Kitabı oku: «Green Beans and Summer Dreams»

Chapter One

When Hormonal Harriet gives a violent judder then plays dead a mile from the village, I react like any other normal, level-headed person. Thumping the steering wheel with an agonised howl then pleading with her to start.

My car might be ancient but she’s also a bit of a diva, so I should have known that forcing her to drive at breakneck speed along potholed country roads would provoke first, surprised outrage, then an all-out strike.

Heart racing, I glance at my phone.

Twenty-two minutes.

Twenty-two minutes to get there and prevent myself from slithering further into the slimy pit of humiliation I’ve been trying to scramble out of since CLB left.

When she heard the news of Jamie’s betrayal, my forthright and fiercely protective friend, Anna, declared, ‘Izzy, I will never speak that wanker’s name again!’

So now she refers to Jamie as Cheating Lying Bastard (aka CLB). The label seems to have stuck and I, for one, am certainly not complaining.

Twenty-one minutes!

There’s nothing else for it. I’m going to have to run.

I scramble out of the car and glance at my feet. Scabby trainers. Perfect. I was cross-country champion at school so running a mile should be a walk in the park.

Three minutes later, I’m in so much agony I think I might be suffering a minor heart attack. But the memory of that doom-laden text message spurs me on. Without Jamie paying the mortgage, it’s all down to me now – and I’ve slipped up badly. Those panic-inducing words – not enough funds to cover – pinged onto my phone only an hour ago.

I was in the kitchen, intent on a double mission: attacking my garden’s embarrassing glut of carrots and leeks by chopping them up into soup and thereby saving money on this week’s food bill. I froze with fear. If I missed the mortgage payment – due next day – I’d be on a slippery slope I couldn’t bear to think about. Transferring funds into the account was the logical thing to do. Just one small fly in the ointment. My meagre savings had run out; there were no funds to transfer.

Then I remembered the brand new tablet I’d bought for Jamie when we were still together and money wasn’t a problem. The tablet was a gift to mark the anniversary of the day we’d met five years earlier. But before I had a chance to present him with it, I found out he’d been cheating on me and we broke up.

I pictured the tablet, lying in my bedside drawer, still wrapped in its romantic, heart-patterned cellophane, with a label that read: To Jamie, All My Love, Izzy xxx

Thank God I hadn’t given it to him!

I could return the tablet to the shop and the refund would plug the gap in my account.

As I jog along the lane, shoulder bag clamped tight, I can hear the cellophane crackling inside. I’m panting so loudly, I sound like I’m having wildly inventive, leap-off-the-wardrobe sex. I should be so lucky. Thank God it’s a quiet country road so no-one can witness me lurching along with the sweaty complexion of a bursting tomato.

At last the High Street comes into view.

The shop closes at 5.30. It’s now 5.23.

I think I’m going to make it!

I lumber past the post office then hang onto some railings, wheezing for Britain. One big push and I’ll be there …

Launching myself off, I stare grimly at my target and stagger on. Luckily, the shop is at this end of the High Street, just beyond a trendy juice bar and the newsagent’s.

A hulking, mud-spattered lorry is taking up most of the pavement outside the juice bar, its back door thrown up. I concentrate hard on the very small space on the pavement between the lorry and the shops. Definitely single file only, but there’s no-one approaching from the other direction.

I’m almost there, ready to squeeze through, when I’m momentarily distracted by the lorry’s cargo. A familiar scent wafts up my nose. Vegetables. Curious, I slow down to take a closer look at the stacked wooden trays filled with fresh broccoli and pears. Ooh, and juicy-looking clementines with their glossy green leaves still attached. Lovely. And something else – oh, it’s kohlrabi. I’ve been meaning to try growing some of that – there’s room in my vegetable patch between the winter cabbages and the cauliflowers—

‘Oof!’

Not looking where I’m going, I collide with a very large, very solid object. Bouncing backwards, I lose my balance and land with a nasty thud on my bottom.

It’s a bit of a shock to see the world from this angle.

Thoroughly winded, I take in a pair of massive trainers, even shabbier than mine, on the end of a pair of long male legs clad in scruffy black joggers.

A big, muck-encrusted hand is thrust into my eye-line and – still dazed and disorientated – I’m hauled roughly to my feet. The owner of the legs towers over me, glaring down from behind a pair of creepy, silver-mirrored aviator glasses.

I’m about to launch into a profuse apology, when this sinister-looking giant barks, ‘Bloody woman. Might have known. No sense of spatial awareness whatsoever.’ He points. ‘You’ve dropped something.’ Then he stomps into the newsagent’s.

Stunned by the unfairness of his accusation, I sink back against the lorry to catch my breath.

But next second, I gasp in horror.

My mortgage payment is lying in the road and a car is bearing down on it.

