‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘it just popped into my head.’ Her husband was right though; rarely did things pop into her head. She was not a spontaneous woman. Not anymore. Spontaneity, in her experience came with a cost; it led to regret and she’d had quite enough of that. Enough to last two lifetimes over.
God forgive her, but the reason behind her suggestion that Alastair had returned home early because he might be ill – terminally ill – was that if he died it might actually mean that at long last they –she– would be free.
It was not the first time such a thought had occurred to her, and as before, the extent of her malice pained her. There was, of course, a much more likely scenario for Alastair’s returning home earlier than planned. ‘Maybe he’s met a woman and wants to tell us all about her?’ she said.
Simon looked scandalised. ‘A woman? He wouldn’t! Not … not so soon.’
‘There’s no such thing as too soon for a man,’ she said, matter of factly.
Out in the garden, and as she hung the washing on the clothesline in the bright sunshine, Sorrel hated herself for as good as wishing a man dead, but also for intentionally alarming Simon, for wanting to burst the balloon of his happiness that Alastair was home. It had been unnecessarily vindictive of her.
Jealousy was a cruel and indiscriminate master and countless times over the years she had sworn she would not allow it to get the better of her, but she was defenceless against such a powerful emotion. In that, she was like a puppet with a superior force than her own pulling on her strings.
Those strings were being pulled now as she observed Simon circling a flowerbed as he chatted on his mobile to Rachel, telling her about Alastair being back and his desire to have them all to stay for the weekend. It was one of Simon’s many habits, pacing while speaking on the telephone. He claimed it aided his thought process.
‘You are free, aren’t you?’ Sorrel heard him ask, a note of pleading in his voice. ‘You are? That’s great! Uncle Alastair will be so chuffed. I know it’s a busy time for your brother, but fingers crossed Callum will be able to join us.’
For weeks now Sorrel had been trying to persuade their daughter to come home for a weekend, but without any luck. If she were to be believed, Rachel led an action-packed life with something always going on that took priority over seeing her parents. Was it too much to ask for her to spare the time to visit them in Suffolk? To make it easier, Sorrel had often suggested she and Simon go to London to take Rachel out for lunch, her boyfriend too, and whom they had yet to meet, but invariably the idea would come to nothing; always at the last minute something would come up.
Yet lo and behold, here was Rachel telling her father that she was free this coming weekend. Well, of course she was, this was no ordinary invitation from a boring old parent; this was Alastair and such was his popularity, everybody always did what he asked.
There she went again, thought Sorrel peevishly, pinching the waistband of a pair of Simon’s boxer shorts to the line with a peg. Could she not think of anything positive to say about Alastair? He’d been a good friend to them over the years; generous to a fault, especially with the many holidays and long weekends they’d spent at Linston End. No summer would have been complete without their annual pilgrimage to the Broads. As children, Rachel and Callum couldn’t wait for the end of term to come so they could pack their things into the car and escape to Linston.
One year, desperate for change – desperate in so many ways – Sorrel had rebelled and insisted they ring the changes and hire a gîte in Brittany. It had been a disaster. They’d arrived to find a house that was cold, damp and about as inviting as Bates Motel. The weather conspired to do its worst by raining almost every day, making the longed-for days on the nearby beach an impossibility. Simon had wanted to pack up and drive home to join the rest of the gang at Linston End, but then they all went down with food poisoning after eating at the one and only restaurant in the village where they were staying. Just as soon as they were well enough to travel, they piled their belongings into the car and headed for the ferry at St Malo. Rachel and Callum moaned the entire way home that they’d had the worst holiday ever and never wanted to go anywhere else but Linston End, to stay with Uncle Alastair and Auntie Orla.
Nobody actually blamed Sorrel for the disastrous holiday, not in so many words, but it became the family horror story that was given a regular airing at the slightest provocation. Usually by the children who adored Alastair and Orla, which often happens with couples who have no children of their own, especially if they can offer maximum fun and adventure. If they can do that, they take on an almost mystical persona that no parent can ever hope to emulate.
‘I expect you’re pleased Alastair’s home,’ Simon had said in the kitchen, when she’d been wiping down the table, rounding up the toast crumbs and refolding the newspaper.
‘Why’s that?’ she’d asked, taken aback at his remark.
