Starting Over (2 page)

In silence, Ratty worked at the bench.

The Freelander looked so forlorn all bashed, squashed and abandoned on the forecourt. Tess groaned. ‘All my gear’s in the car.’

He glanced up. ‘Anyone you can call?’

She sighed. ‘Not really.’ It sounded so sad.

Silence. Then, ‘OK! Just to Honeybun Cottage? I’ll bring the van round.’

It was shameful, really. The situation was all her fault and yet she sat in the echoing chill of the garage and watched the three men like ants in the rain, transferring her sacks of clothes and boxes of books into the back of a van. But concrete was setting into her muscles, her head clanged and she felt so sick.

Boxes, cases, bags, a behemoth of a computer and an awkwardly large printer … Finally, Ratty had everything transferred to the van, what seemed to be all the worldly possessions of the accident-prone owner of the Freelander.

Impatiently, he loped back over to the doorway. ‘Anytime you’re ready ...’

He watched the woman hunch her shoulders against the rain and clamber stiffly into the front seat, obviously prepared to endure the tortures of hell rather than admit that she was hurting. Her hair was a sodden rope and her T-shirt clung interestingly. During the short, rattly journey she stopped shivering only long enough to offer, ‘It’s this road.’

‘Yep, this is Little Lane all right.’ He nodded. ‘What happened to the commuters who had Honeybun after Herbie died? Mortgage rate get them?’

‘I suppose. I bought it as a repo. My father’s field of expertise.’

‘Profiting from someone else’s bad fortune.’

‘Like you, fixing breakdowns?’ Her face was tight with irritation.

He half smiled. ‘Got me. But repair’s not my market.’

‘Really? But you are going to fix my car?’

‘When you get the OK from your insurance company.’ He turned in between the gateposts of Honeybun Cottage and pulled up as close to the kitchen door as possible, beside a lawn full of clover and daisies. He knew these cottages and the way the door opened straight into the house. ‘They’ll probably tell you that it has to be done by Land Rover. I’ll dump all this crap in the kitchen, shall I?’

For the first time she smiled, and it lit her face like a sunbeam on a stormy day. ‘You’re a regular Sir Galahad.’

Trotting to and fro from van to kitchen, he got wetter and wetter, until he was really tired of it. He didn’t suggest the woman should help, though, because she was so pale that a dusting of freckles was standing out across her nose. Then he saw her rubbing her eyes and blinking. ‘I think you’re concussed,’ he said shortly, piling four black bin bags, round and puffed with clothes, beside the kitchen table.

She pressed her palms to her forehead. ‘Probably.’ She turned both her palms into a
Halt
!
sign. ‘But I’m not going to hospital.’ She picked up one bin bag and one overnight case. ‘This is all I need for the first night. I’m going to be incredibly rude and ungracious but do you mind if I go to bed?’

‘No prob.’ He waited until she’d clambered up the twisting staircase before adding under his breath, ‘You seem pretty good at being rude and ungracious.’

A bottle of milk. Then a pot of jam. Now a bunch of chrysanthemums, incurved yellow petals silky under Tess’s fingertip.

Somebody, a reader of too many magazine stories maybe, was leaving daily gifts on her doorstep.

The sun lit the reddening leaves drifting on the brisk breeze into Little Lane and suddenly she wanted to move, go, get into the fresh air instead of hiding like a mole in its hole. Out. It wasn’t as if she was accomplishing much indoors, fiddling with the arrangement of her new workroom instead of actually producing any work. After two days her headache and swimming vision had improved, but her neck still felt as if she had an overdose of Viagra stuck in her throat.

As an illustrator, she was used to working from wherever she lived but Honeybun Cottage didn’t feel like home, yet. Her new home. Her new hidey-hole.

Her parents’ house in Middleton Stoney was once home, also her garden flat in Finchley. The house she’d owned with Olly in
Brentwood
should’ve been home.

She was away from Olly.

And away from her parents, James and Mari.

She especially wanted to be away from her father, who had taken an uncomfortably philosophical view of what Olly had done, saying, ‘He must have had his reasons.’ James had always got on well with Olly.

