A Place in the Country (23 page)

The Gonzalez family and Jim had left and now Melanie was standing by the door, smoking a cigarette. Caroline thought she was a very attractive woman and had no doubt James had fallen for her. But if she'd come here, broke, looking for a financial fix, claiming James was her child's father, she was knocking on the wrong door. As far as Caroline knew, there was no more money.

Jim was still there, leaning against the kitchen sink, arms folded over his chest, one ankle crossed over the other. Caroline caught Melanie looking at him.

“You two an item?” Melanie asked, with that lowered-chin, catlike smile Caroline noticed she was using now she wasn't crying anymore.

An item!
What movie era was she coming from! “Certainly not,” Caroline said, and Jim grinned.

“Okay. I think I'll take Asia for a walk, get some sun while it lasts.” She plucked Asia from her chair and wandered out into the courtyard, heading toward the field which Caroline noticed now had sheep in it.

“What happened to my cows?” she asked indignantly. She had become attached to them and their goofy lowing, looked forward to them peering over the hedge at her as she drove by. It was silly but she always waved and could swear they knew her.

“I guess the farmer decided a change of scenery would be good for them,” Jim said. “Fresh fields and pastures new,” he added.

She knew he must be quoting something but after a sleepless night her brain wasn't up to remembering exactly what.

“Less flies with sheep,” he mentioned, still leaning casually against the sink.

Caroline didn't want to think about flies. She definitely needed something to wake her up and it was not vodka, and definitely no more coffee. She had Issy to deal with and she was afraid her daughter was going to be hurt. She looked at Jim. “I don't know how to explain it to Issy,” she said helplessly.

“I've found truth is always the best way, one painful thrust and then let the healing begin.”

“She's had so many ‘thrusts' recently.” She met his eyes and thought how brown they were.

Jim unfolded his arms and held them wide. “Get over here, sweetheart,” he said, and she moved into them as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

Wrapped close to his chest, her head under his shoulder, Caroline could hear his heart thudding. She had just time enough to remember she was in her old chenille bathrobe, unshowered and unclothed beneath it. His hand pressed into the small of her back, urging her closer, the other held her head as his mouth lingered over hers.

“I've been wanting to do this again but you've been avoiding me,” he murmured, dropping kisses across her uncombed hair. “You know you have the prettiest hair, soft and swingy and that fringe, always in your eyes.” He stopped for a second, puzzled. “Where are your glasses, anyway?”

“I forgot all about them.” Caroline couldn't even remember where she had left them after last night's vodka.

“Good. Now I can see your eyes.” He kissed her eyelids then ran his tongue over them. It made her shiver.

This was getting too heady, too out of hand, too wonderful … she had not felt like this in … oh, forget how long, she was feeling it now …

“Your eyes are green.” He held her away, to look at her. “Tell me something, do you take your glasses off when you're in bed?”

She was laughing and so was he. “Depends who I'm in bed with,” she said, and then she took his face in both her hands and began kissing him. Seriously.

After quite a while she pulled herself away. “This can't go on,” she said shakily.

“Tell me why not?” He wasn't about to let her go so easily. Not after this kind of progress.

“I have things to do, Issy's coming home, my parents.”

“Ah. The parents. Am I going to be introduced?” He was grinning at her. “You know, hey, Mom, Dad, here's my new boyfriend.” He paused to think for a second. “No, even better, here's my new
lover
.”

“You are not my lover,” she cried indignantly. “And I've never had a ‘lover.'”

“Then it's about time.”

They could hear Melanie calling to Asia. They were coming back. “Well, maybe not now. Unless you want to come back to my place.”

Caroline thought he looked so cute, so full of himself, so full of sexual attraction, of heat and affection and … oh, she didn't know. She only knew it was everything she wanted right now, this minute.

Melanie strode back into the kitchen. She seemed to have acquired a new confidence since arriving in a puddle at the pub. Could that really be only last night?

