The Sweetest Thing (7 page)

‘Poor thing,’ Georgia said when we broke the news to her and Sophie. ‘Why did you have to go and die on us? Why did he die, Mum?’

‘He didn’t suffer,’ I said. Not like I was suffering. ‘He died in his sleep.’

‘Like Grandma Copeland?’ said Sophie, calming down after an initial burst of wailing and breast beating.

‘Like Grandma Copeland,’ I said. She was David’s mother. Neither of the girls had met her, but Adam had retold and elaborated upon the story of her demise and subsequent cremation so many times that the girls talked about her as if they had.

‘Are we going to burn him like they did Grandma Copeland?’ Georgia said.

‘I don’t wanna burn him,’ Sophie wailed again.

‘We can bury him in the garden,’ Adam contributed.

‘I think that’s a very good idea,’ I quickly put in.

‘I wish we’d buried Grandma Copeland in the garden,’ said Georgia.

Privately, I couldn’t agree with that sentiment. She’d haunted me while she was alive. I didn’t want her haunting me in death as well. Divorced from David’s father for many years, she made it her mission to come
and live with us. She kept trying. She came to stay for a couple of months when she broke her wrist, slipping on ice, and for almost a year when a pipe burst, which necessitated major repairs to both her house and, ultimately, my sanity. She was a chain smoker with an obsession with sun-beds and an aversion to fruit and veg, who undermined all my efforts to encourage Adam to live a healthy lifestyle.

Why did I do it? For love, of course. Because it was what David wanted. He was devastated when she died, wizened and prematurely aged by cancer. That was when he’d had his first affair. The first one I knew about anyway.

‘Can we fetch Grandma Copeland’s ashes and put them with The Hamster?’ said Georgia, continuing with the subject as I wrapped The Hamster’s mortal remains in kitchen roll and fastened it with sticky tape.

I wasn’t sure where her ashes were. She had a plaque on the wall at the crematorium – David made sure hers was at the top of the memorial, which would have pleased her as a woman with delusions of grandeur.

‘That way, she’ll have a pet in Heaven,’ said Sophie.

‘You don’t know that,’ said Adam.

‘There’s no such thing as Heaven,’ said Georgia.

‘Then why in assembly at school do we pray to “our father which art in Heaven”, then?’ Sophie challenged.

‘I don’t.’ Georgia folded her arms across her chest. ‘And anyway, we’ve got Daddy. You can’t have two fathers. It’s scientifically impossible.’

‘You can if they’re gay,’ said Adam.

‘Whatever. It’s a load of bollocks.’

‘Georgia!’ I exclaimed. ‘I don’t want to hear you use that word.’

‘Adam does,’ she said. ‘All the time.’

Sophie looked at me, tipping her head ever so slightly to one side. ‘Mummy, what’s bollocks?’

‘What Georgia is trying to say is that she doesn’t believe in God.’ I heard myself expel a deep sigh. How did I end up with one devout Christian child and one raving atheist? I glanced towards Adam, the voice of reason, an agnostic like myself.

‘We must pray for The Hamster,’ said Sophie.

‘I don’t see why,’ said Georgia. ‘He didn’t ever go to church.’

‘That’s because we never took him,’ said Sophie, scowling accusations of neglect for The Hamster’s psychological welfare.

Aware that World War Three was about to break out between them, I made a move.

‘Let’s go and dig this hole,’ I said, picking up the white parcel.

Adam frowned. ‘Aren’t you going to wait for Dad to come home?’

‘I don’t think he’ll worry about missing the funeral, do you?’ That sounded bitter. I couldn’t help it. I knew what Adam didn’t, that there was no point waiting for David because he wasn’t coming home today, or tomorrow, or for the foreseeable future. ‘I don’t suppose he’s even noticed we’ve got a hamster. Now, let’s get out there while it isn’t raining.’

I grabbed a spade from the shed, chose a spot in the flowerbed furthest from the house, and got digging. I dug for England. Fired up with repressed rage and anguish, I drove my shovel through mud and flint and chalk. The children looked at me oddly, as if they thought I was going mad, which I was.

‘That’s a very big hole for one very small hamster,’ Adam observed.