He’d laughed. ‘Well, it’ll be like old times again with him being around, except even better now that Danny and I are retired as well; us boys will be able to spend more time together.’ He’d given another short laugh. ‘It means that I’ll be out from under your feet.’
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ she’d said, wringing out the dishcloth at the sink. Although of course she had.
In common with Simon and the others, Sorrel had been surprised when, a few weeks after Orla’s funeral, Alastair had announced his intention to go travelling, to find some space in which he could recover from the trauma of losing Orla so tragically. ‘I need to make sense of it,’ he’d said. Wouldn’t we all want to walk away and go travelling to make sense of our lives? thought Sorrel, jamming a peg onto the washing line and snapping it in two.
To add yet more shine to Alastair’s already sparkling golden halo, his travelling had involved helping to build houses for the homeless in the Gambia, as well as a new orphanage in Sri Lanka. He’d also thrown himself into attempting a range of challenging exploits, such as white-water rafting and extreme cycling trips around Kenya and Tanzania. What had he been trying to prove, that at sixty-two he still had ‘it’?
And where did that leave Simon and Danny?
Trailing hopelessly behind in his wake – no doubt his now tanned, fit and lean wake – just as they’d always been, that was where.
Oh, it was so maddening, this endless adulation of Alastair bloody Lucas! One day, if there was any justice in the world, he’d trip himself up on his own perfection.
Chapter Three
‘The thing is,’ said Danny Fielding, clasping his hands together on his lap, and staring through the open window at the garden in the bright July sunlight, ‘I’m scared of time running out for me. Well, I suppose if I’m honest, I’m scared of the actual moment when I know it’s game over. But then, don’t we all worry about that, that final moment of no return?’
There was no answer from dear old Mrs Maudsley, although he hadn’t expected a response from her. She was fast asleep, and had been so since Danny had exchanged a few brief words with her on his arrival. Talking to the old lady like this, with such honesty, as inappropriate as it might be for a woman who was so close to death, was his way of saying out loud the unthinkable, of uttering what he couldn’t possibly say to anybody else, and without the risk of any comeback. It was what he called his ‘thinking aloud’ time. Certainly he couldn’t burden poor Frankie with his concerns, or their daughter, Jenna. So here he came and poured forth his fears in the hope of getting everything off his chest.
Now, after saying goodbye to Mrs Maudsley and then chatting to Tess Moran, a volunteer at Woodside Care Home, he signed out in the visitor’s book by the main entrance door and set off for the car park.
With each recent visit he’d made, and seeing how fast Mrs Maudsley’s health had deteriorated, he’d wondered if it would be his last. But somehow she hung on. Bedridden, with her sight failing, and her body painfully crippled by arthritis, there seemed so little for her to live for, and yet she kept on going. Apart from Danny, she had no other visitors and he had promised himself that for as long as the poor woman drew breath, he would make the effort to spend time with her.
Originally his visits to Woodside were to see his mother, a woman who, along with her husband, had come into Danny’s life when he was ten years of age. After years of bouncing from one foster home to another, he landed with Rosamunde and Michael Fielding, a childless couple in their forties. He assumed that history would repeat itself and he wouldn’t be staying with them for long, but he was wrong and proved to be their first and only foster child. They were both teachers at a small prep school for boys – Michael Fielding taught classics and his wife, English. Following several months of intensive tuition at home, they persuaded the headmaster of the school to allow Danny to take up a place. Which was where he met Alastair and Simon, both also relatively new to the school.
When Michael and Rosamunde decided they wanted to make things more permanent by adopting Danny, he had never known such happiness. Finally he would have a place he could call home, a forever home. They were kind and loving parents and it was a great sadness to him when Michael died fifteen years ago. With the passing of time, Rosamunde’s own health started to deteriorate and Danny and Frankie suggested she move in with them, but she was an independent soul and wouldn’t hear of it. But then last year, following a fall, Rosamunde took the decision to become a resident at Woodside Care Home, and so began Danny’s regular visits, during which he got to know Mrs Maudsley. Her room was next to Rosamunde’s and the two women hit it off when they discovered they had known each other many moons ago at university. It cheered Danny to know that Rosamunde wasn’t lonely when he left her to go home. Her time at Woodside was short however; she died within three months of moving there.
