COMING HOME TO HOLLY CLOSE FARM
Julie Houston
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About Coming Home To Holly Close Farm
Charlie Maddison loves being an architect in London, but when she finds out her boyfriend, Dominic, is actually married, she runs back to the beautiful countryside of Westenbury and her parents. Charlie’s sister Daisy, a landscape gardener, is also back home in desperate need of company and some fun.
Their great-grandmother, Madge – now in her early nineties – reveals she has a house, Holly Close Farm, mysteriously abandoned over sixty years ago, and persuades the girls to project manage its renovation.
As work gets underway, the sisters start uncovering their family’s history, and the dark secrets that are hidden at the Farm. A heart-breaking tale of wartime romance, jealousy and betrayal slowly emerges, but with a moral at its end: true love can withstand any obstacle, and, before long, Charlie dares to believe in love again too…
Contents
Welcome Page
About Coming Home To Holly Close Farm
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Acknowledgements
About Julie Houston
Also by Julie Houston
Become an Aria Addict
Copyright
Prologue
Midhope, Yorkshire
July 1953
From each observation point across the rough-grassed terrain, all approaches were covered. Anyone arriving or leaving, any movement, whether human or otherwise, could be monitored by at least one of them. Although the moon was a newly formed sliver, visibility across the acre or so of land was good.
No light was seen from any of the farm’s many windows; no smoke rose negligently from a single one of its four huge stone chimneys on this chilly July night.
The waiting continued, until suddenly, in the early hours of the new day, the stillness was shattered by gunshot.
A volley of five shots in rapid succession blasted the cool summer-night air and was immediately succeeded by what seemed, to those waiting stiff and rendered almost lifeless in the long grass, a yawning silence.
And then they rose, almost as one, darkly spectral figures of a childhood nightmare, scrambling, slipping and falling down the hill towards the direction from which the shots had come.
1
Friday evening and I could almost taste the gin and tonic waiting for me as I dragged the carrier bags of shopping up to my flat on the second floor. Wincing as the plastic cut into both hands, I dumped the bags onto the floor with relief and had a good scrabble round in my shoulder bag for the door key. Dominic always laughed at what regularly surfaced from the depths of the Tardis: sketches and notes for the new designs I was working on, fabric and flooring samples, an over-ripe banana and the usual make-up and Oyster card.
What the hell was wrong with the key? I peered at it, scrutinising the tarnished metal before attempting to ram it once more into the Yale lock of the flat door.
No go. Bugger. Had I got the wrong key? No, it was the one I always used: the key Dominic had fastened onto my bunch when he’d suggested we make our relationship rather more permanent. I’d been over the moon – more than happy to leave the cramped flat I shared in Bayswater with a rather strange girl from Lancashire who very rarely socialised, and who thought a good night’s entertainment consisted of the sofa pulled up in front of Strictly while making her way stolidly through an entire half-pound tub of Philadelphia cream cheese.
It was definitely the right key. I peered again, turned it over and tried again. Nope. Had I bent it, put it out of service somehow earlier in the day when my bag had collided with that cyclist on the Old Kent Road as I rushed, late as usual, for an initial consultation on this morning’s new job? I rubbed tentatively at my leg where the bike’s front wheel had caught my foot as I stepped onto the zebra crossing, flooring me physically while its owner had attempted to do the same mentally, pouring vitriol onto my head as I lay, speechless in the road.
‘Having problems?’ A tall, very attractive blonde appeared at my side and I started at her words.
‘Yes, the damned lock appears to be jammed. I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with it…’
The woman, older than me but far more glamorous, scrutinised me carefully, taking in every aspect of my sweating face and, after an afternoon on a building site, my creased and dusty jeans, denim jacket and scuffed heavy-duty boots.
She smiled. ‘Here. Try this one. I think you’ll have more success.’
‘Sorry?’ I took a step away from my front door, tripped over the bags of shopping and looked at the woman full on as she stood, eyebrows raised, offering me the key. ‘So, what are you?’ I laughed. ‘The fairy godmother of knackered keys?’
‘Gosh, no, nothing as imaginative as that.’ She smiled again. ‘How about the gullible wife of a cheating bastard husband?’
‘Aw, that’s awful for you. I’m so sorry. And didn’t you know?’
‘I do now.’ She was no longer smiling. ‘Look, are you being deliberately obtuse or are you just thick?’ She tutted, brushed past me and inserted her key into my door. ‘Your stuff’s all packed up. I’d like you out in ten minutes: the estate agent will be here to value the place…’ she scrutinised her little gold wrist watch, ‘… in half an hour.’
Five black bin bags, the sum total, it appeared, of my life, were heaped in disarray in the tiny hallway. My heart revved uncomfortably and I felt a trickle of sweat start under my arms. Surreptitiously wiping the film of moisture from my top lip, I pushed the stray lock of hair that regularly went AWOL from my one plait and searched in the depths of the Tardis for my phone.
