Rick took a step backwards and almost fell over a heap of empty pizza boxes. ‘You were an actress?’ he said, after he’d regained his balance. ‘I might have guessed… I mean if you’ve been on the stage, what are you doing back here in this backwater? Should I have heard of you?’
It was an effort, but Vee forced a laugh. Maybe she shouldn’t have bitten his head off like that. ‘I was anactor.And you’re not likely to have seen my name in lights. I was touring in rep for some years. Small-town theatres and provincial halls, but since then I’ve had to find other ways to make a living.’
‘And voiceovers? How can you do that from home?’
‘Well, a few of the narrators I know managed to transform a room in their houses or a summerhouse into a small recording studio in the pandemic, when they couldn’t go into work because of lockdown. I might do that… if I knew how to do the soundproofing and set it all up.’
The concept of tackling this kind of task was daunting. Vee sighed. There was always YouTube. This scheme would have to be put on hold until the house was in a much better state though.
‘And I want to rebuild the chicken house at the bottom of the garden and get some hens,’ she added. Might as well get all the prospective jobs out there. At least this way Rick would see that she had plans and wasn’t just some airhead who thought country living would be as easy as a picnic in the park.
Rick made another couple of notes in his book. He frowned. ‘You don’t want much, do you?’ he said. ‘I’m not sure you’ve really thought all this through. It’s three builders you need, not one.’
‘Look, let’s make a deal,’ Vee said. ‘You do most of the donkey work and the skilled stuff and I’ll muck in wherever I can. Where do we start?’
The sticky moment passed, and Vee breathed a sigh of relief. She mustn’t antagonise the only person who was likely to help her. Rick looked around with an air of anticipation. It was as if he was looking forward to this, Vee thought incredulously. She half expected him to rub his hands together. It was a good job one of them was enthusiastic. The filth, the stench and the sense of desolation were making her feel nauseous again.
‘We’ll begin tomorrow by making as many trips to the tip as we need. Have you got something to wear that you don’t mind getting dirty? If not, there’s a spare boiler suit I can lend you. It’s clean,’ Rick added, when Vee didn’t answer immediately.
‘Oh, I’m sure it is, I was just doing a mental trawl of the clothes I brought with me and realising nothing would be much good,’ she said hastily. ‘Yes, that’d be useful. I did such a big clear-out when I moved here that I haven’t much left.’
By the look on his face, Vee thought Rick was about to start asking her more about her previous life and there was no way she was getting into that discussion. ‘If we’ve finished here, shall we take my case and my bags back to yours?’ she said. ‘I’ve used up enough of your time already.’
He nodded and began to head for the door with Vee’s rucksack over one shoulder and her travel bag in the other hand. ‘You bring the wheelie case and lock up,’ he said. ‘I’ll be glad to get home, I’m starving. I’m planning on getting a pizza delivered later, you can join me if you like. I mean, I’m not saying we should always eat together, it’s just that as it’s your first night and everything…’
His voice tailed away as Vee considered the suggestion. She didn’t want to get into the sort of arrangement where she’d be obliged to schedule her meals around Rick, but she would need to eat at some point and a takeaway pizza would be quick and easy, especially as it seemed that he’d at least mastered his earlier grumpiness… if only for now. ‘Thanks, that’s kind of you,’ she said, following him with her case and locking the door behind them with relief.
Once her belongings had been delivered to Rick’s house and she’d unpacked, Venetia had an overwhelming urge to get out into the fresh air for a while on her own. Rick was absorbed in making a plan of the work he was going to do on the cottage and there didn’t seem to be anything useful she could contribute at this point, so she swapped the sassy boots for trainers, excused herself and set off towards the centre of the village.
As she walked, Vee had the strangest sensation of travelling back in time, and it wasn’t a happy experience. After ten minutes of wandering through the rest of the estate where Rick lived, passing rows of similar Victorian semis in varying states of repair, she came to the village church. It was surrounded by an attractively rambling graveyard and fighting her first impulse to run in the opposite direction, Vee turned to go in, making her way under the arch of the ancient lychgate and along the cobbled path towards the church entrance. The past came to meet her as she walked, and she steeled herself against the rush of memories. All these places had to be faced at some time and now was as good a time as any.
