The phone went click before Carly could say bye. She cradled the phone in her hands. She was back in that uncertain space where she wasn’t sure where their relationship was going next and she had no idea what to do. So she’d just take a deep breath, carry on and keep hoping that everything would be okay.
Beth finally wrestled her now slobber-covered pants from Doris and dropped them disdainfully into the laundry bin. ‘Bad dog.’ Doris seemed to know what this meant because she grumbled and lay down flat on the floor, looking up at Beth with her big dark eyes.
‘Don’t give me that,’ said Beth, and Doris started to swish her tail from side to side. Beth had an idea. She put Doris’s lead on and led her outside. Doris had a sniff around the front garden then went into the willow tree for a snuffle under there. Eventually she lay down.
‘Great,’ said Beth, and she knocked a tent peg into the ground nearby and hooked the end of the lead around it, before knocking it flush to the earth. ‘Good girl. Stay.’
Beth set to work on sanding down the outside window frames. Her plan seemed to be doing the trick as, every time Beth peeped through the now yellowing and sparse willow branches, she could see that Doris was asleep. After a couple of hours, Beth could barely lift her head up from the aching in her shoulders. Her hands, and especially her thumbs, were sore and all she had to show for it was one and a half sanded window frames. This was hard labour. This wasn’t what she had signed up for and certainly not what she was used to. She yearned for an air-conditioned office as she pushed her hair off her sweaty forehead. Oh, the glamour, she thought.
Despite a quick break for a sandwich and a coffee, Beth worked non-stop until school pick-up time. She decided taking Doris with her was the lesser of two evils and Doris, to her credit, walked very obediently on the lead. For the first time, Leo left his new friends and came running straight to his mother or, more accurately, straight to Doris. The two were very pleased to see each other.
‘Can I hold the lead, Mum?’ asked Leo, and he visibly puffed up with pride when Beth handed it to him. It was an odd sight; the small boy walking next to the huge dog, her head level with his chest. As Leo neared the edge of the pavement, Doris sat down, which made Leo stop and carefully check the road was clear before starting to cross. Perhaps Doris was teaching Leo a thing or two about road safety, mused Beth as she followed close behind.
When Jack arrived to collect Doris, she greeted him excitedly and Beth thought that sometimes it would be nice to receive half as much reaction from Leo. ‘How did it go?’ he asked.
Beth pursed her lips. ‘Well, she went bonkers when she saw Shirley and I thought she was going to eat her.’ Jack pulled an unimpressed face at Beth’s overdramatic description.
‘It’s the trolley, she hates that thing.’
‘She mauled my mop and she trashed my tent and some … clothes but it’s okay.’
‘Sorry,’ said Jack. ‘So, no more dog-sitting then.’ He took the lead from Beth and clipped it onto Doris’s collar as she sat looking adoringly at her master.
‘No,’ said Beth, surprising herself. ‘It’s okay really, she can come again. We just needed to suss each other out.’
Jack looked astonished but pleased. ‘If you’re sure?’
‘Yep, no problem.’ Beth held up Jack’s business card. ‘Branching out from teaching IT, are we?’ She had to ask.
Jack gave a sly smile. ‘No, the other way round. Business first, helping out the school with IT in my spare time.’
‘All-round saint then, really.’
‘Yep, that’s me. See you tomorrow. Come on, Doris.’
As Jack left, he eyed the roughly sanded-down window frames and smiled.
Chapter Fourteen
Beth was woken by a terrifying noise near her head. Like a scene from a horror movie, she expected to see a masked murderer leaning over her, brandishing a chainsaw, but, when she opened her eyes, there was nobody there although the awful racket continued.
Leo ran into the room, jumped onto the bed and pointed at the window. ‘It’s Jack. Hello!’ He waved at the window. Beth rubbed her eyes and twisted in her bed to see Jack’s grinning face at the glass behind her. She came to very quickly and pulled the covers up protectively. Jack was wearing goggles and he waved a power sander for her to see before setting it back to work on the window frame.
