‘It’s mostly Lance,’ Melinda continued. ‘You know how he is.’
‘Basking in the reflected glow?’ Hattie asked, and she couldn’t help but grin. She wouldn’t be surprised if she went in next time to see a shrine dedicated to her beside the tea urn.
‘Something like that,’ Melinda said. ‘It is about the most exciting thing to happen in Gillypuddle since Mrs Lane’s parakeet got loose.’
Hattie laughed. ‘Does Lance know that I had a date with Owen?’
‘Are you kidding?’
‘Oh God!’
Melinda dug into the pot of mango chutney and put a blob onto the side of her plate. ‘He’s already choosing his wedding outfit. I’ve got a feeling him and Mark were hoping this might happen, you know. You know those two – they probably even tried to set it up. They love to matchmake – I’m surprised you didn’t smell a rat when you went in that day.’
‘I should have done, shouldn’t I? To be fair to them, it was a good call.’
‘You’re taking it well,’ Melinda said. ‘You must like this Owen a lot; I’d be livid if they did it to me.’
Hattie tried to be annoyed with Lance and Mark for interfering but she couldn’t. She’d had a great time with Owen and perhaps she had to give them credit for knowing a good match when they saw one. In fact, she ought to have a word with them – they could make a killing running a dating agency.
‘What’s the point in being livid now?’
What Hattie had said about Owen being trouble was true, but what she’d said to herself about not being interested in anything more lasting than a few weeks of fun wasn’t. She liked Owen – she thought she might come to like him a lot. And maybe he wasn’t such a wild card? She’d told him that she thought there might be two Owen Schusters and she still believed that. Which one would she get? Only time would tell.
Chapter Nineteen
The rain woke Hattie. She rolled over and looked at the clock by her bed. It was 4.30 a.m. and far too early to be getting up. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep again, but the wind heaved and tossed the rain against the window like gravel being hurled at the glass. She hadn’t heard rain like this since she’d first arrived at Sweet Briar and it was faintly alarming – the glazing was old here in the farmhouse and she wouldn’t have been completely shocked to see the window blow in with the force of it.
She lay in bed and listened for ten minutes, the room grainy and grey in the early-morning light, then she decided to get up and do something useful because there was no way she was going back to sleep while the storm continued to beat against the glass. The house was silent; Jo was probably still sleeping. Her room was at the back of the house and away from the sea view, so perhaps that sheltered it a little from the rain. Who knew, perhaps that was the real reason Jo had taken that room in the first place. Hattie decided to log into her borrowed laptop (quite honestly probably permanently borrowed at this point) to see if there’d been any action on the Sweet Briar website.
Grabbing her fluffy dressing gown from the old armchair by the window, she pulled the laptop from its storage bag and plonked herself back down on the bed, cross-legged, before switching it on.
And that was when she heard it. Another sound layered over the rain dashing against the windows, the unmistakable sounds of distress. Hattie sat and listened, motionless and straining to make it out. Then all was silent again and she relaxed. Perhaps she had been mistaken after all. Perhaps her senses had been playing tricks on her, and her agitation due to the weather wouldn’t have helped with that. Perhaps it was the weather acting on something out in the farmyard – moving a water butt or a wheelbarrow, making some machinery squeak… something that she wouldn’t have imagined would sound like a person moaning but did. Hattie tried to console herself with that thought but she couldn’t deny she’d been rattled. She tried to shrug it off anyway and turned back to her laptop.
Then a scream tore through the silence of the house. Hattie leapt up and sprinted out onto the landing. There was another:
‘NO! JENNY NO!’
Hattie raced to Jo’s room and flung open the door. Jo was thrashing and moaning in her bed, sheets tangled around her like tourniquets. Even Hattie bursting in didn’t wake her. Hattie ran to the bed – she had to wake her from whatever terrible nightmare had hold of her – but then she stopped short. She was in Jo’s room and Jo was asleep and no matter what else was happening it suddenly felt like a boundary that Hattie shouldn’t have crossed. It was just a nightmare. And everyone had nightmares from time to time. No matter how bad it looked to Hattie now, Jo would wake in time without Hattie’s interference and she’d be fine once the dream had faded.
