Things were prevented from escalating by the arrival of Florentina back at the caravan. As she walked in, her eyebrows raised in surprise at the hullabaloo, Lizzie was snapped back to some kind of rational reality.
‘If I’d known there was going to be a party I’d have stayed here,’ Florentina said with a smile.
‘Florentina… This is Charlie – Jude’s brother,’ Lizzie said, jumping up. ‘And this is Artie and Harriet – Jude’s…’
‘Friend,’ Harriet finished for her. ‘And we were just about to leave, to be honest.’
‘Don’t go because of me,’ Florentina said.
‘We have things to do, and I’m sure you need to get on. And Charlie… perhaps that’s enough ice cream for one day, even for you.’
Charlie looked disappointed, but he also looked slightly wrong-footed by the arrival of Florentina. He gave her an uncertain smile before going back to his bowl to make sure he shovelled up the last of it before he was torn away.
Harriet got up. ‘Thanks for the ice cream and tea,’ she said. ‘I hope your pregnancy goes well, Gracie.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And, Lizzie,’ Harriet added, pulling Artie up into her arms. ‘Please think about what I said earlier, won’t you?’
Gracie and Florentina both looked sharply at Lizzie. They would expect to be filled in later on what Harriet meant, but Lizzie didn’t know if she wanted to talk about it. For now she simply nodded at Harriet. ‘I will.’
‘See you later,’ Charlie said, waving madly, a trail of melted ice cream dripping down one side of his mouth. If Lizzie hadn’t been in such a strange mood, she might have thought it comical and come to his rescue with a napkin. But she couldn’t think about that now.
‘You bet.’ Gracie stood and began to collect their dirty bowls from the table, seemingly unfazed by the mess on Charlie’s face too.
‘Bye,’ Harriet said, looking at them all in turn, but her gaze resting on Lizzie for a second longer.
Lizzie saw them out and watched as they drove away, and she didn’t have a clue what to make of any of it at all.
TWENTY
‘Mum wants to talk to you.’
Gracie looked smug as she wandered into the main living space from her bedroom and handed her phone over. A bit too smug, like the time she’d caught Lizzie sneaking her mother’s favourite beaded handbag into her own wardrobe aged ten. She’d got the upper hand in the sibling rivalry stakes that time too. Lizzie had the distinct feeling she’d been grassed up, a phrase they used to use when they were kids and one that still occasionally came out of Lizzie’s mouth – but mostly only where Gracie was involved.
‘Hey, Mum…’ Lizzie tried to make her greeting as airy as possible. She didn’t want to sound guilty before she even knew what she was going to feel guilty about. But she could tell by Gracie’s face that she was about to feel guilty about something.
‘Gracie tells me your stepmother is living with you.’
‘Florentina?’ Lizzie asked, thankful that Florentina was at the shops. She had to wonder whether this was the reason Gracie had chosen this precise moment to call her mum, knowing that Florentina wasn’t there and probably wanting to complain about her. ‘Well, yes, but—’
‘What on earth for?’
Lizzie glanced at Gracie, who picked up a magazine from the sofa and settled with it. ‘I expect Gracie has told you that too, hasn’t she?’
‘She said something about a fire.’
‘It was more than a fire, Mum; her whole house is practically gone.’
‘But her insurance company offered to sort accommodation for her?’
‘Yes, but I thought it would be mean to expect her to live in some flea-bitten hotel on her own. She’s been through so much the past few months and—’
‘We’ve all been through a lot the past few months.’
‘Yes,’ Lizzie continued patiently. ‘But we haven’t all lost our homes.’
‘She’s not exactly been thrown out on the street.’
‘But she has lost absolutely everything,’ Lizzie said gently.
There was a deep sigh at the end of the line.
‘Do you know when she’ll be able to go home?’
‘Not yet.’
‘I suppose it’s quite cramped there at the moment.’
‘A bit; we’re managing for now.’
‘I hope she’s paying her way.’
