I expected she was right (though of course Ivo
wasn’t
getting interested in me in that way, we were just becoming friends and good neighbours).
But, unsettlingly, I
had
felt a pang of something akin to jealousy when he’d taken Marcia into the cottage, where I had only ventured once or twice, and then only as far as the kitchen …
You’d think I’d had enough recriminations with the visit of Mummy Dearest, but no – my very own mother (if she merited that title) called me from California specially to tell me to stop being silly and take Justin back, then persuade him to stop suing Rae for the money.
‘Rae’s told me everything and it’s a bit of a mess, but we all make mistakes, don’t we?’ she said.
‘Most of us manage to avoid the mistake of sleeping with our stepsister’s fiancé,’ I pointed out coldly.
‘Oh, get over it, Tansy! Just take Justin back and persuade him to drop the lawsuit threats and keep it all to himself. Lars would be furious if he found out.’
‘Look, you’re talking as if it’s
me
who did something wrong and not Rae! She seduced my fiancé and then told him she was pregnant by him – how easy is that going to be to forgive?’
‘He’s a man – they have weak moments – and Rae genuinely thought the baby was his.’ I could almost see her shrugging her bony shoulders.
‘Justin’s mother wouldn’t agree. She just came all the way up here to persuade me not to marry him. Not that she had to, because it’s all finished, as far as I’m concerned; he just won’t accept that.’
‘He really needs to get away from her, she’s such a domineering smother-mother!’
‘Well, he isn’t getting away with me.’
‘You are
so
hard-hearted, Tansy!’
I
was hard hearted? ‘I can’t imagine why Justin is so set on having me back anyway, when he seemed determined to change everything about me.’
‘Neither can I,’ she said frankly. ‘Look, I’ll have to go. You think about what I’ve said before it’s too late and you end up a sad old spinster like Nancy.’
‘Aunt Nan was
not
a sad old spinster!’ I began indignantly, but she ignored me.
‘Sorry I couldn’t get over for her funeral, only I’d just had a little nip and tuck round the derrière, as I explained, and sitting on a plane would have been quite impossible – I knew you’d understand.’
You know, I think I’d much rather have had Bella’s mother than mine, because, for all her strange little ways, deep down she did love Bella and Tia and at least she was there for her when she needed her!
Hebe had called another Chamber of Commerce meeting that evening, but I skipped it because I had a headache, which was hardly surprising. But she got Laurence to send me the minutes next day and it appears that the consortium who own the Hemlock Mill site have now put in an amended proposal, keeping part of the surroundings as a nature reserve and promising to rehouse any rare fish, flesh, fowl or flora that needed it.
However, a representative from Force for Nature had gone to the meeting and pointed out that most of the site would be under a huge car park, leaving very little indeed, so the new proposal didn’t seem likely to curry much favour.
But also on the table was an offer from a wealthy and anonymous benefactor to buy the site and preserve the whole of it as a nature reserve, if the consortium would sell it. But, of course,
they
would have much preferred to make huge profits from a retail park.
Still, if we managed to overturn the plan for the retail park, I imagined they would settle for what they could get.
‘What is this, national Besieged by Harpies Week?’ I demanded incredulously. ‘I can’t believe you’ve had the nerve to call me, Rae!’ I wished I hadn’t picked up the phone in an incautious moment. ‘It was bad enough that you went running to my mother and she took your part – as usual.’
But Rae wasn’t listening, being incandescent with rage because Mummy Dearest had mulled over what I’d said to her and then told Justin she’d been giving Rae money.
‘So now he’s even more hellbent on the idea of getting his money back
and
hers too – either from me or from Daddy. I don’t want Daddy to know, and I haven’t got the money to pay Justin back.’
‘You’ve brought all this on yourself, but I did ask Justin not to tell Lars,’ I said. ‘He’s just not listening to anything I say.’
‘He’d listen to you if you asked him the
right
way – and promised to have him back again,’ she said. ‘Look, we only had a little fling, so aren’t you cutting off your nose to spite your face? He didn’t love me, he loved you all the time, isn’t that enough?’
‘No, not really.’
‘You are
so
hard! But he’s convinced you’ll take him back.’
