‘Don’t look at me like that, as if you’re any different. You only care about me because I know where the dog food is.’
He grinned as the dog gave a heavy sigh and lay down, his head on his paws.
‘You’re way too cute for your own good, you know that?’ He rolled his eyes as the big, ginger cat, Alderman Mrs Beddows, strolled into the kitchen. ‘Great. Reinforcements. If you’re on the scrounge, too, you can forget it. You know the routine.’
Although, unlike Robert Carne, he had no doubt that Mrs Beddows could find her own food source if she wanted to. She was a hunter, after all. Besides, Sam had told him that she visited quite a few of the villagers and got way too many scraps for her own good. She didn’t really need Mac at all, which was how he liked it.
And yet his mother had left not only this cat and dog in his care, but her other, more demanding, animals too. It had been quite specific. Watersmeet – this beautiful old farm on the edge of the Humber – was his, and his alone. And with it came her rescued Highland cow and bullock, her ageing New Forest ponies, her ex-battery hens and three ducks.
‘I suppose I should be glad Ma Larkin passed away,’ he said, then felt immediately guilty, knowing how much his mother had loved the old sow she’d looked after for years after saving her from the abattoir.
Since heading off to university he hadn’t had any pets at all – not even a goldfish. Now look at him. Doctor Dolittle.
What if his mother had been wrong about him? What if Stella was right?
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then another, and another.In through the nose, out through the mouth. You can do this. Remember what Doug told you. Don’t think about the future. It’s only now that matters. This moment.
And at that moment all he had to think about was eating his lunch before it got cold.
‘“Tomorrow is tomorrow. Future cares have future cures, and we must mind today.”’
It had been one of Doug’s favourite quotes. Sophocles apparently.
He puffed out his cheeks, feeling a bit calmer. ‘Right. Lunch.’
He would reply to Stella after he’d eaten and washed up, but it wouldn’t be a long text. He’d simply explain that there was nothing to discuss, that he loved her, and didn’t want to fall out with her, but that he intended to abide by his mother’s wishes, and he was sorry if she was struggling with that.
‘And,’ he added firmly as he sliced through his roast beef, ‘that my bloody name’s Mac not Ian, and I shouldn’t have to remind her of that fact every single time we speak.’
Ian was gone. A different person from a different time. He simply wasn’t the same man any more, and his mother had obviously banked on that fact.
He couldn’t let her down. Not this time.
5
Alison drove home the following Thursday afternoon feeling shattered. She’d done an early shift at the petrol station, having been roped in to cover bakery duty due to staff illness. With her usual early shift being on a Wednesday, two days in a row of early rises meant she now felt like she could sleep for a week.
One of the downsides of her job was that she was expected to cover at short notice. Even so, she liked the variety of her work. Sometimes she’d be manning the till. At other times she’d have to go in early to help with the food preparation, as the petrol station had its own bakery. She jet washed the forecourt, did stock rotation and whatever else she was asked to do and didn’t really mind any of it.
What she’d refused, a year after starting work, was promotion. They’d wanted her to become a supervisor with a view to training for management. It was flattering but Alison wasn’t tempted.
She didn’t want any kind of responsibility. She’d done all that in her teaching job. All she wanted from this one was to go to work, do what needed to be done, go home and forget all about it. It suited her, but she had to concede it could be difficult when Jenna needed her.
She’d had to phone her daughter as soon as she got the call to explain she wouldn’t be able to take the girls to school the next morning.
‘But why didn’t you just tell them you couldn’t do it?’ Jenna had demanded. ‘You know I was relying on you to take the twins.’
‘I couldn’t,’ Alison had explained apologetically. ‘I would have if I could, but only a few of us are trained to cover the bakery, and one of them’s doing a night shift tonight, so she can’t work the early shift too, and apart from me and the one who rang in sick there’s only Jean, and she’s on holiday.’
‘In January?’ Jenna sounded as if she didn’t believe a word of it.
‘She’s gone to Tenerife. She always flies out at this time of year to visit her sister.’
‘Nice for some,’ Jenna said.
Alison had bitten her lip, telling herself not to start an argument.
‘Well, I’m sorry to let you down but I have to go to work tomorrow morning and that’s that. I need an early night, so I’ll say goodnight.’
