Coming out of the tube, Ben blinked in the brilliant sunshine, waiting to cross the busy road. He was meeting Aria at Trafalgar Square, just in front of the steps of the National Gallery. Everybody could find that, he’d thought, and she’d had a few days staying with a friend in London and had, hopefully, got her bearings.
He spotted her straight away. She was looking out into the square, her dark hair blowing about her face in the April breeze. She was a pretty young woman. He’d noticed her as soon as she’d walked into his classroom in the little school in Florence, Italy, where he’d taught for a while, but they’d only ever been friends. Still, he couldn’t help acknowledging once again just how much like Bryony she looked with her dark hair and wistful eyes. That’s what had drawn him to her in Italy. It had been like having a little bit of Bryony with him for a while.
Then she’d started arriving late to class. Her work wasn’t completed on time and she was struggling with her concentration. Ben had been concerned and had taken her to one side.
‘Aria – is anything the matter?’
And the whole story had come blurting out along with the tears. Ben hadn’t interrupted, but he’d known there and then that he’d become involved because the story Aria told him was one that Ben knew well as he’d experienced it himself first-hand. In fact, he’d confided it to her a few days before when she’d asked him what had brought him to Italy. It had been strangely comforting to confess it all to a relative stranger.
‘Ben!’ Aria cried as she saw him approach, her eyes glittering with joy at seeing him.
They embraced.
‘How are you?’ he asked.
‘I’m worried. I still haven’t heard anything. I’ve left so many messages on his phone. Why doesn’t he ring me back? Where can he be?’
‘I’m here now so we can find him together, okay?’
‘You really think we’ll find him?’
‘I really do,’ Ben said with more certainty than he felt.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t do this without you. My friends here – they don’t know. I couldn’t tell them. It’s too, too –’ she seemed to be struggling to find the right word, ‘horrible.’
‘I know,’ Ben told her. ‘I know.’ He gave her a little hug.
‘I’m okay,’ she said, pulling away from him after a moment. ‘Let’s go, yes?’
Ben nodded. ‘Andiamo,’ he said, and the two of them headed towards the tube.
Flo Lohman was getting used to having her great-nephew in her home. She had to admit that it was nice to have company even though he didn’t say a lot. He was slowly coming out of his shell, though, but he spent more time talking to her animals than he did to her. Flo had noticed that about people in general over the years. The shy, the awkward, the grieving and the wounded would naturally gravitate towards an animal – something which could be fussed and pampered, something you could talk to but which would demand very little from you in return. Animals were such easy companions, she thought, which was perhaps one of the reasons she chose to surround herself with them.
It had been three days since Mitch had dropped his son at Cuckoo Cottage and he’d made no noises about when he might be picking him up again. Flo still hadn’t got over the rude outburst at his house and sending Sonny back to that place was the last thing on her mind. Still, she couldn’t help wondering how long Mitch was expecting her to keep him for.
She looked at him as he sat happily on the kitchen floor petting Dusty the cat. He didn’t seem to mind the mess and she loved him for that. He blended right in to life at the cottage.
‘Piece of cake, Sonny dear?’ she asked him, having made a chocolate cake for him whilst he’d been at school. With a constant supply of eggs, it was very easy to indulge in the sweeter things in life and impossible not to when you had a great-nephew to spoil.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘We say, “Yes please”, remember?’
‘Yes please,’ he said meekly.
That was another thing. Mitch appeared not to have taught his son the manners of polite society. It wasn’t that Sonny was rude – he just hadn’t been taught his ‘pleases’ and ‘thank yous’ and that could come across as impolite to other people.
Flo took out two pink and white china plates from a cupboard and then opened the cutlery drawer.
‘Sonny, dear?’ she said a moment later. ‘Have you seen that nice cake slicer?’
He looked up at her and shook his head.