Beth had an instant headache and seeing as all she was wearing was a pair of pants, since she’d never got around to buying new pyjamas, she didn’t want to give Jack an eyeful by getting out of bed. After a surprisingly short amount of time, Jack waved and disappeared down the ladder then moved on to the next window, giving Beth the chance to speed-dress and get some painkillers.
By the time Beth and Leo had finished breakfast, Jack was working on the back of the house and when they emerged for the school run he was packing up.
‘All done,’ he said. He was covered in white dust, giving Beth a glimpse of what an older version of Jack might look like. A silver fox perhaps. Not bad at all, she thought.
‘Thanks, this was kind of you. I mean the sanding, not the waking us up bit.’ She smiled warmly.
‘You’re welcome. It’s the least I could do after the mop and the tent …’
‘And Mum’s pants!’ added Leo loudly.
Beth blushed and ushered Leo away as Jack laughed behind them.
‘I’ll bring Doris over in about twenty minutes, okay?’
‘Perfect,’ called back a red-faced Beth. Kids and animals, she’d heard the warnings and it seemed they were all warranted.
Beth managed to get the window frames and front door painted, in a subtle shade of sage green, before the typical October weather took hold and put her back on inside jobs. After some final checking and measuring from Simon she had ordered her flat-packed kitchen which was now scattered throughout the downstairs rooms in more boxes than she could be bothered to count. Her task now was to tackle the living room. At the moment, evenings were spent either in the pub, curled up in bed or sat on one of the two hard wooden chairs that Rhonda had donated because they’d got too tatty for the tearoom.
Beth set up in the living room, which interested Doris; she was especially taken with the bucket of warm water, which she had a few laps at, but eventually she settled in the opposite corner of the room where she could keep one eye on Beth in between snoozes.
With a large sponge Beth doused the wallpaper with the warm water. She concentrated on soaking one wall first and, when she was happy, went back to where she had started with a wallpaper scraper and set to work. Things seemed to go well for a bit as layer after layer of wallpaper came off in small pieces. Eventually the area Beth was clearing had grown to the size of a pillowcase but she appeared to have uncovered a large patch of pattern in beige, green and pink. She touched it with her fingers. It was vinyl wallpaper and this was as far as the warm water had been able to penetrate. She took a deep breath and soldiered on.
After a few hours of relentless scraping, Beth stood back to survey the wall. Apart from a few scratches from the scraper, she had a whole wall of what appeared to be 1940s vintage vinyl wallpaper. It wasn’t the prettiest thing she’d seen; dominated by leaves with the odd recurring flower, but it was probably the height of sophistication for the time.
‘Sorry, Elsie, it’s got to go,’ said Beth out loud, making Doris lift her head momentarily.
Beth found the wallpaper scraping oddly therapeutic. It gave her a chance to pick through her relationship with Nick. As she worked she mentally sorted his actions into categories. The ‘control’ section was overflowing whereas the ‘because he loved me’ section was rather sparse, although there was an odd overlap between the two. When he’d said there were things in his past he wasn’t proud of she wished she had pushed him on it. Perhaps if she’d understood more about his past then their future might have been different. But then the old adage ‘a leopard never changes its spots’ came to mind. The more she scraped at the wall the more her picture of Nick changed in her mind. Ho
w had she missed so many signs?
Beth attacked a particularly stubborn piece of wallpaper with vigour. She was getting good exercise working on the cottage and it was probably on a par with the workouts at the expensive gym she used to go to occasionally when she lived in London.
Hours passed until a knock on her newly painted front door dragged her away from her work.
As Beth opened the door, a rather disgruntled-looking Leo marched in. Petra and Denis stood on the doorstep.
‘Oh my God, I forgot!’ gasped Beth in horror.
‘It’s okay,’ said Petra as Denis rolled his eyes. ‘I thought that’s what had happened. The teacher knows me and I’m down as one of your contacts so I brought him home.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ Beth was mortified. ‘I was stripping wallpaper and lost track of the time.’ She couldn’t explain that she’d been trying to analyse her last failed relationship.
‘Really, it’s all right. I wondered if you fancied doing a tag team with the boys anyway. You do drop-off and I’ll do pick-up?’ said Petra, with a relaxed shrug.
‘Yes, that would be great.’
