She gave Lucy an utterly scathing look. So much for solidarity over netball. “I used to go to school here?” she said in the “well, duh” tone that seemed to be a universal language for teenagers.
“Right.”
Bella stalked out of the room, her arms wrapped around her body but her chin held high, and Lucy sank back into her chair. Children were hard work, she thought, then amended that to other people’s children were hard work.
How much emotional energy, not to mention money and time, had she expended on Will and Garrett? Three years of her life poured into those boys. Reading them bedtime stories. Showing up at their soccer matches. Giving them presents, and not just gift cards or the latest electronic toy, but thoughtful items that had taken effort and time.
For Will’s twelfth birthday she’d made him a bird feeder in the shape of the Tardis, which might have been a bit on the bizarre side, but birds andDoctor Whowere Will’s two favorite things. A week later she’d seen it stuffed into the recycling bin. She hadn’t known whether to burst into tears or clock him over the head with the thing. She’d done neither, just smiled and pretended she hadn’t seen it. Of course.
Lucy turned back to the computer. Time to log in the amount of lunch money paid this week. Time to stop thinking about Bella or Alex or any Kincaid.
Five minutes later Bella slouched back into the room. Her face had been scrubbed clean, which made her look about six. She stood in the center of the reception area for a moment, her expression uncertain, and the pale sunlight streaming through the windows touched her in gold—and shone right through her thin cotton uniform blouse.
The girl wasn’t wearing a bra. And preteen or not, she needed one.
Lucy didn’t think she’d been staring, but Bella must have sensed her gaze, for she abruptly pulled her blazer closed and threw herself into the chair, angling her body away from Lucy so she was all sharp elbows and knees.
“I left my jumper at school,” she muttered, and Lucy sat back in her own chair, her mind spinning. No bra. No mother to buy her one. Skipping PE, most likely because she had to change for it. It came together in her head with an almighty clang.
Bella Kincaid needed a bra.
Chapter twelve
Juliet
There was a sheep in the back garden. Juliet braced her elbows on the sink and leaned closer to the kitchen window; in the settling dusk she could just make out the dirty white shape. The stupid beast was eating her autumn roses.
She turned from the window and reached for her fleece. The Scottish lads had gone out to the pub, and after a tense, silent meal of pasta bake, Lucy had gone upstairs. Juliet still felt a cringing mix of guilt and shame at the argument they’d had. And when Lucy had mentioned paying rent, she’d felt both satisfied and hurt. She was a mess of contradictory emotions, she acknowledged, and she was too weary in too many ways to attempt some sort of semireconciliation. This tiptoeing around each other, grim and silent as it was, was easier.
She stepped outside into the chill night air; as soon as the sun went down, the temperature had dropped rapidly, promising a frost that night. She walked around to the back garden where the sheep stood, rose petals protruding from its mouth as it chewed contentedly.
“Stupid animal,” she said. It had to be one of Peter Lanford’s, and after the awkward conversation they’d had in the lane, she didn’t relish seeing him again. She took a step towards the sheep, who eyed her with beady suspicion before shuffling backwards. Juliet kept walking towards it, slapping her thigh, and the sheep, used to being herded by Jake, began to beat a retreat, back down the dirt track towards Peter’s house. She walked behind it, slapping her thigh anytime it stopped, and finally reached the field where the rest of its flock were huddled against a drystone wall.
Juliet opened the five-bar gate and the sheep hurried in; as she was closing it, she saw that the fence on one side had fallen down into a tumble of rocks. She’d have to tell Peter.
Sighing, she turned away from the gate and headed up the track to the Lanford farmhouse. Night had fallen by the time she reached the low, rambling house of whitewashed stone, a drystone wall surrounding its garden; Peter’s mud-splattered Land Rover was parked in front.
The place looked small against the dramatic backdrop of the stark fells, the rolling sheep pasture stretching onwards all around it. She could see the sea in the distance, no more than a sweep of black in the darkness, and behind her the lights of the village twinkled comfortingly. She hadn’t realized how remote the Lanford farm was; even though it was only a mile from the village, it felt cut off from everything, nestled between the fells and the sea.
A light gleamed in what Juliet supposed was the sitting room, but the rest of the house was dark. She knocked once on the door, and then again, but no one answered. There was no doorbell, and thinking that Peter might not have heard her knock, Juliet pushed the door open and stuck her head inside, taking in the gloom of a very dirty kitchen.
Cups and plates littered most surfaces, and stacks of newspapers and unopened post covered the kitchen table. Curious now, as she’d never been inside before, Juliet stepped into the kitchen and saw the huge, ancient Aga, frying pans with congealed grease on the bottoms left on top. A smell of old cooking hung in the air; she could see a pile of muddy clothes left by the washer.
Peter Lanford’s house was a mess.
She heard sounds from the sitting room and guiltily Juliet realized she was snooping. “Peter?” she called out, heard the note of uncertainty in her voice. What if he was entertaining? She had no idea if Peter had a girlfriend, although she suspected he didn’t. Surely in a village the size of Hartley-by-the-Sea she’d have heard something, and anyway, Peter had told her he was alone. As alone as she was. “Peter?” she called again, and picked her way through the mess to the doorway that led to the sitting room.
She stopped on the threshold, arrested by the scene in front of her. Peter’s father, William, was in an armchair, his head tilted back, his face lathered up, while Peter gave him a shave. A bowl of warm water was by his feet, and Juliet watched, strangely transfixed, as Peter gently ran the old-fashioned straight razor along William’s cheeks, dabbing his face with a towel to catch the drips.
“There you are, Dad,” he said, his voice as gentle as his movements. “Nice and still. We’ll have you looking right smart, won’t we?”
William looked far older and frailer than Juliet had expected; she’d only glimpsed him from a distance, walking through the sheep fields with Jake at his heels. Now she saw his hair was sparse and white, his chest sunken in under the old flannel shirt he wore, and the hands that gripped the arms of the chair were reddened and knobby with arthritis.
Instinctively Juliet took a step backwards, into the kitchen. Watching seemed like an intrusion. She stood there amidst the mess of the darkened room, wondering if she should slip out the door even as she itched to tidy the place up a bit. More contradictory impulses.
In any case, she didn’t have time to do either, because before she could move, she heard the clink of the bowl as Peter picked it up and then, murmuring something to his father, he came into the kitchen. He froze as he saw her standing there in the dark, and Juliet froze too; it suddenly seemed almost offensive that she was standing uninvited in the middle of Peter Lanford’s kitchen.
“Juliet . . . ?”
