A few moments later an elderly cocker spaniel with cloudy eyes shuffled into view and the setters backed off to allow the senior member of the party to greet the visitor.

  “Hello?” Edward’s familiar voice shouted through from the next room. “I’m just in here. Come through.”

  Tess made her way into the kitchen accompanied by the enthusiastic canines and discovered Edward, clad in damp running gear and holding his ankle behind him with one hand to stretch out his quads whilst supporting himself on the back of a chair with his other hand. He looked up at her in surprise.

  “Dr Carter! How nice.” He was smiling, although she couldn’t tell if it was genuine pleasure at seeing her or more of a grimace as his muscles relaxed into the stretch. He released his right ankle and repeated the move with the left whilst trying to fend off the dogs who were all trying to get involved in the warm down. Tess was mortified.

  “The door was open… Sorry, you’re clearly busy. I’ll just…” She started to back out of the house and walked into a stack of metal dog bowls, which fell to the floor with a crash, causing the dogs to tear across the room towards her.

  “Oh God, I’m so sorry!” She put her hands in front of her face; her cheeks were burning.

  Edward did not appear flustered by her presence. “I’ve only been for a run,” he said. “Do I really look that alarming?”

  She composed herself, deliberately looking at his face and not at any other part of him. Somehow, finding him clad in his T-shirt and jogging shorts with a sheen of sweat over his upper arms and neck seemed terribly intimate, and thoughts of that body pressed up against hers on another sunny morning five years ago flooded into her head.

  “I am sorry, honestly. I had absolutely no intention of catching you unawares. Henry suggested I come to return your scarf”—she gestured to the stained garment in her hands—“and I wanted to thank you, and also organise paying you back for the vet’s bills. I should have waited until I saw you at the hospice. I am sorry – I’ll leave now, and we can sort this out some other time.”

  She placed the scarf down on the work surface to her right and turned towards the exit but he called her back.

  “Dr Carter? No need to be embarrassed. I expect in your line of work you’ve seen people looking hot and sweaty before. Take a seat. I’ll go and hop in the shower – give me two minutes.”

  She turned back towards him. “Oh, no, I really…” but he had already returned to the hallway and she could hear footsteps disappearing up the stairs.

  Jane Austen appeared to be hyperventilating. “Goodness! A most peculiar sensation. Whilst I am certain that the strange flutterings in my breast are merely related to this dreadfully hot weather we are having, which keeps one in a continual state of inelegance, I must confess it is hard to remain entirely indifferent in the face of such a fine specimen of manhood.” She gulped for air. “I am sure that I am quite undone.”

  Tess took a deep breath. She suddenly felt exhausted and dropped her bag on the sofa next to the larger dogs, who had arranged themselves in a general morass of paws, jowls, and thumping tails. The cocker spaniel was perched on a neighbouring floor cushion, maintaining a distinguished air as he sniffed in Tess’s direction. She pulled up the kitchen chair nearest the smaller dog and rested her hand on his head, absentmindedly stroking his nose while she looked around the room. The long table she was sitting next to was warped and roughened with age. There were deep scratches in some areas and a chewed table leg at one end that looked as if an errant puppy had nibbled on it in the past. The floor was made up of large, smooth flagstones and was surprisingly clean, given the number of resident canines. The kitchen surfaces were also clean, although cluttered with tins, spices, potted plants, spoon rests, coasters and piles of books and letters.

  The room was warm and her eyelids were starting to droop when Edward re-emerged a few moments later in a clean T-shirt and shorts, his damp hair tousled and his feet bare. She jumped up out of her chair. “Sorry, I…” She wasn’t entirely sure what she was apologising for.

  “Please. Do sit down. Would you like a cup of tea?”

  She shook he
r head as a yawn escaped. “No, look, I’d really rather not bother you. I only wanted to say thank you and bring the scarf back. I’m so, so grateful. I really don’t want to put you to any further trouble.”

  He turned to her, holding the kettle in his hand.

  “I am about to make myself a cup, so it would be absolutely no bother whatsoever,” he said. “And you have just finished a night shift. Let me at least get some caffeine into you before you head back off in the car. I think we’ve all had enough traffic accidents in our lives for one day?”