But then Jo called out again:
‘JENNY!’
Hattie couldn’t bear it. Whatever the consequences, whether Jo would even remember the dream when she woke, Hattie couldn’t stand by and watch her go through this. She reached out to shake her, but before she’d got that far, Jo let out one last ear-splitting scream and then bolted upright.
Hattie froze. Jo stared at her, seeming to take a moment to focus, breathing hard. But then she spoke with her usual curt tone.
‘You’re in my room.’
‘I’m sorry, I thought…’ Hattie hesitated. Could she tell Jo what she’d just seen? Something about it felt deeply private, as if she’d just witnessed a snapshot of Jo’s soul that she should never have seen. ‘I thought I heard a noise,’ she said finally. ‘Downstairs. I came to wake you so you could come and check with me.’
Jo let out a resigned sigh and untangled the sheets from around her. She swung her legs over the side of the bed to poke her bare feet into a pair of work boots. Her hair hung limp around her face – Hattie had never seen it loose before; usually it was pulled back into a severe ponytail. This way it looked softer, made Jo seem younger and more vulnerable. It was funny, Hattie thought as they ran through the pretence of checking around downstairs for intruders, she didn’t actually know how old Jo was. She’d taken a wild guess at mid-fifties, but seeing her now she wasn’t so sure. Maybe Jo was much younger than that. And who had she been calling for in her sleep? Who was Jenny? Whoever it was, Jo had been terrified for her. How many times might Jo have been gripped by this nightmare before? How many times had it happened while Hattie slept on, oblivious down the corridor? It seemed silly that Hattie wouldn’t have been woken by a scream like that, but maybe Jo didn’t always scream? Maybe sometimes she didn’t make a sound?
‘Nothing’s disturbed,’ Jo said, shaking Hattie from her musings. She plodded over to the kettle. ‘Might as well stay up now.’
‘I’ll get dressed then.’
Hattie’s mind was racing – there was no way she was getting back to sleep now even if she wanted to.
The rain had stopped by the time Hattie began to clear the breakfast dishes away. Jo had been more taciturn and distant than ever during breakfast, but she also seemed vaguely uneasy too. Hattie wondered if the fading scenes of her early-morning nightmare were still playing through her mind. It would have been a safe bet – Jo had woken suddenly and hadn’t been given time to pull herself together. Besides, Hattie had never seen anyone so distressed before and she was finding it hard to put it out of her own mind, so she couldn’t imagine how shaken Jo might be. Hattie was becoming increasingly convinced that whatever had been playing out in Jo’s unconscious was truly horrible.
‘Jo…’ she began tentatively as she washed the dishes and Jo wiped down the table. ‘Is everything OK?’
Jo paused in her cleaning and looked up. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’
‘I don’t know. I just thought… well, we rarely discuss how we’re feeling.’
‘You tell me every day,’ Jo said, going back to her task.
‘I just wondered… if there was something on your mind. I mean, if there was, you could tell me.’
‘Apart from your incessant talking there’s nothing wrong.’
‘Well, yes…’ Hattie gave a nervous laugh. Jo g
lanced up at the clock.
‘Donkeys will need to go up.’
‘Do you think the weather’s fit?’
‘Should be. They’ve got their shelter up there and if it turns really nasty we can bring them back down. That’s if you haven’t got anything better to do.’
‘Me? Of course not!’
‘I never know these days with your reporter and that woman with all those kids and your visits to the café every five minutes.’
‘I am entitled to a life outside here,’ Hattie replied, feeling a sudden need to defend herself. What she didn’t add was that most of those trips had been to try and help turn the fortunes of Sweet Briar around. But what was the point? Jo would only have told her that Sweet Briar’s fortunes didn’t need turning around.
