Also by Hilary Spiers
Hester & Harriet
First published in 2017
Copyright © Hilary Spiers 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.allenandunwin.com
Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australia
www.trove.nla.gov.au
ISBN 9781760294441
eISBN 9781925575002
Set by Midland Typesetters, Australia
Cover design: Christabella Designs
Cover illustrations: Christabella Designs & Shutterstock
For ACS especially and all those friends and readers who wanted to know what happened next . . .
CONTENTS
SUNDAY
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
MONDAY
CHAPTER 6
TUESDAY
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
WEDNESDAY
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
THURSDAY
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
FRIDAY
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
SATURDAY
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
SUNDAY
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
MONDAY
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
TUESDAY
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
WEDNESDAY
CHAPTER 59
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SUNDAY
CHAPTER 1
‘I hate airports.’
Hester, fingering the edge of the letter in her pocket, feels the cold of the metal seat seep through the layers of clothing. A greasy all-day breakfast—or at least as much of it as she had been able to swallow—solidifies in her stomach. ‘Fourteen pounds ninety-nine!’ she had hissed at Harriet as the waitress apologetically slid the bill under the ketchup and sprinted away, presumably anticipating the incredulous reaction. ‘I could feed a family of four for a week on that!’
Harriet, deep in her Kindle, does not reply. Either she is lost in her thriller or she wants Hester to believe that she is. Hester, who has long and vociferously resisted the lure of an e-reader, now throws covetous glances at the slim device, only too conscious of the weight of paperbacks clogging her case. Too thrifty (‘mean,’ said Harriet) to pay for excess baggage, she had jettisoned four tops, a spare pair of shoes and three pairs of knickers to accommodate the books. ‘For heaven’s sake,’ she had replied when her sister remonstrated, ‘I can rinse out my smalls! Or don’t they have washing facilities in Italy?’
Italy. Land of sunshine, pasta and Chianti. Birthplace of Donatello, Giotto, Caravaggio. Holiday destination of Hester and Harriet, who had discussed endlessly a change from their customary Scilly Isles sojourn until, exasperated, Harriet had suggested they toss a coin to break the stalemate. She had won, and now they are bound for Italy, to an hotel of Harriet’s choice, while Moldova, Hester’s somewhat outré first suggestion, had been comprehensively rejected.
‘Moldova?’ Harriet had snorted. ‘Moldova? Do you even know where Moldova is?’
Hester, stung, had retorted haughtily, ‘It’s sandwiched between Romania and the Ukraine, actually. I understand it’s supposed to be very beautiful and well worth visiting.’
‘Wasn’t there a Guardian article about it a month or so back? Appalling human rights record, as I recall. Anyway, Eastern bloc—the food will be atrocious.’
Hester had sniffed. ‘I know that, but the wine is supposed to be—’
‘The wine! Typical! Never mind murderous totalitarian states, people locked up without trial or worse, as long as the wine is good. Anyway, what’s wrong with Italian wine?’
Hester, who has absolutely no quarrel with Italian wine, save the unspeakable Asti Spumante, and was only (as she had secretly and shamefacedly admitted to herself later) resisting Italy because Harriet had suggested it, had bitten her tongue. She and her sister seemed increasingly at odds these days, each quick to take offence, if not actually pick a quarrel, over the most petty matters. Still, she had—hating herself—resolutely refused to show any interest in their destination, ignoring Harriet’s hints about the hotel, the cuisine, the local attractions.
Hester catches the baleful eye of a toddler sitting opposite. Trussed up in a violent orange anorak, he is methodically picking his nose and wiping the spoils on his mother’s coat as she, oblivious, thumb-texts at astounding speed. Hester flexes her arthritic fingers irritably in her lap; the envelope crackles in her pocket. ‘I hate airports,’ she repeats. Only this time a little louder.
What on earth is wrong with Hester these days? thinks Harriet, trying to re-immerse herself in her novel. She had managed to block out the incomprehensible announcements, delivered by someone apparently broadcasting from a mineshaft, the sudden irruptions of excited football fans en route to Hamburg, fortifying themselves against the horrors of air travel and tribal warfare with copious quantities of overpriced lager, and the fractious children milling around the concourse under the eyes of their exhausted parents. But Hester’s complaint has punctured her bubble and the airport’s cacophony now crowds in on her again. She knows she ought at least to acknowledge her sister’s remark. Hester has been snappy for weeks, complaining about everything: their nephew Ben’s inability to wash up after his frequent culinary experiments, the price of local vegetables, the postman’s refusal to snick the front gate shut, the cost of their impending holiday . . . even Milo, now of an age where he is able to sit up and grab whatever is within reach, ecstatically thrusting anything he finds—cups, biros, pieces of fluff (of which there is no shortage in their cottage) and once, gruesomely, a very large, very dead spider—either into his mouth or eager adult hands. Hester had been the unfortunate recipient of the desiccated spider.