When Olly changed his mind about loving her forever, her first instinct hadn’t been to run to her parents; but she had wanted to be just about anywhere except that house where every empty room reminded her of what Olly had done.

And then she’d been ill and her parents’ house had been the obvious place for that, good or bad, depending how you looked at it. But now she was living in Middledip where she knew nobody. And she was glad.

Honeybun Cottage was small and sweet with its uneven walls, black doors, wonky lattice windows and mossy tiled roof. James had negotiated for much of the furniture, which The Commuters had bought in turn from the estate of the previous owner, no doubt the ‘Herbie’ that the garage man, Ratty, had referred to. Desperate to discharge frightening, escalating debt, they’d settled for a stupid price for the carved oak furniture.

‘But,’ she warned the old walls, as she listened to her footfalls on the quarry-tiled floor, ‘don’t get too used to me. I don’t always stick around. Sometimes, I like being away from prying eyes.’

The first time had been when her looming A levels stressed her out. She’d reappeared in time for the exams; but had been where no one knew or cared why she was there, long enough to acquire the taste for the delicious, naughty distance from real life. Four days in the Cotswolds, here. A month in
France
, there.

She found her purse and gave into her compulsion to escape the house. She’d go shopping; she’d enquire about who might have been leaving kind offerings. Village shop proprietors were omniscient.

At the Cross, opposite MAR Motors, the sign over the shop door read ‘A. & G. Crowther’. The door pinged open to reveal shelves to the ceiling, a middle-aged lady and a girl with twin enquiring expressions above smart grey smocks.

‘You’re from Honeybun! Seen you going in and out.’
Gwen Crowther
the lady’s badge declared.

Tess hovered on red and grey vinyl tiles. ‘That’s right.’

‘Settling in all right? Nice little place, Honeybun. What can I get you, duck?’

‘Apples, please, a bag. And oranges.’ She didn’t look at the biscuits, waiting to seduce. Away from Mari’s sugar-stocked kitchen she
was
going to make room in her waistbands. ‘Tomato soup. And a loaf.’

Before parting with the change,
Julie
– said the other name pin – and Mrs Crowther closed in adroitly on the subject of Tess. ‘And do you work, duck? An
illustrator
! An artist, really, then? Never known an illustrator, have you, Julie? What do you illustrate?’

Tess shuffled. ‘Folk tales, animals and dragons. Kids’ stuff, whimsy.’

‘Books ’n’ that, then?’

‘And cards.’ Looking over at the racked cellophaned greeting cards, Tess recognised some of Crowther’s stock. She pointed quickly. ‘That’s one of mine.’ Little wolves dressed in breeches and aproned frocks, with toothy grins and feathered ears. The card company was a useful source of income, providing bits and pieces between commissions of book work obtained by Kitty, her agent. The wolves had recently been reproduced on mugs as well, another fee.

Olly had wanted her to design something funky, had urged her to try and break into CD covers, implying that her chosen market must be of a lesser quality. CD covers came under design, not illustration; there were few openings and little money in it – but trust Olly to ignore little things like that.

Mrs Crowther gaped. ‘Get away!’

‘Really?
You
drew that? Oh, sign one for me!’ Julie, flicking back her long blonde bunches, snatched up a birthday card and stripped away the wrapping. ‘Where’s a pen? You don’t
mind
,
do you?’

‘’Course not.’ Tess wiped her palms on her jeans, scribbled
Best wishes, Tess Riddell
self-consciously on the front, alongside the T inside the little star that she added discreetly to her illustrations.

She was out of practice at being sociable, felt worn out by such beady interest. But, as supposed, Mrs Crowther could pinpoint the likely giver of gifts. ‘That’ll be Lucasta Meredith at Pennybun Cottage, I’ll bet! That’s her style.’

‘Where’s Pennybun?’

Mrs Crowther snorted with amusement. ‘Next door to you!’

