Lizzie shook her head, eyes filling with tears again. ‘What’s the point? You’ve been right all along and I was too stupid to see it.’
‘Maybe you just liked him a bit too much to see it.’
‘But why would he make all this effort to be with me? Why would he pretend he wanted me when it was her all along?’
‘Perhaps he really wanted to convince himself that it was you. After all, he thought he would never be with her again and so it would make sense to try to move on.’
‘Do you think he might have done? In time?’
‘Only you can say that. I didn’t see him in your private moments.’
‘Do you think he’s worth fighting for?’
‘I can’t say that either. I can only say that you saved me from trying to get back with Frank, and though it still hurts to think of him, I’m beginning to see now that you were right and it was absolutely the worst thing I could have done. I want to do the same for you; I just want to help you make the right choice, even if that’s the hardest choice.’
‘So you think continuing with Jude would be the wrong choice?’
Gracie said nothing, only rubbed a reassuring hand on the back of Lizzie’s.
‘I don’t want to finish it,’ Lizzie said.
‘But you don’t want to carry on living in Harriet’s shadow either. And there’s Artie too, don’t forget. It doesn’t matter what else happens, Jude will never be able to get away from his responsibilities there and that will keep Harriet in his life. You have to ask yourself if you can live with that.’
Lizzie shook her head, tears soaking into the cushion on her lap. ‘I really thought we had something.’
‘I’ll bet that sentence has been uttered in a great many homes over the years,’ Gracie said. ‘Mine included.’
‘All I want is to be happy with a nice man. Is that so much to ask for?’
‘It shouldn’t be, should it?’
Lizzie gulped in a great breath and tried to swallow her tears. She gave a firm nod, but they kept falling anyway. Let Harriet have him, she thought, seized with a sudden savage resentment. Let him play happy families with her and it will serve him right when she dumps him again. Make Magnolia Mill the most important thing in your life, because it ought to be. Make this dream come true – concentrate on the things you can get right, the things that won’t let you down.
They were strong, rousing thoughts, and she tried hard to make her emotions match them. She didn’t need Jude Travers, and she didn’t care what he did.
So why did that thought feel like a lie? Why did it already feel like her decision to end things was a terrible mistake?
* * *
It had been a strange week without Jude in it.
She’d needed to hear more, to ask questions and have time to think about his answers. She had a million thoughts whirling in her head like ghostly moths around a streetlight, and she needed someone to help her capture them and give them form. She’d wanted that someone to be Jude – wasn’t it the very least he owed her? But he’d sent her away, like he didn’t care, and she’d been so angry and hurt and rejected that she hadn’t returned his phone calls the next day. Or the day after that or the day after that. If she talked to him now she’d have only words that burned and blistered and were no good at all. Evan had lied to her, but even he’d tried to make it right. Not that there was any making right the thing he’d done.
Lizzie thought back to the day when the girl had come knocking on the door of the terraced house she’d shared with him. She’d looked so young, mascara staining her cheeks. Lizzie had been confused when the girl had asked for Evan, but even then alarm bells had been ringing. She recalled now his face as he came to the door, racing down the hallway having heard the girl’s voice. He’d denied everything, but when the girl lifted her blazer and showed him the swell of her stomach, the guilt on his face had told Lizzie everything she’d needed to know.
But the worst was the continued lying. When he’d sent the girl away he’d tried to convince Lizzie that she was making it up, that he wasn’t the father, and then that she’d seduced him (telling him nothing of the fact that she was only seventeen) and she must have been tricking him into getting her pregnant. Once she found out the truth, Lizzie had to be thankful that the girl hadn’t been any younger, but it hadn’t stopped her being disgusted, betrayed, devastated, and a million other emotions. What had she done to deserve it? Hadn’t she been a good and loving girlfriend? Hadn’t she given him everything he’d wanted and needed? Hadn’t their sex life been enough? If there was this girl, how many others? How many more lies? So she wanted to believe that Jude’s lie wasn’t the same, but it was hard to tell the difference. And perhaps him sending her away, not wanting to talk about it, was more about not wanting to be caught out.