‘More than paying her way. She’s pulling her weight too…’ Lizzie shot another glance at Gracie that said to watch out for revenge when this phone call was over. ‘And she’s been very sweet to Gracie about the baby and everything. In fact, she even bought a whole heap of reusable nappies for her the other day.’
Gracie’s cheeks flushed and she scuttled off into her bedroom with the magazine. Lizzie had never seen her move so fast, not since she’d started to complain about swollen ankles. Sometimes, it really was like they were both still kids. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, sis, Lizzie thought savagely.
‘When will I be able to visit?’ Gwendolyn asked.
‘You mean, when will Florentina not be here?’
‘Obviously.’
‘You can come when she’s here, you know.’
‘You know I can’t do that. It rakes up bad feelings for me.’
‘I’m sorry, Mum. She won’t be here for much longer.’
‘Gracie tells me you’re still not back with your boyfriend either. Is that completely over now?’
Lizzie stared out of the window. A light drizzle kissed the panes, and beyond Tim and his team were rushing to throw a tarpaulin over some expensive-looking sawing equipment before the rain really came down.
‘Oh, Lizzie – I am sorry. You’ve had such bad luck.’ Gwendolyn’s voice brought her back to the room. Her mum didn’t add with men, but that was what she meant. Lizzie certainly knew how to pick them.
‘It’s OK. One of those things, I suppose.’
‘And there’s no reconciliation to be had? What on earth happened? I thought you were keen on this one?’
So Gracie hadn’t told her mum the details, and Lizzie had to be thankful that she wasn’t entirely devoid of tact. Gwendolyn had been incandescent with rage when she’d found out about Evan, and, in truth, the episode had made everyone in the family a little less trusting of anyone Lizzie had dated since. Not that any of them had lasted long anyway.
‘I’d really rather not talk about it,’ Lizzie said. ‘Not just yet. I’m still sort of getting my head around things.’
‘Something must have happened.’
‘Something did, but I don’t want to talk or think about it now.’
‘That doesn’t sound like you. Please tell me this one didn’t—’
‘Honestly, please leave it, Mum. I’m too busy to think about it anyway, even if I wanted to.’
There was a pause, and then Gwendolyn seemed to think better of pursuing the argument. ‘Speaking of which, how is the building work going?’
‘Good. Sort of on schedule – the new, new schedule anyway.’
‘And you’re still OK for money?’
‘Yes, Mum. And I wouldn’t have it off you even if you wanted to give it to me.’
‘I want my children to be alright, that’s all.’
‘That reminds me; I was thinking, as the building work is a little quiet and Florentina is here to hold the fort if the team need anything, I might go and visit James. We could all go – you, me and Gracie.’
‘That’s a great idea,’ Gwendolyn said. ‘We’ll get him out of that flat for a few hours and take him to a restaurant. I’ll bet he hasn’t seen a fresh carrot for months. And you can help me persuade him to come back home—’
‘He won’t, Mum – you know that.’
‘He shouldn’t be in that awful place with those awful people, and I should have done something about it long before he became so fond of them.’
‘Mum, he’s an adult; apart from chaining him to his old bedroom at home,
you can’t control where he goes or who he sees. He made his own choices, all we can do is try to keep an eye on him and make sure we’re there for him. Give me some dates you can do and I’ll phone him to see if he’s free.’
‘I can do that right now. Hang on while I go and get the calendar from the wall.’
Lizzie heard a clunk as her mother put the phone receiver down and then footsteps. A moment later she was back, slightly out of breath.
‘Right, let’s see,’ she said. ‘How are we doing for next week?’
Lizzie went to her own calendar, pinned up in the little kitchen area. There was a mass of notes scrawled across it – dates for this and that to arrive, phone calls to clients and appointments for Gracie. As they began to work out when they could all get together, Lizzie started to look forward to it. She’d missed James, and a day in his company would help to take her mind off all the trouble and stress here. Not that visiting James wouldn’t bring its own kind of stress, of course, but didn’t they say a change was as good as a rest?
