At the sound of her sister’s voice in her ear, she shook herself fully awake, then she shivered at the coldness of the water. Leaning forward to turn on the hot tap, she said, ‘Yes, I’m here.’
‘Are you in the bath?’ asked Martha above the noise of the gushing water. She said it as though Willow had been caught doing something indecent.
‘I am,’ she said.
‘So what do you think?’
‘What do I think about what?’
‘What I’ve just been telling you.’
Oh Lord, thought Willow, she must have been so busy thinking of that wooden stool, she hadn’t heard a word of what Martha had said. Attention span of a goldfish, that’s what Dad used to say about her. In one ear and out the other.
‘Sorry,’ she improvised, ‘it’s a bad line, I didn’t hear you.’
There was a frustrated sigh in her ear.
‘Try turning the taps off and you might hear a lot better.’
Willow did as her sister said, and Martha went on.
‘My idea is for us to go down to Mum’s at the weekend and take her out for lunch and then put forward our plan.’
‘What plan?’
Another sigh. ‘The one about encouraging Mum to sell Anchor House.’
Willow frowned. She had hoped Martha had forgotten about that. Her sister had first mentioned it a few months ago, but Willow hadn’t taken it seriously, or given it any more thought. She just couldn’t imagine Mum wanting to leave Anchor House and all her friends down there in Tilsham. And apart from anything else, it was home.
Not just any old home, buttheirhome. It was where Willow and Martha had grown up and where Willow’s every happy childhood memory revolved around Anchor House and the pretty harbour village that was squeezed in between Bosham and Chichester.
Her memories were full of days spent playing on the beach, of crabbing in the rock pools, of squelching around the mudflats in her wellingtons, of lying in the sand dunes, and of hours spent walking through wheat fields and along narrow flint-walled lanes lined with pretty cottages. If she closed her eyes, she could hear the cry of seagulls and smell the salty sea air.
How could her sister ever think that Mum would leave all that to live near Martha and Tom on the outskirts of Cobham? There was nothing wrong with Surrey, of course there wasn’t, but it wasn’t Tilsham. It wasn’t what Mum was used to and where she was happy.
‘So are you free at the weekend to spend the day with Mum?’ asked Martha.
‘Nothing planned as far as I …’ Her words trailed off. ‘Can you smell burning?’ she asked her sister.
‘What do you mean can I smell burning? Of course I can’t!’ ‘Burning,’ repeated Willow, her nose twitching. ‘I can definitely smell—’ She broke off again and leant over the side of the bath.
‘Oh!’she exclaimed, realising now what she had tipped off the stool when she’d reached for her mobile. On top of the towel she’d put ready to use was the tray of aromatherapy candles she’d lit earlier.
‘Oh, oh, oh!’she said again, ‘I seem to be on fire.’
Smoke was indeed coming from a blackened circle and small flickering flames were just taking hold with rivulets of melted wax running everywhere.
‘What?’ demanded Martha in her ear while Willow dithered. ‘What do you mean you’re on fire?’
Tossing her mobile to safety and wincing as it went skittering across the tiled floor, Willow scooped up a handful of water and doused the flickering flames. She then stepped out of the bath, but in her clumsy haste she somehow missed her footing as she reached for another towel and ended up falling sideways and nearly putting a hand down the loo as she tried to keep her balance. All the while she could hear her sister’s voice calling to her from under the radiator asking if she was still there.
A towel now wrapped around her, Willow rescued her mobile.
‘It’s okay, Martha,’ she said, ‘no need to call for any hunky fireman, I’ve put out the fire.’
‘How big a fire?’
‘No more than a flame or two.’