Gracie was doing her best to support Lizzie, but she still had woes of her own, and neither of them was very happy at all, wedged together in their little caravan of misery. It would all pass, Lizzie supposed, but it was hard to see that far ahead. So they kept each other company, the days just as they always were with shopping and cooking and cleaning and watching the painstaking progress of Magnolia Mill taking shape.
Lizzie didn’t want to think any further than that – she didn’t want to think about how she felt about Jude now, if they had a future after all and if she could trust him – she just wanted to feel OK again, to get her emotions back on an even keel before she turned her mind to more practical matters. When she looked back on these days, sometime in a future that she couldn’t yet see, she’d fancy herself almost glad of the distractions that new trials, just out of view on the horizon, were about to bring her. But today, after the usual daily schedule, they’d indulged in a microwave supper followed by an hour of television while they pretended everything was OK. During the last half hour, Gracie’s yawns had become more and more frequent, and Lizzie had to admit to feeling tired herself.
‘I think it’s time to turn in,’ Lizzie said.
‘I would but I can’t be bothered to move. Would you mind if I just stayed here all night?’ Gracie was sprawled across one section of the seating that ran around the walls of the caravan, a hand to her still flat belly as if she was ready to pop.
Lizzie raised an eyebrow. ‘You might be comfy now, but I don’t think you’ll be comfy later tonight when it starts to get chilly.’
‘Now you sound like Mum.’
‘And you sound like a teenager,’ Lizzie said.
‘I wish I was. Life would be a lot easier than this.’
‘Not if you were a pregnant teenager it wouldn’t.’
‘But I wouldn’t be pregnant if I was a teenager because I wouldn’t have met Frank, would I?’
Lizzie began to raise the question again of whether Frank ought to be told of his impending fatherhood. The conversation she’d had with Jude a week ago had, amongst other things, made her see the situation in an entirely new light. While she respected Gracie’s choice, she was coming round to the idea that Frank should have a choice too, however undeserving he might seem. At least Evan, for all his duplicity, saw the child that he’d fathered and, as far as Lizzie knew, he paid his way and accepted his paternal responsibilities even if he wasn’t with the girl. Moreover, it didn’t seem fair to Lizzie to deny a young child the chance to know their father. She felt sure that whatever else she might think about Jude and Harriet’s situation, Artie was better off for knowing his dad, especially when that dad was a man like Jude.
Her mouth formed the words now as she crossed the room to switch the television off at the wall, but something made her stop. Gracie began to speak again but Lizzie shushed her.
‘That street,’ she said, looking at the news report now on the screen. ‘Doesn’t that street look like…’
‘Like what?’ Gracie said lazily.
‘Gracie – look!’ Lizzie stepped back to let her sister see the screen. ‘It looks so familiar but I can’t…’
‘Not to me,’ Gracie sai
d.
‘It is! It’s somewhere we know!’
‘I’m surprised you can tell at all with that great lot of smoke and fire. I feel sorry for the poor souls who live in that house.’
There was a reporter at the scene, and he was interviewing a fire officer while what used to be a building smouldered in the background, intermittently spitting out flames. Beneath the television picture was a ticker tape headline:
Explosion Rocks City Street
‘The owner of the house is being treated for shock,’ the fire officer said. ‘Luckily she was away from the premises when the explosion took place…’
Lizzie’s eyes widened. ‘Oh my God! Oh my God!’
‘What?’
‘Where’s my phone?’ she cried.
Gracie flipped herself up now and frowned. ‘What is it? Where is it? Who is it?’
‘Where’s my phone… Jesus, holy shit, where is it?’
‘Lizzie, calm down! Your phone’s right there by the kettle!’
Grabbing it, Lizzie stabbed at the screen to pull up a number. She waited as the phone rang out and the answer service message kicked in. ‘Maybe she’s with someone,’ she said, ending the call. ‘God knows but she’s not answering.’
