‘All right, but don’t forget about the bathroom.’
For the next hour or so, Juliet made some preliminary notes and drawings of her ideas. It was possible that none of them would ever be used, especially once she started observing the chefs at work, but it was as blissfully distracting as ever to work. When she snapped the book shut, she immediately started searching online for local bathroom installers and, twenty minutes later, had two meetings set up. Still reeling from her newfound motivation, she creaked down the wooden staircase to say goodbye to her aunt. But when she reached the kitchen, it was not the comforting sight of Sylvia that met her, but the distinctly less welcome one of Léo. He was sitting on a stool at the island, a pile of heavy cookbooks next to him, making notes in an old exercise book. He looked up as she appeared.
‘Ah, hello, Juliet. Sylvia told me you would be down soon. So, you think you will move in?’
‘Yes, that’s right. I want to do everything I can to help save Feywood.’
She could hear the defensive tone of her voice. Why did she let this man rile her so?
‘Ah, very noble. I’m sure you will be sorry to give up your glittering life in London, though.’
‘Almost as much, perhaps, asyouwere to give upyourglittering life – andfemme mariée– in France?’
The look of shock on his face told her that the jibe had met its target.
‘What do you know of this?’
Nothing, really, but it wouldn’t hurt him to think the opposite.
‘Oh, I know…enough.’She’d better get on to translating some of those articles.‘No wonder you came to hide at Feywood.’
‘I am nothiding. The opportunity here with your aunt was too good not to grab. You, perhaps, feel it is more of a punishment to come back to this glorious place?’
How dare he think he had some monopoly on appreciating Feywood andherfamily. But she wasn’t willing to get into some tricky argument, when he did, admittedly, have a point that she hadn’t exactly been desperate to return and was undoubtedly hugely privileged to be able to call Feywood home, even if it was crumbling. Time to end this conversation, something she excelled at. She summoned up her iciest tones.
‘Don’t be soarrogantas to think you know me – or my family. Feywood has its secrets and its surprises. You’ve been here five minutes, but that takes a lifetime of living here to understand.’
With a final contemptuous scowl, she turned and left, wondering as she went if moving back home – and living so close to this conceited, judgemental has-been – was a monumental mistake.
SEVEN
With surprising speed, due to a combination of luck and Juliet’s sheer force of character – she was used to dealing with London newspaper editors, so a benevolent builder was no match for her – work started quickly on the space above the cookery school: installing the small bathroom, running the electrics up from downstairs and using one of the leftover stable partitions to create a bedroom, and was completed within a month. She had spent that time in London packing her belongings and organising a drinks party in a local bar to say goodbye. When that evening arrived, her emotions bounced around like a squash ball. She had packed most of her clothes but kept out a stunning vintage black corseted pencil dress with a square neckline, and some vertiginous heels that were firmly in the category of ‘car to bar’ shoes as you couldn’t walk much further than that in them. As she put it on, then did her make-up, she felt horrible butterflies in her stomach but couldn’t decide if they were due to nerves about leaving London or excitement about the new path that lay before her.
The leaving party itself was fun. A lot of her friends turned up – well, she had to admit that most of them were more in the category of acquaintances – and she found that severalgin cocktails were perfect for banishing the butterflies. By ten o’clock, she was dancing in the precarious heels on a table as her party guests cheered her on, wondering why she had ever wanted to leave the metropolis and her wonderful friends. By one thirty, she was hanging out of the window of a taxi, praying she got back to the flat without being sick, and rueing the day she ever set foot in London. It was safe to say that Juliet was confused.
The next morning her hangover was brutal, and all she could find to try and alleviate it was a couple of Ibuprofen (how she wished Frankie was there with her mobile pharmacy) and the eminently unsuitable breakfast she had left herself when she was sober and healthy – a yoghurt, banana and a handful of nuts. Everything else had been packed and sent on ahead, so she had a glass of water and nearly cried at its deficiency in caffeine. She couldn’t even shower to try to fix herself up a bit as she, very sensibly, hadn’t wanted to pack a wet towel, so she struggled into her clothes and a large pair of sunglasses, pulled the door shut on her little rented flat and dragged her suitcase – fairly light, thank goodness, as it only contained last night’s outfit and some toiletries and make-up – to Paddington Station. She just had time to grab a vegetable pasty and huge hot coffee before scuttling to the correct platform and climbing onto her train. She managed to get one of her favourite seats, a single one, and huddled down in it, scrolling through her phone as she chomped her ambrosial pasty and flooded her veins with caffeine.
The journey wasn’t long, and she alighted feeling marginally more human but not – she noted, catching sight of her reflection in a window – looking it. Never mind, the taxi would get her home – home! – in twenty minutes and then she could disappear into that lovely little space in the stables until she regenerated into the sleek, impenetrable Juliet she preferred to be. She looked around for the taxi sign.
‘Juliet?’
Oh no, had someone seen her? She really didn’t want to make small talk with one of the locals. She cast around frantically for a taxi to leap into.
‘Juliet?’
Wait a minute, didn’t she recognise those accented tones? Juliet turned around reluctantly. Yup, there he was. For the second time, he was seeing her at her very worst and, she was sure, looking pleased about it.
‘Oh. Hello. I’m just getting a taxi up to the house. I’m sure I’ll see you up there later.’
‘No need. Here, let me take your suitcase.’
‘Oh…thank you, but I really can manage myself. And I’m perfectly happy in a taxi.’
‘But I have the car here now. Sylvia told me which train you were on, and I came especially to give you a lift.’
Léo looked thoroughly confused, and Juliet realised that she couldn’t really turn him down, much as she wanted to.
‘All right, come on then. Thanks.’