‘It’s no good ringing him,’ the woman said. ‘Dom knows I’ve found out.’
I ignored her, immediately finding Dominic’s number, and pressed the usual button. ‘This is my flat,’ I snapped, glaring at her as I waited for Dominic to answer. ‘I share the rent, I pay the bills. I pay my bloody way.’
Three little beeps on my phone heralded an unrecognised number. I tried again.
‘My flat,’ she countered. ‘Every bit of it, mine. Bought for me by my father for my twenty-first birthday.’ She actually laughed. ‘I would imagine the money you gave to Dom each month went straight into his children’s pockets for spending money. You know: little treats, trips to the cinema. Good old dad. I bet he always insisted you pay your share in cash…’
‘He’s got children?’ I stared at her. ‘Dominic’s got children?’
‘Three. And, if you still haven’t worked it out, one very alive, still very married wife. Me.’
‘He told me he was divorced.’
‘And I suppose he also told you, on the nights and weekends he wasn’t with you that he was in the Manchester or Paris office? You’ve been had, darling. He has a very much alive and extremely kicking wife as well as three kids away at school to support and pay for.’
‘You can’t do this!’ I shouted, but one look at her calm features and I saw that she jolly well could do it. And had.
‘I can, and I am,’ the blonde confirmed. ‘Out, now, you trollop. Come on, out. I want to lock up.’
‘You can’t just turf me out like this. Where the hell am I supposed to go at…’ I glanced at the clock on the wall – a horrible art-deco thing I’d always hated… ‘seven o’clock on a Friday evening?’
‘Your problem, not mine.’
‘I didn’t know,’ I pleaded. ‘I really didn’t know he was married and had kids.’
‘Well, you do now. Dom is well and truly married and living in Haslemere with me, two dogs and, when they’re back from school, three children.’
‘The bastard. The absolute bastard.’ I started grabbing two of the black bin bags.
‘Yes, well, that’s one thing we can agree on. Now, if you don’t mind.’ She started throwing the remaining bin bags out into the corridor. ‘Oh, and if you have any idea that he’s going to leave us and whisk you off to become the second Mrs Abraham, you can forget it.’
‘He’s due back from his trip to the States this evening,’ I said defiantly, still hanging on to the two bin bags in my sweaty hands, but not making those final steps outside with them.
Dominic’s wife snorted at this. ‘The States? As in the United States?’ She laughed almost gleefully. ‘The only state he’s been in this week is one of grovelling servitude, begging my forgiveness at every turn. When he’s in “The States” or in “Europe” or “Out of Town” as the sod euphemistically calls it, he’s actually working from home in the studio he had built in the garden several years ago.’ She picked up the last of the bags, wrenching the ones from my clenched fists, before hurling each one with well-aimed fury outside. ‘Oh,’ she added as the last one hit the corridor, ‘and as I and my father are the major shareholders in Abraham Developments, your service in the company is, from this moment, well and truly terminated.’
I found myself on the wet, miserable streets of London in mid-November, visions of having to make my way to Oxford Street or Covent Garden to grab a pitch to sleep rough skittering through my mind, as I paused for a while to collect myself.
I stood outside one of North London’s ubiquitous coffee houses and made the decision to go in. I needed a strong coffee to clear my head and think who to call to beg a bed for the night, although I had a horrible feeling my phone was running out of charge. So much for the gin and tonic and its accompanying cosy night in.
‘Oy, lady, you can’t bring all that rubbish in here with you.’ The young Eastern European barista glared at me as I opened the door and hauled in my life in five bags after me. ‘Health and Safety. You order and sit outside and I bring it out to you.’
‘It’s raining,’ I said. ‘In fact, it’s bloody pouring down.’
And with that all the fight went out of me as I balanced a bin bag under each arm and bent to grasp the remaining three. There was, I realised, only one option.
*
‘Mum?’
‘Charlie? Hello, darling. Dad and I were just talking about you.’
‘Mum, can I come home for a bit?’
‘What, for the weekend you mean?’
‘A bit longer than that, possibly. Probably.’
‘Of course you can come home. You know that.’ Mum sounded surprised as well she might. I suddenly realised with a slight jolt that not only had I not been back to Yorkshire for a good six months, I’d not rung home for ages either. ‘Dad and I were only just saying we needed to have a trip down to London to see you. How’s Dominic? Is everything OK?’
‘I’ll tell you when I see you.’
‘So, when are you thinking of coming up then?’
‘Er, like now?’
‘Now? Today? This evening? Oh, right. Lovely. And is Dominic with you? Are you both up for the weekend?’
‘Oh, Mum.’
‘Charlie, what is it?’
‘Mum, can you pick me up? The train gets in at ten thirty.’ I paused. ‘And can you come in Dad’s car rather than yours? I’ve got rather a lot of stuff with me.’ I glanced at the bin bags perched in a neat row on the overhead luggage rack like a flock of particularly malevolent crows.