Swiftly, I dive over, scoop up my precious cellophane package and set it down carefully beside the tray of clementines, before bending over into the lorry and resting my weight on my arms as I get my breath back. The scent of citrus fruit rushes up my nose.

As if all this wasn’t weird enough, without warning my world is rocked again – quite literally this time.

The lorry is swaying from side to side.

I leap away in shock as the engine roars into life and the vehicle starts to move off.

What the hell’s going on? The driver’s forgotten to close the back of the lorry!

The crate of clementines is sliding dangerously close to the edge and as I stare after the truck, dumbfounded, several butternut squash roll out of the back and bounce gaily into the gutter.

I start to run.

‘Hey, wait a minute! Stop!’

The driver is signalling, waiting to move out and I almost manage to draw level with the cab, waving my arms about like an idiot.

But it’s no use.

The lorry is so grimy, I can’t even make out the name of the company on the side. Only a few letters are visible and they – rather appropriately I feel – spell out ‘arso’.

Horrified, I watch as the lorry accelerates off into the distance with my beautifully wrapped mortgage payment nestled cosily between the kohlrabi and the clementines.

When I met Jamie, I was in my mid-twenties, sharing a chaotic but colourful flat with my three best girlfriends in Edinburgh. We were all starting out in our careers; I’d graduated from the university with a degree in English and was now a lowly public relations assistant with a salary to match. But being broke much of the time didn’t seem to stop us enjoying ourselves and partying most weekends.

I met Jamie at our local pub – I left my scarf behind and he sprinted the length of the street to return it and ask me on a date – and I fell crazily and completely in love.

A financial analyst, Jamie was something of a whiz in the maths department; far more intelligent than me, but not in the least bit geeky. Quite the opposite, in fact. He could liven up any gathering with his charm and wealth of funny stories, and he was also surprisingly romantic. Once, for my birthday, he filled the entire flat with sunflowers (my favourite) – dozens and dozens of them in every room, all in pretty blue vases that must have cost him a small fortune.

Before long, we were such an inseparable double-act, my flatmates started laughingly referring to us as Richard and Judy. And a year after we met, we decided to move in together.

Everything was wonderful.

I’d never been so happy.

But the downside was that while I was so wrapped up in my new life with Jamie, my visits to family tended to get put on the back-burner. With Dad living in Glasgow, just an hour away on the train, I saw him and Gloria fairly often. And at least four times a year, I’d usually make the journey south to see both Mum and Midge. But during that first year of living with Jamie, I let things slide.

So when Mum phoned with some grim news, it came as a truly devastating blow.

My lovely Aunt Midge was desperately ill.

She had undergone a heart operation without even telling us, which was typical of her. The prognosis was not good. The doctor was advising us to visit as soon as we could.

As I moved round the flat in a daze, blinded by tears, trying to pack a bag for the journey south, Jamie arrived home.

His concern when he heard the news was genuine. He’d met Midge just once but he’d liked her very much, especially her dry humour and her feisty spirit. He immediately phoned work, saying he had a family emergency and would be absent for a few days. He located my keys and went round turning off lights while I stood by in a useless daze. Then he drove me all the way down to the hospital in Surrey and an emotional reunion with my mother.

Midge died two days later.

I was numb with grief.

And weighed down by guilt.

I hated myself for not being there when she needed me. Midge had kept her illness to herself but that was no excuse. I should have gone down to Surrey a lot more often, then I would have known she wasn’t herself. But I’d been too wrapped up in my life with Jamie. I kept promising Midge I’d visit but it was always hazy, planned for some time in the future.

I never actually fixed a date.

And now it was all too late.

A few weeks later, I was stunned by the contents of Midge’s will.

She had bequeathed her beloved Farthing Cottage to me, along with the adjacent field where she’d kept her rescue donkeys at one time.

I couldn’t believe it.

I loved the cottage. I’d spent such idyllically happy times there with Midge during my school holidays. I couldn’t possibly sell it. But what was the alternative? To live there would mean giving up my life in Edinburgh, yet as the months went by and we debated what to do, I grew more and more enchanted by the idea of moving down to Surrey.

Then, when Jamie landed a job as a financial trader in the City of London, that was it.

The decision was made.

Off we went.

Jamie had always hankered after working in London’s Square Mile, the heart of the powerful financial district, so he was happy. I immediately started job-hunting, feeling fairly confident that with my degree and experience, it wouldn’t be long before I’d be earning, too.

I began applying for jobs locally in the PR industry. Then, when I wasn’t immediately successful, I started to spread the net wider. I reasoned that living in Surrey, it would be an easy commute by train to London and for a while, I entertained a lovely image of Jamie and me travelling in together each morning, he with his Financial Times and me with my nose in a book.

