by Kate Hewitt
“It’s all right.”
Alice rose from the bed and walked towards Emily. For a second she thought she might hug her, and she didn’t know how she felt about that, but then Alice just touched her hand. “Thank you. You’ve been a big help.”
“Have I?” It was a new sensation, to have helped someone with their sadness. She didn’t know whether to believe Alice, but in any case it felt surprisingly nice to think that she might have been helpful. Needed.
“Is it too early to put the kettle on again?” Alice asked. “Or do you have to get back to work?”
Emily hesitated. She did need to get back to work, but she could see that Alice still wanted some company, even if it was just hers, and she didn’t want to disappoint her.
“Why not?” she said, and Alice’s wide smile was like a wave breaking on the shore.
The kitchen was just as comfortable as ever, and as always Andromeda leapt into Emily’s lap the moment she’d sat down. She still kept the lint brush in her desk drawer for that reason.
“I’m not usually so emotional,” Alice said as she poured boiled water into a big, floral-patterned teapot. “I think it must be because I’m on my period.”
“Oh, right.” Emily had nothing else to say to that.
“We’re trying, you see,” Alice said softly, and for a second her face seemed to collapse in sadness before she raised her head and gave Emily a determined smile. “But it’s still early days, I know.”
Now she was really out of her depth. “I’m sorry,” Emily said, knowing the words were inadequate. “That must be…difficult.”
“Have you ever wanted children?” Alice asked as she brought the tea things to the table.
“Have I…?” Emily’s mind spun as she struggled to think how to answer.
“Sorry, is that too personal a question?” Alice bit her lip. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“No, no.” It was too personal a question, but then just about any question was, and after Alice’s emotional revelations Emily didn’t feel she could clam up herself. Weirdly, part of her didn’t even want to. “I haven’t really thought about it, to tell you the truth,” she said finally.
“You haven’t?” Alice looked surprised. “I mean, most women do, don’t they, one way or another?”
Emily shrugged. “I suppose it’s not something I ever thought would happen for me.”
Alice cocked her head, her expression softening into sympathy. “Why not?”
“Well…” Emily reached for her tea to have something to focus on other than Alice’s cringingly compassionate look. “It just isn’t something I’ve…focused on.” Which sounded so lame, but what else could she say? Relationships, marriage and babies, kitchen suppers and family holidays, dogs and cats and a clutter of muddy boots in the hall…it was all so, so beyond her. It was what everyone else had, what she’d always supposed everyone took for granted, but it had never been that way for her. It had always felt as far away as the moon.
“Right,” Alice said after a moment. “And is that by choice?”
Emily couldn’t keep from giving her a startled look. Of course it was by choice. It wasn’t as if she had a pair of handcuffs on, was it? If she’d really wanted a boyfriend, she could have got one, surely?
And yet…
“It’s just how it’s worked out,” she said a bit stiffly.
“But it doesn’t have to be that way forever,” Alice persisted. “You can’t be much older than I am—”
“I’m twenty-six.”
“Exactly.” Alice looked pleased. “There’s plenty of time for you to meet someone.”
For a second Owen’s image flashed into Emily’s mind—the dark, curly hair, the glint in those blue eyes, his hands on her shoulders, the entirely unexpected current of feeling that had run through like a bolt of lightning…
“It’s not something I’m looking for,” she said firmly. “I really am happy on my own.”
Thankfully Alice left it at that, and they ended up talking about the fundraiser, and the hope of booking some Victorian arcade-type amusements, and after twenty minutes of reassuring conversation about nothing more than work, Emily headed back to the office.
Yet Alice’s question about it being by choice lingered in her mind like a morning mist, grey shreds of fog she couldn’t quite banish.
Of course it was by choice. If she’d wanted a boyfriend or even a husband, she would have found one. And yet…there was her mother, always in the background, needing to be managed, protected, cared for. Hidden from prying eyes.
At least, that was how it had been in Emily’s childhood, but she was a grown woman now, with her own life to live. If she wanted to pursue a relationship, she could. Her mother didn’t even live with her anymore, at least not often. Only when she had no other place to go…or she needed her.
