Sunshine Over Wildflower Cottage

by Milly Johnson

  ‘Well, he’s had time to wander, hasn’t he?’ said Ian. ‘I expect he’s ready for a feed.’

  ‘Come through, Ian. Please. Oh my, I can’t thank you enough.’

  Stel almost bounced with joy into the kitchen where she ripped open a pouch of Basil’s food and also gave him the rejected fish which he dived onto immediately whilst she watched him like a proud mother. He broke off only to lap greedily at his water as if he hadn’t drunk for a month.

  ‘That is one hungry cat,’ said Ian. Stel smiled at him and he smiled back.

  ‘Can I get you a coffee? Tea?’

  ‘No, I don’t want to keep you from your dinner,’ he said, nodding at the plate of chips on the table.

  ‘I couldn’t eat,’ said Stel. ‘Please, the least I can do is make you a cuppa for finding Basil for me.’

  ‘I’ll be honest, I could kill for one if it’s no trouble,’ said Ian. Stel noticed he had taken off his shoes in consideration for her carpet. He didn’t have to do that, she thought. She would have forgiven him walking in with manure-covered wellingtons. She scurried over to the kettle.

  ‘Please sit down, Ian. I can’t tell you how I feel at this moment. How long have you been out there looking for Basil?’

  Ian sat down at the dining table and tilted his wrist so he could read his watch.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about it,’ he said.

  Stel knew he must have searching for ages. Hours even. What a lovely, kind thing to do. What a lovely, kind man.

  ‘Can I get you anything to eat?’ she said.

  Ian laughed. ‘No, honestly, it’s fine.’ He could see that she was desperate for him to take something from her, to thank him. His arms were resting on the table as she brought him a mug of her best tea over. One of them was bleeding.

  ‘That looks nasty,’ she said. He followed her eyes to the long scratch. ‘Did Basil do that?’

  ‘He wasn’t happy being cornered by a stranger. You can’t blame him. Still, it’s worth it now he’s home.’

  ‘I am just so happy. You’ve no idea. I hadn’t a clue what I was going to tell my daughter.’

  ‘Well, she need never know now,’ smiled Ian.

  ‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ said Stel, wiping a happy tear as it spilled from her eye.

  ‘I do,’ said Ian. ‘Come to the pictures with me to see that new James Bond film on Saturday.’

  How could Stel refuse?

  Chapter 12

  Viv’s phone rang just as she was about to leave the folly and join Geraldine for a meal. The name ‘Mum’ showed on the screen. Viv had barely said hello when Stel started bubbling over.

  ‘Viv, I promised myself that I wouldn’t bother you but I’ve got something to say and I feel really bad about it but I lied to—’

  ‘Mum, calm down,’ laughed Viv. ‘Take a deep breath before you start hyperventilating.’

  At the other end of the line, Stel was super-annoyed with herself. That hadn’t come out as planned at all. ‘I wish I hadn’t rung now. I said I wouldn’t say anything. Well, to cut a long story short . . .’

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Viv, sitting down and making herself comfortable on the arm of the sofa. Her mother couldn’t cut a long story short to save her life.

  ‘I didn’t want to worry you . . .’

  Viv’s smile dropped and she felt a prickling at the back of her neck. ‘Mum, are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I am now. Totally, perfectly,’ gushed Stel. ‘I just had a bit of a scare, that’s all.’

  Viv didn’t like the word ‘scare’. It made her think of health issues. Her mother had had a major ‘scare’ eight years ago. In fact ‘scare’ didn’t even touch the surface of it. Stel had been convinced she was going to die and Viv had had to be strong for the pair of them, when she felt anything but.

  ‘When you say “scare”, Mum . . .’

  Stel heard the tension in her daughter’s voice and a fresh wave of self-blame engulfed her. She was making Viv think allsorts.

  ‘No, nothing like that, love. It’s about Basil. When I said that he’d come back on Sunday, he hadn’t. I was worried sick. That’s why I haven’t phoned you for a couple of days, because I thought I’d end up telling you that he was still missing and I didn’t want you to fret. I’d looked everywhere. But Ian, the gardener at work, went out searching and he found him and he’s just brought him back.’ And then Stel dissolved into tears of relief.

