Jake was sitting on the bed, his head bowed, his hands draped between his knees, looking utterly exhausted. ‘Ben’s on his way,’ he said, glancing up at her as she came into the bedroom. ‘He should be here in five minutes. I’ll go down and wait for him and then lock up.’
Emily nodded. ‘Thanks.’
‘He’s my son too.’ He frowned pensively. ‘You don’t need to thank me.’
Emily’s heart caught in her chest, as it was prone to every time she was reminded what a good father Jake had been to Ben. ‘I know. I …’ She faltered. ‘I’m just tired. It’s been a long day.’ Offering him a weak smile, she turned to the dressing table to remove her locket and earrings.
‘Look, I am sorry, Emily.’ Jake met her gaze finally, albeit in the mirror. ‘Tonight was clearly important. I can see you’re upset, and I can see why you would be, but the call-out really was an emergency.’
‘I’m sure it must have been.’ Emily tried to keep the weary facetiousness from her voice, but couldn’t quite manage it.
Jake evidently picked up on it. ‘He had appendicitis,’ he said, his forehead creasing into a curious frown. ‘Ethan, Rachel’s little boy. I thought the appendix might be close to rupturing. I didn’t want to risk peritonitis, so I got him straight into the hospital.’
Oh no.Emily closed her eyes. She’d been a millimetre away from accusing him of using his call-outs as cover for an affair. All because of a silly email. She’d leapt to conclusions, but perhaps there was some other explanation she hadn’t considered. She should tell him about the email. How was he supposed to explain if she didn’t? The whole thing was ridiculous. Shetrustedhim. Apart from that one blip in their distant past, which she couldn’t blame entirely on him, she always had. Turning from the mirror, her heart jolted.
Jake was on his feet, tugging off his shirt, his back towards her.
‘What are those?’ she asked, her blood running cold.
Half in and half out of the shirt, Jake paused and glanced over his shoulder. ‘Scratches,’ he said, looking at her cautiously as he turned to face her. ‘I got caught up while I was trimming the Leylandii at the weekend. I told you, remember?’
Emily stared at him. She didn’t remember. Her stomach turned over. She had no recollection at all of him coming in from the garden injured. Surely she would have? She scrambled through her memory. There was nothing. Nothing at all. She couldn’t even remember him being in the garden. But the Leylandii, they had been trimmed recently. Hadn’t they? Oh dear God. Fearing now for her sanity as well as his fidelity, a hard knot of panic twisted inside her.
Five
Jake
Jake had no idea how he’d let Edward talk him into this. He wasn’t sure how they’d got on to the subject of swimming, let alone how that had ended up with him volunteering to wade about in wellington boots in the river. The water was low, but it was still bloody cold in there.
‘We need someone competent,’ Edward had told him with a hopeful smile. Jake doubted a high level of competency would be needed to make sure a raft of plastic ducks crossed the finish line without coming a cropper on the rocks or getting snarled up in flotsam. He’d agreed to do it, though, when Edward had pointed out that the majority of the spectators would be small children, who would sit up and take notice of him as he was the local GP. Jake didn’t think the kids in the village were that in awe of him, but he would hate to think of a young child slipping past one of the marshals and sliding into the water. It was all for a good cause, he supposed; the money collected from sponsorship of the ducks would be put towards repairing the roof of the sports hall, which would also go some way to keeping the kids dry. And at least this way he would be on hand – numb from cold probably, but on hand if he was needed.
‘All right, Jake?’ someone shouted as he glanced around for Emily. Turning to the local produce stall, he spotted Dean Miller with his arm around his wife, Zoe, who was expecting their first child.
‘Didn’t think there was a dress code,’ Dean said, looking him over with an amused grin. ‘Liking the natty attire.’
Jake glanced down at the yellow waterproof dungarees someone had loaned him and decided ‘natty’ possibly wasn’t the right description.
‘Dean, stop it.’ Looking highly embarrassed, Zoe gave him a nudge with her elbow. Clearly she thought Dean was being overfamiliar. She was always shy when she came to see Jake, always addressed him as Dr Merriden, as some people tended to.