‘Mummy, you’re almost in Australia,’ commented Georgia as Sophie dug out a couple of larger flints from the heap I’d created to put on top of the grave.

I laid the white parcel of The Hamster in the bottom of the hole, together with a piece of paper from Georgia with ‘I love you, The Hamster’ on it, and some sunflower seeds from Sophie to keep him going on the trip to Heaven. Then I surreptitiously slipped my wedding ring off my finger and dropped it in too. I hesitated before throwing the first shovelful of earth and stone on to The Hamster’s body, in case I should hurt him, but soon got going. I buried the remains of my marriage in the bottom of that hole. I could quite cheerfully have buried David in there too. I hated him. I found my knuckles blanching on the handle of the spade, more tears dripping on to the back of my hand. I couldn’t believe how much I hated him …

Back in the present, in the kitchen at Uphill House, I straighten up at the sink. I still hate him, but the sensation is milder now, more like the tingling you get when you’ve had some local anaesthetic at the dentist, not like having your heart torn out of your ribcage without any anaesthetic at all. Am I over him? Humpty Dumpty makes a burring sound from the windowsill.

I open the door to the oven to check on the cake, and the scent of baking fills the kitchen. I feel a sense of peace. Yes, I am over David at last.

The sultana cake is still cooling on the rack on the worktop an hour or so later – at least, that’s what I’ve been telling the children who keep popping back into the kitchen to see if it’s ready. I probably should have made two.

At seven, as I’m about to decide what to do for tea, there’s a knocking at the front door.

‘You’d better go and see who that is, Jennie,’ Mum says from where she’s sitting at the table, dividing pot pourri between a couple of glass dishes, homely touches for the bathroom upstairs.

‘I’m not expecting anyone.’ Dad’s having a snooze in front of the telly in the drawing room and Adam is playing hide and seek with the girls. Sibling harmony reigns, but – I smile to myself – it won’t last. There’s another knock, this one heavier, more insistent, than the first. I wipe my hands and head through the lobby and into the hall. I turn the key in the door and unfasten the bolt, then tug the door open to find Guy on my doorstep.

‘Still locking your doors, I see,’ he says, smiling. ‘There’s no need, but I guess old habits die hard.’

I bite back the words, What on earth are you doing here?

‘Hello …’ He holds out a plastic container. ‘A peace offering.’

‘Oh? Thank you,’ I say, surprised. It’s a long time since a man’s beaten a path to my door, which he’s had to do, literally, because Dad and Adam haven’t made a start on the front garden yet. He pushes aside a few prickly stems that hang from the porch. The roses are past their best, the summer flush gone. A bit like mine, I reflect ruefully. I take the container from him and examine the label: Uphill Farm Scrumpy.

‘It’s last year’s,’ Guy says. ‘It was a good vintage.’

He hovers on the doorstep and I wonder if he’s really expecting me to invite him in. I can’t imagine that we have anything more to say to each other after the invasion of the cows.

‘Come on in,’ Mum calls from behind me. Reluctantly, I open the door wider.

‘It’s Guy,’ I say.

‘Come to make amends,’ he says, and ducks down to undo the laces on his trainers. He slips them off and leaves them on the step before moving past me into the hall and following Mum back into the kitchen. I catch the scent of chemicals on his skin and mint on his breath. He’s clean this time, freshly shaven with a nick at his throat, his hair still damp, much darker with deep gold highlights. He’s wearing blue jeans, a faded polo-shirt and odd socks.

‘I thought I could smell baking from outside.’ He takes a moment to look around him. ‘You’ve made it nice,’ he adds, then his voice catches slightly as if with regret. ‘This was our favourite room, the hub of the house. Cool in summer and the Aga keeps it warm in winter. You’re using the Aga?’

‘Of course,’ says Mum. ‘It’s all part of the country lifestyle, isn’t it?’

‘I thought you might want to replace it. I expect you’ll want to make a few changes to the old place,’ he says in a challenging tone.

‘Actually, I intend to preserve it as it is – with some sympathetic updating,’ I say firmly. He might say he’s here to apologise for his cows, but I can’t help thinking that what he’s really here for is to check out what I’m doing to his old place, and to make fun of my townie beliefs. Is there really so much difference between us? What preconceived ideas does he hold about me?

