‘It’s not shit, it’s beautiful.’ Rita suddenly stood up, clanking her mug on the reception desk as she did so. ‘I’ve only just remembered him saying and doing that. He wasn’t angry at me, Jilly. He wasn’t angry at me at all. Or he wouldn’t have said or done that, would he?’ She slowed her voice right down. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much. I always thought it was maybe my fault, that I caused him to be in such a mood and…’
‘He had a blowout, Rita,’ Jilly said softly. ‘There was nothing you could have done. And sometimes, we only hear what we want to hear and remember what we want to remember. Our brains are clever things.’
Jilly stood up and grabbed a cloth to rub down the Reformer machine they had just been using.
‘You know what I miss the most?’ Rita mused. ‘The way he made his own tea. Clanking around, with his big hands, opening the tea caddy, smashing the kettle down. Two sugars, strong, then mine, squeezing out the bag with a weird kind of gentleness. Stirring it gently as if it really mattered.’
‘I get that. My Dave was a sod, but he could make a cracking brew. He may have had fingers in many bad pies, but he used to warm the mugs with hot water first, like he was prepping them for royalty.’
‘Yeah.’ Rita nodded, smiling through wet eyes. ‘It’s the little things, isn’t it?’
‘It’salwaysthe little things.’ Jilly noticed one of the women booked onto her next class walking up the hill. ‘Right. That’s enough trauma for one day. You did well, girl. On all counts.’
Rita grabbed her bag. ‘Do I owe you anything?’
‘Widows’ rate.’ Jilly winked. ‘Which is the same as mates’ rates, i.e. friendship costs nothing and you only wiggled around for a few minutes!’
‘Aw. Thank you again. For everything.’
‘Ah, you’re all right, girl.’
Rita turned around when she got to the door. ‘So, are you OK to create some discount leaflets, then?’
‘Sure, I’ll mail them to you. And Rita, have a think about it. Enemies, lovers, long-lost family… wills have a knack for stirring up a right old hornets’ nest and bringing the worms crawling right out of the woodwork.’
TWENTY-SIX
Rita arrived home to find Henry the labrador stretched out to double his size on the courtyard, eyes closed tight, sunning himself. He barked his approval at her return.
‘Come on, boy, let’s make some tea.’ She looked across to the barn. It was Zenya’s gong and breathwork class this morning for those who fancied it. Craning to catch any signs of life from the retreat, all she heard was the soft, gossipy chattering of the chickens.
A few days into the retreat and she’d noticed Paul and Emily taking the bus down to the harbour together. Zenya had already struck up a routine and had instructed those who wanted her to provide lunch or dinner should text her once they’d decided on their plans for the day. Which was not only good for her but also for Rita, so as not to waste either food or money. Paul liked to help Rita lay the table or sit and chat over a cup of tea in breaks between sessions. He had also taken great delight in telling her that he had signed up to a surfing course – something he’d always wanted to do but never had the time or the guts to do until now.
Paul wasn’t the only one enjoying himself; Emily had told her that she was in love with the window seat at Sail Away. If Jude hadn’t been gay, Rita was certain the pair of them would be amatch made in heaven. But when had the path of true love ever been that straightforward? And who was she to judge what might work? She’d been only twenty when she met Archie, with just two previous lovers, if you could even call them that. The first had been a blurry encounter after Kelly, ever the cheerleader of bad ideas, had encouraged her to go back to her then-boyfriend’s flat with his mate ‘just for a laugh’. Rita still wasn’t entirely sure who she’d ended up with, her only recollection, Malibu, lava lamps, a futon, and an awkward trip to the chemist for cystitis medicine two days later. The second was a two-year relationship with Danny Barlow, whom she met at sixth form college and her first proper love, which ended so traumatically she’d declared over Sunday roast that she’d never recover and was destined to be a tragic singleton for the rest of her life. Her kind, long-suffering parents had assured her that time would heal everything. Two years later, she met Archie and they’d been right.
God, she missed them all. Far more than the chickens missed Nigel, that was for certain.
She sat down at the kitchen table, opened her laptop and, taking a slow sip of tea, first updated her resort spreadsheet by reducing the book costs. She squinted slightly to make out some of the figures clearly, and groaned. Kelly had said that she’d had to get her reading glasses at forty-five. Rita, thinking that wearing glasses was the first unmistakable sign of creeping decrepitude, had decided she would wait until she couldn’t read the headline on a newspaper on a service station forecourt.
She also worked out a plan to pay off her existing credit cards in a way that minimised interest while still leaving enough spare cash to upgrade one of the outbuildings into a decent toilet and shower space, hopefully before the end of the year.
Although running month-long retreats had seemed easier in terms of fewer check-ins and yurt turnarounds, she figured that shorter retreats were ultimately more lucrative, plus she would allow herself a few days’ grace between them. She updated her social media to reflectthe new offering.
Work done, her thoughts drifted to the worries that work had kept at bay. She hadn’t had time to search for the will again and certainly wasn’t going to ask Hilda anything about it, not when she was being so cruel about Jago’s intentions. Even Sennen had been slightly secretive on the phone the other day and if it was Thom who she had seen earlier, what was he doing chatting to Jago?
As to Jilly’s comment about enemies, lovers and family, she wished her brain would block this too. The thought of Archie having had an affair when he was with her was too much for her to bear. No, that was a ludicrous thought; she would have known. They had loved each other deeply. Yes, there were enemies in the Jenken camp, but she didn’t know the whys or wherefores and as for family, theirs was small. Hilda’s siblings had passed now, and with Rita being an only child, it was just herself, Thomas, Sennen and Hilda who currently carried the Jory name. Again, Hilda would have been the first to tell her if there was any kind of family scandal, wouldn’t she?
Just as the pressure in her head started to subside, a sudden, thunderous roar created another. She looked out on the courtyard to see a sleek silver Porsche screech up, with dust swirling like a storm behind it.
Thomas Jory jumped out, his usual cocky grin flickering with something unreadable. His likeness to Archie caused a lump to form in her throat. Walking outside, she gulped then forced a smile to her lips.
‘Hi, darling, what a lovely surprise!’
Thom’s hair was cropped quite short, showing off his striking blue eyes – eyes that had never been short of admirers. He stood a solid six feet and two inches tall and with his broad shoulders could easily pass as a rugby player. He shared the same auburn hair as his sister, and to this day, Rita hadn’t quite worked out where it had come from as Archie was dark and she was light brown, albeit with a slight red tinge in a certain light.
He was smartly dressed in a crisp navy blazer over a tailored white shirt, paired with dark jeans. There was an effortlesscharm about him. It was no wonder he was doing so well in IT sales, Rita thought. He had not only the gift of the gab but also a sharp mind that could read a room in seconds, knowing exactly when to listen and when to close the deal. He approached his mother with a weak smile.
‘Hi, Mum, I’ve got a conference in St Austell with work, combined with a team-building event – surfing, rock climbing, kayaking, et cetera, I think it is. Thankfully, before the kids break up or traffic would have been hell. So, I couldn’t not come and see my old ma, now could I?’