‘Right, darling. What time did you say? I was just about to watch that new drama with Cummerbund Benderbatch…’ She paused and I could almost hear her brain clicking into gear. ‘That’s not right, is it? Oh, you know who I mean. I’ll go and make sure your bed’s made up. Will you have eaten?’
I didn’t think I’d ever be able to eat again. I could certainly drink, though. I rang off and made my way down the carriages until I found the buffet bar and bought three little plastic bottles of wine.
I worked my way methodically down all three bottles, glaring at the man opposite so that he gets the message that conversation was definitely not on the menu. I tried Dominic’s number again and again, only to hear the three little beeps verifying no such number was in existence. Well, I could still email him. I couldn’t see him getting rid of that so easily: he’d need it for work.
You bastard, Dominic Abraham.
That was after the first bottle of wine...
You lying, cheating, tosser bastard.
Two down and I was on a roll.
And yes, Dominic, size does matter. It must be down to all the double exercise it’s been getting lately. Obviously wearing away.
That little drunken tirade accompanied the final plastic bottle.
I finally drained my glass and looked tipsily out of the window. We were heading towards Doncaster and, as we went through a tunnel, my reflection stared back at me. Is this what I’d come to? Several years in London doing a job I loved and had trained for and I was heading back home to Midhope, tail between my legs. Nearly thirty and back home to my mum and dad. No home, no job, no man but, instead, five black bin bags to show for seven years’ training as an architect. And then another three in London working for one architectural company before being interviewed by Dominic Abraham eleven months ago and landing the job in property development which I loved and which I was jolly good at.
As we pulled into Wakefield, I stood on my seat and started hauling down my bags.
‘Here, love, let me help you.’ The man opposite stood and pulled down the last two bags but the final and fullest bag split, its innards of unwashed bras, pants and work shirts, obviously scooped up from the laundry basket, spilling onto the floor, the seats below and, unfortunately, the balding heads of two elderly men nodding their way towards Leeds.
2
‘We’re going to have a full house,’ Mum said more cheerfully than she obviously felt as she manoeuvred the last of the five bin bags into the battered Volvo’s boot.
‘Oh? Who else is staying?’
‘Well, Vivienne appears to have taken root in the spare bedroom, and Daisy’s home as well.’
‘Granny Vivienne? And Daisy?’ I perked up a bit. ‘How come? Is she just home for the weekend?’
‘Don’t think so. She says she’s had enough of being a trolley dolly and is going to use her degree for what it was meant for.’
‘Which is? Mum, be careful, you nearly knocked that man down.’ I had to grasp the dashboard as she braked sharply. My years living in London obviously hadn’t improved my mother’s driving ability.
‘Sorry, darling, forgot my glasses. Blind as a bat without them. Well, obviously her degree in landscape architecture means she can be a landscape architect. After three years of travelling, working in bars all round the world and now with this job as an air hostess out of Liverpool suddenly coming to an end, she’s decided enough is enough and she wants t
o have a proper job.’
‘Right.’ I couldn’t see my younger sister settling down to anything, particularly back home in Midhope, where there wasn’t a huge amount of opportunity for setting up a new business in landscape architecture, especially when the only real work experience she’d had, apart from on the flights, was working on a sheep farm in New Zealand and pulling pints in Australia.
I could sense Mum glancing in my direction as I stared through the windscreen, scowling into the night as I bit my nails, a habit I thought I’d overcome.
‘So, are you going to tell me what’s happened? I’m assuming, with all those bags with you, you’ve decided to give London a rest for a while?’
‘I love London, Mum. I love my job.’ I could feel the traitorous tears begin to gather once more. ‘Loved it…’ I trailed off, my voice wobbling as I slid down into the seat in an attempt to get warm. ‘God, I’d forgotten how bloody cold it is up here.’
‘Where’s your coat? It is November, you know.’
Hell, where was my lovely sheepskin coat? Not in the black bags, I was certain. A sudden vision of it hanging on its usual peg in my office swam before my eyes. Well, that was obviously gone. I couldn’t see anyone bothering to parcel it up and send it on to me. Good job I always carried my phone and laptop in the Tardis with me. I gave its voluminous contents on my knee a reassuring pat.
‘So, I’ve got both my daughters home for a while, have I?’ Mum stopped at a red light and turned once more in my direction.
‘Is that OK? I mean, you’ll enjoy having us both to feed and fuss over, won’t you? Look how much you missed us when we went off to uni.’
Mum laughed. ‘One very quickly gets used to having a tidy house and not having to feed and fuss over one’s kids. It’s quite blissful not having to think about what to have for supper. Dad and I can have a glass of wine and just saunter down to the village for a “two for £13 meal deal” at the Jolly Sailor. Quite liberating really.’
Coming Home To Holly Close Farm Page 1