  ‘Oh Mum, you should have told me. You shouldn’t keep stuff from me,’ Viv admonished her. ‘If you do that, I’ll start worrying that you’re keeping stuff from me even if you aren’t, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry,’ replied Stel. ‘But Basil’s home now and safe and I really wanted you to know.’

  ‘That is good news, Mum,’ said Viv, suspecting there might be more to come. She was right, of course.

  ‘And Ian asked me out to the pictures so I’m going on Saturday with him.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘He’s a nice man, Viv. He was out for hours trying to find Basil for me.’

  Viv had to admit that was impressive.

  ‘Well you just take it slow and steady,’ she said, adding: ‘please.’

  ‘I will,’ replied Stel. ‘I absolutely promise. Basil’s on my knee now, can you hear him purring? He’s eaten nearly a whole fish.’

  Basil had a very loud purr and Viv suddenly wished she were back on the sofa at home with him crouched on her knee.

  ‘You’re all right aren’t you, love?’ asked Stel. ‘I do miss you.’

  ‘I miss you too,’ said Viv, fighting the emotion rising inside her. ‘I might pop back on Friday night, if that’s okay with you?’ She wanted to give her mum a big hug, and Basil.

  ‘Oh, that would be lovely,’ breathed Stel. ‘See you then. Bye!’

  Viv put down the phone and blinked away unexpected tears. She hoped this Ian would turn out to be good for her mum. She knew that Stel felt badly that she’d never been able to provide Viv with a loving, caring father figure, though Viv never felt she had suffered from not having one.

  ‘Please make this one be a good one for her,’ said Viv, squeezing her eyes tight and offering up a quick prayer. Life however, she knew, was fairer for some folk than it was for others.

  When Viv walked in to the cottage kitchen that evening, Geraldine had just finished cleaning the floor. She wrung out the mop and rested it in the drainer of the bucket by the door.

  ‘Vegetable pie okay with you?’ she said, crossing then to the tumble drier to pull out the contents. ‘I’m just going to put new sheets on Heath’s bed first.’

  ‘Want me to help you?’ asked Viv, curious to have a nose around upstairs.

  ‘Sure, you can if you like,’ Geraldine beamed.

  Heath’s room wasn’t what Viv had expected of an older man. It was all dull neutral colours, sparse and functional. There were no softening furnishings such as cushions or rugs and everything was square and neat and clean – clinical even. It was a big space: two original bedrooms had been knocked into one, and off to one side was an ensuite bathroom. There was no personality to it at all and felt as if it belonged to someone much younger than she had imagined.

  ‘How old is Mr Merlo?’ she asked.

  ‘Thirty-two,’ replied Geraldine.

  ‘Oh,’ said Viv, genuinely surprised.

  Geraldine paused from tucking the edge of the bottom bed-sheet under the mattress. ‘Were you expecting him to be older?’

  Viv nodded. ‘Much older.’

  ‘Then you’re about to get a nice surprise. Or at least I hope you are.’

  The scent that hung in his room did not fit with the one that Viv had imagined for the mysterious Heath either: fusty cologne with a smack of mildew. Instead it was fresh, clean, sandalwood, pine, with a base note of a forest in May when the bluebells were in banks of untamed blue and the raindrops glittered on the branches above. If the receptors in her nasal passages had had eyes, they migh
t have dilated.

  She’d attempted to recreate Geraldine’s lovely perfume with her oils but it wasn’t right yet by a long way. Geraldine had told her that it had been her mother’s perfume, but it was now discontinued. She was down to her last quarter bottle, and used it sparingly.

  There were no photos on display, Viv noticed. But did men do that? She didn’t know. She had framed photos everywhere in her bedroom at home. She had brought a few with her – one of her with her friend Hugo, and one of her mum, and one of Basil as a kitten sleeping face down in his food bowl. Maybe it was a girl thing. But she did notice a gold band on a dish by his bedside. A wedding band.

  ‘Is there a Mrs Heath?’ she asked.

  ‘There was,’ replied Geraldine. ‘Sarah died not long after I came to live here. Breast cancer. Such a young age.’ She shook her head sadly.

  ‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ replied Viv. ‘My mum had it too, eight years ago. Luckily they caught it early and she just needed a lump out. It hadn’t spread, thank goodness. She’s been clear for years now.’

  ‘Sarah wasn’t so lucky,’ said Geraldine, shaking out the duvet cover. ‘She ignored all the signs out of fear and then acted too late.’