So why did a relationship, a real life, feel so utterly impossible? Was it just because she’d never had one before, because she didn’t know how?
And was that something you could just learn?
The rain was still pelting down as Emily left the manor and headed down the drive a little bit after five, the sky thunderously dark, the wood foreboding as rain lashed the branches of the trees and sent even more drops spattering into the pavement below. She put the hood of her raincoat up, her head ducked low, as she dashed from manor to close, pausing reluctantly when she heard Olivia call from her doorway.
“You must be soaked! I’ve just put the kettle on. Do you have time for a cuppa?”
Emily blinked through the downpour to see Olivia smiling at her in such obvious welcome, it felt downright mean to say no. And why should she? A cuppa would be nice, and Olivia was no intimidating Harriet.
“Yes, all right,” she said, and walked towards number four. Inside the cottage was identical to Emily’s own, but completely different in every other respect. Where Emily’s was spare and spartan, Olivia’s was messy and chaotic—colours clashing in crocheted blankets, throw pillows, and artwork that jostled for space on the walls. A pile of wildly patterned bowls were stacked topsy-turvy by a sink crammed with dishes. A cat was perched on top of an overflowing laundry basket, gazing balefully at Emily as she took in the scene.
“Sorry, that’s Mr Hyde,” Olivia said as she nodded towards the cat. “He’s my bipolar cat. He’s either lovely or horrible, and I never know which.”
“Ah, right.” Emily looked away because she wasn’t sure she knew what the expression on her face was. She knew all about bipolar, never mind cats.
“Anyway. Tea.” Olivia reached for a big, friendly-looking teapot covered in cavorting elephants. “Builder’s brew all right?”
“Yes, thank you.” Emily’s fingers were practically twitching to straighten the stack of bowls by the sink, or put the laundry in the washer, or anything that would make this room a little less chaotic. But Olivia seemed oblivious to the mess, cheerfully finding two more clean cups from the cupboard, and disregarding the half dozen piled in the sink.
“Ignore the mess,” Olivia said cheerfully as she brought their cups of tea to the table. “If you can.”
Emily gave a small smile. It would take some effort, but she intended to do just that.
“So.” Olivia gave her an alarmingly frank look as she sat down. “I hope Harriet didn’t put you off the other night, at The Drowned Sailor. She can be a bit full on, but she means well, honestly.”
“It was fine,” Emily said a bit woodenly, and then surprised herself by adding, “I know I come across as a bit reserved and cool.”
Olivia made a face. “I thought you’d heard that cold fish comment. But you don’t come across that way to me, Emily. At all.”
“Well, that’s a relief, I suppose,” Emily said as lightly as she could. This conversation was deeply uncomfortable, and she searched for something innocuous to say, unfortunately coming up with nothing.
“You remind me a bit of myself, actually,” Olivia said, and Emily nearly did a double take. She and O
livia were miles apart in every way possible—the messy cottage, Olivia’s eclectic, hippyish style and frizzy hair, the easy warmth with which she seemed to approach everything. Absolute miles.
“I just mean,” Olivia clarified with a smile, “that you seem a bit…isolated. Lonely.” She paused, sipping her tea as she watched Emily carefully. “Sorry if I’m being too nosy. But I can relate.”
You are being nosy, Emily wanted to say. She felt, suddenly and surprisingly, really rather angry. What was with people here? Why did everyone feel as if they had the right to weigh in on her life, ask prying questions, make absurd judgements? Who did that? No one in London, certainly.
Right then she resented Olivia’s friendliness, and Alice’s kitchen confidences, and even Henry insisting she traipse up and down the high street meeting people because he thought it would be good for her.
She didn’t need any of it. She didn’t want any of it, as well intentioned as it might have been. She didn’t need a bunch of sanctimonious strangers telling her how screwed up she was, or how she should live her life.
“Sorry,” Olivia murmured when Emily still hadn’t replied. “I think I overstepped a bit.”
