‘I’d like to think he wouldn’t want me to spend the rest of my life alone.’
‘But you’re not alone,’ Martha asserted. ‘You have us.’
‘And you girls both have your own lives to lead. Am I not allowed the same thing? Am I not allowed to have somebody special in my life too? And Ellis is special; he makes me happy in ways I haven’t felt in a long time.’
Martha scoffed at that; her expression unattractively severe as she narrowed her eyes and chewed on the inside of her lip.
Conscious that she should contribute in some way, that by remaining silent Mum might think she agreed with her sister, Willow said, ‘If you do marry Ellis, where will you live?’
Her mother looked at her with a small smile of gratitude. ‘Here, of course.’
Martha made another scoffing sound, but thankfully didn’t say anything.
‘You wouldn’t want to live somewhere new, then?’ Willow asked. ‘Where you could both start afresh?’
Now Martha did speak. ‘What Willow is trying to say is, wouldn’t you prefer to live nearer the two of us so you can spend more time with your grandchildren?’
‘No,’ Mum said with finality. ‘I love living here and I think your children will love it too, in time. Just as you two did. Now then, there’s something else you should know. The rental agreement runs out on Waterside Cottage next month and I’ve suggested to Ellis that he moves in with me.’
‘Lucky Ellis, he’s got it made, hasn’t he?’ muttered Martha.
‘No,’ said Mum with quiet dignity, ‘I think you’ll find it’s the other way around. I’m the lucky one.’
At the sound of voices approaching along the beach – male voices – Willow felt a bolt of alarm. She hurriedly downed what remained in her wineglass and sprang guiltily from the deckchair.
But it was impossible to spring – innocently or guiltily – from a deckchair and by the time she had scrabbled inelegantly from it in a pantomime of clumsiness, Rick, Tom and Ellis were heading up the garden. Without really thinking what she was doing, only that she had to get rid of the evidence of her illicit drinking, Willow tucked the glass out of sight behind a bush.
‘Not a word,’ she murmured to her mother and sister, who both looked at her as though she were mad. Well, it would be Rick who would be mad with her if he knew what she’d been up to.
Chapter Thirty-One
The next day, following a barbecue in the garden at Anchor House and a walk to Bosham and back, and after Rick and Willow had already set off for London, Tom happily handed over the car keys to Martha so she could drive them home.
‘I like you being pregnant,’ he said, putting on his seat belt, ‘it means I have months and months of you being the designated driver.’
‘Hey, don’t think it gives you a free pass to drink a keg of beer over lunch and then doze off in the passenger seat,’ she said, pipping the horn as a final farewell to her mother. Ellis was there too to wave them off.
‘A couple of beers does not constitute a keg,’ Tom said good-humouredly. He had to admit though, after all that good food, beer and sea air, a nap wouldn’t go amiss. Especially as he hadn’t slept well last night. Not with Martha tossing and turning beside him. But as much as he fancied a nap, he knew that Martha would want a post-mortem on the weekend. Experience told him that it was always better for her to unload sooner rather than later. So once Tilsham was behind them, and to fight off the need for sleep, he decided to broach the subject himself.
‘Come on, then,’ he said, ‘tell me what you’re thinking.’ He saw her hands tighten their hold of the steering wheel.
‘Not if you’re going to take that tone of voice with me.’
‘What tone would that be?’
‘The one that says you know best.’
‘This might be one of those rare instances when I do.’
She tutted.
‘For what it’s worth, the way I see it is you’re going to have to give your mother the benefit of the doubt, not just for her sake, but yours too.’
‘Benefit of the doubt,’ she repeated, ‘you mean leave her to make a terrible mistake?’
‘How do you know it would be a mistake for her to marry Ellis?’
‘Because she’s rushing into this without thinking it through. It’s as though she’s acting like a lovestruck teenager, allowing herself to be swept along in the heat of the moment.’
