‘Because everyone thinks I’m a charity case, treating me like I can’t pay my way.’
I didn’t mention that her dispute over the scales implied precisely that, shrugging instead.
‘From where I was standing, it looked as though he liked you, and found your haggling entertaining. The ham is a reward for a battle well won.’
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ she muttered, but her scowl eased slightly as she took the bag back and put it in the fridge.
Agnes decided we needed another cup of tea before we started cooking, and as we drank it, she told me about her life before Riverbend. How her husband, Chester, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis only a couple of years after they got married, then suffered a series of debilitating relapses until he died when Gideon was four.
‘It was always a risk, of course, that he’d not be there to see Gideon grow up. Chester was seven years older than me, and I was forty when Gideon came along. We’d been told children wouldn’t be possible, so it was a huge surprise for both of us.’
‘A good one, I hope?’
Her eyes softened. ‘How could a baby be anything else? He’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Who knows where I’d be without him?’ She snorted. ‘Not gallivanting around Middlebeck with the likes of you, that’s for certain. Probably stuck in some run-down, cabbagey old people’s home. Or dead.’
‘You don’t think Hattie would have invited you to Riverbend, without Gideon?’
Agnes put her cup on the coffee table with a decisive thud. ‘Hattie wouldn’t have known anything about us if Gideon hadn’t insisted I went to Leonard’s funeral. And he only knew aboutthatbecause Leonard left him money in his will.’
‘Leonard?’
‘Hattie’s father.’ She struggled to her feet with a sharp wince. ‘You’re the historian. Shouldn’t you know these things?’
I wanted to ask more, starting with why Hattie knew nothing about her father’s family, but as Agnes creaked over to the kitchen, telling me to find the big black pan in the bottom cupboard, I could sense that the topic was closed for today. No doubt I’d hear the rest of it from Hattie, in time.
A painstaking hour later, a Lancashire hotpot was bubbling away on the hob. I washed up while Agnes dozed on the sofa, Muffin’s head in her lap. Unlike Hattie, she’d been more than willing to chop, stir and sprinkle, despite the challenges of wielding a knife with such swollen, arthritic fingers, they could barely grip the handle.
Around four-thirty, Gideon arrived, coming to an abrupt stop when he saw me wiping down the worktops.
‘Hello.’ A huge smile began spreading across his face, which, alongside his dishevelled hair, healthy glow and well-fitting T-shirt, flooded my insides with warmth.
It was ridiculous how my chest caught every time I saw him. Ridiculous, and terrifying. I could not –wouldnot – allow someone to affect me this powerfully. I sucked in a deep breath, wrestled those feelings back down, and adopted a much smaller, more sensible,friendlysmile in return.
‘I came round to see your mum,’ I said, just to be clear.
‘Was she asleep the whole time?’ His smile, if anything, grew even wider.
‘We’ve been into Middlebeck, actually. Done some shopping, had a leisurely lunch and cooked dinner.’
‘And drank about a dozen cups of tea, I’m guessing?’
‘Maybe half a dozen.’
‘No wonder she’s exhausted.’ He walked over to her, pausing at the side of the sofa, the smile softening into something more serious as his eyes met mine. ‘Thank you.’
‘No thanks necessary. I’ve had a great day.’
‘You’re staying for dinner, seeing as you cooked it?’
I picked up my bag and Muffin’s lead. ‘Agnes cooked. And I need to feed Muffin, so no, not this time.’
‘Another time, then?’ He glanced up, eyebrows raised in question. ‘Tomorrow? Friday evening? A friendly, non-date dinner with my mother?’
I pretended to be busy snapping on Muffin’s lead, hiding my face so he couldn’t see the battle between my head and my hormones. I’d already stepped over my professional boundary with Hattie and her Gals, and I’d strayed even further today. But I knew full well that part of me had come to the boathouse half hoping it would lead to an invitation like this. This place, these people, made me want to throw my rulebook in the river.
But the rules were what kept me safe, protected. What enabled my defective heart to keep on pumping. However lonely it might be.
‘Still thinking about it?’ Gideon asked, his eyes crinkled in kindness, and maybe a hint of hope.
