‘She’s not an easy woman to negotiate with at the best of times and I just didn’t have the energy…’
He came over and took the basket from her hand.
‘Would you let me pour you a glass of wine and sit you in the studio with whatever it is you have in here while I nip to Newport? As soon as I get back you can either walk home, or I’ll take you in the car.’ He placed his palms together. ‘You’d be doing me a huge favour.’
She nodded and with the lightest of touches he brushed her shoulder in thanks.
‘You’ll have to come around the back. The café’s locked now so I get into the studio from the garden.’
She followed him through the gate at the side, across the patio that led from the kitchen, and through open double doors into the studio.
‘Make yourself at home,’ he said, turning on his heel and heading back towards the house.
Immediately Jules felt a sense of calm. The evening light spun patterns of gold on the whitewashed walls, and the whole place was bathed in stillness. She perched on one of the wooden stools at the workbench and took Tasha’s jug from the basket.
‘Rosé okay?’ he said, reappearing with a glass in hand. ‘I’ve got something else if you’d prefer it. Homemade elderflower cordial?’
‘No, this is lovely. Thank you.’
‘And I’d just made some bruschetta for the girls, topped with a broad bean dip.’
He placed an irregularly shaped plate in front of her with toasted bread topped with a coarse pate decorated with fronds of chervil.
‘I thought you might like some to keep you going.’
‘Thank you. That’s so kind.’ She blinked. ‘I’m sorry. I get emotional when anyone is nice to me.’
‘I shan’t be too nice then,’ he said seriously. He looked at the jug. ‘And this definitely is not nice!’
‘I thought it was beyond repair and then my mother mentioned Kintsugi, but perhaps it’s too far gone.’
He leaned over and spread the pieces out in front of her. He smelled good, like freshly cut grass. She tried not to shrink away. She must not get into the habit of locking herself in when anyone got too close.
‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘I have something here which you can use to glue the pieces back together and then when that has dried you can gild it. I’ll find what you need and tell the girls you’re here. Then I’ll get off.’
Jules was pleased with the way she’d been able to piece the jug back together and already she could see how the gilding would create something unconventionally beautiful. She placed it safely on a shelf to allow it to dry and wandered out into the garden. Bees and butterflies were still busy in the borders, and she followed Morwenna towards the little pond where the cat settled on a large flat stone at the edge and studied the darting fish. Jules perched next to her and kicked off her flip-flops.
‘Hi, Jules.’
Erin leaned out of a bedroom window and waved.
She waved back.
‘Are you both okay up there?’
‘Fine. Are you staying for supper? Dad’s going to pick up some crab from his customer.’
‘I don’t think so,’ she called, ‘but thank you for asking.’
‘Another time then,’ Erin said, seemingly unfazed. ‘You could feed the fish, though, if you don’t mind. There’s a container in the shed.’
‘What about Morwenna?’
‘You don’t need to worry about her. She just likes to watch them. She couldn’t catch a cold.’
Jules wandered down to the shed at the bottom of the garden and found the fish food. She was crouching by the pond sprinkling granules on to the water when Christabel appeared through the side gate. She was immaculately dressed in a pale pink shirt dress and large, dangly gold earrings which sparkled in the early evening light. She stood stock still as if gathering herself.
‘Don’t you look as if you’ve made yourself at home,’ she said.