When the first few rejections arrived, I stayed optimistic. I knew that with the recession still biting hard, it might be a bit of a slog. But if I kept on trying, I’d get there in the end.

But it wasn’t as simple as I had imagined.

After three or four months of getting precisely nowhere, my confidence had taken a bashing and I was growing restless, stuck in a dilapidated house while Jamie worked long hours to establish himself at his new firm – although thankfully, he was earning more than enough for both of us. I was also missing Edinburgh and my friends. I desperately needed something to occupy my mind.

That was when Jamie came up with a plan.

I would give the job-hunting a rest for the time being, and instead, project manage the renovation of Farthing Cottage. He was more than happy to pay the bills while I worked on the house and we’d have a gorgeous home at the end of it.

I accepted the challenge gratefully. After months of anxiety over my future in the workplace, finally I had a project to get my teeth into.

And what a project!

For the last few years of Midge’s life, the house had been neglected. Every part of it – the roof, the plumbing, the electrics, the gardens – needed a complete overhaul. The roof was the worst. We had leaks in the kitchen whenever it rained. And an inspection revealed that renewing the tiles would not be sufficient. The entire thing would have to be replaced.

So we drew up big plans to go the whole hog, knocking down walls, extending the kitchen and installing en-suite bathrooms and a conservatory. We took out a small mortgage on the property to raise funds and lived in a caravan for the first few months while the roof was fixed and the interior reshaped.

Then we moved in and spent the best part of six months battling with the mess, installing new fittings and making it into a lovely home again.

I was focused one hundred and ten percent on the project. I even took some night classes in plastering and eventually, after a few false starts, we managed to save ourselves a shed-load of money by doing most of it ourselves. We hired plumbers and electricians to do the specialised work. But most of the donkey work I did myself, helped by Jamie at weekends. Finally, we had a beautiful blank canvas and I was able to embark on the painting and decorating.

I shaped rooms and chose paint shades and fabrics with Midge in mind. It was like she was there, advising me with her wise words and shrugging her shoulders when I got it wrong.

I was also determined to have the wrought iron main gates restored to their former glory. They were beautiful. A real work of art. But they had tarnished over time and Midge had seemed agitated about that when we last spoke.

With the house project over, I started job-hunting again while setting to work on the jungle of a garden.

I’d found a twelve-month gardening diary Midge had started in 1992, a few years after she’d first come to live at Farthing Cottage. So now I was following her lead. I threw all my energy into tackling the huge, overgrown plot at the back of the house, getting rid of the tangle of weeds, pruning the fruit trees, and even cultivating a small vegetable plot. I’d never gardened before but I borrowed loads of books from the library and started experimenting. Jamie helped out at weekends with the heavier jobs.

And I found I loved it.

Working in the garden brought me a satisfaction I’d never experienced before. Even project managing the house hadn’t given me the same pleasure as working outdoors in the fresh air, coaxing plants to life and leaning on my spade at the end of the day to admire the result. My muscles would ache, I’d be hot and sweaty, and in my gardening gear, I looked rather like a scarecrow. But the sense of achievement and the feeling of peace was second to none.

I’d discovered a genuine affinity with the earth and a love of gardening that I could only assume I’d inherited from my Aunt Midge.

And for the first time, I realised that actually, I wouldn’t be at all disappointed if I never saw the inside of an office again. I hadn’t missed my PR work at all.

My mind seemed to be wandering in a new direction.

Could I turn my love of gardening into a business?

I’d spend hours mulling over the possibilities. Could I sell my own vegetables at the farmers’ market? Set myself up in business as a gardener in the local area? Or try to find work at a garden centre?

But I always came to the same conclusion.

However attractive the idea of growing and selling my own vegetables might be, there wasn’t any real money in it. So gardening could only ever be a lovely hobby.

But I’d reached a place where I was happy with myself and my life. Jamie seemed to be thriving at work. We were living in a beautiful house in the country. Our future looked sunny.

I could never have anticipated what was to come next.

Afterwards, I’d look back and wonder why on earth I hadn’t realised what was happening. Had I been too wrapped up in the garden to spot the signs?

When Jamie came home from work one day and broke the news that he was leaving, it was so unexpected that at first, I was struck dumb. I remember watching the sentences floating out of his mouth but being quite unable to take them in.

Then he mentioned Emma and instantly I was hearing every word in magnified Dolby surround sound.

I sat down on the nearest kitchen chair, in case my trembling legs gave way.

Emma was Jamie’s work colleague. He’d mentioned her from time to time. Apparently they had tried so hard to resist the attraction between them but in the end it was impossible. Jamie gazed at me with infinite sadness, shrugged his careworn shoulders and said, ‘It was beyond our control. We were always meant to be. Emma and me.’

Hurt and anger boiled up inside me.

