“They’d only just moved here a few months before,” Diana contributed. “She was friends with Juliet, Anna was. Kept her horse behind Tarn House.”
“Did she?” Was that why Alex had hired her, because Juliet had been friends with his wife? It was strange, thinking of Juliet with a friend, a friend she’d lost. It made her realize all over again how little she knew about any of them.
“I don’t know if you’d call themfriends,” Tara protested. She giggled into her glass again, a girlish gesture Lucy decided was annoying. “Does Juliet even have any friends?”
Liz made a shushing sound and Diana reached over to pluck Tara’s wineglass from her hands.
“Right, that’s you finished,” she said briskly, and Lucy forced a smile. It didn’t really surprise her that Juliet didn’t have any friends. She’d guessed as much already, but now she felt a twinge of sorrow anyway. Juliet had been living here for ten years.
The conversation moved on to summer holidays, and after a decent interval Lucy put her unfinished wine on the table and made to leave.
“Thanks, everyone,” she said, and half a dozen heads turned towards her, eyebrows raised, a few of the smiles a little guilty. “It’s been fun.”
She reached for her coat just as Liz reached for her hand, causing them to have an awkward little tussle. “Don’t take what Tara says to heart,” Liz said in a low voice. “She’s a bit of a radgee.”
Lucy stared at her blankly. “A . . . what?”
Liz smiled. “A radgee. Cumbrian for . . . I don’t know, a silly person.” She glanced at Tara, who was leaning forward, eyes bright as she gossiped with the Year One teacher. “Although maybe that’s a bit hard on the lass. She hasn’t had an easy time of it.”
“Tara hasn’t?”
“She got in with a wild crowd in secondary,” Liz explained, her voice low. “Ended up pregnant and alone at seventeen. Her mother wouldn’t have naught to do with her, or the baby, which was a terrible shame. So she got into council housing on her own, and saw herself through an NVQ Level One.”
“That’s impressive,” Lucy said, although she had no idea what an NVQ was. “What happened to the baby?”
Liz grinned unexpectedly. “She’s in Reception. Emma Handley.” She glanced back at Tara. “She doesn’t get out much, poor lass. She’s just trying to enjoy herself.”
Everyone had a story, it seemed, and not necessarily a happy one. “I don’t mind what she said,” Lucy told Liz. “Trust me, I know Juliet can be a little . . . prickly.” She immediately felt guilty for admitting that much, but Liz nodded in understanding.
“Juliet’s areet,” she said firmly, and it took Lucy a second to realize Liz meantall right, and that this seemed to be a compliment indeed. With a smile of thanks for Liz and anotherwave to the group at large, she headed out into the wet and windy night.
When she got back to Tarn House, she was feeling tired and also very slightly buzzed; Juliet had made a chicken pie and left it in the Aga’s warming oven. Several walkers were in the sitting room in their thermal socks with glasses of sherry; not wanting to get drawn into a lengthy conversation about walking gear, Lucy stayed in the kitchen.
Juliet appeared a few minutes later, pausing for a moment in the doorway. Lucy didn’t think she was imagining the tension that twanged between them, and she took a bite of pie to avoid it. There was a reason she’d run all the way to England after her life had blown up. Confrontation was so not her thing.
But considering what she’d learned in the pub, and what Juliet had told her about Fiona . . . Lucy swallowed and smiled.
“Hey, Jul—”
“Apparently one of the guests is allergic to cotton sheets,” Juliet cut her off, not quite seeming to be addressing her. “Could have told me, don’t you think?” She shook her head and went to fill the kettle. “Americans. Sometimes they can be so picky.” She put the kettle on the Aga and stood there, one hand on the railing, her expression shuttered but also weary. From this angle Lucy could see a few gray streaks in Juliet’s sandy hair.
“Would you mind walking the dogs tomorrow?” Juliet asked abruptly. “I’ve got an appointment up in Carlisle.” She didn’t look at her as she said it, and Lucy wondered if this was her sister’s idea of a peace offering.
“Sure,” she said, although Milly and Molly still made her nervous. Their trembling terror of just about anything put her on edge. She almost asked Juliet about her appointment, but her sister’s expression was so closed she decided not to. She thought about saying something else, something about the way theirdinner had ended last night, but she couldn’t quite make herself, and she didn’t know what she’d say anyway.
Why don’t you like me?seemed pathetic. AndWhy did you invite me, anyway?could possibly make her homeless. No, silence was better.
Chapter eight
Juliet
The idea had come to her suddenly, although Juliet knew it had been flirting with the fringes of her mind for a while now, maybe even years. But her confrontation with Lucy, her awkward conversation with Peter, the loneliness she now felt like a palpable thing, always pressing down on her . . . they had, together, made her determined, or perhaps just desperate, to act.
And so she was driving to Carlisle, her hands gripping the wheel so tightly her fingers ached, to have a preliminary appointment with the Cumbrian Fertility Clinic.
She let out a bark of disbelieving laughter, the sound like the crack of a gunshot in the confines of her car. She, Juliet Bagshaw, was thinking about going down the sperm donor route, just as her mother had.
Because if Fiona could do it, why couldn’t she? A ready-made family. A person who was new and unspoiled, with no preconceptions about life or parenthood or what a family was supposed to look like. A person who would need her, love her.