‘No, of course not,’ she said. ‘I must have mislaid it again.’ She tutted, annoyed with herself and her seemingly growing absent-mindedness. The cake slicer was a pretty one made of real silver. It had belonged to her maternal grandmother and Flo remembered trips to her neat little home where the cake slicer would be brought out to divide her glorious Victoria sponges and lemon cakes.
Perhaps she’d put it in the dishwasher by mistake, she thought, opening it up. No – no sign of it there. She looked at Sonny again. A young lad wouldn’t go off with a cake slicer, would he? A small knife, maybe. Boys and knives were more natural companions weren’t they? But she couldn’t envisage him tramping through the local countryside with a cake slicer in his pocket. She shook her head. It would no doubt turn up. In the meantime, a regular knife would have to do the job.
‘Come and wash your hands at the sink,’ she said. ‘There’s a towel over there to dry them. It’s very important to clean oneself after touching animals and before eating. Remember that and you won’t go far wrong.’
A moment later they were sat at the table together and Flo served two generous slices of the chocolate cake. Sonny smiled and Flo’s heart swelled with love. It was obvious that the little boy wasn’t spoiled enough and that was a crime in her eyes. She had a lot of time to make up for and silently cursed herself for letting so many years go by without stepping in.
‘Sonny, dear – what kind of food does your father give you to eat?’
Sonny looked confused by this question for a moment, but managed an answer. ‘Orange.’
Flo frowned. ‘What do you mean, orange?’
‘Baked beans, tomato soup, pasta with sauce. It’s all orange.’
‘Oh, I see,’ Flo said. ‘So mostly tinned food?’
‘I guess.’
‘No fresh? No vegetables or salad?’
‘He doesn’t like salad.’
‘But you do, don’t you?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s okay.’
‘It’s important to get your greens, you know. You’re a growing lad. I grow a lot of vegetables here – all organic and fresh as can be so you get all of the goodness. I’m told my produce is the best around. I sell a bit of it out the front.’
He looked up at that.
‘You’ve seen that before, haven’t you? Lots of people do it around here. Lots of gardeners, you see, and we always end up growing too much stuff so we sell a bit of it. There’s an honesty box. I don’t charge much, but it’s something.’
‘What’s an honesty box?’ Sonny asked.
‘It’s where people put their money when they buy something. You see, it’s not like a shop where there’s someone waiting to take your money. You rely on people being honest and leaving you the money for the goods they take. It might be eggs or vegetables or flowers. I’ve sold all those from my little table out the front. It’s a lovely thing to do – much fresher than the supermarkets too.’
Sonny had gone quiet. Perhaps little boys weren’t interested in that sort of thing, Flo surmised and then an idea occurred to her.
‘How about we find a little corner of the garden where you can grow your own produce?’ she suggested. ‘I’ve got plenty of seed packets and we’re not too late to grow a number of things. If you’re successful, you can either eat what you’ve grown or sell it.’
‘Sell it for money?’ he asked, wide-eyed.
‘Absolutely! Priced fairly, of course. Everything’s fair and square at Cuckoo Cottage.’ She smiled at him. ‘What do you think? We
could make a start after you’ve finished your cake.’
Sonny nodded, but still didn’t look convinced. However Flo wasn’t deterred. Sonny was biologically connected to her and she felt sure that his instinct for gardening would awaken as soon as he got his hands in the soil and started to grow things.
Ben had a headache brewing as he rushed across the concourse to catch the train home. It had been a long day in London. Long and fruitless. He’d lost track of the number of people they’d spoken to and the places they’d visited, and he’d left Aria with a pale, tear-stained face, promising to do the whole thing again as soon as he could. He wanted to help, of course he did, but a part of him wondered what he’d got himself involved with that day in the classroom when Aria had told him about her family.
‘He’s a pig!’ she’d shouted through angry tears once the classroom was empty and it was just the two of them there.
‘Who’s a pig?’ Ben had asked, wondering if one of the young men in the class had been paying Aria unwanted attention when they should have been concentrating on their verbs.
