‘I don’t think he’ll hear you now, do you?’ Rita tried to push down her rising anger. ‘Tell a soul what?’
‘God rest his dear soul.’ Hilda crossed her chest. ‘But I suppose it’s too late now for secrets. I saw your face as our Thomas just left, and, as much as you may dispute this, I can’t bear to see you in so much pain.’
Rita’s heart was pounding through her chest. Jilly’s words rushed through her mind.Enemies, lovers, long-lost family… wills have a knack for stirring up a right old hornets’ nest.Maybe she should stop Hilda now, walk right out of the door before her world was about to be blown apart by something else she wasn’t ready to deal with.
‘You may even know already. I don’t know what went on in the marital home.’
Rita realised that Hilda was backtracking, and that whatever was about to reach the light of day from within her wasn’t going to just be the revelation of Archie’s lottery numbers.
‘I don’t think he ever told you, did he?’
‘No!’ Rita whined. ‘Jesus, no.What, tell me!’
‘There’s, there was… someone else.’
Rita felt panic rising fast, threatening to overwhelm her. She let out a small, shaky squeak from deep in her throat and drew in as much air as she could to steady herself.
‘He didn’t cheat on you,’ Hilda said quickly. ‘Never… not as far as I know, anyway.’
Rita drew in a deep gulp of air.
Hilda grimaced. ‘But there was a child.’
Even the room seemed to hold its breath at this shocking revelation.
‘What are you talking about, Hilda? As in he had a child I didn’t know about? No, no, you’re delusional.’ Rita shot to her feet.
Hilda looked uncharacteristically lost for words. She glanced at her watch.
‘You can’t leave me in the middle of this,’ Rita said through gritted teeth.
Hilda stubbed out her cigarette, and with a trembling hand lit another, and fired off a quick text from her mobile. She exhaled slowly. It was the first time Rita had ever seen her mother-in-law so rattled. And somehow, that unsettled her more than anything else.
Rita gripped the edge of the sink, grounding herself.
‘So that’s why the will’s gone, isn’t it?’ Rita blurted. ‘He changed it. And now someone has made it disappear.’ She poured herself a mug of water and drank it down in one long swallow. ‘And if it’s not Thom… and it’s not you… then who the hell is it?’
Hilda reached for her handbag, her fingers trembling slightly. She glanced at her watch again. A long, measured exhale, followed by a toot from a smart Mercedes pulling up outside the annexe door.
‘Oh, thank God.’ Hilda’s relief was palpable. ‘That’ll be Eric.’
‘Eric?’ Rita wrinkled her nose.
‘Yes, Eric… a new…’ Hilda paused, trying to decide what Eric actually was. ‘A new friend of mine. Met him by a graveside the other day.’ She reached for her bag. ‘We might just make it in time for the vol-au-vents, if we hurry.’
With a rattling cough and already halfway to the door, Hilda turned. ‘As much as you don’t think it, I think the world of you, Rita. I can’t tell you how, just yet, but I am going to sort this mess out once and for all.’
And with a waft of Chanel No. 5, cigarette smoke and Fisherman’s Friend lozenges, Hilda Jory, part battle-axe, part guardian angel, swept out.
As Rita walked back over to the farmhouse, each crunch of gravel seemed to measure out a thought she didn’t want to have. Her mind clawed for something to hold on to. A reason. A denial. But all she could hear was Hilda’s voice, quiet and steady, repeating the words that had just detonated in her life.
There was a child.
If Archie had known, if he’d loved that child even half as much as she suspected… then what had she been all those years? The main act? The interval? A safe harbour he left when the wind changed?
Had every time he said he was going to some agricultural show been a lie? Every call he took outside, every faraway look over dinner, had that been someone else’s bedtime story, someone else’s tiny pair of arms around his neck?
The thought made her dizzy. She pushed open the front door, eyes burning.
