Hidden Cottage (9 page)

‘But how has this happened?’ Mia asked, trying to hide her fear and her shaking hands as she looked down at Jensen, who was lying on the bed staring at her with glazed eyes. ‘He’s so rarely ill.’

‘It’s probable that as a result of the streptococcal throat infection he’s had, his immune system has gone on the blink and attacked the kidneys. Like I said, this is very rare. But you mustn’t worry, we’ll soon have everything under control. It’s going to take time, though.’

But she did worry; of course she did. Jensen meant the world to her – he
was
her world – and to see him so ill was utterly heartbreaking.

At about seven o’clock that evening, while Jensen was fast asleep, she was advised to go home and fetch some things for him – pyjamas, toothbrush, a few books and toys, anything that would make him feel more at home. She also needed a bag of essential items for herself as she would be staying with him in the side room he’d been put in to.

She took a taxi from outside the hospital and when the driver dropped her off she asked him to wait for her so he could drive her back. She was on her way up the stairs to their first-floor flat when Mrs Frost’s door opened. ‘You have a visitor,’ she said. Oddly her voice didn’t have its customary glacial tone; there was a cheery lightness to it that Mia had never before heard. But she didn’t care who the visitor was; all that mattered to her was getting what she needed and rushing back to be with Jensen. She didn’t want him to wake and find her not there. But then she registered the present tense Mrs Frost had used. Whoever the visitor was, he or she was still here. But where?

She turned and looked down the stairs at Mrs Frost and was about to explain that Jensen wasn’t well and that she was in a hurry when Jeff appeared in the gloomy hallway. ‘Hello, Mia,’ he said, ‘your delightful landlady and I have just been enjoying a cup of tea and a slice of cake together.’

She was struck by so many thoughts in that moment, but chief amongst them was disbelief that Jeff could do the impossible – that he could charm Mrs Frost. But then all the fear and worry of the afternoon, all the emotions she had kept hidden from Jensen, combined with the extraordinary coincidence of Jeff turning up just when she needed help most, overwhelmed her and she burst into tears.

Once she’d calmed down sufficiently to get the words out, Jeff was marvellous. He paid the taxi driver, helped her find what she needed for the hospital, insisted she ate something – a slice of toast and a flapjack he found in the cake tin – and then drove them to the hospital. And as he drove, he kept a firm hand on hers and told her everything would be all right.

Amazingly, everything did prove to be all right. Five days after he was admitted to hospital, Jensen was allowed home, but it was another month before he was back to his normal healthy self. By which time Jeff had not only supported her through the weeks of worry and anxiety but had proved himself to be a changed man, a man who wanted to play an active role in his son’s life. Three months later and he said that he wanted them to be a family, a proper family. But Mia needed to be convinced that he was serious, that this wasn’t just some passing whim on his part. She also needed to work out just what it was she felt for Jeff; she needed to be sure it wasn’t just gratitude for helping her through Jensen’s illness.

His response was to go to great lengths to prove himself worthy and he agreed to her wishes that he didn’t rush things, that he especially didn’t rush Jensen into calling him Daddy, even though Mia had explained just who he was. Given the close relationship he and Mia had shared since his birth, Jensen was understandably wary of Jeff at first but gradually he became less jealous and possessive and more open to having Jeff in their lives. And as time went by Mia realized she enjoyed having Jeff around; he brought a brightness into her life and regularly made her laugh with his impressions of Mrs Frost, whom he had eating out of the palm of his hand by bringing her flowers or chocolates when he visited. He had winkled out of her all sorts of stuff that Mia had never been able to, such as her having been widowed for more than twenty years and that before that she and her husband had run a B&B together in Cornwall. ‘I’m beginning to feel jealous of you and Mrs Frost,’ Mia said one day. ‘I think you only come here to see her.’

‘Good,’ he said, ‘I’m glad you’re jealous; that means you feel something for me.’

And she did. Just as when she’d first met him, she enjoyed his positive outlook and his rock-solid belief that there wasn’t anything he couldn’t make happen. But only when she was convinced that Jensen was happy with having Jeff in their lives did she agree to marry him.

