‘Oh, sorry! I forgot that bit. The pub,’ Nisha said.
‘Perfect.’
‘Come at half past seven. We usually get bar snacks as well as drinks, so maybe don’t have dinner first,’ Nisha went on.
Amy nodded her assent and slurped the last of her second coffee.
Nisha did the same, then checked her watch– a lilac and white plastic Casio with a digital display. It was the kind of thing you’d buy for a pre-teen, but on her it looked funky. Altogether, Amy thought, Nisha had the kind of style you couldn’t acquire by dint of reading the right magazines or having an unlimited budget to spend at Net-a-Porter.com. It was clear she wore what made her happy, rather than what others considered fashionable or appropriate. In combination, Nisha’s rainbow garments formed a look that was cooler than the sum of its parts. They gave her a signature aesthetic that was much more interesting than anything Amy had seen on Instagram lately.
Maybe she needed to readjust her own mindset, now that she was living back in a place where what you said and did seemed to matter more than what you wore … Where she was under less pressure to appear sleek or sport the latest must-have accessories than she was to show up at Barbara’s next litter pick. It would certainly render the prospect of opening her monthly credit card statement less scary.
‘I should probably get back,’ Nisha said, ‘do an hour or two in the shop before it closes. I’ve left Part-Time James in charge this morning, so God knows what state the place will be in by now.’
Amy understood from previous conversations that ‘Part-Time James’, as Nisha called him, was a pleasant young man and a good worker so long as there was someone telling him exactly what to do. What he lacked in initiative his placid nature made up for, but it wasn’t advisable to leave him alone for long periods.
The two women hugged and said goodbye outside the cafe, Amy venturing back towards the bridge and Nisha heading in the opposite direction.
As she wandered through the village and down past the clock tower, Amy could feel the swell of the coming summer in everything around her: there were roses in bud, a gentle warmth in the air and the smell of freshly cut lawns on the breeze.
Her mind flickered to Sam: Gran’s volunteer gardener and apparently the world’s coolest uncle. She had a strange sense of being on the other side of something important– as if she were seeing it distorted through stained glass or reflected, weird and misshapen, in a fairground mirror.
Either Amy was right about Sam, or other people were. Surely the coexistence of both versions of this man was impossible– would cause the kind of space–time paradox that made the universe unstable.
Ordinarily, Amy wasn’t arrogant enough to assume she had better intel than literally everyone else within a five-mile radius. However, on Sam Ainsworth she had the inside track–shehad information that others didn’t.
She knew that he’d kissed her into a state of blissful, terrified vulnerability, then shrunk away as if she were diseased: that he’d opened her like a book he’d spent years wanting to read, then closed her with asnapjust as she felt ready to share her story. She knew that he said things, made you believe he meant them and then didn’t follow through.
After Nisha’s philosophising, Amy was also grimly aware that the only ‘stomach drop sensation’ she’d ever experienced was with Sam– and that her feelings about that were too complex to unravel right now, or possibly ever.
Finally, and most importantly, she knew what nobody else in the world knew: that she’d eyeballed her mobile phone for days,weeks, endlessly refreshing her emails and jumping out of her skin every time there’d been a knock at the door after Hari died. And Sam had never once shown up for her.
He was the first and last boy she’d ever waited for, ever sobbed into her pillow over– and she had never forgiven him for it.
Chapter 13
When Amy arrived back at the cottage, she knew immediately that something was wrong.
Barbara was sitting at the kitchen table next to Gran, who was clutching her friend’s hand tightly, as if to steady her. Grace’s eyes were shiny with tears that occasionally slipped down her cheeks, but Amy could see anger in them as well as acute distress.
Barbara was weeping too, and it was a pitiful sight: like seeing the decrepit man behind the curtain after believing for decades in the Wizard of Oz. Her proud features were pinched with anguish, and her shoulders– which Amy had always thought of as broad enough to carry any burden and strong enough to resist whatever weight might be dropped on them– were slumped. She looked heartbroken. Hopeless.
Mr Bradley was there, too, standing awkwardly in the corner by the kettle, poised to make tea though it was clear that a round of brandies might have been more welcome. Dave, Barbara’s husband, sat on the other side of the table. Bertie was curled in a ball on his lap, and Dave was stroking the dog’s floppy little ears ceaselessly, apparently in a daze. His face was pale and he wore a vacant, helpless expression. If Amy didn’t know better, she might have been prevailed upon to believe he’d seen a ghost.
‘What … what’s happened?’ Amy said. ‘Is everything …?’
She let her voice trail off before she finished her question. What was the point? It was abundantly clear that everything wasnotOK.
Had someone died, or received a terrifying diagnosis? Amy didn’t think so. Trouble like that wouldn’t account for the fury she could see Grace struggling to contain.
Barbara shook her head and took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Don’t worry, Amy– it’s nothing affecting your gran. It’s … it’s us. We’re going to have to leave our house.’
‘What?’ Amy asked, genuinely not understanding. This didn’t make any sense– the words seemed to have been divorced from their usual meanings. She and Dave had lived in their house for more than thirty years, as far as Amy knew. What on earth could she mean, they’d have to move now, at their time of life?
It wasn’t lost on Amy that Barbara’s first instinct upon seeing her concern was to reassure her that Grace was all right. Barbara might be gruff, but she wasgood. She was kind, always able to bestow compassion on those who needed it without making a song and dance of offering support. When Amy’s dad had died, Barbara had popped in and out of the cottage almost daily, sometimes with a ready-to-reheat home-made dinner, and other times with a pint of milk she’d miraculously sensed they needed. She’d even stop by with library books for Grace, or music magazines she thought Amy might enjoy.
Barbara had been there for Grace in the most mundane, unshowy ways– the ways that only people who loved you like family, cared for you in their blood and bones, could be. Nowshewas distraught, clinging onto Grace as though a five-foot septuagenarian in need of a hip replacement was the anchor who’d keep her attached to the life she and Dave had built together.
‘I had a visit from young Sam Ainsworth earlier,’ Barbara said, her voice flat, weak and scratchy, as if sobbing had strained her vocal cords. ‘It seems his father– the Viscount– is selling off a parcel of property in Rowton for the sake of cash flow.Liquidating some assets, I believe is what it’s called. Our house is among the places to be sold. So’s the pub.’