‘I didn’t know there was anything but trees next door to me –’ She scurried aside as Mrs Crowther rushed to the door to help drag in a tandem buggy, disregarding Tess instantly. ‘Hello Angel!
Hello
Toby, hello baby Jenna!’

The little boy in the front seat of the buggy looked up at Tess. ‘My daddy’s in prison.’

His mother corrected him gently. ‘
Preston
.’

Tess smiled politely and made for the door.

Breaking off simultaneous conversations with the pretty mother and sturdy son, Mrs Crowther called after her, ‘Fifty steps past your gate, my duck, you’ll see old Pennybun Cottage.’

As the door swung behind her, she heard, ‘Is that the new one from Honeybun?’ She grinned. Looked across at the garage; scowled.

Last night, Jos had dropped in an invoice for the tow into the village. Jos was nice, she couldn’t stay wary with him for more than the two minutes it took him to pull out a chair and invite himself for coffee. The biker gear disguised a real sweetheart.

Must pay, next stop.

That abrupt, sarcastic man. Yuk. She could always write a cheque, pop it through the door when they were shut? Yes, she’d do that.

‘No, you won’t!’ she muttered crossly to herself. ‘He doesn’t worry you! You can deal with annoying gits, you’re not a wimp.’

Crossing the forecourt, she took a good look at her Freelander, still under the tarpaulin, and almost bowled into Ratty, right by the door. Damn, the surly pirate. She’d hoped to deal with one of the others.

She whisked out her credit card. ‘I’ve come to pay my bill.’

‘Great.’ He glanced up from the falling-apart manual in his oily hands. ‘So your insurance company insisted on the repair being done by Land Rover? They’re picking it up later.’ His voice was clipped, accentless.

She flushed. ‘You were right about that.’

He grinned. He looked more relaxed today. ‘They’ll do a good job. And if your policy allows for a courtesy car … well, I haven’t got one. But there was no chassis damage and the engine still runs. It’s just cosmetic stuff, bolting on the new panels and lights – looks worse than it is. Feeling OK, now?’

She pushed back her hair that was blowing out of its clasp. Flushed, self-conscious under his intent gaze. ‘A bit stiff. Nothing to worry about.’ Then, as an afterthought, ‘Thanks for asking. And for delivering my stuff.’

‘No prob.’ He returned to his reading.

He gave her time to march away across the forecourt.

Then, ‘She paid,’ Ratty told Pete’s legs. ‘Funny woman.’ He turned a page that was no longer attached to the manual. ‘Amazing colouring, hasn’t she? When her hair was wet it looked nothing special. But it’s extraordinary – kind of amber.’

‘Who?’ Pete’s hollow voice floated up through the engine compartment and out of the open bonnet of an MG Midget.

‘The funny woman from Honeybun who pranged the wrecker.’ Not auburn, not blonde, somewhere between. Long, long hair swung carelessly in a thick ponytail.
Turquoise
eyes, like in a romantic novel. Alive, those eyes, in a face bearing the slightest sprinkling of freckles. Unusual, she was. A pair of studs in one ear, a pair of big hoops in the other, gold bands, some patterned, some plain, all without stones, on every long, upturned finger but not the thumbs.

‘But “funny”?’

A pause. ‘Interesting.’

Pennybun Cottage proved to be snuggled into the trees only a few yards from the end of Tess’s garden. A mirror image of Honeybun Cottage in a teeming garden of big white daisies, golden rod, the last hollyhocks taller than herself, papery old laburnum pods rustling as she wandered to the door, obligatory deepest red rose around the doorway ...

‘Good morning, dear! You’re the new one –’

‘– from Honeybun,’ she agreed. Before she’d lifted her hand to the door, before she’d completely made up her mind to knock, even, the door was opening and Lucasta Meredith was waving her in like an old friend. A silvery chignon complemented a dress patterned in eight shades of blue, a stick propping up a walk that had become a jerky dance. Lucasta scarcely looked capable of walking round to Honeybun with her little gifts.

Tess was ushered into a parlour of hanging plants, glass and ivory ornaments, with a floral cottage suite nestled in the middle.