&nbs
p; Harriet shoots a glance at her sister beside her, arms crossed, glaring at a small boy who is wiping his fingers on the coat of the woman beside him. Were it not for Hester’s advanced years, Harriet might almost imagine her to be going through a midlife crisis. Still, presumably some hormones, however sluggish and enervated, continue to chug their disruptive way around her system. What could be better than a week under a warm sun to ease tensions?
‘Not long now,’ she murmurs.
‘You said that an hour ago,’ snaps Hester, thinking of the leisurely ferry crossing from Penzance to St Mary’s, the sun sparkling on the water, the salty tang of the sea air. She banishes memories of numerous crossings in near-gale conditions, the vessel rolling sickeningly, rain driving against the windows, the Scilly Isles blanketed in fog.
‘Read your book,’ suggests Harriet, adopting the head-down posture booklovers employ to repel interruption.
‘I’ve read my book.’
No point suggesting unpacking another as their suitcases have already been checked in and are even now probably being loaded onto a plane for Thailand or Abu Dhabi. As for foraging in WH Smith’s while they wait . . . she can imagine all too easily the derisive set of Hester’s face when confronted with row after row of gaudy covers promising sadomasochistic thrills, foul-mouthed detectives with complicated private lives or the ghosted autobiographies of airbrushed minor celebrities. Her phone trills in her bag. As she rootles for it through the depths of mints and tissues and crumpled receipts (what on earth is a piece of Lego doing in there?), she registers Hester’s tut: she knows, she knows, but try as she might, she cannot find a way to change the dreadful ringtone. Another thing she had intended to ask their nephew before they left. Perhaps this is him calling now.
But it isn’t.
‘Daria!’
Beside her, Hester tenses. Months on from the chance encounter at a bus stop on Christmas Day that led to their unofficial adoption of the young woman from Belarus and her infant son Milo, they remain on permanent alert about their two foundlings.
‘Everything all right?’
‘Yes! Yes!’ Daria, as ever, is shouting as though she doubts the technology’s ability to carry her voice all that distance. ‘I have to tell! Today there is a letter! From the immigration peoples.’
‘On a Sunday?’
‘Postman, he take to wrong house. So nice neighbour just come—’
‘What does it say?!’
Harriet sits up straighter, her heart doing an irregular and faintly alarming dance. ‘She’s heard from the authorities,’ she mouths at Hester. Her sister’s eyes widen.
‘What? What!’
Harriet flaps her hand at Hester and presses the phone closer to her ear as though this will deliver the news all the quicker. There is the crackle of paper down the line.
‘For heaven’s sake, tell us! What does it say, Daria?’
‘It say I have—what is this?—leave to . . .’
‘Leave to remain?’
‘Yes! Leave to remain. Yes! I can stay. In England. With Milo! Oh, Harriet! My heart is full, so full. I am crying. No, no, Milo, Mummy is happy! Happy! Thank you. Thank you. Thank God for Milo!’
Thank God for Milo’s English father, thinks Harriet.
‘Oh, Daria, this is wonderful. I wish we were there.’
‘I also. I think, as I am ringing, perhaps they are already on plane. And I have such news!’
‘The plane is late, I’m afraid. Three hours so far. We’re a bit fed up. Well, we were!’
‘Yes, but see! The plane is late but that mean I can tell you this.’
‘Ah, well, every cloud has a—’
‘You have cloud? Here is sunny. Like my heart.’
Harriet laughs. ‘Hang on, I’ll let you speak to Hester.’ She passes the phone over and sits, overwhelmed with relief and joy, as Daria yells at her sister, who is similarly wreathed in smiles, trying—and failing—to get a word in.
A thought cuts through her happiness. She grabs Hester’s arm.
‘Ask if there’s any news about Artem.’
Hester somehow manages to interrupt the torrent of words to ask Daria about the status of her brother, who is seeking political asylum in Britain. From her sister’s frown, Harriet deduces that the news is at best disappointing.
‘Well, tell him not to worry,’ Hester is saying. ‘Asylum applications take time. They did warn us.’
Harriet glances up at the departures board to see—at last—their gate displayed. She leans towards the phone. ‘Daria.’
The girl’s excited narrative rolls on.
‘Daria! We have to go! Our flight is called. ’Bye. We’ll text you when we arrive. Love to Milo and Artem.’
Hester closes the conversation and returns the mobile. They hurriedly gather their things and make their way towards the distant departure gate, gathering pace as their stiff limbs loosen, buoyed and rejuvenated by the happy news and, for the present, in harmony. Let it last, thinks Harriet. Please let it last.
CHAPTER 2
‘Wotcha,’ says Ben, poking his head around the kitchen door of Daria and Artem’s little cottage in Pellington.