‘Sergio,’ she’d said. ‘He pigs around the house all day in his underwear.’
Ben hadn’t had the heart to tell her that you didn’t really say “pigs around”. Actually, he’d quite liked it.
‘Who’s Sergio?’ he’d asked her gently as she blew her nose.
‘My mama’s new boyfriend.’
Ben had swallowed hard. It was because of his own mother’s new boyfriend that he’d left home in such a hurry. It was because of that vile man that he’d had to leave his beautiful Bryony.
‘Mama doesn’t see how cruel he is, but I see it!’ she cried. ‘My brother, Dario, sees it. He hates the pig.’
‘Is he living with you?’
‘He comes and goes. I wish he’d just go.’ Her eyes filled with tears again.
‘Aria,’ Ben began, ‘has he hurt you?’
She looked up at him with those dark eyes of hers, like wounds in her face, and Ben held his breath as he awaited her answer.
‘No,’ she said. ‘But he fights with Dario.’
‘What, physically?’
‘No.’ She paused. ‘Not yet, but I can feel it coming.’
Ben nodded. He knew exactly how that felt and it wasn’t a nice feeling.
Now, as he boarded his train with only a minute to spare, he could feel his pulse accelerate at the thought of Paul Caston. Being with Aria had brought it all to the forefront of his mind. There was no getting away from it, he realised. Even after all these years, and the distance he’d tried to put between him and the memories of that time, they were still there, threatening to spill at any given moment as painful and as raw as ever.
He glanced out of the train window at the dark city landscape, the blocks of flats, the Olympic Park, the station platforms, but he didn’t really see any of them because he was thinking of the day he’d made his mind up to leave. He hadn’t been able to stay a moment longer, he’d known that, and the decision had been easy to make. He’d never told Bryony the truth. He hadn’t wanted to pollute her sweetness with the foulness of Paul Caston and it had hurt him so much when he hadn’t been able to truly explain to her why he was leaving. He’d said he had the travel bug and that he was desperate to see the places he’d read about for years although that was true enough. But Bryony seemed to know that that wasn’t enough to take him away from her.
He sighed. He wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn’t help pulling his phone out and visiting the Country Catches website. And there she was – his Bryony. He would never think of her as anything but his. No matter if she was involved with somebody else or had a child, she would always be his Bryony.
The photograph on her profile showed her with her dark hair held back with a sweep of blue and gold scarf. He’d always preferred it loose and unadorned, but he knew she liked to dress it up and she did look beautiful. She was pictured in her bookshop in front of the main fiction shelves, the coloured spines vying with her flamboyant outfit for attention, and a part of him grimaced at the thought of other people ogling her. How could she have put her picture up on such a place? Anybody could be out there masquerading as some nice country gent, posting any old picture of a handsome guy posing with a Labrador or in a library. But she’d see through that, wouldn’t she? God, he hoped so. He hoped she always arranged to meet new men in public places too like a nice crowded pub. The thought of her being lured anywhere else was almost too much and he wondered if he should warn her of the dangers out there. He felt so very protective of her, just as he did with Aria. The world, he knew, was filled with prats and perverts and he’d met more than his share of them.
Ben’s fingers itched to write to Bryony, but he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. Well, he did.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
That’s what he wanted to write in his heart of hearts, but it would probably scare her off if he did. But there was something about the agony of the day he’d just been through that he needed to counteract with her sweetness. He needed to reach out to her and so he took a deep breath, settled himself back in his seat and sent a message.
Bryony made herself a large omelette using two of the eggs Flo had given her. They really were the tastiest eggs she’d ever had and the yolks were as bright a yellow as her shop front.
After eating and tidying away her dishes, she settled down at her computer. It had been easy to avoid the website at the shop. She couldn’t help wondering if Ben had realised that she’d looked at his profile and if he’d responded in any way. And had he looked at hers today? She hated to admit it, but she desperately wanted to know and, every time she’d passed her computer, her eyes had been dragged towards it.
