by Karen Clarke
‘Well, I’d better be off,’ said Grant, glancing at his watch. ‘Good to talk to you, Roof.’ He sounded completely genuine.
‘See you Saturday.’ Rufus’s voice was loaded with meaning, and not in a good way. Did he even like his brother?
‘Nice to meet you, Matilda,’ said Grant, his gaze meeting mine once more, and I thought I saw something like pity in his eyes – unless it was a trick of the light. ‘Don’t take any nonsense from my brother. He can be a bit—’ Rufus slammed the screen shut.
‘He’s an idiot,’ he muttered, his expression unusually sullen. It was suddenly easy to see the twelve-year-old boy he’d once been, and I felt a burst of pity. There was obviously a lot of history between him and his brother that I didn’t know about, but I could relate to having a difficult sibling relationship. ‘Just because he saved Dad’s life once, and went on to become a heart surgeon, and runs marathons for charity, and is marrying the daughter of a woman he brought back to life on a flight to New York and is adopting her two children, it doesn’t make him better than me.’
‘I didn’t realise your brother was a heart surgeon, he looks—’
‘Like a trucker, I know,’ Rufus said, though I’d been about to say a friendly lumberjack. ‘He loves the element of surprise when people meet him for the first time.’ Or, he’s just comfortable in his own skin. ‘I could have been a doctor, only I’m not very good with blood, but he looks down on me for being a teacher.’
I wasn’t sure that was true and couldn’t believe that Rufus hadn’t mentioned any of this while we’d been seeing each other – then again, he’d probably been presenting his best side. He was obviously a mass of insecurities, at least where his brother was concerned. ‘Being a teacher’s amazing,’ I said, bending to pick my bread off the oatmeal carpet. ‘I couldn’t do it.’
‘No, but you don’t like working. It’s one of the things I like about you,’ he added, when I opened my mouth to protest. ‘I love the idea of coming home to find a gorgeous woman in my kitchen. Or bedroom,’ he blustered, when I opened my mouth again. ‘Or anywhere in the house.’ He must have sensed my protests were reaching bursting point. ‘What I’m saying is, Tilly, that I want you in my life.’
‘Let’s just start with the wedding,’ I said, before he dug himself in any deeper.
‘Is that a proposal?’ One of his sandy eyebrows twitched, and I realised he’d made a joke – the first since we’d met.
Biting back the words absolutely not, I smiled and said, ‘Nice one, Roo.’ I meant the nickname ironically, but his cheeks pinked with pleasure.
‘Keep saying it until it catches on.’ He leaned over and grasped my hand. ‘What do you think of the decorations?’
I looked around his orderly living room, with its matching pale-wood furniture and fake-coal fire, and the giant television he liked to watch rugby and cricket on, and noticed he’d draped garlands of gold tinsel around everything, in a rather desultory fashion. There was a Christmas tree in front of the window, precisely arranged with red and gold baubles, as if it had sprung out of the box already decorated. Which it probably had, if the tinsel arrangements were anything to go by.
‘It’s… nice,’ I said, unable to summon a more enthusiastic description.
‘I know it won’t meet your design standards,’ he said with a chuckle, squeezing my fingers. ‘You have my permission to work your magic here, any time you like.’
‘Oh no, you’ve… honestly, you’ve done a good job,’ I assured him, spotting a pair of beady-eyed elves, sitting on the bookshelf. ‘The way people decorate reflects their personalities, and I like that.’ I couldn’t tear my gaze from the grinning elves.
‘They came out every year when we were kids,’ he said, following my line of vision. ‘Jollybum and Merrybottom.’ His laugh was tinged with nostalgia. ‘Grant wanted to call them KITT and Goliath, from Knight Rider, but I cried so much that Mum let me have my own way.’
His brother had obviously been the cool one, but I could hardly say so. ‘I wasn’t expecting to meet him today.’ I disentangled our fingers. ‘You should have warned me, Rufus.’
‘I thought you’d like the element of surprise.’ Based on what, I wasn’t sure, but it barely seemed worth protesting when he clearly hadn’t meant any harm. ‘Listen, we’re going to have a great time.’