‘Ben! Hello!’ Daria beams. She is busy spooning some indeterminate mush into Milo’s mouth. Or, rather, trying to: most of it seems to be smeared across his cheeks. Some clings stalactite-like to his wispy fringe. The baby’s face lights up with delight at the sound of Ben’s voice and, restrained in his highchair, he begins vigorously kicking his feet (and his mother). Frantic hands send the spoon and its contents flying across the kitchen floor, the clatter prompting a cry of triumph, followed almost instantaneously by a wail.
‘Hey! Hey, mate! No need for all that racket.’ Ben holds an admonitory finger in front of Milo’s face; in short order, it is grabbed and inserted into the baby’s mouth, where he gums it enthusiastically. Ben rolls his eyes at Daria. ‘A rusk, d’you reckon?’
Seconds later Milo is sucking away on a Farley’s while Ben fills the kettle. ‘Got your text. ’S why I rode over. Needed a break.’
‘Oh, Ben! Is dream come true.’
‘Serious? I don’t get it. What’s the big deal about England? Being allowed to live in this poxy sh—’
‘No,’ says Daria sternly, ‘do not insult your country. You are wicked boy who knows nothing.’
Ben, suddenly reminded of all she has endured, has the grace to look ashamed. ‘Yeah. Fair comment. Sorry.’
‘Yes.’ Daria’s eyes glitter. ‘Here is freedom, kindness. I can speak the words I want to speak. No police knocking at the door.’
‘Oh, I dunno,’ says Ben, remembering the interminable interviews and visits from the police his aunts and Daria had endured after the events at Parson’s Farm last Christmas. ‘Seen enough of the rozzers to last me a lifetime.’
‘Rozzers?’
‘The Old Bill.’
Daria looks even more bemused. Ben explains.
‘Is hard, this language. Poor Milo.’
‘Nah,’ says Ben, ruffling the baby’s hair, ‘he’ll be fine. He’ll be brought up with it. It’s only difficult for you ’cos you had to learn it as an adult. Anyway, look at Artem: his English is brilliant. ’Sides, Milo’s got his two grannies to keep him on the straight and narrow. Did you get hold of them, by the way?’
‘The babulki? I did. I am crying. They crying, I think. Was cloudy at the airport.’
‘Cloudy?’ says Ben, peering out the window at the sunshine. The tiny garden is planted in neat rows with vegetables, all Artem’s handiwork. He is still earning their keep with odd jobs around the village while he waits for his asylum application to be processed, with his customers paying in kind so as not to jeopardise his chances. ‘What’s Artem up to today?’
‘Putting up a . . . like a . . . what is it . . .?’ Daria mimes a barrier.
‘A fence?’
‘A fence, yes. It break in wind. For Hester and Harriet’s friend, Mrs Wilson.’ She glances up at the clock. ‘Soon he will be here. He
is watching Milo while I clean.’
‘I thought you took Milo with you?’
‘Not to Mrs Wilson. He make her cry.’
‘Milo does?’
‘Yes. Tears all the time. She say, “Oh, such a beautiful baby. I had beautiful baby, but no more. My boy is never here. Always he is out.”’
Ben, who knows Molly Wilson by reputation and Josh only slightly, since he is away at boarding school for most of the year, is not surprised that her son keeps his distance. With his father on bail awaiting trial and his mother, as has long been her custom, taking refuge in the contents of the drinks cupboard, Josh is understandably eager to put as much distance between himself and the village as possible. There had been rumours of divorce proceedings when the full extent of Teddy’s dalliance with the vicar’s wife had come to light—in the aftermath of the police raid on the farm he owned and on which the tenant was discovered to be growing industrial quantities of cannabis—and he’s now holed up in a poky flat in nearby Stote, Molly having refused to let him stay in the matrimonial home.
Now Daria is saying severely, ‘This is a cruel boy. Children should honour their parents. Mrs Wilson is sad lady. Her boy should be with her.’
Ben, whose primary aim in life is to spend as little time as possible in the company of his own parents, reddens. ‘Yeah, well . . .’
Daria glances up at the clock. ‘Where is Artem? He promise me he will be here to watch Milo. I will be late!’
‘I’ll stay, if you like,’ says Ben, helping himself to one of Daria’s biscuits. He savours it. ‘Mmm . . . vanilla?’
‘Almond. You like?’
‘Prefer the chocolate ones you made last week.’ He takes another, all the same. ‘You want me to babysit or what?’
Daria moves the tray of biscuits out of reach. She reaches for a roll of foil and tears off a square, then wraps up half a dozen of the biscuits. Ben knows without asking for whom they are bound: Finbar, the village tramp, whom his aunts, and now Daria, keep regularly provisioned.
‘No school today?’ She is wise to Ben’s little tricks.
‘Half-term, innit? I gotta revise for my exams.’
‘You have books with you?’
‘God, you’re beginning to sound like the rents. Give us a break, will you?’
Love, Lies and Linguine Page 1