* * *
Lizzie had phoned James and fixed a day the following week when she, her mum and Gracie could go and see him. By now, Florentina had used all the compassionate leave granted by her employers for her house misfortune and she was trying to get her head around her workload in a bid to get back to some normality. However, she’d already told Lizzie she would be happy to take some annual leave owed to her and hold the fort at the mill in case Tim and the team needed anything while Lizzie and Gracie went to see James. The plan was to stay overnight in a nearby hotel and try to spend as much time with him as possible to get a measure of his health and mental well-being, and to figure out if any kind of subtle intervention was needed. Speaking to him on the phone was always misleading; he would laugh and joke and tease and sound as if he hadn’t a care in the world. It wasn’t until you could see him and spend proper time with him that you could see how he really was.
Gracie was now salting a pan of boiling water to throw some pasta in for their evening meal. Lizzie noted with some satisfaction that she had set enough aside for three portions. Since Florentina had been back at work, Gracie had taken on much of the cooking again and had silently adjusted her meal plans to include Florentina. It was progress – a year ago and she would have watched her stepmother starve rather than make any kind of concession at all. They were both trying hard to get along, though Gracie, despite the cooking, was still finding it a lot more difficult than the naturally tolerant and gregarious Florentina. But then, Florentina had made her peace with the fact that almost the whole Lovell family would never forgive her for stealing Lizzie’s dad from them a long time ago.
Lizzie looked at her watch and then went to the window. It was almost six. The last contractor’s van had just left for the evening and, almost as soon as it had disappeared, Florentina’s car pulled up. Lizzie watched her get out and then go to the boot to haul out a huge bubble-wrapped item. Rushing to the door, she raced across the garden to help.
‘It’s not heavy,’ Florentina said. ‘Just a bit difficult to carry.’
‘Let me grab that end,’ Lizzie insisted, taking hold.
Between them they carried it to the caravan. Gracie looked up with an expression of faint surprise as they laid it down on the floor.
‘We’ve got plenty of room for that,’ she said flatly, turning back to the pan.
‘You do know sarcasm is the lowest form of wit?’ Lizzie replied.
‘I thought everyone already knew that. Doesn’t stop it from being funny.’
Lizzie ignored the comeback and turned to Florentina. If Florentina had been shopping, then she took that as a good sign. As far as Lizzie was concerned, she could fill the caravan to the brim with new stuff if it made her feel better. ‘Does this need to go in your room or something?’
‘Actually, it’s for Gracie.’
Gracie turned back from her cooking now and wiped her hands on a dishcloth. ‘For me?’
‘For the Little Baked Bean.’
Gracie settled an instinctive hand on her tummy. ‘Little Baked Bean’ was what they’d christened her unborn baby after seeing online illustrations of how it would look at this stage of her pregnancy. She broke into a smile. ‘What is it?’
‘Open it and find out.’
Gracie began to tear the bubble wrap off to reveal a beautiful white Moses basket lined with soft lemon fabric.
‘Oh, it’s just gorgeous!’ Gracie beamed. ‘Is this one of your samples from work?’
‘Actually, no. I was driving home and I saw it in a shop window as I waited at some lights. I couldn’t leave it behind.’
Gracie was dumbstruck. It was rare, and Lizzie almost wished she could run to get a camera to record it. But then she put a hand to her chest and stared at Florentina. ‘It must have cost a fortune!’
Florentina wafted her hand in the air. ‘That doesn’t matter.’
‘It does!’ Gracie pushed it away. ‘I can’t take this – it’s too much.’
‘You can, and I want you to. Your baby… Gracie, I don’t think you realise quite how much your baby means to me too. I may not be family, but I loved your dad…’
Gracie seemed to wince at the reminder, but Florentina continued.
‘And this baby is your dad’s first grandchild. If you’ll let me – and I know it won’t be easy for you – I want to be in the life of your bambino. I know that your dad would want that too if he was here to say it.’