“Yes, you did,” Emily agreed, her voice trembling. “I understand that everyone wants to be welcoming, but I’m actually fine the way I am, and I don’t need people telling me how I feel, even if they mean well.” Olivia flinched, and Emily realised how biting she’d sounded, just as she realised she didn’t, in this precise moment, care. “Look, thanks for the tea, but I think I ought to get home.”
“Oh, Emily, I’m sorry.” Olivia looked at her in dismay, her face crumpling with obvious regret. “Me and my big mouth. I didn’t mean to tell you how you feel, honestly. I just thought I recognised a kindred spirit—I’ve gone through a lot of life on my own and I know how hard it can be—”
“Thanks again for the tea.” Emily stood up from the table with a screech of chair legs. She walked out of the cottage on watery legs, amazed at how bolshie she’d been. Well, so much for being friends with Olivia. Cold fish clearly didn’t even begin to cover it; she’d turn herself into an absolute pariah before too long, and so be it.
Her fingers were shaking as she turned the key in the lock, and then stepped into the reassuring calm of her own cottage, where everything was in its place, every surface free of clutter and dust. Yet looking around it now, the single sofa and the one bookcase, the kitchen seeming as spotlessly unused as one in an Airbnb, she couldn’t help but think how empty it looked. How barren.
She went upstairs to change, drawing the curtains against the lashing rain and struggling to hold on to some sense of peace and order. Then she caught sight of the rocking chair in the corner of the room, its wood now burnished to a honeyed gleam, an inviting place to sit that made her think of half-forgotten memories of she didn’t even know what.
And, quite suddenly, she thought she could burst into tears and never stop.
“Don’t be so stupid,” she muttered under her breath as she undressed, putting her work clothes back on their hangers, tights in the laundry hamper, understated pearl earrings back in her jewellery box. Everything in its place, and yet the tears were still there, at the backs of her eyes, rising in her throat, refusing to be ignored.
She changed into her comfy clothes, a matching pyjama set, and willed all the emotion back. Who were these people, to tell her how she felt? That she was lonely?
She’d never considered herself lonely before. Not until she’d come to wretched Willoughby Close.
Back downstairs Emily soothed herself with her usual routines—heating up some lentil soup she’d made earlier in the week as she listened to radio four. Tidying up, wiping down the counters, taking her lone bowl to the table with her book, just as she’d always liked it, and still would.
She was just about to start eating when she saw a tiny, drenched form of black and orange huddled by the French windows. It was, or at least she thought it was, the kitten from the barn.
“Oh, no…” Emily rose from the table and opened the French windows, letting in a sheet of rain that promptly puddled on the floor. The kitten looked utterly woebegone and nearly half dead, cold and wet, and tiny.
Gently Emily picked it up in her hands, amazed at how small it was, and then dried it carefully with a hand towel, its fur sticking up in a marmalade-striped fuzz. Its little eyes opened and a tiny pink tongue darted out and licked Emily’s hand. She let out a little laugh of surprise.
“You’re going to be all right, aren’t you?”
The kitten meowed, and Emily felt as if a crack had opened up right in the middle of her heart. Poor, wee, abandoned kitten. Jace had said its mother would leave it somewhere, and so she had…right on Emily’s doorstep.
Emily didn’t know if it was providence or chance that had brought the kitten to her, but she knew one thing with a bone-deep certainty: she was going to keep it.
Chapter Nine
Jace and Ava inhabited a fairy tale, in more ways than one. Emily ducked under a damp branch as she followed the narrow, winding path through the wood, lit only by the feeble beam of her small torch. Did they not have a road to their place? Were they Hansel and Gretel?
She’d been anxious all weekend about this dinner party, and in the last few hours she’d even thought about texting Jace and telling him she had to cry off. She was sick. She was tired. She was painting her nails. Anything to get out of several hours of socialising with people who all knew each other better than they knew her, although the residents of Willoughby Close seemed to like to think they knew her.