‘Does it really mean that much to you?’ Bridget had married her Frenchman in secret – a spur-of-the-moment union with two strangers as witnesses – and although Mum had cried when she found out, presumably at having missed her firstborn’s wedding, I’d been curiously ambivalent. Maybe because I’d known what he was really like, but Rufus seemed almost fanatical about attending his brother’s nuptials… with me.
‘It really does.’ He placed his laptop on the cushion beside him and shuffled round to face me. ‘I can’t wait for everyone to meet you.’
I studied his sensitive features, and tried to imagine meeting his family, and what they would make of me. Would they see me as a suitable match – as my grandmother would have said – for their youngest son, or were they secretly hoping he’d bring someone more… sensible? Another teacher, perhaps, or a nice nurse? Perhaps they’d be disappointed that I was taller than him. ‘I’m looking forward to it, too,’ I said brightly, hoping they were all as nice as Grant had appeared to be.
‘I saw you, you know.’
‘Saw me?’
‘Save that boy from drowning,’ Rufus said unexpectedly. ‘I heard you shouting on my way to the car park, and when I looked round you were running towards the sea. There was a mongrel on the beach,’ I remembered he didn’t like dogs, ‘and a boy in the water, and I realised you were going to save him.’ His face came alive, as if he was describing the plot of a film he’d seen and loved. ‘You were amazing, Tilly. I think I knew then that I was going to have to work very hard to keep you.’
Ignoring the last bit, I said, ‘Did you call for help?’
‘What?’ His gaze refocused. ‘Help?’
‘The coastguard, an ambulance?’
He drew his head back. ‘I didn’t need to,’ he said. ‘You’d obviously got things perfectly under control.’
‘But, what if I hadn’t?’
‘Well, obviously I would have called for help if you’d been struggling, but do you know how much it costs to mount a rescue?’ He’d turned a bit huffy, and his cheeks reddened. ‘They wouldn’t have thanked me for calling them out, only to get there and find they weren’t needed,’ he said. ‘That man seemed very grateful. Was it his dad?’
‘How long were you watching?’
‘I saw him hugging you.’ Was that what had prompted this outpouring of… I couldn’t call it love. Was it love? I had nothing to compare it with, but it didn’t feel like love.
‘He was very grateful,’ I said.
‘I should have called the local paper.’ Rufus became enthused. ‘I still could,’ he said. ‘You deserve a bravery award for what you did.’
‘Please don’t.’ Seth would hate that. ‘I don’t want an award.’
‘My students would be impressed.’ The uncharitable thought that he wanted to bask in some reflected glory popped into my head, and I felt instantly guilty when he added, ‘You’d be a good role model for them.’
‘I really don’t want you to.’ I spoke more sharply than I’d intended, unsure why I didn’t just tell him the man was Seth Donovan. I had a feeling if I did, he might want me to introduce them. ‘Promise me you won’t.’
‘I promise,’ he said sincerely. ‘You’re too modest though, Tilly.’
‘Listen, I’ve got to go.’ I stood up, suddenly keen to escape the over-heated room and Rufus’s puppy-dog eyes. A puppy-dog who was a bit over-excited and looked like he might bite me. ‘I have to, er…’ Luckily, my phone obliged by ringing. ‘I have to get this, I’m expecting a call about the café.’
Phone pressed to my ear, I gave Rufus a distracted smile and hurried out, leaving him standing awkwardly in his l
iving room, a hand outstretched as if to restrain me.
‘I’ve had a call!’
‘Bridget?’
‘Seth Donovan rang me this morning.’ She sounded oddly breathless. ‘He’s taking me out for dinner this evening, and I need you to help me find something to wear.’
Chapter Fifteen
No sooner had Bridget imparted her news than Romy shouted ‘POO!’ and needed her bottom wiping. I’d barely promised Bridget I’d be home by five at the latest when she hung up and my phone vibrated again.
‘Hi, Seth.’ I waited for him to relay the same bulletin that my sister had, and was taken aback when he said, ‘Tilly, I know this is asking a lot, but my mother is keen to see you in action with Jack before she goes home, and I wondered whether you might be free to come over.’
A knot tightened in my stomach. ‘When is she going?’ There was no way I could convince Felicity that I was a bona fide nanny – or magically gain a qualification in childcare overnight.
