‘I can guess. I got the same kit through the post.’
‘Did you send it back?’
She shook her head. ‘Why invite trouble?’
‘You know that’s a ridiculous way to look at it, though?’
She bit her lip. ‘Yes,’ she said eventually. ‘But the thing is, it’s like I said, they’ve bombarded me with stuff! It’s too much.’
‘You just need to take one thing at a time then,’ he said. ‘Go to this retinal screening. Then, when that’s over with, send off the bowel testing sample.’
‘And then I suppose I have to book a cervical smear.’
‘Have they asked you to?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well…’ He shrugged. ‘Aren’t we bloody lucky? We live in a country where we get all these screenings for free. It’s amazing.’
Alison stared at him, feeling suddenly stupid and a bit ashamed.
‘Maybe,’ she said cautiously, ‘you’re right. Maybe I do bury my head in the sand. And maybe you’re right about me living in the past, too. I suppose it’s safer there. You just never know what’s going to hit you in the future, do you? I guess the two things are connected.’
‘I don’t think about the future too much either,’ Mac confessed. ‘I worry about today, and that’s it. It’s all we’ve got when you think about it, and it’s more than enough to deal with.’
She frowned, noting the faintest hint of sadness in his voice.
‘Have you heard anything from Stella since her last visit?’ she asked, realising with some guilt that she’d not even asked him since that night he’d first walked her home after tea at her parents’.
Mac considered for a moment. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘Not a word. I saw Crystal the other day, though.’
‘Your niece? How is she? I haven’t seen her around, even though I’m on the caravan park.’
Crystal, she knew, often helped her father, Gavin, at either Tide’s Reach or his other caravan park further up the coast at Puffin Point. Alison hadn’t seen her for a few years, though.
‘She’s mostly working at Puffin Point,’ Mac said. ‘She likes it there. Apparently, Gavin’s bought a hotel there, and that’s their latest project. She only comes back here now and then if she’s desperately needed. They mostly leave it to the staff these days.’
‘Well, it’s a small caravan park,’ Alison agreed. ‘Not like the one at Puffin Point, I guess.’
‘She seems happy enough anyway,’ he said. ‘The main thing is, she doesn’t seem to bear me any grudges. It could have been awkward, but she didn’t seem to mind. I asked her if she’d seen anything of her mum, because I know Stella’s missing her, and she told me she’d seen her a few days ago and she’s been to a solicitor about the will, but that he’d told her there was nothing she could do as there was no reason to contest it. It wasn’t like she’d been cut out of it anyway. She got thousands.’ He rubbed his eyes, as if weary of it all.
‘I can sort of see her point, though,’ Alison said cautiously. ‘Not that she should contest the will or anything, but it is odd that your mum left Watersmeet to you when you lived in Oxfordshire and Stella only lives in Weltringham.’
‘Stella would have sold it to Gavin,’ Mac explained. ‘That’s what Mum was afraid of. Gavin needs more land to expand Tide’s Reach. It’s crumbling away fast, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, and he can only move the caravans so far back before he encroaches on farmland. He tried buying some of the land off the Fosters, but they weren’t having it, so Stella thinks Watersmeet land could be a sort of extension for him, with it only being half a mile up the road.’
‘Stella and Gavin have been divorced a couple of years now, though, haven’t they?’
‘Three,’ Mac said. ‘But she’d still do anything for him. Mum told me Stella never wanted the divorce. She only went along with it because it was what Gavin wanted, and having talked to her that day it’s very clear that she’s never got over him.’
‘Poor Stella,’ Alison murmured. ‘That must be so hard for her.’
‘Which is why Mum didn’t trust her not to offer the land to him if she got her hands on Watersmeet. Hence her leaving it to me to keep it safe.’
‘And you didn’t mind leaving Oxfordshire to come all the way back up here?’
He paused. ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘It was no trouble.’
‘What about your kids, though? You must miss them. Are they coming up to visit you soon?’