‘I’m just saying I never know where you are.’
‘I always tell you when I’m going out.’
‘Which seems like all the time.’
‘I go to do things for the sanctuary!’ Hattie said, deciding to field the argument after all.
‘I pay you to do things at the sanctuary, not away from it.’
‘You barely pay me at all!’ Hattie said and immediately regretted it. Jo held her in a stony gaze.
‘You knew the terms – I’ve always been straight with you. You wanted to come.’
‘I know that and I still want to be here, but you’ve got to stop shutting me out. If sometimes I want to go off into the village, have you ever considered that it might be because I’m lonely here with you? We ought to be friends by now but I barely know you.’
‘There’s nothing to know.’
‘Maybe you could let me be the judge of that.’
‘You’re not here to be my friend.’
Tears stung Hattie’s eyes but she held them back. ‘OK,’ she said slowly. ‘So I’m here to help run the sanctuary but half the time you don’t even let me do that. You make me clean the shed and feed the hens and walk the donkeys up and down.’
‘That’s all that wants doing.’
‘It’s not! There’s a million other things – things I could do that would help this place be better – but you don’t want to listen to my ideas!’
‘What? Like your news story? I let you do that even though I didn’t like it – what more do you want?’
‘I want you to trust me! I want you to give these things a chance to work before you dismiss them. I want you to listen and discuss my ideas with me… properly. I want to feel like a part of this place, like it matters that I’m here, not just like a live-in slave!’
Jo rounded on her. ‘Slave? Is that what you think? I do the same work as you; I treat you like I treat everyone else!’
Hattie wanted to say that the way Jo treated everyone else was the problem, because sometimes it felt to so many that she treated them only with contempt. But Jo’s mind was so tightly closed that it probably wouldn’t have changed anything. Hattie let out a sigh of defeat.
‘I just wish I felt more welcome; that’s all. I wish we could be friends. I know I’m not an equal partner in this place and I don’t have any claim to your attention at all, but I wish you could see that I’m trying to help because I care.’
Jo regarded her carefully, silently. And then she looked as if she might say something. Maybe Hattie was finally getting through that emotional armour? But then she marched to the coat peg, pulled down her wax jacket and headed out into the grey morning, the back door slamming shut behind her.
There hadn’t been much time to continue their discussion, and Jo had made it clear she didn’t want to anyway. Instead, there had been chickens to worm, the coop to clean, repairs to the orchard fence where Jo suspected a fox had tried to get in, the barn to sweep and a consignment of hay to check through for mould. Hattie got on with it all without complaint, but she was plagued by a nagging doubt that there was so much that still needed to be said that she wouldn’t be able to settle until it was. And she wondered, finally, whether everyone in Gillypuddle had been right about Jo and she, Hattie Rose, the lone voice of dissent, had got it very, very wrong. Had she been arrogant in her dismissal of everyone else’s opinions, in her stubborn determination to prove that Jo Flint didn’t have a heart of brick? She’d truly believed it and she still believed it now, but, in the end, did that count for anything? Could she continue to live like this, no matter how much she loved the donkeys and the views from the cliff top? In the end, could those things ever be enough?
The one bright spot of an otherwise miserable day was a call from Owen as she swept the barn. He’d be able to get away from London the following weekend and did she want to meet? After their argument this morning, Hattie didn’t particularly care if Jo minded or not.
‘I’d love to,’ she said. ‘Maybe I could even come to you.’
‘In London?’
‘Yeah – why not?’
‘I’ll come to you.’
‘I fancy a trip to London.’
‘But… won’t you be needed at the farm?’
‘I’m not going to have our date on the farm,’ Hattie said with a laugh.
‘Still… Better if I come to you.’
‘There’s not a lot to do around here.’
‘Don’t worry – I’ll come up with something wild and romantic.’