  There weren’t even any photos of Sarah, Viv noticed. But death affected people so differently. At the prospect of it, Stel had crumbled; young Viv had turned into a Viking warrior and Darren had made a bolt for it like the cowardly twat he was. Viv had liked him when he first moved in, even though he never seemed to do much but sleep, eat and watch football. But for him to abandon her mother when she was at her most vulnerable was unforgivable. He hadn’t even had the decency to do it to her face but ran off while she was in hospital with cases that he must have been secretly pre-packing for days and left her a perfunctory text that she’d find when she came round from her lumpectomy. Stel had been devastated by his betrayal. Viv might only have been a teenager but she was old enough to realise what absolute pond-life he had turned out to be.

  Viv could hear the sound of a vehicle outside. Geraldine crossed to the window.

  ‘I bet this is Heath,’ she said. But from the way the smile withered on her face, it was obvious that it wasn’t.

  Viv looked out also and saw a short convoy nearing the cottage, led by a matt-grey car. Behind that came a silver Range Rover, and following at a canter was the woman on the black horse that Viv had seen up on the hill on her first day.

  ‘Nicholas Leighton,’ snarled Geraldine. ‘What the hell does he want?’

  Nicholas Leighton. Head of the present Leighton clan, thought Viv. Father of the horse rider. The man that Hugo had told her would be useful to get to know and ‘she should make damned sure he knew of her’. He was trying to carve a reputation as a philanthropist helping to fund young business people. Who better to recognise the talents of a young fellow Yorkshire person?

  By the time that Geraldine had reached the front door, Nicholas Leighton had got out of his car and was standing with another man who was carrying a clipboard and pointing towards the cottage. Geraldine marched out, her long skirt swishing. Viv nudged the mop bucket out of the way with her foot and pushed the door almost closed so that she could watch what happened without being seen herself.

  ‘What are you doing here, Mr Leighton?’ said Geraldine.

  Nicholas Leighton gave her a cursory glance and then resumed his conversation with Mr Clipboard.

  ‘Get off, you’re trespassing,’ said Geraldine, in as cross a voice as she could muster.

  So this was Nicholas Leighton, thought Viv, momentarily fascinated. He was taller than she had expected and lean with the long legs of an athlete. His hair was thick and black, greying artfully at the temples and in a patch at the front. He’d have a Mallen streak one day, she thought. He looked every inch the country gent in his tweed jacket and expensive boots. His daughter, smoothly dismounting the horse, had the same boots. They probably cost more than the whole of Viv’s worldly possessions. She had tight jodhpurs over her slim legs and a beautifully cut snow-white shirt, sleeves rolled up to show off golden forearms. She undid the strap of her riding hat, pulled it off and shook out her long black hair as if she were filming a shampoo advert. She was beautiful and Viv suspected she knew that she was.

  ‘Did you hear me?’ said Geraldine. ‘It isn’t your land yet. Get off.’

  ‘Oh do go away, you stupid woman,’ Nicholas Leighton threw over his shoulder, flicking his hand out as if he were waving away an irritating fly. He was talking to the man with the clipboard about the plans for the estate. He wasn’t coming across as friendly as his press articles made him sound. Viv could hear giveaway phrases: There’s no problem about extending the existing pipework. Phase one planning permission for two hundred houses has been agreed. ‘Obviously this lot’ – he thumbed behind him at the cottage – ‘will resort to cheap Fabian tactics, but work will commence on the day that the lease expires. Of that there is no question.’

  Antonia Leighton strolled towards them, leading the horse. Viv watched her unseen from the kitchen. She was tall and willowy but had the same wide shoulders as her father.

  ‘I’d like you to leave,’ Geraldine was squawking at him, but Leighton wasn’t taking any notice of her. She might as well have been one of the hens on the other side of the fence protesting when anyone came within a yard of their eggs.

  Viv didn’t like how Antonia seemed to be amused by Geraldine’s distress. She had full dark pink lips that were twisted into a sneer. She was lovely but it was a very cold sort of beauty, Viv thought. Her eyes were a startling shade of dark blue but there was no warmth in them at all.