‘I expect you’re planning to grow your own veg too,’ Guy says.

‘I am. I’m going to turn over the old vegetable plot.’

‘It’ll need some manure on it.’

‘I have grown plants before,’ I say. ‘I’m not that ignorant.’

‘I didn’t say you were,’ he says, reddening. He might deny it, I muse, but it’s what he meant.

‘Would you like a piece of cake?’ Mum asks. ‘Jennie’s been baking.’

‘You can have it with tea or we can open the scrumpy?’ I suggest.

‘I wouldn’t say no to tea and cake,’ Guy says, eyeing the sultana cake hopefully.

‘Jennie’s planning to run a business selling her cakes. Her carrot cake is to die for. You’ll never taste anything like it,’ Mum says. Pushy parents – I didn’t think I had them! I can’t believe that I’m forty and they’re still embarrassing me.

‘Did someone say “cakes”?’ Adam turns up at the stable door, his sisters behind him.

‘Yes, they did,’ says Mum. ‘Adam, will you find some plates, please? And, Sophie, go and wake your granddad.’

Guy’s presence seems to fill the room. He leans back against the cupboards, his back to the sink, watching me as I fill the kettle and slice the cake.

‘It could be difficult to make a business out of baking cakes around here. Most people bake their own.’

‘Do you do much baking then?’ I have to ask.

‘Me? No way. Mum used to,’ he adds, sombre now. ‘She always had two kinds of cake on the table after afternoon milking. I’ve got all her old recipes up at the farm. But if I fancy a cake, I can go to the Co-op or the baker’s, or the Copper Kettle, or the garden centre. In Talyton, we’re spoiled for choice.’

‘Oh, Jennie’s cakes aren’t your ordinary everyday ones,’ Mum says, handing Guy a plate of cake. ‘They’re
for special occasions – weddings, anniversaries, special birthdays.’

‘All birthdays are special, Granny,’ Sophie says worriedly.

‘Some birthdays are more special than others, especially when you get to my age.’ Mum smiles.

I can’t smile with her. Is Guy deliberately trying to discourage me from setting up my business? Or is he just straight talking, telling the truth? I have to confess, I’m slightly concerned now. It sounds as though there is far too much competition.

I watch as he raises a slice of sultana cake to his lips and takes a big bite.

‘That’s delicious,’ he says when he’s eaten the lot and licked the crumbs from his lips, and I feel quite gratified that he enjoyed it. ‘Did you find the old table?’ he asks, as the children crowd around the glass-topped table I brought with me, the one I was so pleased with back in the London house but which looks hopelessly out of proportion here. ‘The one we used to use? I put it at the back of the barn.’

‘Along with all the rest of your rubbish,’ I say.

‘Rubbish?’ Guy looks at me, rather hurt, and I wish I’d been more tactful.

‘All the stuff you left behind. The estate agent said you’d promised to chuck it out.’

‘I had to move my mother into a nursing home – she couldn’t take very much with her. I thought you’d like to go through it beforehand. There are some bits and pieces that might come in useful.’ He smiles. ‘Waste not, want not. I thought everyone was into recycling and sustainable living these days, or is that a fad that’s gone out of fashion already? With townies, I mean.’

Why do I feel like he’s mocking me?

‘What you don’t want, I’ll shift,’ he goes on.

‘You do that,’ I say, aware that Mum’s casting me a glance to warn me to tone it down. Just because we’re neighbours, we don’t have to be friends.

‘There you are, Malcolm,’ Mum says as my father strolls into the kitchen, with his glasses in one hand and handkerchief in the other. ‘This is Guy from the farm. He’s brought Jennie some scrumpy.’ She glances around the table. ‘Now, where’s Granddad’s piece of cake?’

‘Um, I’ve eaten it,’ Adam says, his cheeks pink. ‘I thought it was going spare.’

‘Adam!’ I say.

‘It’s all right. There’s some left,’ Mum says, pouring scrumpy into glasses.

I try some of the rich golden liquid, coughing as it catches the back of my throat.

‘That’s lethal,’ I gasp.

‘It’s pretty strong stuff. I should have warned you,’ Guy observes, but I suspect from his expression that he’s pleased that he didn’t, that he’s revelling in my discomfort.