The peace of her surroundings enfolded Vee as she moved further into the churchyard and it gradually edged most of the unsettling thoughts out of her mind. She breathed deeply, appreciating the scent of newly mown grass. Not nearly so unkempt as the garden at Dragonfly Cottage, even so the graveyard also seemed to be a work in progress. An elderly man with cropped grey hair and a neatly trimmed moustache was finishing off the task of tidying the areas between the graves by chopping away at tufts of grass with a pair of shears. As she passed him, he stopped to greet her.
‘Mornin’, ducky,’ he said. ‘Welcome to St Stephen’s Church. Are you a visitor to Willowbrook?’
‘Not exactly,’ Vee said. ‘Well, no, not at all really. I’m living here now. I grew up in the village and I’m back. Dragonfly Cottage in Fiddler’s Row was my old home… and it’s my new one, for that matter.’
‘Really?’ said Sid. ‘I must know you, in that case. Oh, hang on a minute… you’re not… you can’t be… surely?’
He paused, slid his spectacles to the end of his nose, and viewed Venetia over the top of them with keen interest. She waited, tension making her stomach churn.
‘The eldest Prescott lass! You are, aren’t you? I’d know those eyes anywhere. You have such a look of your grandma. She was a big friend of me and my missus, in fact I’ve only just been sprucing up her resting place.’ He jerked his head towards a corner of the churchyard that was in the shade of a large yew tree. Its gracious branches spread over several headstones, neatly cared for but mostly bare. However, in front of the central one sat a stone jar containing a bunch of orange and crimson flowers.
‘Itisyou, isn’t it? Young Venetia? You probably don’t remember me, I’m Sid Potter. We lived at the other end of Fiddler’s Row when you were growing up. We did miss your gran when she passed away. She made the best cakes in the whole of the village, and she was kindness itself to my Jenny when our two were little. I still miss her, although a lot of water’s flowed under the bridge since then. She was a good ’un, was Isabella.’ He paused, then pulled out a large cotton handkerchief and blew his nose noisily.
Lost for words, Venetia gazed at Sid. When she’d been planning to return to Willowbrook, her mind had shied away from the past and she’d tried to focus on the problem in hand, which was coming to terms with the idea of living in her childhood home again. Now there was Beryl with her tight-lipped comments and this old gentleman with the benevolent expression, both taking Vee back to a time before the move when her turbulent teenage years had made family life very difficult. She tried to pull herself together, because Sid was still waiting for a response.
‘You’re right, I’m Venetia. Most people call me Vee these days though. I can’t believe you recognised me after all this time. It’s been over forty years.’
‘Oh, there’s no mistaking one of Isabella’s brood. All with the same sparkling brown eyes. My wife used to say Bella’s eyes had the colour and sheen of a newly picked horse chestnut.’
Vee wasn’t too sure if she liked having her eyes compared to conkers, but she supposed it was meant as a compliment. She smiled. ‘I’m guessing it was you that put the flowers on my gran’s grave? That was so sweet of you.’
‘Yes, dahlias out of my little garden. She always loved ’em. I live in the sheltered accommodation over the road from the church, now my Jenny’s gone the way of your gran, but they let me have a patch of border to tend. It’s enough. Shall we?’ He indicated to the path that wound its way towards the yew tree.
Vee nodded. She wondered if instinct had made her take this detour against her better judgement as she’d headed for the village. It was a place she’d always intended to visit to lay flowers of her own, but over the years, the thought of coming back to visit Willowbrook had gradually slid further and further away from her mind. Now, as they approached the quiet corner of the churchyard, memories of the warm-hearted grandmother who, along with her aunt, had looked after her as a child while her mother and father were at work almost overwhelmed her. When they reached the plot, she bowed her head and let the tears come.
Sid stood silently beside her. After a few moments, when Vee’s shoulders had stopped shaking, he dug in his pocket for a second freshly laundered handkerchief and passed it over. She took it gratefully and dried her eyes. The fabric smelt of the same old-fashioned washing powder favoured by her mother. She blinked hard and looked more carefully at her surroundings. The area around the grave was tidy and clean and unlike some of its neighbours, the stone was moss-free. It had clearly been recently scrubbed.