‘Around five,’ said Seth.
‘Today?’
‘My father just called her to say there’s a problem on the work front she has to get back for.’ His tone conveyed an apology, mild despair and a touch of irritation. ‘I hate asking, but since we’ve set this particular ball in motion…’
‘Aren’t you taking my sister out this evening?’ I said. ‘She just phoned me.’
‘Oh, Christ.’ It sounded as if he’d already forgotten. ‘I’d assumed my mother would be here to babysit Jack.’ He made a frustrated noise. ‘I’ll have to call her and cancel.’
‘Don’t do that,’ I said quickly, imagining Bridget’s disappointment – which she’d no doubt blame me for. ‘I’ll look after him.’
‘You will?’ I couldn’t work out whether he sounded hopeful. ‘But I’ve already asked you to come over and pretend to be Jack’s nanny, it’s too much to expect you to babysit for real.’
‘I don’t mind,’ I said, deciding quickly. There was nothing I could do at the café for the moment, other than hang around. ‘Just give me half an hour and I’ll be there.’
I scrambled into my car, pretending not to notice that Rufus was watching from his living room window, and drove past the tightly packed houses to the end of the street, where I stopped and pulled on the handbrake. It felt as if there wasn’t enough oxygen in the car, but when I opened the window cold air rushed in, so I closed it again and called Gwen to tell her I wouldn’t be coming back. Jerry answered the phone. ‘She’s having a one-to-one with Dickens while it’s quiet,’ he said, relief seeping into his voice. ‘I told her I’d heard him miaowing as if he was missing her, and she shot off to give him a cuddle.’
‘Nice one.’ I smiled as I imagined his shock when Gwen made her move on him at the party. ‘You are coming on Christmas Eve?’ My smile faltered as I pictured everyone turning up to find the function room cold, damp, empty and dark.
‘I expect so.’ He gave one of the world-weary sighs I’d frequently overheard since he started working at the café. ‘Gwen’s asked me to help serve drinks, and I don’t have anywhere else to be so I thought, why not?’ It struck me he could have invented somewhere else to be, and I wondered again whether he was as impervious to Gwen’s ‘charms’ as he made out.
‘Tell Gwen I’ve got some things to sort out for the function room, but that everything’s in hand, will you, Jerry?’
‘Will do,’ he promised, and released another hefty sigh. Maybe he was short of oxygen too.
‘Thanks,’ I said, and after calling my broken-armed electrician, to be told he was still trying his best to find a replacement, I resisted the temptation to Google how to behave like a nanny, and drove to Seashell Cove with an image in my head of Mary Poppins sliding down a banister, holding her umbrella aloft.
‘Thanks for this.’ Seth held the car door open as I got out. I’d parked beside his car on a patch of flattened grass at the side of the cottage. There was a silver Land Rover there that I guessed belong to Felicity, and I had to make a mental adjustment as I’d pictured her being chauffeured around, rather than driving herself.
‘Thanks for asking my sister out to dinner.’
‘I said I would.’ He didn’t seem too thrilled in the flesh, but I knew that once he clapped eyes on Bridget, he’d realise I’d done him a big favour.
‘Nice outfit.’ I eyed his furry trapper hat and fleece-lined parka with slight envy. I’d almost forgotten that a British winter could be just as unforgiving as a Canadian one. ‘Or is it another disguise?’
He gave a sheepish grin. ‘I’ve been for a walk,’ he said, glancing around him. The sky was a chalky-white that seemed to go on for miles, and the sea was thrashing the empty beach below. ‘I needed to get out of the house.’
‘No Jack?’ I followed his gaze back to the cottage.
‘My mother’s giving him a haircut.’
‘I didn’t realise she was a hairdresser.’
His smile was fleeting. ‘She actually runs an equestrian centre,’ he said. I could easily see her bossing around young, posh girls on ponies. ‘She’s not as hands on these days, which gives her more time to interfere in my life,’ he went on. ‘And I don’t think she realises there are hair salons in this part of the world.’
‘Don’t you have any say in that sort of thing?’
‘Not if I want Jack to stay with me.’
‘Does he have any say in the matter?’