“Oh!” Melanie said, looking at them pretending to be embarrassed. “We can always go out again, if you'd rather…”

“Don't bother on my account,” Caroline said. “I have things to take care of.” Her parents and Issy would be arriving soon. “And since you and Asia are going to be staying at the pub,
temporarily,
” she added, “perhaps Jim will give you a lift. I know your car is still parked there, with all your stuff. I'm sure you'll be more comfortable.”

“Right.” Melanie picked up Asia, told her to say goodbye to the nice lady and thank you. Asia said nothing.

“I must say thank you, too,” she said, looking directly at Caroline who wondered if she had been wrong. She was like the child in the nursery rhyme:
There was a little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead, when she was good she was very, very good, and when she was bad she was horrid.

“See you later,” Melanie said.

Jim said, “Am I asked to this meeting tonight?”

“If you promise to be good,” Caroline told him.

“I'll try,” he called over his shoulder.

Caroline watched them go, then went to call Mark, to tell him about Melanie. And about Asia.

 

chapter 55

Isabel sprawled
on the backseat of the rental car behind Cassandra and her grandpa, who was driving. They had flown into Gatwick and it was a long slow haul up the M25 past Oxford to Upper Amberley. Conversation had long since dwindled into tiredness.

“You've still got your seat belt on I hope?” Cassandra's voice seemed to float somewhere over Issy's head. She replied automatically that of course she did, then slipped back into silence. She really did not want to go to the place her mother was now calling by the totally wrong word “home.” That wreck of a chilly old barn by the sluggish cold brown river could never be her “home.” That word would only ever mean the apartment in Singapore where they'd lived as a family; the place they had not even gone back to, after her father's funeral because Caroline—
everybody
said—“you can't go home again.”

They'd all thought that, but no one had taken her feelings into account. That she might want to.
Need
to. Even Cassandra had agreed, the one time in Issy's view her grandmother had ever put a foot wrong.

“Closure” was a stupid word she'd heard too often on TV programs when people meant they could finish with a certain emotion. But in a way death finished
you
as well as the person who died because a little part of you died with them. Call it memories, or
nostalgie de la vie
, or maybe she was clinging on when she should let go, but that was the way she felt.

Anyhow, it was over. And so was her small escape in France. Now it was back to real life again, complete with
nostalgie de la vie,
which really meant a longing for life as it used to be.

She switched her thoughts to the Star & Plough, the place she now considered “home.” And to Sam and of course Blind Brenda. Would that skinny darling little runt of a cat even have missed her? Or by now would she have switched allegiance to Sam? Would Blind Brenda even
remember
her and that it was she who had saved her life? Who knew with cats, they were so single-minded, able to cut out the unpleasant and live for the moment. If any cat had proved that it was Blind Brenda who'd overcome her physical disability, to say nothing of her appearance, though of course the cat wouldn't know that she didn't look like other cats, with her blank pale eyes and thin fur and spindly legs.

Issy wished she was a cat. How much easier life would be, not having to sort anything out, handle emotions that sometimes raged out of control; deal with the mother who drove you crazy; and now having to deal with leaving her grandmother who understood her better than anyone.

“You'll be okay, Isabel.” Cassandra's voice floated to the backseat again. “We're almost there, but I should tell you we're going to the barn first. The Place in the Country your mother calls it.”

Isabel sat up. “Why aren't we going to the pub? I'm not staying at that place. It's
her
home. It has nothing to do with me.”

“Stop that, Isabel.” Cassandra turned to look over her shoulder at her. “It does have something to do with you. For once, put your feelings aside and think of your mother.”

Cassandra turned back with a weary sigh. Sometimes the young could demand too much, get on one's nerves. She contemplated with pleasure the glass of wine her daughter would certainly have waiting. Perhaps with some squares of cheese, a nice Wensleydale or a cheddar to accompany it. It was silly she knew, living in France, but she missed those good old-fashioned English cheeses. She thought of the trouble also awaiting them and sighed again.