‘Okay. See you tomorrow,’ she said, before leaning past Beth to shout goodbye to Leo.
Beth was horrified that she had forgotten to collect Leo from school and so grateful to Petra for bringing him home. In London, she had paid for a childminder to do school drop-off and pick-up so hadn’t had to think about it before, but that was no excuse and she felt wretched. Leo was in the living room cuddling Doris. Beth went over and put her arms round both of them – well, as much of Doris’s large frame as she could.
‘I’m truly sorry, Leo. No excuses. I got caught up here. Forgive me?’
Leo’s bottom lip was stuck out and his eyebrows were knitted into a deep frown. He returned his mother’s hug but said nothing. Beth got the message loud and clear.
It took days to get to all the wallpaper off and the wall underneath was a disappointing treasure to unearth. The plaster was old and cracked and a lifetime of bumps had made its surface worse than a crumbling cliff face. Beth made a cup of tea, brought in one of the kitchen chairs and sat and stared at the wall for a while. Doris sat next to her and looked too. From time to time the dog tilted her head as if admiring a great work of art. ‘I know, it’s bumpier than a teenager’s face,’ said Beth, and Doris groaned appropriately before settling down for a nap. Beth couldn’t afford to get a plasterer in but if she painted over it now it would look such a mess and nothing like the smooth sleek white walls she had dreamed about.
Beth decided to leave it for now, mull over her limited options and, in the meantime, she would tackle Leo’s bedroom, or what would briefly be Leo’s room. She was thrilled to discover there were only three layers of wallpaper on those walls so it was relatively easy, and she was just finishing as Petra dropped Leo off.
Leo followed his mother upstairs. ‘We’ve been learning about rockets and fireworks at school,’ said Leo, fidgeting from one foot to the other as Doris circled him. ‘And about firework safety too.’
‘Great,’ said Beth, scraping at a tricky bit next to the skirting board.
‘They have this massive bonfire on the village green and there’s a competition to make the best guy and, if it wins, it goes on top and gets burned! Can we make a guy, Mum, pleeeeease?’
‘Yeah, sure.’ Beth was pleased to see him excited about something.
‘Can I use your trousers?’ he said as he ran to her bedroom with Doris close at his heels.
‘No!’
Beth was regretting letting the hire car go. It was true she hadn’t used it much but, in a village where the arrival of a bus was seen on the same scale as water into wine, she was fast realizing the benefits. A quick trip into Stow-on-the-Wold and a rummage round the couple of charity shops there would most likely turn up an outfit for a guy, but there wouldn’t be a bus until tomorrow and then it would be when Leo was at school.
Leo and Doris were in the back garden and Beth was meant to be drinking a cup of tea that had long since gone cold. She found she was grinding her teeth as she watched Ernie sitting huddled under the willow tree. She was mulling over whether to ask someone for a lift. It didn’t sit comfortably, as she wasn’t the sort of person that liked to rely on others, but she had a small boy who she would do anything in the world for. She listed the options in her mind: Petra had a pale pink moped but she wouldn’t be insured to ride it and wouldn’t fancy having Leo on the back either, so that was out of the question. Simon had a car but she had no idea when he was at work and when he wasn’t and didn’t want to disturb him. It was looking increasingly like she was going to have to call Jack if she wanted a lift.
She boiled up the kettle and invited Ernie in for a cuppa. He came into the kitchen, sat on the tearoom reject chair opposite Beth, and hugged his mug.
‘Do you go to the shops in Stow, Ernie?’ she asked. Ernie shook his head. ‘I need to go to Stow but I don’t have a car any more.’
Ernie’s eyes were fixed on his tea so she assumed he wasn’t really listening.
‘I need to get a lift from someone with a car. Someone that isn’t Jack,’ she said as she mimicked Ernie and stared into her mug.
‘Shirley got a car,’ said Ernie, without looking up.
‘Shirley?’ said Beth. Ernie nodded. ‘Has got a car?’ Ernie looked up and nodded again. ‘Shirley with the wheelie trolley has a car?’ Ernie was looking worried as he nodded for a third time, this time much slower. ‘Thanks, Ernie, that’s good to know.’