‘He’s wrong,’ I said wearily.
‘His mother says he’s coming up to see you again because he’s got an interview in a Manchester hospital, so you must have given him some encouragement.’
‘None at all – the opposite, in fact.
‘I don’t believe you,’ she said flatly. ‘I think you’re just making him suffer for a while, but now you have to stop it, take him back, get him out of his ghastly mother’s orbit, and persuade him not to prosecute me for the money or tell Lars. This should all be kept in the family.’
‘I don’t have any family any more,’ I snapped and put the phone down, trembling slightly. Flash shoved his wet nose into my hand in his usual gesture of sympathy, but I felt angry rather than upset at that moment.
I sent Justin a terse text telling him I didn’t want to see him, so if he was planning to call in, to forget it.
He didn’t reply. I wasn’t sure if that was good or not.
Immy’s first husband didn’t care for children so we didn’t see a lot of her while she was married to him, but her second was a different kettle of fish. Lars, he was called, a Norwegian name I think it is, though he was American. Well, he still is American, but Imogen’s married to someone else now and lives in California, where the raisins come from.
When I was a little girl we had Snapdragon at Christmas, a dish of raisins soaked in spirit and set on fire. You had to snatch one without burning your fingers …
No, lovey, I don’t suppose Health and Safety would be very keen on people doing things like that these days, but we all thought it great fun and no one set themselves alight that I ever heard of.
Middlemoss Living Archive
Recordings: Nancy Bright.
On the first day of May I set the alarm clock before dawn so I could go and watch the Maypole-dancing on the green, just as I’d done so often with Aunt Nan.
But I didn’t go alone, for I’d told Ivo about it and he walked beside me down the dark High Street, and we stood and watched the dancers together as the sun rose.
‘Did you do this kind of thing with your wife?’ I asked without thinking.
‘No … Kate’s interests were very different from mine,’ he said, glancing down at me, his face inscrutable as always at the mention of his wife’s name.
‘Justin’s, too. He’d have thought me mad even to suggest he got up early to watch Maypole-dancing!’ I said. ‘We were complete opposites in practically everything.’
‘They say opposites attract, but I think what first drew me to Kate was that she was small and dark and reminded me of you,’ he said unexpectedly.
‘Really?’ I thought that perhaps he hadn’t quite forgotten me after all! Of course, going by her photos online, Kate had been very beautiful, which I am not …
‘Not that she was anything like you in character, though, when I got to know her,’ he added, and then we were silent for a while, watching the rising sun slanting across the grass where some very vigorous Morris dancing was now going on. ‘“More matter for a May morning”,’ as Ivo put it, before we turned home again, him to work on his book and me to help in the shop.
‘I’ve nearly finished the first draft, so I’m going to crack on and do that today,’ he said.
‘I wish I could work on mine, but Saturdays are way too busy,’ I said. ‘I enjoy being in the shop though, especially selling wedding shoes. I want
every
bride
to feel like a princess on their wedding day!’
‘You do seem to be especially busy on Saturdays, going by the endless repetitions of “Here Comes the Bride” and so does Raffy, conducting marriages up at All Angels,’ he said grumpily, though he didn’t complain quite as much about the noise by then, and secretly I suspected he even rather liked Cedric and his strangulated crowing.
‘Does Raffy give a discount on Saturdays, or something?’ Ivo asked.
‘No, he’s just very popular. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be married by Raffy Sinclair, former front man of heavy rock band Mortal Ruin?’
‘Good point,’ he conceded. ‘Do you fancy taking Flash out to the Hemlock Mill site for a walk tomorrow afternoon? It’s a nice spot and it would make a change.’
‘I’d love to, but I’m half expecting Justin to turn up. Apparently he’s got an interview at a hospital in Manchester. He’s an orthopaedic consultant, did I say?’
‘No …’ Ivo paused. ‘So … he’ll be staying over with you?’
‘Over my dead body! Aunt Nan wouldn’t let him stay in the house until we were married and she’d be horrified by the very thought!’
‘Right,’ he said. ‘I’ll keep out of the way and leave you to it, then.’
‘I don’t want him to come, and I’ve done my best to dissuade him, so I’m hoping perhaps he’s finally got the message.’