What an utter load of horseshit he was spouting!

Since when had Jamie been a believer in flaky concepts like Fate and Destiny?

The only thing that was ‘meant to be’ was me hurling the salmon en croute with asparagus at his stupid head.

But since I’m not a violent person, I did the next best thing and escaped to the bathroom.

I sat on the mercifully cool floor tiles, leaning against the lovely free-standing bath Jamie and I had chosen together.

I caught my reflection in the angled shaving mirror by the basin. Pale face. Sweep of reddish-brown blow-dried hair. Dark eyes bleak with despair.

The fabric of my brand new, poppy-red mini dress felt stiff against my bare thighs, tanned from the garden. I gazed at the cream, strappy sandals with the ruby jewel embellishments.

I was dressed for a special day.

And special days demanded sacrifices – whether it was heels that tortured your feet and gave you the calf muscles of a weightlifter or corset-type tops that made you wish breathing could be optional. In an ideal world, I would have changed out of my new outfit when the lightning bolt struck because now it just made me feel like a fool. But when someone who’s supposed to love you stands there, white-faced and barely able to look you in the eye, and says he’s sorry, but he’s decided to move in with someone a decade younger, it would hardly be normal behaviour to say, ‘Hang fire a sec, will you, while I slip into something more comfortable?’

I smoothed my hand over the knobbly surface of the floor tiles. A bathroom wasn’t the best place to hole up, from a comfort perspective, but it had one distinct advantage. A door that locked. So I didn’t have to look at his face and see his pathetic I’m so sorry but we just couldn’t help ourselves expression.

I loved those tiles. Tiny Mediterranean blue squares like the bottom of a swimming pool. They’d taken an age to lay. The rooms in this old farmhouse weren’t exactly small. But we’d both agreed it was worth the painstaking effort.

Tears stung my eyes.

He’d be picking out tiles with Emma from now on.

I thought of all the months of deception as Jamie pursued his tacky, clandestine passion and suddenly, I was furious again. I wanted to stick my head round the door and yell at him that bloody Emma was welcome to him. And could he please leave his key on the way out? I might even hurl his stupid top-of-the-range tablet at him as he went. The one I’d spent ages choosing then wrapping up in a big cellophane bow with little red hearts on it.

Take that, cheating gadget man!

But of course I wouldn’t. I’d keep it all in because in my top ten of Things I Loathe, confrontation was a clear winner (though currently jostling for the top spot with Jamie Evans, monster deceiver).

I thought of my friend, Anna. She wouldn’t hold back for fear of unpleasantness and shouting. I shuddered to imagine what she would say to Jamie when she knew he’d been cheating on me for the past ten months; with a woman who, at twenty-two, had a full decade on me and whose biological clock could tick for another twenty years before the warranty ran out.

Jess, my other best friend, would be deeply shocked but instead of railing at Jamie, she would gather me close and let me sob.

Suddenly I longed for Jess.

‘Izzy? Are you OK in there?’

I froze, like an animal sensing the next few seconds could mean life or death.

‘Open up, Izz. We need to talk.’

I stared mutinously at the door handle. If he thought I was going to—

‘Come on, Izz, stop being so melodramatic. Oh, for God’s sake, we can’t do this through a locked door.’

My mouth twisted with scorn. He’d been shagging Emma for the best part of a year. Now they were planning a new life together. Exactly how was talking going to help?

‘Izzy, I’m so, so sorry. What else can I say? If you want me to go, I will. Do you want me to go?’

I pulled a ‘duh!’ face at the door.

‘Isobel! Talk to me!’ He blew out his breath, frustrated. ‘Look, we’ve had a good innings, you and me. Five years. But in the long run you’ll see this was for the best. Christ, you’ll probably thank me.’

A good innings? Trust him to default to his deathly dull cricket in a crisis.

I remembered the champagne chilling in the fridge. I’d smiled at the check-out girl as she removed the security collar on the bottle, all the while complaining that her boyfriend could never be relied on to remember special occasions. My smile was a little smug, because my boyfriend always did.

‘Right, I’m going,’ he announced, and the ice in his tone felt like a slap in the face. ‘You do realise you’ll have to sell the house.’

I swallowed hard. ‘No way,’ I called out, my voice catching a little.

This was my house! We weren’t married. Or even engaged. Aunt Midge would turn in her grave if she knew he and Emma were planning to lay some kind of claim to Farthing Cottage.

‘Well, you’ll have to pay the mortgage on your own then, won’t you?’

‘Fine!’ I yelled.

‘Come on, Izzy. You won’t need a house this big once I’m gone.’

I reached for some toilet tissue and blew my nose very softly. ‘I’ll be fine.’

‘How?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll – sell things.’

‘Sorry?’

‘You heard me. I’ll sell things.’