Gracie’s eyes filled with tears, and Lizzie could see plainly on her sister’s face the internal struggle. How could she reject such a heartfelt plea, and yet it went against everything she’d ever chosen to believe about their stepmother. She’d feel, as Lizzie often did, that friendship with Florentina was a betrayal of Gwendolyn, and yet, in Lizzie’s eyes, to do anything else was a betrayal of her father’s memory. Dad would have wanted them to look after Florentina, to know that she hadn’t been cast out into the cold once he’d gone.
‘Thank you,’ was all Gracie could say. ‘I love it.’
‘That’s the only thing that matters then,’ Florentina replied with a smile that held too much sadness for Lizzie to look. Every time Florentina looked at Lizzie and Gracie she must have been reminded of the man she’d loved and lost too soon, and every time she looked at Gracie’s baby in the months to come, she would be reminded even more strongly.
‘Well,’ Lizzie cut in brightly in a bid to lighten the mood, ‘it’s not quite the only thing that matters.’ She looked at the basket. ‘Where the hell are we going to store that for the next few months?’
‘Oh, Lizzie.’ Gracie laughed, wiping away her tears. ‘Trust you to think of that.’
‘I’m being serious. One of us might have to get rid of our bed and sleep in that instead.’
‘I didn’t think about that,’ Florentina said, looking genuinely concerned now.
‘I’m joking,’ Lizzie said. ‘Don’t worry; I’m sure we’ll find some space somewhere.’
‘Perhaps Mum will keep it at her house,’ Gracie suggested.
‘As long as you don’t tell her who bought it,’ Florentina added.
‘Well, yes. I suppose she might just put a match to it in that case,’ Lizzie said. After all, there was no point in anyone trying to sugar-coat the truth. Gracie might have come a long way with Florentina, but in a way it had been forced upon her. Gwendolyn Lovell was quite a different matter.
‘Oh!’ Gracie squeaked, and suddenly rushed off into her bedroom. Lizzie and Florentina exchanged puzzled looks, until she returned a few seconds later with her phone and took a photo of the cot.
‘It’s to show Charlie,’ Gracie said in answer to Lizzie’s silent question. ‘You know how he loves to be involved in all this stuff.’
That heavy, hollow feeling swept over Lizzie again. She tried so hard not to think of Jude these days, but they’d decided to honour their promise not to cut Charlie out of their lives, and Jude sort of came with the territory. Whether she thought i
t was good for her or not (and she didn’t, which was why she’d decided to keep her distance) Jude was still as much a part of her world as before, even if they weren’t a couple. But she didn’t need all the angst that he brought with him, all the second-guessing and doubt.
Gracie looked at her, seeming to read Lizzie’s emotions on her face. She put her phone down and pulled Lizzie into a hug.
‘You really ought to go and talk to him,’ Florentina said.
Lizzie stepped out of Gracie’s arms and shook her head. ‘If he’d wanted to talk there’s been plenty of opportunity, and why should I do the chasing?’
‘Because you’re miserable without him,’ Florentina said. ‘I bet he’s miserable without you too. The two of you are being ridiculous about this.’
‘How can you say that?’ Gracie countered. ‘You know what happened with Evan.’
‘Evan was uno stronzo,’ she said, lapsing into her favourite home-grown insult, ‘but Jude doesn’t seem like that.’
‘I don’t know what he’s like anymore,’ Lizzie said. ‘Perhaps I don’t really want to know.’ She looked at Gracie, who nodded encouragement.
‘You’re doing fine without him,’ she said, firing a warning glance at Florentina that dared her to interfere. Florentina could buy gifts, and they could make real progress in their relationship, but, when all was said and done, she wasn’t really family, and Gracie wasn’t about to let her forget that. ‘You don’t need him – you have us.’
TWENTY-ONE
Tim leaned against his van, cigarette clamped between his lips as he cast a satisfied glance at the mill.
‘It’s a shame your specialist can’t come sooner to get started on the workings, but I suppose it takes time to get someone like that in – there’s not many of them and they’re in demand all over the country. The good news is, I reckon your living quarters should be ready for you to move in by the end of the month.’
The Mill on Magnolia Lane: A gorgeous feel-good romantic comedy Page 23