  She conceded that he was probably right and muttered something about, “Just one quick cup then,” as she sank gratefully back into the chair.

  Edward was clattering around one of the deep cupboards and emerged brandishing a blackened frying pan, which he set on the hotplate of the large cast-iron range in the corner, clearly intending on making himself some breakfast. He moved a chipped brown teapot off the trivet at the side, glanced at the contents with a frown and poured the old tea down the sink.

  “Pauline,” he said, “she’s the housekeeper, and the reason this place hasn’t fallen into total disrepair while Mum’s been ill, but she cannot seem to leave a building without a pot of heavily stewed tea festering in a warm corner somewhere.” He rinsed the teapot out and put two fresh bags in.

  Tess felt she had to say something. The whole scenario was beginning to feel a bit surreal in her sleep-deprived state.

  “Mr Russell.”

  “Edward, please.”

  “Edward. How much do I owe you for Morris’s treatment? I am very grateful, but I do really need to know.”

  He turned to her, leaning against the range.

  “No, honestly, it’s fine. I’ve paid for it. You’ve really no need to worry. I thought that, seeing as I was making the decision about where to take him, I couldn’t expect you to foot the bill, and I don’t think Henry charged for his time anyway – he’s done all of our veterinary work on the horses and dogs and the assorted animals on the estate for years, so he did it as a favour. Please, don’t trouble yourself about that. I only wish I could have got hold of you sooner to put your mind at rest. I knew you’d probably be going out of your mind with worry, but I didn’t have your number until your texts came through.”

  The kettle on the other side of the hotplate started to whistle and he poured the boiling water into the pot. Tess shifted in her chair, resting her forearm on the edge of the table.

  “I’m so grateful, I can’t tell you. But… I cannot possibly let you pay for that treatment. For a start, I suspect it’s a vast amount and I don’t want to feel indebted—”

  “To someone like me?” he cut in before she’d finished her sentence.

  “It’s not like that. Honestly, it’s not; there’s no need for you to pull that face.”

  “Okay.”

  “I just don’t want to feel beholden. To anyone. It’s not how I run my life. I’ve always been self-sufficient. It’s important to me. Well, to be honest, it’s been drummed into me: do not get into debt, ever, with anyone. I probably should have had it tattooed on my forehead.”

  “You might have looked a bit odd.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. And I don’t have a massive forehead.” She smiled. “But no, seriously, I just have a bit of a thing about it.”

  “And I imagine that there could be little worse than owing money to someone who ‘finds gaps in the law to make money for bankers’?” He raised his eyebrows but his voice was light as he recalled her words.

  “There’s no need to bring that up. We both spoke out of turn on that occasion.”

  “Yes,” he conceded. “We did. We haven’t actually discussed it since, have we? I do want to apologise properly for the things I said.”

  “Thank you.” She smiled at him. “I think it’s fair to say that both of us may have been guilty of misjudging each other.” On many levels, she thought to herself. “I am very grateful, really. It was such a kind thing to do and honestly this isn’t to do with any moral high ground. I’d feel the same if somebody on minimum wage had paid for Morris’s treatment. I just don’t want to be in debt.”

  “Fair enough. Look, how about we leave it for now?” he said, looking in the fridge for the milk. “Consider it a long-term loan? I really do think that I should absorb some of the cost anyway. It was my decision to bring him to Henry. You could almost certainly have got him cheaper treatment elsewhere.”

  “It wouldn’t have been the five-star emergency surgery he’s received, would it, though? If I had taken him to someone else?”

  “Oh, that’s not necessarily true. It’s like healthcare for humans: expensive isn’t always better. Although I have to say in Henry’s case it probably is. He’s very good.”

  “Yes, well. He speaks very highly of you too. You clearly go back a long way.”

  “Hmmm, I can imagine. Did he recount endless tales of my childhood? I’m sure that’s the last thing you needed.”

  “No. Actually it was quite interesting.”

  “I would have thought there was very little about me that would be of interest. I’m pretty dull really.”