So here she was, logging in against her better judgement. She really should just abandon that particular website altogether, but her curiosity had definitely got the better of her and, before she could stop it, she had reached her personal page. Sure enough, there were half a dozen messages – two from the website company trying to sell her their latest upgrade which she deleted, and three from potential suitors which she would read in due course. But it was the sixth message which caught her eye because it was from Ben.
She took a few deep, settling breaths before opening it.
It was short, unfunny and totally clichéd.
Come here often? Ben had written.
She shook her head as she read it over and over again, and then she did something that he hadn’t been able to make her do in a long time. She smiled.
Chapter Ten
Flo Lohman was walking around the garden, checking on her livestock and noticing the new flowers which had opened and the areas of the garden which still needed attention, even though Bryony had put many hours into it.
She smiled as she thought about the company she had these days. It wasn’t so long ago that she’d been struggling on her own. She’d got by, that was true, but getting by was never much fun, was it? Now she had Bryony visiting whenever she could spare a few hours and she had Sonny too. What a surprise that had been, she thought. As each day passed, it looked more and more likely that Sonny wouldn’t be going home anytime soon. She was quite relieved about that having seen her nephew’s house. She knew that Mitch was busy with his work, but it looked as if he didn’t spend any time trying to make a decent home for his son and that was wrong.
As Sonny slowly began to open up more, he gave her little insights into life with his father – like the countless times he’d gone to school having had a chocolate bar for breakfast, or the number of times he hadn’t had money for trips or the right books or clothes for sport. Flo might never have had children herself, but a boy of eight shouldn’t be expected to remember such things as having his PE kit or his Maths homework book.
There was also something so intensely solemn about the boy too. He couldn’t be carrying the weight of sadness from his mother’s desertion because he’d been so young when she’d run out on him and he must have been used to it j
ust being him and his dad, and yet he still seemed to feel that loss. Or maybe it was something else, Flo reasoned. It was so hard to know how to find out. Would a vague question like, “What’s wrong?” yield anything other than a shrug of his thin shoulders? Flo doubted it. Maybe he was just one of those quiet, thoughtful boys, or maybe he was just at an awkward stage? Flo shook her head and bent to pull a dandelion out of one of the vegetable beds, throwing it to the hens a moment later.
Suddenly, there was a blast of tinny music from her neighbour. Why he had to play the trumpet by an open window, Flo couldn’t fathom. She rolled her eyes, knowing what was coming next and, sure enough, Belle and Beau began braying, their unhappy donkey honks filling the air. She could only hope that grumpy Dr Skegby wasn’t around to complain.
It was as she approached the hedge that she noticed something very strange indeed. It looked like a big white hand had popped through the hedge and its long bony fingers seemed to be searching for something. She frowned and then blinked, wondering if she was seeing things and, when she looked again, it had gone.
It wasn’t until later that she pieced together what it was she’d seen. One of her best layers, Hermia, was happily clucking as she made her way to the hen feeder – a clear sign that she had just laid an egg in the hedge. Flo smiled, thinking that her eggs were truly free-range, and that’s when she saw a hand pop through the hedge. It was the same long-fingered hand that she’d spotted before and she watched, spellbound, as it searched around, patting the earth on Flo’s side of the hedge, until it fastened around Hermia’s freshly laid egg. Ah, so that was its motive, Flo thought, and that’s why she had been shorter on eggs than normal recently. They were being stolen from her.
Looking around the garden, Flo spotted an old hoe leaning up against a shed and grabbed it, giving the hand a firm tap with the back of it a moment later.
‘What the hell?’ a voice cried from the other side of the hedge. It was Dr Skegby, her neighbour.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Flo shouted. She might not be able to see him, but he couldn’t deny being there.
Natural Born Readers (The Book Lovers 3) Page 10