‘Maybe just the romantic bit this time. I don’t think I’ve got the stomach for another beer festival.’
‘Duly noted,’ he said brightly. ‘No beer.’
‘I’m not saying no beer – just not quite as much as we downed that day.’
‘Right. Some beer but not too much – got it. Any other instructions?’
‘No. Other than that, feel free to surprise me.’
‘Oh,’ he said in a mischievous tone, ‘I’ll do that alright.’
‘Should I be worried now?’
He laughed. ‘Maybe a little.’
‘In that case I’m already excited. See you Saturday then.’
Hattie ended the call and resumed her task, but she hadn’t been going for longer than a couple of minutes before she heard the sound of an engine. She looked up at the open barn doors to see Seth’s four-by-four pulling into the courtyard. Standing her brush against the wall, she went out to meet him.
‘Jo called me,’ he said. ‘Something about Norbert.’
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘I thought you might be able to tell me. I just got a message on the answering service but she didn’t say what it was.’
Hattie frowned. ‘She hasn’t said a word to me.’ What she didn’t add was that Jo had barely said a word to her all morning after their disagreement. Not that she said many more when relations were good. ‘When did she phone?’
‘Must have been early – before surgery began – but I didn’t see my phone. Clients don’t usually leave messages on there; they mostly leave them with the receptionist, so I don’t always check. I came as soon as I could, though.’
Hattie tried to smother the anger and resentment that was building again. What was Jo’s problem? Why hadn’t she mentioned to Hattie that Norbert was ill – she knew Norbert was Hattie’s favourite. Instead, she’d seen a problem and, rather than involving Hattie, she’d set her on a load of shitty tasks that would keep her out of the way, so that she wouldn’t see any of the donkeys that day at all. Had Jo done that deliberately, with real malice? Hattie didn’t want to believe that but it looked like the only answer right now. When had she noticed that Norbert was ill? Why wouldn’t she at least mention that Seth was due to come and see him? Did that woman go out of her way to be mean-spirited and irritating or did it just come naturally?
Seth dug his hands in his pockets. ‘Is she up at the field?’
‘She’s not down here so I’m guessing so.’
He nodded and began to walk back to his car. But then he turned around again. ‘I saw your newspaper story, by the way.’
Hattie flushed. She didn’t really know why, but possibly the last person, apart from her parents, th
at she wanted to see that story was Seth. ‘You did?’
‘Yes,’ he said with a smile that she couldn’t work out. Everyone said the Mona Lisa had an enigmatic smile and Hattie had never really known what that meant until now. ‘It was very… illuminating. I had no idea you’d lived the high life in Paris.’
‘Well…’ Hattie began, but Seth’s smile spread. It was a safe bet that someone in Gillypuddle had set the record straight on her behalf. She didn’t know whether that made her feel less silly or more, though.
‘But it was a good plug for the sanctuary,’ he added.
‘That was the idea,’ Hattie replied. ‘Although I can’t say we’ve been inundated with visitors since.’
‘It hasn’t been any use at all?’
Hattie shrugged. ‘A couple of enquiries but they didn’t come. Some small donations on the sponsorship page – I suppose that’s more than we would have had.’
‘Do I detect a hint of disappointment?’
‘I’d just expected more of a reaction.’
‘You’ve had a reaction,’ Seth said with a grin.
‘I mean outside Gillypuddle,’ Hattie said, and she had to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. ‘It just all seems like a lot of effort for not very much return.’
‘It’s funny,’ Seth said, studying her now with a strange look, ‘I never had you down as a quitter.’
‘I’m not – it’s just…’
‘For what it’s worth I don’t think you’re appreciated as much as you ought to be.’
Did he mean Jo? Had he noticed how things were? Were they that obvious to people on the outside?
‘And if you ever want to get a load off your chest,’ he continued, ‘my door is always open. It can be hard to keep pushing for something you believe in when the person you’re trying to do it for keeps pushing it back at you. Believe me, I know.’
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