Yet no matter how nice everyone tried to be, it would be hours of being asked awkward questions, and then coming across as stiff and formal because she didn’t know how to be anything else, and had never wanted to try…until now.
The last few days had been both weird and rather wretched, because Emily couldn’t shake the guilt she’d felt snapping at Olivia, or even closing down Alice’s questions. If she wanted to put people off, she was doing a good job of it, but the truth was she didn’t know any longer if she really did want to put people off.
Until she’d been told she was lonely, she hadn’t thought she was. But now…?
At least she had the kitten. She’d made a little bed for him in a cardboard box lined with a fleece, and then gone to the Waggy Tails pet shop in town on Saturday morning to stock up on rather overpriced kit.
“Oh, you have a cat?” The woman at the till, the same one Emily had asked about the fundraiser, was all delighted enthusiasm. “Cats are lovely. Cool creatures who can take or leave you, to be sure, and they certainly know their own minds, but they can be wonderful companions.”
A bit like her then. Partners in crime. Emily had bought feeding bowls and food, a litter tray and a scratching post, and a book about caring for cats. Then she’d trundled home with her purchases, only to have Jace pull over in his truck and ask if she wanted a lift, which she realised she did.
“Still on for dinner tomorrow night?” he’d asked, giving her a lazy smile that made her suspect he knew how difficult she would find the socialising.
“Yes, absolutely,” she assured him. It was only later she realised he’d given her an opportunity to cry off, and for some contrary reason she hadn’t taken it.
So here she was, battling her way through the forest, unaccountably nervous for the evening ahead, and yet still sort of…excited by the possibility of making friends.
When, Emily wondered, had she stopped making friends? Probably when she was seven, when her parents had divorced and her mother had gained full custody. In Year One, Emily recalled, she’d had a best friend, Ivy. They’d walked around school holding hands, and they’d curl up in the reading nook in their classroom and sound out stories to one another. That was all Emily remembered, that and being happy.
The next year she’d been taken out of school, and her mother had home-schooled her for nine months—a form of unschooling that had been more about Emily entert
aining herself, with her mother’s occasional manic interest—a trip to the zoo, an elaborate chemistry experiment that seven-year-old Emily hadn’t understood, the mess all over the kitchen for days…
By spring of Year Two, her mother had been bored of the whole thing and stuck her back in school, a different one, since they’d moved by then. Emily had been lamentably behind and she’d struggled to make any friends. The halcyon days of Year One with Ivy had felt far behind her.
But why on earth was she thinking about Ivy now? Emily ducked under another branch, her stomach clenching as she caught sight of the lights of the cottage, twinkling in the distance. She’d arrived.
Jace and Ava’s cottage did look like it belonged to Hansel and Gretel, or was it the witch? It was tiny and impossibly quaint, with gingerbread trim and a funny little turret. It was not the type of house she’d expect a man like Jace to live in, and he smiled in wry acknowledgement as he opened the door.
“You found it all right, then? Followed the breadcrumbs?”
“I was just thinking that,” Emily admitted with a laugh. She stepped into the cosy entranceway and Jace took her coat.
“Come through. Everyone’s in the kitchen. It’s the only room in the house that isn’t tetchy.”
The kitchen, Emily saw, had been expanded into a large conservatory, to create a lovely, light, open space with a big granite island and a table to seat eight.
“Emily!” Ava smiled, looking delighted to see her. “Now you know Olivia, of course, and this is lovely Simon, the music teacher at the primary…and have you met Owen?” This was said far too innocently, and Emily froze where she stood. How had she not seen him, standing by the stove, a faint smile on his face as he met her astonished gaze?
Why on earth was Owen here? Jace certainly hadn’t mentioned him when he’d extended the invitation. Then Emily remembered how it had been Ava who had said he was single and lovely, and who had looked at Emily so knowingly when he’d sent the champagne, and a blush washed over her face like a tide. This was a set-up. A blind date. Ava and Jace, Simon and Olivia, and her and Owen. It was so excruciatingly obvious she couldn’t keep from physically cringing.