Ten months after their marriage, Eliza was born, and then along came Daisy. Born three weeks earlier than her due date, Daisy’s birth took them unawares, so much so Mia knew they wouldn’t make it to the hospital in time and Jeff ended up having to deliver Daisy. It was, he claimed for many years, his proudest achievement.

Whereas Jensen and Eliza had been very easy-going babies, Daisy was furiously demanding with only two volume settings to her cries – loud or deafening. Throughout the Terrible Twos life was virtually intolerable; Daisy could scream and hold her breath for a terrifying length of time, and afraid she could actually damage herself, that something might burst inside her, Mia would give in. Anything to stop her from crying and screaming. Life went on like that until Daisy was three and a half, when suddenly, as if a switch had been flicked, she changed. ‘See,’ Jeff said, ‘didn’t I tell you it was just a phase?’

It was as helpful as his comments when Daisy had been just a few weeks old, when he’d as good as said that Mia was to blame for Daisy being such a fractious baby. ‘You’re too tense,’ he’d say, as if he was now the world’s expert on childrearing. ‘She’s picking up on your anxiety; you need to relax more.’

‘Relax?’ Mia had snapped. ‘Just how do you expect me to do that?’

‘There you go,’ he’d said, ‘flying off the handle at the slightest thing. It’s not good.’

Regrettably Daisy was the catalyst for changing the dynamics within the family. But in no way was it her fault. Jeff was to blame; it was his singling her out as his favourite that did the harm. Blind to what he was doing, divisions took hold and resentment amongst the children bubbled beneath the surface. As the years went by, Jeff changed, he became hardened; the fun seemed to go out of him and he grew increasingly dictatorial, his ears closed to any viewpoint but his own. Mia put it down to him simply replicating his behaviour in the office at home – so used to being the boss at work, he expected to be treated accordingly at home. All too frequently Mia felt guilty that despite her attempts to do so she had failed to rein Jeff in, to make him see the damage he was doing to the family and himself.

Guilt. Oh, she could gather it effortlessly, layer upon layer of the stuff. Like ornaments on a shelf gathering dust.

She felt guilty right now that she had argued with Jeff last night, having promised herself she wouldn’t rise to his bait. During the day they had both been occupied – he with another round of golf and she with driving the girls to the station and then tidying the house, stripping beds, washing the sheets and towels, setting up the ironing board in the kitchen and making sure that Jeff had the shirts he wanted to pack for the week he was in Brussels.

In the evening, they had a dinner party to go to given by friends of Jeff’s from the golf club. As he could so often do, he had put on an impressive act of appearing as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He had charmed and joked his way smoothly through the evening with consummate skill. Only when they had said goodbye to their hosts and Mia was driving them home did he drop the act and pick up where he’d left off, that of sitting in crushing silence. She knew and understood that he was hurting, that Daisy could have given him no greater shock, but he had to come to terms with it. He had to realize that his treasured daughter was allowed to make her own decisions now, most of which wouldn’t include or relate to him.

But facing up to life’s great dilemmas was not something Jeff was good at. Yes, he acknowledged them, but he didn’t deal with them. Anything he couldn’t easily resolve, he swept aside as if it had nothing to do with him. He’d never, for instance, spoken openly about Daisy’s illness; it was as if he had blocked it from his thinking. Again, that was him all over. He was acutely disdainful of any kind of introspection. He refused any sort of self-analysis; blame was so much more convenient, particularly so if he could lay it squarely at someone else’s door. When Daisy was receiving treatment for her anorexia, his way of dealing with it was to bury himself in work.

Over the weekend, Daisy had calmly furthered her case for wanting to leave her job and move to the other side of the world. ‘But you can get another job, here in this country,’ Jeff had argued. ‘It doesn’t have to be so far away for pity’s sake. Or why don’t you come to Brussels with me? I could get you a job there. That would give you a change of scene and some excitement, if that’s what you’re looking for.’

‘But I don’t want to go to Brussels,’ she’d said. ‘I want to go to Sydney. Come on, Dad, there’s no comparison between the two places, or the lifestyles the two offer.’

‘You’ve never been to Sydney – how do you know what the life would be like?’

