‘Don’t worry about tea for me,’ Anna said, deciding this wasn’t the time to bring anything up. ‘I think I’m going to head off shortly.’
Gayle just nodded, then walked over to the freezer, where she removed a plastic container from a drawer and handed it to Anna. ‘You’d better take these, then,’ she said, as Anna looked on, confused. ‘From the other week. We had quite a lot left over.’
Anna looked down. Inside the box, misty with frozen air, were twelve perfect vol au vents. The dig was as effective as if Gayle had prodded her in the chest with one of her perfectly manicured fingernails.
Gayle turned and busied herself putting a few things away from the dishwasher. ‘You were quite rude, I thought,’ she said, when she stood again, ‘to leave without having supper with us. We were all finding it difficult that day, not just you, and the very least you could have done if you were going to speed off like that was come in and say a proper goodbye to everyone.’
Anna was speechless.
Gayle put the mug she was holding in the cupboard, then turned to face her. ‘In difficult times, family really should stick together.’
Oh,nowAnna was family? It hadn’t felt that way at Camber Sands, not one bit.
‘I think you owe me an apology,’ Gayle added.
Anna felt as if she’d been punched in the head. Gayle wanted an apology. From her? In what alternate universe was the woman living? She opened her mouth to tell Gayle exactly what she could do with her fricking apology, but then Richard’s words came back to her.
She’s struggling…
She looked back at Gayle. That tightness around the jaw, that determination, it was all Spencer. Mother and son had always looked like each other, but Anna had never seen it as clearly as she did at that moment. Her anger crumbled like the dry pastry inside the Tupperware box she was holding.
‘I am sorry the day ended badly,’ she said, and that was as much of an apology as Gayle was going to get, because it was the truth. ‘I found it difficult too…’ she added, but trailed off again as she saw the steely look in her mother-in-law’s eyes.There was no point. Not today. Gayle’s guard was up as high as it would go.
She hugged the chilly plastic box to herself. ‘Thank you for the vol au vents,’ she said, then gave Gayle a quick kiss and walked away.
Chapter Eighteen
‘DO YOU LIKE vol au vents?’
Brody was once again sitting in the armchair in his study. Lewis warmed his feet, and his mobile phone was alive and making noise, but this time there was also a tumbler of good single malt beside him on the occasional table with barley twist legs. He frowned. Had Anna just said what he thought she’d said?
‘Brody?’
He decided to run with it, even though it was a totally bizarre way to start a conversation. ‘What kind of vol au vents?’
She gave an exasperated sigh. ‘I don’t know! Does it matter?’
‘Tinned salmon, definitely no. Egg mayonnaise, not if you paid me. Prawn cocktail? Maybe. So I’d say it matters.’
‘I was talking about vol au vents more as a general principle. As a concept.’
Vol au vents as aconcept. This was something new to Brody. Thinking deeply and abstractly about flaky, retro party food was not something he’d ever imagined himself doing, but he found he was relishing the prospect because he was thinking about something new, something different from the same old things that ran around the worn track inside his head day after day.
‘No,’ he said thoughtfully, firmly. ‘I’m not sure I do like vol au vents.’
‘Thank you!’ Anna said, and the relief and validation in her tone had him imagining her collapsing back into an armchair, argument won, even though he had no idea what the battle had been about or who she was having it with.
He tried to imagine what she looked like as he talked to her. It was strange just to hear a voice and have no visual to go with it. He pictured Anna with long hair with a bit of a wave, delicate features. Large eyes. He probably imagined her that way because the first time he’d spoken to her, she’d sounded childlike. Not innocent or immature – she’d experienced too much for that – but in the sense that she’d sounded lost.
‘So what’s with this sudden obsession with canapés?’ he asked, one corner of his mouth kicking up in a smile. ‘If you want to get started on sausage rolls, I have quite strong opinions about those.’
Anna laughed. Brody had forgotten how good it felt to make someone do that. The air around him felt warmer. ‘Really? Sausage rolls?’ she said.
‘I’ve become quite fussy about sausages in general, not just those wrapped in pastry,’ he said, aware how much of an old codger that made him sound but somehow not minding. ‘Maybe it’s living in the country. There are some great farm shops nearby.’ Ones that delivered and let you pay online, thankfully, but he didn’t tell her that.
‘Where are you?’
‘Devon.’