Ernie finished his tea, thanked Beth, let himself out and went back to sit under the willow.
When there was a knock at the door, Beth was still chuckling to herself about Ernie’s revelation, although she doubted he had got his facts right. If Beth was smiling as she opened the door it soon disappeared as she took in the sight of Shirley, minus her wheelie trolley, wringing together gloved hands.
‘Ernie says you need a lift urgently,’ said Shirley, as she nodded her head to the driveway. Beth looked over to see a very shiny old car.
‘It’s not exactly urgent,’ said Beth, feeling her palms start to sweat.
‘Do you want a lift somewhere or not?’ asked Shirley, as Doris came to investigate though she soon wandered off again without a sound when there was no trolley. Leo took Doris’s place and Beth felt his small warm hand grip hers.
She took a deep breath. ‘Okay, yes, please, a lift to Stow would be terrific. If you’re sure?’ Shirley was already walking back to the ancient car. Perhaps she lives in the car, thought Beth.
Beth put the lead on Doris and a coat on Leo and they joined Shirley at the shiny car. Shirley pointed at the dog without saying anything. ‘I didn’t like to leave her because Jack says she eats walls if she gets left,’ said Beth, making what she hoped came across as an apologetic face.
‘In the back,’ said Shirley, pointing at Doris and then at Leo who was wrestling with his car seat.
It was a strange little car. It had a domed bonnet, a lot like an old Beetle, and wooden edges at its van-like rear. Beth got in the passenger seat and was relieved to see seat belts, which she hurriedly did up. She checked on Leo and he was strapped in too. Doris was next to him taking up the rest of the back seat, sniffing wildly. The car smelled heavily of vinegar. Beth looked around for any evidence of it being a mobile chip van or of Shirley living in it, but there was nothing to suggest either. As Beth was looking around she spotted that right in the very back was Shirley’s wheelie trolley, and she prayed that Doris didn’t spot it too.
Shirley fiddled around the steering column and, at last, the vehicle chugged into life. Shirley took hold of the very large three-pronged steering wheel and gripped it tightly as she revved the engine. ‘Ready?’ she said, her eyes glinting like a racing driver’s.
‘Er, well …’ but it was too late for second thoughts as the little car took off down the gravel track leaving Willow Cottage and a happily waving Ernie behind.
Beth found
she was clinging onto the seat and bravely let go. Shirley was so small she was actually looking through the steering wheel rather than over it. Due to the recent rain, the ford was flowing nicely through the village and across the road. Beth looked at Shirley and then back at the ford. She wasn’t going fast but she certainly needed to slow down. Some tourists were crouched down innocently feeding the ducks as Shirley’s little car hit the water at about twenty miles per hour and sent a beautifully arced shield of water over the top of them. The ducks took flight, quacking in alarm as they did so. Shirley and Leo started to cackle with laughter as Beth looked on in horror.
‘What sort of car is this?’ Beth asked, the question more to take her mind off imminent death than anything else.
‘Nineteen sixty-four Morris Minor Traveller,’ replied Shirley, turning to give Beth her beaming false-teeth grin. ‘Marvellous, isn’t she?’
Beth could think of quite a few words to describe the death trap she was destined to spend her final moments in but marvellous wasn’t top of her list. ‘Oh, she’s something else,’ said Beth, nodding her encouragement in the hope that Shirley would turn her eyes back to the road. Shirley seemed happy with the response and returned to facing forward. Beth exhaled and looked in the back; Leo looked quite relaxed and smiled at his mother, Doris on the other hand appeared to have a strong sense of foreboding as she was hunkered down on the seat. Beth and Doris exchanged worried glances.
The same short and straightforward journey in the hire car was like a rally event in the Morris Minor, as Shirley appeared to know a short cut that took them down various back roads, each one getting narrower and narrower. When they met the inevitable tractor coming the other way, Beth actually breathed in, which was going to make no difference to the size of the vehicle. She heard the hedgerow clatter against the paintwork on her side but somehow they made it past without crashing. Eventually they popped out onto a normal-sized road, which thankfully led them quickly to the A429, and Beth at least knew they were nearly there.
Escape to Willow Cottage Page 13
