Chapter One
As the train rocked to a halt with a gentle thud, Ella rounded up nearly all her worldly goods. It seemed her life had come full circle, back where she started, except she really hadn’t been that far. Like an overloaded tortoise, rucksack on her back, pulling two cases and juggling the variety of mismatched bags, she struggled along the platform, but had to give in and make two trips up the flight of stairs before rumbling along the bridge to the car park, every step feeling more leaden than the last.
‘Ella, darling.’ Her mother darted across the car park. ‘Gosh, you do look tired. How are you?’ Her eyes, bird-bright, gave Ella an assessing look.
‘I’m fine.’ Her terse, brittle response elicited a quick worried frown. Ella looked away. One slight crack in her determined defence and her mother would prise her wide open, like a reluctant mussel, forcing everything out.
‘Let me help.’ Despite her diminutive size, her mother tried to take the larger case. ‘Good Lord, what have you got in here?’
‘Everything,’ muttered Ella with feeling, having dragged it from Shoreditch across London and then been wedged up against it from Euston to Tring for the last forty-three minutes. She’d packed as much as she could and brought along most of her art supplies and her clothes; everything else, not much at all, had gone into storage.
Her mother tutted. ‘I don’t know why you didn’t ask us to come and collect you, it would have been a lot easier.’
Ella gave a vague smile and managed to refrain from pointing out that it would have been far too much like being picked upat the end of a college term. An admission of failure. She settled into the front passenger seat of the little runaround, as pristine as the day it rolled away from the showroom with its little pockets and gadgets to keep everything in its place. Mints, de-icer, cloths, spare air freshener. For some reason all that neat orderliness irked her and she longed to run a streak through the slightly misted windscreen with one finger, just to leave a mark.Ella woz ere. Ella was somewhere. Ella was still in here somewhere.
‘Now,’ her mother started brightly, ‘your father’s going to meet us there. Magda’s left the house all ready for you and I’ve popped a few bits in the fridge. You’re to treat the place as your own, help yourself to anything you want and of course there’s—’
‘Mum, I spoke to Magda myself.’
‘Right. And how are you . . . er . . . you know . . . feeling?’
‘Mum, you can mention Patrick’s name without me bursting into tears.’ Ella tightened her mouth, schooling her face into an impassive mask. ‘We’re just taking a break, at the moment. Taking some time to assess things.’ Even-toned, her explanation sounded perfectly normal. Well thought-out. Logical. A grown-up way to do things.
Ella winced as her mother swung out of the car park, narrowly missing taking off the wing mirror of an oncoming car. Conventional to the core, Mum and Dad had no idea about how relationships worked these days. Some days she wondered if she did.
Nausea rolled in her stomach as her mother speeded up along the straights, veered around corners and slowed to a snail’s pace when the country lanes narrowed.
‘Are you sure you’ll be all right on your own out here?’ Her mother jerked her head towards the village signpost as they passed it.
‘Mum, after living in London, I think the crime rate in Wilsgrave is considerably lower, unless of course there’s a serial killer on the loose that I hadn’t heard about.’ The first ribbon of small houses started to appear and Ella’s mother slowed down.
‘I meant being on your own. Not knowing anyone. You can always come back home.’
‘I’ll be fine.’ This already felt enough of a defeat. Thank God, she’d have the use of Magda’s car. She could be back within Central London in forty-five minutes at a push.
Her mother pulled smartly into a space right outside a pretty double-fronted end of terrace house.
‘Here we are, then. I’ve got the keys. No sign of your father yet. He’s going to miss Tess.’
Was that his new chiropractor? A tamer version of Miss Whiplash? Releasing herself from her seatbelt, Ella took the proffered keys and got out of the car. Daffodils, tulips, crocuses, and anemones danced in the dappled light cast by overhanging trees. They lined the narrow brick path leading to a front door painted in a tasteful National Trust shade of pale green, their scent perfuming the air.
For a moment Ella paused. Sunshine yellow contrasted with brilliant blue. If only she had the ability or the skill to capture the hope and promise of those spring colours, the shapes and textures, that fabulous fractured light or even the essence of the season, new life, new hope. A pang filled her chest, blooming with a fierce emptiness. Focusing on the front door, she averted her gaze and marched up the path.
Juggling with the keys her mother had handed over in the car, she stepped into a roomy hallway with a flagstone floor. She’d been to her godmother’s plenty of times before to know that to her left was a big kitchen, pretty enough if your taste ran to French provincial, and large enough to house a huge central table. To the right a door led into the wood beamed loungewith its focal open fireplace which took up most of one wall and an eclectic mix of furniture which shouldn’t have worked together but did, all of which made the room seem smaller than it was. Ahead steps led up to one large master bedroom, a second smaller bedroom and the bathroom. Beyond that the loft conversion, a long white room, almost bare of furniture, lit by skylights through which the light flooded, making it the perfect studio. This was just about the only reason she’d agreed to come and house-sit for six months. Well, that and having nowhere else to go. Work had been impossible of late, she was so behind. Incarceration in the country with nothing else to do might focus her mind and force her to address the blank pages of cartridge paper.
‘Ah, your father’s here.’ Her mother’s voice held a touch of nerves – or was it uncertainty?
Carrying what looked like his own body weight in a sack which readCOMPLETE DOG FOODon the front, her father shouldered his way in through the front door, straight into the kitchen.
‘Phew, that was heavier than I thought,’ he said, dumping the bag on the flagstone floor. ‘Hello, love.’ He gave her a cheerful smile now he’d released the load.
‘What’s that?’ Ella’s voice echoed in her head, sounding overly sharp.
‘Dog food.’
‘I can see that.’ She hated herself for using the tone with Dad, ever the sweetheart and as laid back as they came. ‘I meant, what is it for?’
He instantly looked sheepish and turned towards her mother for support.
