‘And it is our business, if we’re chucking Gil and his family out of their own home,’ Harriet said coolly. ‘That’s not very you, Mum. You’ve always been all about home.’
Pippawasall about keeping the family together despite their differences and lives that ranged around the world. She’d always found solace in the loss of her mum by being the one left behind, trying somehow to cling to them all, let them know she loved them and was there for them.
‘You can’t just make Gil leave! He’s a tenant, he has rights. This is not his fault. Grandad should never have bought the house and cheated him out of his home!’
Pippa gaped at her, still trying to unravel the previous accusation, her mind stuck on Harriet’s antagonism and what was causing it.
‘I appreciate the thought, Harriet, but we can’t all live here together.’ Gil was impassive in the face of all this emotion and Pippa just wanted to crawl away. ‘And I have a place lined up. I don’t know what your mum’s plans are, but I expect I’d have to move out eventually anyway.’
‘She wants to get back to London as soon as possible.’ Harriet aimed another accusatory glare at Pippa. ‘Back to telling me what to do and how I should live my life.’
Harriet flounced from the kitchen and tried to slam the door, which refused to cooperate and bounced back again, rattling through the tension. Pippa was shocked, ashamed that Gil had witnessed another outburst and seen firsthand Harriet’s horrible new hatred towards her.
She straightened up, clutching her hands together to stop them trembling. ‘I’ll leave you to get your things,’ she told Gil, unable to look him in the eye and face yet more disdain and possibly even amusement at how that scene had played out.
‘Pippa, I…’ He hesitated. ‘Maybe we should…’
Refusing to be drawn by the uncertainty in those few low words or what he might have gone on to say, she left the kitchen, calmly closing the door behind her. The moment she was out of sight the tears began to fall and she ran up to her room and collapsed on the bed. She heard him come upstairs soon after, saying something to Lola she couldn’t quite make out. His bedroom door opened and then closed again. There was nothing she could do whilst he was still in the house, no one who needed or even wanted her right now. She crawled into bed and huddled up, waiting for him to go as she worried about Harriet and how she was going to handle their situation. Some adventure this was turning out to be.
Pippa woke later, groggy from the nap, something she’d never normally succumb to during the day. She sat up, her mind hazily replaying the row with Harriet and another uncomfortable encounter with Gil. The house was silent, and she really hoped he had gone and taken his belongings with him, even though Harriet would blame her for the loss of Lola too. A glance at her phone revealed it was almost four p.m. and she’d been asleep for two hours. She got off the bed and headed for the bathroom.
Fifteen minutes later she was back in her room and shivering from a cool shower. Hair dried, she stared into the triple mirror. Barely twenty-four hours since they’d left London and she already felt like a shadow of her own self; tired, even more worried about Harriet, and unsettled by the situation with the house and Gil. And curiosity about Ivy and a past connection to Hartfell seemed to have lodged in her mind as well.
But those were thoughts for another day. For now she needed to think about dinner. She left her room and tapped on Harriet’s door. ‘Hey. Can I come in?’
‘If you must.’ An exaggerated sigh had Pippa holding in her own as she stepped inside and perched on the edge of Harriet’s bed. Close but not too near; Harriet didn’t seem to want her within touching distance these days.
‘I was thinking of making pasta for dinner. I bought some lovely veg at the shop this morning. They even had aubergines, and you love them roasted.’
‘I’m not five, Mum. I don’t need to be reminded about what food I do and don’t like. And I’m not hungry.’
‘Oh?’ Pippa’s heart jolted and her reply was deliberately calm. ‘Usually I can never fill you up. You’re always hungry.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m not likely to be playing netball up here, am I? At least I’ve got summer camp with Isla, and I can get away.’
Pippa waited a beat, twirling a loose thread on the duvet cover. ‘From what?’ she asked lightly, half afraid of the reply.
Harriet raised an arm, flicking a dismissive hand. ‘This place. Homework. No Wi-Fi. And…’
Her voice fell away, and Pippa was braced, waiting for Harriet to add ‘you’ to that sentence. The word didn’t come, and her arm slid down as Pippa slowly expelled the air in her lungs.
‘Harriet, have you been crying?’
‘No!’ Harriet was staring at her phone and flung it away.
‘Are you sure?’ Pippa gulped. ‘Because checking you’re all right is what mums are for. And dads, obviously.’ Harriet’s was a good one, just a bit scatterbrained. The only things predictable about Nick were his love for his daughter and his tendency to take off.
‘Nothing to tell.’ Harriet let long hair fall over her face.
‘Okay. But if you change your mind…’ Pippa paused, letting a few seconds slide by. ‘So tomorrow, we do need to go shopping. And then afterwards, I was thinking about our adventure and what we might like to do. It’s a Sunday, but I’m sure we can find something.’
‘The adventure was a stupid idea, Mum, and I just want to go home.’
‘It won’t be long,’ Pippa assured her. ‘But until we do, I’ve asked Elaine, who’s the receptionist at the vets, if you can use their Wi-Fi in the office.’ Pippa was cheered by the sudden hope on Harriet’s face and readied herself to deliver the less good news. ‘They’re not open every day, just four mornings a week, but it’s better than nothing, isn’t it?’
‘S’pose.’
Pippa wished she had more idea of what it was Harriet did so much of online. Homework, daily video calls with Isla, messaging friends, but it was impossible to keep up. Thank heavens for good old-fashioned family messaging groups. Harriet still responded to those, and it was the easiest way to keep in touch with everyone, scattered as they were. Pippa thought longingly of her home in London and all she loved about the city. She wasn’t going to be distracted by a picture-perfect main street dotted with pretty cottages and rolling meadows outside the windows, or thoughts of a moody vet.Hotwas the other word spilling unbidden into her mind.