‘What?’ Dean looked at her, now highly amused. ‘Jake’s all right. He has a sense of humour.’ He gave her shoulders a squeeze. ‘Must have to be wearing those, hey, Jake?’
‘Clearly.’ Jake smiled wryly and gave him a wave as the couple moved on, Dean now being severely chastised by his wife.
He’d located Emily and was about to go across to her when Edward called to him from one of the stalls. ‘Ah, Dr Merriden. Glad you managed to get here in plenty of time for the off. And looking the part, I see.’ He chuckled as Jake walked across to him. ‘Very trendy.’
Thinking he was possibly going to be the main source of entertainment at the fair, Jake shook his head good-naturedly. Then, glancing across to where Emily was manning the bar and BBQ stall, and pointedlynotlooking in his direction, he buried a sigh. She was still annoyed with him for not coming home early when he’d promised to on Thursday. He didn’t blame her. They clearly did need to sit down together and have a discussion about Millie, and think about maybe speaking to her tutors. He wished Emily would talk to him in the meantime, though. She wasn’t exactlynottalking to him, but she wasn’t being very communicative. She was upset about Millie, understandably, but he couldn’t escape the uneasy feeling that it was more than that. Perhaps he should suggest they go out tonight? He could book a table at the Italian restaurant in Hereford that was Emily’s favourite, and ask Tom to cover any call-outs. If his father was going to insist on being hands-on, he could step in during out-of-surgery hours occasionally. It wouldn’t kill him.
His mind made up, he turned his attention to Edward. ‘Looks interesting,’ he commented, nodding at the bottle of wine he was wrapping up in old Christmas paper, doing his bit for recycling.
‘Aye, it is that,’ Edward said with a wink. ‘It’s water.’
Perplexed, Jake knitted his brow. ‘That should make sure no one’s drunk while in charge of their ducks. Might be a few disappointed winners, though.’
‘No, they’re all getting into thespiritof it,’ Edward quipped, adding the bottle to a row already wrapped and picking up another. ‘It’s a good fundraiser, this. It’s called Water into Wine. The winning ticket gets a nice little …’ He paused, squinting to read the label at arm’s length. ‘Sauvignon Blanc. And everyone else is happy in the knowledge that all proceeds are going towards maintaining the sports centre.’
‘Fair enough. Count me in.’ Managing to locate his jeans pockets under his dungarees, Jake fished out some cash. Handing over a ten-pound note, he marvelled at how Edward kept smiling despite his wife’s recent illness and his accountancy business going under last year – something he hadn’t told his wife, he’d confided. There was also his recent dementia diagnosis, which he really did need to tell Joyce about, though Jake guessed it wasn’t going to be an easy thing for him to do. Joyce and Edward had been together for forty-five years. They weren’t joined at the hip, both of them determined to stay independently active, but he’d noticed how close they were, always holding hands whenever they were out walking together, which was a sure sign of a strong relationship.
A stark image of his mother seared itself on his mind, reminding him how devastating the psychological consequences of feeling trapped in a bad relationship could be. He drew in a sharp breath.Jesus.Where had that come from? In his nightmares he couldn’t avoid it, but during waking hours he tried hard not to think about the day he’d walked in from school to find his mother’s body hanging limp and lifeless in the hall. Her eyes had been bulbous, bloodshot and haunted, looking right at him. He drew in another breath, tried to shake the image from his head. He’d been frozen, paralysed with fear and incomprehension. He hadn’t cried. Eventually backing into the furthest corner of the hall, he’d sunk to his haunches. He’d been shaking, he remembered that, trembling incessantly, but he hadn’t shed a tear. Because deep down somewhere he’d expected it. Even as a teenager, he’d seen the signs that his mother was becoming unbalanced after discovering the extent of his father’s adultery. Now it seemed as if his own wife was behaving erratically, which was obviously down to him, and it scared him. He wondered how to broach the subject, try to get to the bottom of what she was thinking.