‘Who?’
‘The house…’ Lizzie scraped her hair back from her face and turned to the television screen again. ‘You must recognise it!’
‘There’s not much left to recognise.’
‘It’s—’
The phone in Lizzie’s hand began to ring.
‘Florentina,’ she said briskly in answer. ‘Where are you? What’s happened?’
‘Oh, Lizzie!’ Florentina sobbed at the other end of the line. ‘I could have died!’
‘What happened to the house?’
‘I wasn’t there… I’d gone to the shop on the corner to get some wine and I’d got chatting to Sev – he always likes a chat when he’s there – and if he hadn’t kept me so long I’d have been home.’
‘Well, thank God for Sev. It looks awful, just terrible. It looks as if there’s nothing left.’
‘They think it might have been a gas explosion. I don’t know how it happened – I suppose the investigators will find out.’
Lizzie’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh my God!’
‘Everyone keeps asking if I need anything, but I don’t even know myself.’
‘I’m just glad you’re in one piece.’
‘But everything’s gone,’ Florentina sobbed. ‘All the things your dad ever gave me, all my papers and keepsakes and goods. I’m standing in everything I have left. Some insurance man is going to sort out a hotel for me tonight. Beyond that, I don’t know, I—’
‘Bollocks to that! You think I’m going to leave you in some hotel tonight, in this state? Hold on; I’m coming to get you.’
‘But—’
‘Don’t argue. We’ll be a little cramped here but we can manage. You’re family as far as I’m concerned, and family looks after family.’
‘Grazie,’ Florentina said, and Lizzie knew she must really be distressed to agree to Lizzie’s plan without even the feeblest of arguments. ‘I’ll wait, shall I?’
‘Yes, wait. I’ll be there as soon as I can,’ Lizzie replied, ignoring a black look from Gracie, who had doubtless pieced together the plans from the side of the conversation she could hear. ‘Hold tight.’
Lizzie ended the call. As she went to the bedroom to pull some tracksuit trousers over the pyjama shorts she’d been lounging around in, Gracie appeared at the doorway.
‘Florentina’s house just blew up,’ Lizzie said in answer to her silent question. ‘What else am I supposed to do?’
‘Didn’t she say she was sorted with a hotel?’
‘Don’t, Gracie. Just don’t. This is not the time for grudges, and even you can’t be that cold-hearted about it.’
If Gracie was offended by the accusation that she might be cold-hearted, she clearly recognised that the situation was too delicate to say so right now. She simply nodded.
‘How long will she be here?’
‘I don’t know, but that’s the last thing on my mind right now. I’m just letting you know that I won’t be asking her to leave.’
‘I expect they’ll get her sorted with a new place quick enough,’ Gracie said.
Without reply, Lizzie swung past her and out into the main room to fetch her car keys from the kitchen worktop. Gracie wasn’t getting her own way this time. If Florentina needed help, and giving help meant the difference between signing the caravan over to Gracie or keeping it a little longer so she could still say who got to stay there, then that was the way things would have to be. If she had to, Lizzie would keep the caravan, whether that meant losing Gracie’s money or favour or not.
NINETEEN
‘Do you have any more cheese?’ Florentina had almost disappeared into the open fridge, her disembodied comment floating out onto the air for anyone to answer who felt inclined to. Lizzie could understand how she’d suddenly been set adrift into a life that was completely alien to her, and that she felt like a useless burden and wanted to do something to make amends and show her gratitude, but she wished her new guest would stop cooking.
Florentina had only been with them for two days and so far she’d cooked at least ten meals – most of them unwanted and unasked for. Not only did they now have enough leftovers to feed a decent-sized battalion, but the food bill was going to be astronomical, and Lizzie would find it hard to take any money that Florentina might want to offer. The caravan was beginning to feel very, very small now, and the atmosphere of cold civility between Gracie and Florentina could have nicely chilled a good chardonnay in minutes. But at least it was all taking Lizzie’s mind off Jude.
