‘Jake.’
He turned back.
‘Perhaps in another life we could have been neighbours.’ Her eyes drifted in the direction of The Lake House over the garden wall.
Jake vividly remembered that as a small child, not long before his life had been turned upside down and he’d gone to live with the Rosses, he had told his mother that he would never leave the place. He sighed. ‘Gayle, I’m afraid life has an awful habit of getting in the way of the best-laid plans.’ Those plans had been spectacularly derailed when his parents had died.
‘Who said they were the best-laid plans?’
Jake frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Perhaps there’s a reason that fate, or whatever higher power you believe in, stepped in to change the course of your life. Maybe that wasn’t meant to be the plan for your life.’
Jake stared at her. Was she seriously suggesting that losing his parents, losing Eleanor, was for the best? Jake knew what she was doing. He’d seen the shelves full of books in the study; self-help psychobabble purporting to help people see a way through their grief, their loss, their troubles, to arrive at the other side; she was just trying to make him feel better by saying that things happened for a reason.
Jake could never accept that. He could not see what possible reason would there be for losing his wife and unborn child.
A sudden thought crossed his mind; if he hadn’t lost them, he would never have met Faye or Natty.
Jake just offered Gayle a tentative smile. Perhaps that’s what she meant; every cloud has a silver lining – even if it’s the darkest cloud of them all, something good had to come out of a tragedy.
He knew she meant well, but the conversation wasn’t helping – especially when he stepped out of the door and saw Marcus. Jake frowned at him as he approached the car. He opened the car door and slung his bag onto the back seat.
‘Have a safe journey,’ Gayle called out, waving goodbye.
Jake waved back before getting in the car. He sat in the front seat and watched Gayle walk inside the house and shut the door.
‘God, I bet you couldn’t wait to get out of there. What on earth was she prattling on about?’
Jake switched on the engine and turned to face Marcus.
‘What are you looking at me like that for?’
‘You’re such a …’ Jake searched for something appropriate; a word came to mind, ‘dipshit sometimes.’ He put the car into gear and moved off.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Jake rubbed his forehead; it still felt tender where he had banged his head on Marcus’s sign in the cellar of his house.
Jake cleared the drive and started down the street. Marcusturned his attention to the car radio, switching it on and tuning in the radio stations. After a short distance, Jake took an abrupt turn.
‘Hey!’ Marcus reached for the dashboard in surprise, but it was too late. He slammed into the car door. ‘I thought we were going straight to the airport?’ Marcus took his hand off the dash and rubbed his sore arm.
‘I need to see someone before we leave.’ Jake drove along the road leading to The Lake House. He turned up the driveway.
‘Not again,’ Marcus groaned, ‘didn’t you see enough this morning?’
Jake stopped outside the house. ‘I need to see the gardener.’
‘I don’t think it’s the gardener you need to see. Unless,’ Marcus was staring at the house, ‘he’s responsible for that.’
Jake had forgotten that Marcus had not seen the house in daylight, in all its dilapidated glory. Jake opened the car door. ‘Are you coming?’
‘What for?’
Jake shrugged and got out of the car. There was no point dragging Marcus along to find Marty. He slammed the door shut. Then he hesitated. Instead of heading into the garden, he walked around the car, crouched down and tapped on Marcus’s window.
Marcus pressed the button and released the electric window. ‘What now?’ He was still staring at the house.
