Under the table, Tilly sneezed.
‘Yes. Of course. When you get Isobel out.’ Ross went to the shed door and then stopped suddenly as though an electric barrier arrested his forward movement. ‘It’s lovely here,’ he said slowly. ‘She’d be mad not to agree.I’dlive here.’
I let a moment pass before I asked. ‘Where do you live?’
He smiled wistfully into the fog. ‘An enchanted castle, haunted by ghosts of the past and suits of armour. Like Hogwarts only with nicer carpets.’
I raised my eyebrows in silence.
‘Or a little annex off the place where my office is,’ he admitted grudgingly. ‘Until the business really gets under way I can’t get a mortgage. Which is why I’m pinning so many hopes onThe Great British Build. Being on TV could be the big break I need, and if I actuallywin, well…’ He stared off again into visions of palatial residences and swimming pools, probably.
Like a scene from a horror movie, a small pale hand came out from under the table. ‘More biscuit?’ The fingers clenched in a beckoning gesture.
‘Absolutely not.’ My tones were laden with mum-guilt. ‘You’ve had far too many already. We should go home anyway.’
‘Will you be back tomorrow?’ Ross sounded keen and it made me uneasy, although I wasn’t sure why.
‘No. Tilly has nursery on Wednesday and Thursday, so I’ll come back then. When I don’t have to…’ I waved a hand to indicate my daughter in her position under the table. ‘When she’s occupied. I think I need to have a really good talk with Isobel and not while I’m having to supervise Tilly and the diamonds.’
‘Diamonds?’ The finger was back in his mouth again. It was worse than Tilly and the thumb-sucking, at least she had being not-quite-nearly-two-and-a-half in her defence.
‘Long story. Well, it might be. I’ll find out on Wednesday.’ I bent to try to scoop Tilly out of her hide.
‘Can… can I meet you here again?’
I straightened, still without my child. ‘What? Why would you want to? I’ll let you know if I manage to get Isobel to agree to moving into your container house.’
‘I thought I might show Isobel the plans. Explain what the house is going to look like; it’s not immediately obvious if you aren’t an architect, from the drawings. And if you try to describe it using words like “shipping container” it might not sell her on the idea, if you see what I mean.’
‘I’ll show her the places on my phone, like you did to me.’ I had to drag Tilly by the back of her coat, inching her out like winkling a snail from its shell. She really had liked it under that table.
‘Well, yes. But this will show the actual layout and how I envisage it. Looking out over the fields towards the moors I thought would be good. Fabulous open views but nicely secluded tucked in here under the trees.’
For the briefest moment I felt a swelling of envy that someone, Isobel, anyone, would have that cosy house, that beautiful view. A tiny second of feeling inadequate because all I had was a double bed and a kitchenette, and even that wasn’t mine and was contingent on me getting work to pay the bills.Andthe view was a sad car park with a disappointed tree in one corner.
I shook myself. I was lucky in so many ways. I had Tilly. I was free to come and go – unfollowed, unscrutinised. I’d seen the other side of life, the one with privilege but no freedom.
There was that momentary stab again, for all the things I had lost. Lost, not just for myself, but for Tilly – she had had her own bedroom, beautifully decorated with a circus-tent cot and toys in every cupboard. Growing up, she would have had everything she could want or need: good schools, ballet lessons, a pony. She would have been dressed like a model, educated like a bluestocking and treated like a princess. Had it really been fair of me to take her from all that? Should I, so desperate for my own freedom, not have left her behind and started again without her?
Ross was looking at me, I realised. Maybe he was waiting for an answer, and I’d been quiet for too long as I’d sunk into memory and guilt. Tilly had also stood silently, twisted up inside her coat but not protesting. Tilly, who’d eaten half a packet of biscuits under the table, who had played with those crow diamonds on the tray with no sense of the irony of priceless stones in a derelict house. My daughter.
I caught her suddenly close and squeezed her until she squirmed in my grasp. ‘If you want,’ I said to Ross with my face in the depths of damp wool, which smelled of baby bath gel and talcum powder. ‘I thought you couldn’t be seen to be influencing Isobel? In case she prosecutes you or whatever and the TV company drop you.’
‘But you will be there to vouch for me, won’t you? I wouldn’t go in alone –thatwould be asking for trouble – but if you’re there with me I can put my point of view across and if she decides to take umbrage then you can witness me not doing anything prosecution worthy.’ Ross gave me a slightly feeble grin. ‘Can’t you? You could wear a body cam or something.’
‘No I couldn’t.’ I wasn’t sure whether he was being serious or whether this was another of his strange thought processes. ‘Where would I get a body cam from?’
‘I don’t know. You look like the sort of person who knows how to get hold of these things.’
‘Do I?’ I was taken aback by his certainty. It was totally misplaced; in real life I flailed around running out of teabags and juice. I couldn’t even keep the cupboards adequately stocked andthatwas with an Aldi at the end of the road. How the hell I looked like someone who knew how to get hold of items of technology I had no idea.
‘You’re capable.’ Ross followed me as I led Tilly out of the shed. ‘You have the aura of a woman who can do anything she puts her mind to.’
His words sounded dead and meaningless in the damp swirling air outside, as though he were attempting a chat-up line that had a fifty-fifty chance of working. Tilly and I began the slow trudge back along the broken-branch path to the car with her hand in mine and Brass bulging her pocket and Ross’s parting comment echoing in my head like an earworm.
14
On Wednesday morning I dropped Tilly off into Ashlee’s enthusiastic care, Brass wearing a little scarf I’d knitted him yesterday to Tilly’s evident bemusement. I wanted to show nursery at least that I cared, and if I had to do it through the medium of creatinghaute couturefor a felt dragon, then so be it. Tilly went off, waving Brass looking more Tom Baker’s Dr Who than the aimed for Harry Potter, and I drove to Elm Cottage to have another go at Isobel. Now we had somewhere to offer her to stay she just might be a little bit keener to get out of that draughty wreck of a place.