‘Hang on, you have met my mother?’ He tilted his head, his expression warily playful. ‘Nobody has a say when she’s set her mind on something.’
‘Well, maybe they should.’
‘Oh boy.’ Seth dropped his head down in mock-despair. ‘Don’t go thinking you can change her,’ he said. ‘Many have tried and been wounded in the process.’
‘How did Jack’s mum get on with her?’
‘Don’t even get me started.’ He dug his hands deep into his coat pockets. ‘She never thought Charlotte was good enough for me, and she only met her once.’
‘At your wedding?’ I had no idea why I was asking, especially while standing outside with freezing toes and glowing ears. At least, it felt like my ears were glowing. A benefit of growing my hair out was that they weren’t always visible.
‘At our wedding,’ he agreed, and seemed to shudder. ‘Let’s just say, Mum wept through the ceremony, and they weren’t tears of happiness.’ My bubble of sympathy for his wife popped when he added, ‘Mind you, Charlotte didn’t do herself any favours by telling my mum her outfit made her look fat, then announcing that she’d found out that morning that she wasn’t really pregnant.’
I stared. ‘You married her because she was pregnant?’ I was focusing on the least bad part of his admission. ‘That’s a bit old school, isn’t it?’
‘Don’t get me wrong, I was madly in love and thought I was ready to settle down,’ he said, moving from foot to foot in a subconscious attempt to keep warm. ‘She was gorgeous too, she’d appeared on America’s Next Top Model—’
‘Oh, what a cliché,’ I couldn’t resist saying. ‘Sports star meets model and they don’t live happily ever after.’
To his credit, he looked a bit shamefaced. ‘I know,’ he said, mouth turning down. ‘I was a living cliché back then and the terrible thing is, deep down, I knew it.’
‘So… Jack?’
‘He came along the following year.’ His face softened. ‘Things were really good after that for a while, he brought out the best in us both, but I was hardly ever at home, and… another cliché alert… Charlotte ended up having an affair and so did I and—’
‘What the blazes are the pair of you doing out here?’
We started violently as Felicity hurried over, sporting a pair of green wellies, her expression as flinty as if she’d caught us dancing naked. It hit me that she was the reason we’d been reluctant to go indoors, and why I’d been grilling Seth about his marriage – and probably why he’d responded.
‘You shouldn’t be over-familiar w
ith the staff,’ she admonished Seth, and it took a second to realise she was referring to me.
‘Tilly isn’t staff,’ he said – which was at least true. ‘And it isn’t nineteen twenty-two, Mum. People don’t have staff, at least not in their homes.’
‘Of course they do,’ she snapped. ‘What else do you call cleaners, cooks, gardeners and so forth?’ I assumed she was referring to her own army of helpers, and wondered who the so forth were. Maybe she had a butler, and someone to operate the remote control for the television. ‘I wouldn’t call them friends, it blurs the boundaries.’
‘Staff sounds stuck up and snobbish,’ Seth persisted. ‘It’s embarrassing, Mum, and I won’t have you talking like that around Jack.’
It sounded like an old argument, and one Felicity didn’t seem keen to participate in. ‘Come on, Miss Campbell,’ she said to me.
‘Please call me Tilly.’
‘You’ll be no good to my grandson if you catch your death of cold.’ She scanned my duffel coat – the coat I’d been wearing the last time we met – and I supposed, in her world, there were a multitude of coats to be worn on different days, and in different situations. I wondered whether she’d have approved had I turned up in a grey, button-up jacket and ankle length skirt, and wished I had a more up-to-date reference than Mary Poppins. ‘What are you waiting for?’
A miracle. ‘Just letting you lead the way,’ I offered, extending my arm for her to go ahead. ‘There is rather a nip in the air.’ My voice sounded different. Was I starting to talk like Mary Poppins? Seth gave me a look, as if to say what the hell was that? but Felicity tightened the belt of her heavy cardigan and merely nodded. ‘Jack’s waiting,’ she said.
My heart juddered. ‘Does he know about all this?’ I whispered to Seth as we followed Felicity’s jaunty stride to the cottage.
He lowered his head close to mine without breaking his pace. ‘I asked him whether he’d mind you looking after him now and again and he said it’s fine.’