  Viv watched as Pilot walked over to Antonia, who didn’t see his approach, and nudged the hand that hung at her side with his cold damp nose, hoping for a stroke. Antonia jumped and dropped her hat, startling her horse. Then, quick as a flash, she turned, crop still in hand. Viv saw her raise it. Even quicker than a flash, Viv pulled open the door, reached for the handle of the mop bucket, lifted it, stepped out and threw the contents. Most of the dirty water landed squarely on Antonia Leighton, the rest splashed over the full length of her father’s expensive sleeve.

  The horse threw its head up and shied away, making Antonia stagger. There were a few seconds of the stillest silence ever. Viv’s jaw was open more than everyone else’s put together. Had she really just done that? What part of her brain had told her to throw a bucket of grimy water all over the shiny white Antonia? She certainly wasn’t shiny white any more. Then the silence ended and all hell broke loose. Through the hair plastered over her face, Antonia screamed like a toddler having a tantrum. The horse broke free of her grasp and trotted across the yard, where luckily it halted. Nicholas Leighton, blue eyes blazing, strode angrily towards Viv, his face fixed in fury but stopped in his tracks when Viv grabbed the mop and held it up at his face height like a domestic knight’s lance. He stumbled back, almost comically.

  ‘How dare . . . Who the hell are you?’

  ‘Daad . . .’ Antonia was standing, arms extended, like the Christ of the Andes. Her face was contorted in disgust.

  ‘My name is Viv. Viv Blackbird,’ Viv said. Her voice was strong, belying the massive shuddering underneath her skin. She hadn’t imagined the introduction to go like this, but it had and it couldn’t be undone.

  Glaring at Viv like a vengeful harpy, Antonia screamed at her. ‘Have you any idea how much this shirt cost?’

  ‘No,’ returned Viv, sounding cockier than she meant to. She hadn’t a clue about designer clothes, which she presumed Antonia wore. The most expensive thing Viv owned was a half-cashmere jumper which she’d found in the Debenhams Blue Cross sale last year with seventy per cent off.

  ‘You’ll pay for this,’ shrieked Antonia. Viv didn’t know if she meant literally or metaphorically – but she had no intention of doing either.

  ‘You were going to hit the dog. With your crop.’

  ‘That’s assault. You’ve just assaulted me.’ Interesting that Antonia didn’t deny the
charge levelled at her, thought Viv.

  ‘I saw you raise that crop as well, young lady.’ Geraldine stabbed her finger at Antonia.

  Nicholas Leighton was still wiping scummy water off his arm and chuntering on to the man with the clipboard. Antonia stomped off to catch her horse and grabbed its reins, too hard for Viv’s liking. Retrieving her riding hat, she mounted effortlessly and trotted off as glamorously as her dripping wet hair and clothes would allow.

  Nicholas clicked his fingers at Mr Clipboard and pointed to his car; it was a silent and arrogant command that their business had concluded. Then he turned back to Viv and Geraldine, his head swinging from one to the other as he addressed them in turn.

  ‘Tell Merlo that he needs to start packing. I’ll have those bulldozers onto this shithole the minute – the very minute – that the bailiffs have ejected you. If necessary, I’ll have the RSPCA here to remove the animals. Protest all you like but I will have you dragged out and this place will be demolished.’

  He took a step towards Geraldine and glared into her face. ‘And after what she did to my daughter this morning’ – he gave Viv a brief but murderous glance – ‘you can tell Merlo that he will shortly be receiving a letter from my solicitor to cancel the offer of a residence.’

  ‘He’s already told you to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine so I doubt he’ll be bothered, Mr Leighton,’ Geraldine shot back.

  And with that, Leighton and his expensive boots disappeared into the silver Range Rover and he set off at such a pace that his wheels spat earth behind him. The man in the clipboard followed at a more sedate pace in his car.

  ‘Oh Geraldine, I am so sorry,’ said Viv. ‘I don’t know how . . . why . . . I just saw her crop . . .’

  Geraldine put her arm around Viv, who was now on the brink of tears.

  ‘Don’t you worry, my lovely,’ she said. ‘Heath was never going to take his hand-out offer. He’d sooner die.’ She laughed. ‘Oh, I wish I’d had that on camera. It all happened so fast. Come on in and let’s have that pie if it isn’t burned to a cinder. And thank you, Viv.’

  ‘Thanks? What for? He was furious. Why on earth did I do that?’