She wasn’t to be deterred, though. ‘Life is hardly ever what we think it’s going to be,’ she’d said with such solemnity and such wisdom in one so young Mia had wanted to hug her. ‘All we can ever do is hope for the best.’

‘Sounds like your mind’s made up,’ he’d said flatly.

‘It is, Dad. But I want to go with your blessing; I don’t want you to stay cross with me.’

Of course, Daisy was the last person he would stay cross with. That would be saved for the rest of them. As last night in bed proved all too well, when Jeff had taken out his frustration and whatever else he was feeling.

‘You don’t seem to care that she’s doing this,’ he’d said to Mia.

‘I care deeply, but I just want her to be happy.’

‘What if she makes herself ill again?’

‘She’s more likely to do that if she continues doing a job she hates. Jeff, you have to let her go; she’s all grown up now – she has been for some time. You have to accept that. Why can’t you be proud of her that she has the courage to do something like this, to change the status quo?’

Those words echoed now in Mia’s head as she looked out at the garden and thought of when she had wanted to do exactly that, to change the direction of her life.

She had very nearly done it. She had made up her mind she was going to leave Jeff and was on the verge of doing so when they realized Daisy was ill. In an instant, any thought of starting a new life for herself was out of the question and she focused all her energy into trying to make her daughter better, vowing never again to put her own needs before those of her children. For that was what she had done. So wrapped up in her own unhappiness she had entirely missed Daisy’s far worse misery.

Still looking out at the garden and the unblemished milky-blue sky above, she decided to go for a walk, to see if it would lift her spirits.

She locked the back door and walked round to the front of the house. Over on the green Putin was circling the bench, stopping every other step to peck viciously at the grass. She recalled Tattie’s enchantment at seeing the peacock in the garden the other night and thought how refreshing it was to see someone act so spontaneously and with such obvious and unfettered delight.

She turned right and paused at the noticeboard next to the gate to St George’s where a poster for the village fete had been placed. As she had for the last three years, she would be running the bookstall with the vicar’s husband, Richard, who was the head teacher at Little Pelham’s primary school.

Between Medlar House and St George’s was a footpath and taking this she headed up the hill towards the allotments. Feeling the warm sunshine on the top of her head and shoulders, she thought of Eliza shyly confiding in her about a new boyfriend. One way or another, it had been a weekend of surprises. Mia was happy for Eliza; it was about time she had something in her life other than work. ‘When do I get to meet him?’ Mia had asked, resisting the urge to enquire why Eliza hadn’t said anything before now. She knew her middle child well enough to know that Eliza wasn’t one of life’s great sharers, that she found it difficult to open up to people.

‘Soon,’ Eliza had said. ‘I’m sure you’ll like him.’

‘I’m sure I will. So long as he makes you happy.’

‘He does. And Mum . . . I would have told you sooner, but I didn’t want to jinx things.’

‘It’s OK, darling, you don’t have to explain or apologize to me. I know you always have to do things your way and I respect that.’

Up at the allotments where it was a leafy oasis of peace and quiet, the morning air was soft with the appley scent of May blossom. Mia loved this place. She loved the sense of steady purpose it generated, the neatly dug trenches for potatoes, the canes for runner and French beans, the rows of onion sets, the walkways made out of old wooden pallets, the fencing, the ramshackle sheds, the happy camaraderie of those who were lucky enough to have a plot, the sense of time standing still. For some it was a place of refuge. Perhaps that’s why she liked it so much; it was somewhere she could escape to.

She spotted Georgina unlocking her shed at the same time as talking to Muriel.

Georgina Preston and Muriel Fulshaw were Mia’s closest friends in the village. Georgina was forty-eight – a year younger than Mia – but being the mother of twin five-year-old boys, Edmund and Luke, her life was very different from Mia’s. Her husband had tragically died three years ago of a brain aneurism and, now that the boys were at school full time and she was cushioned by a life insurance policy payout, Georgina was able to enjoy some well-earned free time to indulge her passion of growing vegetables. By her own admission, having an allotment kept her sane.

Mia approached the two women. Muriel saw her first and let rip with a barrage of questions. ‘Hello, you, how was your weekend? What was Jensen’s girlfriend like? Will she do? Did you approve of her?’