Ivo looked unconvinced, so I hoped he didn’t suspect me of still harbouring any feelings for Justin.
I’d so much rather have spent Sunday as I usually did, tidying the shop up, working on my book or in the garden, walking Flash with Ivo and then coming home to a high tea. Later, we’d share a companionable glass of Meddyg and chat …
‘Even if Justin does arrive, I’ll get rid of him,’ I told Ivo with great determination, though that might be easier said than done.
Inevitably, like a bad penny, Justin appeared on my back doorstep late next morning looking like any fairy-tale maiden’s dream: tall, blue-eyed, tawny-haired and clutching the biggest bouquet of red roses you’d ever have seen in your life. A whole tree, practically.
‘Tansy darling! I knew the moment Mummy told me you wouldn’t promise never to see me again that you’d forgiven me!’ he cried, unexpectedly throwing his arms around me, which sent me staggering back.
‘I didn’t!’ I cried, trying to fight my way out and feeling suffocated, cross and flustered – even more so when I spotted Ivo standing on the other side of the wall, with Toby in his arms.
He turned on his heel and headed off before I’d even managed to uncling Justin’s hands and avoid the kiss he was trying to press on me, but I expect he’d heard what Justin had said. The whole village probably had.
‘Get off me!’ I snapped just as Flash, slightly late to the rescue but willing, began to skirmish round Justin’s legs, trying to nip him. It finally dawned on Justin that I was not entirely compliant and he released me, though Ivo had vanished by then, thinking goodness knew what.
‘Justin, read my lips: we are
not
getting back together
ever
,’ I stated, pushing him further off. ‘Flash – quiet! Down – good dog!’
‘But you told Mummy –’ he bleated, following me into the cottage uninvited, though with one wary eye on Flash.
‘I told your mother that you were the one trying to stay in contact with me, not the other way round, so it would be hard to promise never to speak to you again, if only to tell you to go away! And I also told her that it was definitely all over between us so there was absolutely no point in your handing in your notice and moving north. In any case, you’d hate it.’
‘Too late,’ he said, like a big, sulky schoolboy. ‘The interview tomorrow is just a formality.’
‘Un-hand your notice, then!’
‘No. Look, Tansy, I can see that Mother’s visit upset you –’
‘Yes, not to mention Rae having the cheek to ring
my
mother and get her to tell me to take you back,’ I said. ‘And when that didn’t work, Rae rang me herself!’
‘
Rae?
What did she say?’
‘She wanted me to persuade you not to sue her for your money back – or to tell Lars, which would be the same thing, because she’s obviously blown the cash. And I’d really hate Lars to find out about this whole sordid affair, so can’t you just write it off as a penance you have to pay for lust and stupidity?’
Justin’s chin jutted out in the ominously stubborn way I recognised. ‘I’m getting my money back – but it’s for
us
, darling! We can buy a lovely house near Manchester somewhere – Wilmslow and Knutsford are very nice, I hear – and settle down. It’s not far away, so you can still run your little shoe shop if you want to …’
‘Gee, thanks,’ I said. ‘But no thanks. My little shoe shop is building business amazingly well and I’m going to do Aunt Nan proud.’
He tried the soft soap-touch. ‘And so you can, but that friend of yours could run it, couldn’t she? You’ll need someone to manage it, because I’m sure with the best medical advice we can start a family, and I really
want
that, Tansy.’
‘It’s a bit late to decide that – probably too late altogether for me, good advice or not. And even if it wasn’t, I still wouldn’t marry you. I
mean
it,’ I added. ‘It’s O.V.E.R. – over. Got it?’
Justin went into a deep and profound sulk, which would probably have got him his way with Mummy when he was a little boy, but never did anything to soften my heart. He wouldn’t leave, though, until I agreed to go to the Green Man with him for lunch.
He was still being sulky and misunderstood afterwards, when we were walking back to the cottage, but also dropping hints about my home baking in the hope, presumably, that I’d let him back into the cottage and offer him tea later. Instead, I told him to stay by his car while I fetched him a slab of ginger parkin wrapped in greaseproof paper, a small price to pay to get rid of him.