  “I’m not sure as I’d agree with that,” she said.

  He smiled and turned back to the range and poured some oil into the frying pan.

  “Right. I am about to make some breakfast. You are more than welcome to have some too; there’s plenty. I don’t know if it would be against your self-sufficiency principles and I don’t want to burden you by making you feel any more indebted, but it would just be some bacon and eggs?”

  Tess shrugged. This day was getting stranger by the minute. In fact, it was starting to develop that timeless quality that she’d remembered from the night she’d spent with him. “Why not,” she said, “if you’re sure.”

  “Excellent.”

  He brought a bottle of milk and two chipped mugs over to the table with the teapot still in its wonky cosy knitted from violently pink wool.

  “One of Madeleine’s craft projects at school,” he said, gesturing to it as he poured. “It’s almost twenty years old and she’s mortified that Mum still uses it, so I always pull it out of the cupboard when she comes to stay, obviously.”

  “Yes, I can imagine. Very brotherly.”

  He smiled. “There are various other examples of her work dotted about the house: macramé plant hangers, crocheted doilies, badly embroidered handkerchiefs, all disastrous.”

  He crossed back over to the range and cracked a couple of eggs into the pan as Tess watched him. “Sounds like me – my craft activities were never up to much. Although Mum didn’t mind as long as I had my head in a book.”

  He turned and looked over his shoulder towards her.

  “Ah,” he said. “Well Maddie didn’t really enjoy reading either. She never was one for indoor pursuits, always wanted to be off riding her pony or racing around with me.”

  “Sounds like you were close?”

  “Yes, at times. We got on well when we were together, but we were at different schools, so for vast stretches of time I didn’t see her at all. Quite an odd set-up, I guess. You have a brother, don’t you? Jake, was it?”

  He continued to prepare breakfast, adding the rashers of bacon to the eggs as Tess talked about the sibling dynamics in her own household, surprised that Edward had remembered she had a brother, let alone that he recalled his name. Especially given that all the evidence to date seemed to point to his powers of recall being pretty abysmal.

  “I guess our relationship was more conventional in some ways,” she said, “given the fact that we spent all our time under the same roof, went to the same school, you know. But sometimes things were tough. Jake being mixed-race caused issues – you can imagine, the usual, a bit of casual racism – although he was pretty good at just shrugging it off.”

  “And I can imagine it must have been pretty difficult for your mother too? Ouch!” The bacon was spitting in the pan and he rubbed his hand.

  “You okay?”
>
  “Yes, fine.” He ran his hand wrist under the tap. “I know you got all prickly before, last time I asked about it, but clearly money has been tight in the past, hence your attitude to debt? Which is admirable, by the way.”

  “Thank you. I know it probably seems a bit odd to someone who has grown up with”—she gestured to indicate the luxury of their surroundings—“all this. I guess it’s hard for you to imagine. I wondered whether you thought I was being ridiculous.”

  “Not at all.”

  His interest seemed genuine and Tess relaxed a little. “Well, yes, money was always tight, space even tighter. I mean, our entire house would fit into this kitchen.” She looked around the vast room. “And Jake was like some sort of man-mountain from the age of about thirteen. It was like keeping a giant in a shoebox, but we were happy and well looked after – well loved, you know.”

  Edward nodded, smiling as she continued.

  “Not having a dad around meant that Jake was the man of the house, I suppose, but he never seemed to feel the pressure of that. Mum decided quite early on that I was the one who would take on the burden of being the perfect child.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing really.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “No. Enough with the meaningful looks. Don’t you try and casually cross-examine me. I know your tricks.” She wagged a finger at him.

  “All right! I’m only asking.” He put his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

  “I’m too tired to think straight, and you know how my mouth runs away with me. I’ll just end up blathering on… There was something that happened a few weeks back, family-wise, about my dad and…”

  “I thought you didn’t have any contact with him?”

  “I don’t. Well, I haven’t. It’s complicated.”

  “Okay.”

  “It was just a bit of a surprise. I’m still not quite sure how I feel about it and I’d rather not…”