Issy heard her. “What's up?” She sat bolt upright. Something was going on. She felt it.

Cassandra decided there was no point in hiding things, they were already making the right turn off the A40 into Burford. Ten more minutes and they would be there.

“You might as well know there's a bit of trouble. Well, not ‘trouble' exactly. Let's say a ‘quandary.'”

“I'll bet it's about my father again, Mom's going to tell me something bad about him. Jesus! What more can they say that they haven't already!”

“It
is
about your father. But nothing that can't be worked out, if you—
we
—all keep our heads and think it through.”

“Make our own judgments,” Henry said, tilting his Panama back so he could cast a quick look at Issy. “Ooops, shouldn't take my eyes off this road,” he muttered, as a big white truck pulled out in front of him. Of course he did not recognize it was Jim who was driving because he had not yet met him. “Silly bugger,” he said.

Cassandra, who did not like cursing unless she was doing it herself, let him get away with it this time. “Here we go,” she said, as they bumped over the narrow stone bridge and continued on, passing the sign that said they were now entering Upper Amberley designated one of the prettiest villages in Oxfordshire.

Staring out the window Cassandra thought they were right; all those stone cottages, walls abloom with roses and herbaceous borders overflowing with delphinium and hollyhock and other old-fashioned flowers. White iceberg roses seemed to have taken a hold of every fence and even the Star & Plough which they were now passing had window boxes of coral geraniums with blue verbena and white phlox.

“Why don't we just stop here?” Issy asked with such longing in her voice her grandmother felt bad for her. Little did the poor girl know what was to come. Wait just a minute, she thought, spotting a tall blond walking down the street, tottering on the cobbles in her towering heels and looking very out of place for the countryside. She was holding a small girl by the hand. The child was dressed like minor royalty in a white smocked dress tied with a big bow. She had on Mary Janes and white socks. Cassandra wondered, amazed, whatever happened to shorts, a T-shirt, and sneakers?

She got the sinking feeling this was James's woman and his supposed daughter. She cast a quick glance back at Issy (Cassandra still called her Issy), who seemed not to have noticed anything. Then Henry made the turn into the lane that led to the Place in the Country. “Nice old manor house,” Cassandra said approvingly as they passed the Thompsons'. “You'll have good neighbors.”

“You mean my
mother
will,” Issy said pointedly, slumping back in the seat as her grandpa stopped the car in a swirl of gravel. (Issy noticed the gravel was new and thought at least there was no more mud.) He gave a little honk on the horn to say they were here, and her mother appeared in the doorway, a big smile on her face, her red glasses sliding down her nose as usual so she had to peek over the top. Issy knew she couldn't see like that but anyhow she suddenly felt the need to be clasped in her arms. She was out of the car in a flash, streaking toward Caroline who held her arms open, the way she always had and said, “Hello, sweetie, glad to have you back. You must be speaking French like a native by now.”

“She knows how to order a Fanta Orange and a
croque monsieur,
” Cassandra said, delighted to see her own daughter looking so well. She was wearing a decent skirt for once
and
heels, and a nice white shirt with a tiny silver brooch, a bird on the wing, pinned in front. Her black hair swung in a smooth perfectly cut bob to her shoulders and she had even brushed out that wayward fringe.
And
she was wearing lipstick.

She and Henry glanced approvingly at the freshly graveled drive and at the stone building glowing in the evening sun with the river curling gently in the background. The sheep bleated as if on cue and hidden in the now dense foliage of the chestnut tree, a bird sang.

Inside, they exclaimed admiringly while Issy took a cursory glance round. It really wasn't too bad, not at all what she had expected.

“First a drink then I'll show you the rest of it,” Caroline was saying. “This is where it's really at,” she added, leading the way through the French doors onto the flagged terrace.

She had placed a tray with glasses, wine, and the cheeses (she knew her mother's preferences) on the low stone wall overlooking the river, and put a few striped-yellow-and-blue outdoor cushions there too so they could sit comfortably and enjoy the view.