‘Are you sure you feel well enough?’ her father asked in a low voice.
‘I’m not an invalid, Dad,’ she said quietly, pushing back the duvet. ‘A shower followed by something to eat and I’ll be as right as rain. Where’s Jenna?’
‘No idea.’
‘She went across to the Mill to see Blake.’
This was from Mum who had now turned over and was raising herself into a sitting position. The skin around her eyes looked red and puffy from sleep. Or had she been crying?
‘Sorry if we woke you,’ Dad said.
Ignoring him, Mum straightened her clothes and came over to Rachel. ‘How are you feeling?’ she asked.
‘Pretty good, all things considered,’ Rachel said brightly, not wanting to add to the worry she had already put her parents through. They both looked like they’d been to hell and back, and she felt guilty for being the cause.
The shower was hot and powerful and as much as she appreciated the sensation of being revived and cleansed, Rachel could not bring herself to put her face under the jets of water. Was this something she would now have to live with, a fear of being under water? Was she also destined to suffer nightmares like the one she’d just had?
It was strange that Paul had featured in the dream. Why had her subconscious connected him to her nearly drowning? She would ask Jenna about that. Jenna was always good at figuring things out. Had she figured her dilemma out regarding Blake and Callum, Rachel wondered? Was that why she was over at the Mill?
When she had finished showering and crossed the landing back to her bedroom, Dad had gone, but Mum was there and laying clean clothes on the bed, just as she used to when Rachel and Callum were little.
‘Thanks, Mum,’ she said, touched by her thoughtfulness, ‘you’re the best.’
The reaction to her words was not what she expected. Her mother’s lips trembled and her eyes filled. Rarely had Rachel seen her mother in less than full composure mode and it wasalarming to see her so unlike her usual cool and undemonstrative self. ‘Oh, Mum,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry for being such an idiot and putting you through so much worry.’
Her mother’s face froze and then it crumpled. Her heart full of tender love, Rachel put her arms around her mother and hugged her tight, and for the first time in her life she felt that she was no longer a child, but an adult.
*
Downstairs on the terrace in the garden, Frankie and Danny were struggling to make polite conversation with Valentina.
For something to do, Frankie had fetched her bag of quilting, which she never travelled without, and needle in hand, was applying herself to the patchwork quilt she was making for Jenna. Next to her, Danny was engrossed in the estate agent’s particulars they’d brought back from Wroxham.
Valentina was lying languidly on a teak steam chair with a glass of wine on the small table at her elbow, both of which Danny had rounded up for her, dutifully playing host in Alastair’s absence. She gave the impression of being a woman without a care in the world, but Frankie had noticed the occasional jiggling of her right foot, like a cat’s tail twitching when it was annoyed.
‘Life moves at a slow pace here, doesn’t it?’ Valentina commented as they watched a sailing boat pass by at the end of the garden.
‘That’s its charm,’ said Frankie. ‘A slower pace of life. It’s good for the soul.’
‘I suppose it could be,’ said Valentina, ‘if one did not die of boredom first.’
‘Oh dear, do you hate it very much?’
‘Hate is too strong a word. Let us just say, I would soon tire of its charms.’
‘That’s a great shame,’ said Danny, putting down the brochure in his hands, and joining in with the conversation.
Valentina swivelled her head to look at him through hersunglasses. ‘Why do you say that? Am I not allowed to have a different view?’
Frankie could see the bluntness of her question threw Danny, but only momentarily. He cleared his throat. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s something to share with Alastair, isn’t it, a mutual love of something?’
She shrugged. ‘But this house is in the past for Alastair, and the past cannot be shared if it has not been experienced together, not really. But the future can be shared, and I see that as being more important.’
‘That’s certainly one way of looking at it,’ replied Danny evenly, ‘but I suppose, and loving Linston End the way I do, it’s difficult for me to understand how anybody could not enjoy being here.’
‘Yes, I can see that that would be a problem for you. But tell me, Danny, and you too, Frankie, do you both believe that if only I would declare myself in love with Linston End, then Alastair would not want to leave?’
Danny turned to Frankie, a hint of desperation in his eyes. ‘It’s a possibility,’ said Frankie, deciding she’d had quite enough from this blunt-speaking woman; it was time for her to swallow a dose of her own medicine. ‘Undoubtedly it would be less expensive for you and Alastair to live here than in the South of France, or are you one of the lucky ones in this world who doesn’t have to worry about money?’