‘Cheese has started to give me heartburn,’ Gracie said from the sofa, her new favourite spot. Everything gave Gracie heartburn these days, though Lizzie wondered just how much of this heartburn was imagined, like all the other pregnancy-related symptoms she’d started to develop the minute she’d read about them. ‘Don’t you need to go clothes shopping or something?’ she added. ‘You must be fed up with wearing the same two outfits all the time. I’m certainly sick of seeing you in them…’ she added under her breath.
‘I can go and get some cheese from the farm shop if you need me to,’ Lizzie said, ignoring Gracie.
‘I can do that just as well.’ Florentina’s head now appeared from within the fridge. ‘You’re already doing so much for me—’
‘Honestly,’ Lizzie interrupted. ‘You don’t need to keep thanking me, and you don’t need to keep doing stuff. I’m more than happy to have you here…’ She threw a meaningful look at Gracie. ‘We both are.’
‘I’m sorry, I just need to do something,’ Florentina said.
Lizzie sighed. ‘I realise that. Maybe Gracie has a point about clothes shopping? You do need more, and I’m sure the retail therapy would make you feel better.’
Florentina threw her arms into the air with a heavy sigh. ‘I can’t think about clothes right now.’
Lizzie gave a small smile. Things were pretty desperate if even Florentina wasn’t interested in clothes.
‘Perhaps you ought to go into work then?’ she said. ‘Not that I have any issues with you being here, but it might be good to get some normality back? As you can’t have your old house, and you’re not really up to shopping, maybe your job is the next best thing to take your mind off everything else?’
‘Actually, I was thinking that myself. I know they told me to take the week off, but I don’t think I need a whole week, and I’m just getting under your foot here, aren’t I?’
‘I didn’t mean that,’ Lizzie said, not bothering to correct Florentina’s use of the phrase.
‘I know, I know. But it’s true, cara mia.’
Lizzie forced a smile. ‘See how you feel over the next couple of days, then decide.’
Florentina nodded. ‘Do you think it’s too early to start looking for a new house?’
‘Don’t you want to go back to your old one? I thought the insurance company were going to rebuild it for you?’
‘I’ve been thinking that maybe it’s a sign I ought to be moving on. I shared that place with your dad, and he’s not here now, so…’
‘It’s one hell of a sign,’ Gracie put in. ‘If God had wanted you to move on he could have popped an estate agent leaflet through your door, not blown you up.’
Lizzie frowned at her and Gracie shrugged. ‘Just saying.’
‘Is that really how you feel?’ Lizzie said, turning back to Florentina.
‘I don’t know, but I can’t stop thinking about it so perhaps there’s something…’
‘Where would you go?’
‘It’s nice here, isn’t it? Magnolia Lane. Perhaps I’d move closer to your mill – I’d get to see more of you then. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?’
There was a time when Lizzie wouldn’t have been so sure of that. Apart from wanting to bring her dad’s dreams to life, she’d been attracted to Magnolia Mill because of the solitude and peace it represented. That peace and solitude hadn’t lasted long, but that was OK because she was getting used to the way things were now. She almost liked it. Sometimes… when Gracie wasn’t complaining about heartburn and Florentina wasn’t cooking…
There was a knock at the caravan door and Lizzie answered it to find her builder, Tim, on the doorstep.
‘Alright, Lizzie,’ Tim grunted. ‘Need you to come and have a look at something.’
‘Oh, right…’ Lizzie cast a glance back at Gracie and Florentina. Things seemed peaceful enough right now. Since Florentina’s arrival she’d hardly dared to leave them alone for fear they might come to blows, but perhaps that had been a silly fear. After all, they might have had their differences (mostly Gracie was the one with the differences), but they were grown, intelligent women. Surely they could be civil for everyone’s sakes? ‘Right now?’ she asked.
The Mill on Magnolia Lane: A gorgeous feel-good romantic comedy Page 21
