Jago looked up to give a casual nod as he passed, barely slowing, causing Rita to take a sharp intake of breath, her heart suddenly beating an unwelcome symphony.
Camilla gave out a loud, offended, ‘Maaaaa-aaaahh!’
As Rita appeared at the front door, Camilla then let out a low, theatrical bleat.
Jago shouted back over the engine. ‘I daren’t argue with a lady in her condition!’
Rita raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m not even sure if we can get Cedric to pay the kid’s maintenance. I think she’s been pregnant more times than she’s escaped, this little harlot.’
‘Maybe she’s a romantic. Falls in love every spring and regrets it by autumn.’
Rita could tell by Jago’s face just how much he regretted that comment. They shared a look, brief, loaded. Jago cleared his throat. ‘I’d have got Stan to bring her back, but he had to leave early today.’
‘It’s fine. Thank you.’ Just the presence of this man unsettled her. It was like the air around her was suddenly charged with electricity. He made her feel alive in a way only Archie had done before him.
‘Would you like me to take her up to her pen?’ Jago smiled with his eyes, that easy warmth that both comforted and confused her.
‘Yes, amazing. The guests are coming down for dinner soon; I’d better help Zenya.’ Rita was itching to escape the invisible pull that made her heart race, and her thoughts spin out of control. She needed space, room to breathe.
She shut the front door behind her, the latch clicking a little harder than intended. As she walked towards the Snack Shack, Jago’s voice carried after her, low, almost uncertain. ‘My mum used to say to me that between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, we can lose so much.’
Rita paused for the briefest of moments, eyes fixed ahead. But she didn’t turn. He was the one who had said it was better if they kept away from each other. She said nothing, just kept walking, her ears open but whatever Jago Jenken wanted to say next never came.
THIRTY-TWO
Lola knocked gently, then wandered into the farmhouse kitchen, her purple hair scraped into a messy bun, an oversized charity-shop T-shirt hanging loosely over yoga shorts. Her face was light pink from being in the outdoors for so long. She paused in the doorway, nose twitching as she caught the scent of something unfamiliar, her colourful water bottle clutched in one hand. ‘Is thatactualcoffee I smell?’ she asked, mock horror on her face. ‘As in, non-fair-trade, non-locally sourced, possibly rainforest-murdering coffee?’ She laughed.
Zenya, busy making some raspberry jam from the fruit-laden plants in the vegetable patch, raised an eyebrow. Rita, who was checking supplies in the fridge, grinned. ‘You know it’s organic and shade-grown, thank you very much. I don’t even have to recycle the guilt anymore, thanks to you.’
Lola let out a faux dramatic sigh of relief and crossed to one of the bench seats in the marquee. ‘I was after some water, actually. I ran out from my breakfast pack.’
Rita went to hand her a plastic bottle out of the fridge and then quickly retracted it. ‘Oops. I am getting better, Lola, thanks to you. I kind of wish there were more adverts telling us what we shouldn’t be buying packaging wise and how exactly to recycle everything.’
‘It’s not bloody brain surgery,’ the young woman replied flippantly.
‘I know, I know but we get set in our recycling ways, don’t we?’ Rita took Lola’s bottle. ‘I’m more than happy to fill it but just so you know the outhouse sink is mains and drinkable. Next time you come, if you want to, that is, there will be more facilities out there for you. Better showers et cetera, too.’
Lola sighed, shoulders dropping. ‘I must sound like cracked record, but I’ve been reading a lot lately. And watching, like,reallywatching, the nature documentaries, and I can’t stop thinking about it. I know people get mad at the climate protestors, but like, what if we’ve already screwed it all up? What if it’s too late? Rising temperatures, mass extinctions, rainforests destroyed, plastic in the reefs, the Arctic ice melting. It’s all happening so fast.’
Rita softened. ‘I know. It’s overwhelming when you do pay attention.’
‘David Attenborough is in his nineties and still fighting.’ Lola’s voice was now thick with emotion. ‘He should be swinging in a hammock, relaxing in the sunshine, not begging us to stop destroying our planet.’
‘I have a weird crush on him,’ Zenya piped up, pushing a teaspoon of jam across a saucer to check it had set. ‘He’samazing. A beautiful, brilliant force helping us to listen and understand. And sadly, most people are too busy or ignorant to care.’
Rita looked to Lola. ‘Butyoucare. You’re influencing people in real ways, not just some face forcing us to buy the next best wrinkle cream or to take some expensive collagen shots that the promoters would probably never even consider touching their own lips.’
‘Maybe I need to rethink. Maybe it’s not about having thousands of followers.’ Lola took another drink. ‘Perhaps I/we should be convincing one person at a time to bring their own coffee cup or switch to shampoo bars and asking them to pass it on. We don’t have time to get this wrong, Rita. And sometimes it feels like everyone’s still asleep.’
Rita nodded slowly. ‘Well, I shall do my bit to make this place as sustainable as possible.’
‘Hear, hear,’ Zenya added, putting jars in the Aga to sterilise.
With Zenya now busy in the Snack Shack and Lola away to the bus stop for a trip down to the harbour, Rita had just sat down to enjoy her second cup of coffee at the kitchen table, when the back door creaked open and Jude poked his head round.
‘Morning.’ The bookseller sounded tentative. ‘Sorry to barge in, Rita, but do you know where Teo is? We’ve arranged to lunch in the orchard.’
‘Have you now.’ Rita smirked. ‘Did you try the annexe? I saw him come back from a run earlier; maybe he’s showering.’
