‘Are you sure?’ I kept my tone gentle. Tentative. ‘It would probably do you good to eat after such a tiring day.’
She sighed. ‘I know. You’re right. I’ll get a piece of fruit later on. You help yourself, though.’
‘I really don’t mind fetching us both something.’
‘Thank you, Sophie, but your job description doesn’t include waiting on people.’
‘Actually, you’d be surprised how often it does. Besides, I was offering as a friend. If… I mean… I think being one of the Gals means we’re friends now?’
She opened her eyes, her gaze softening when it met mine, as I hovered by the door. ‘It most certainly does. And you’ve probably gathered that while my friends are few, they mean a great deal to me. I get the impression you feel the same way?’
‘More than you can imagine.’
A short while later, when I was nibbling on an omelette, she apologised again for her comment about me and Gideon. ‘If it had been any other client, I would never have brought it up in a group. But, well, I’m so used to us Gals oversharing. And, honestly, I really like you, and I absolutelylovethat man, and I have a feeling you’re both as lonely as each other, however hard you try to pretend otherwise. I’m a silly romantic attempting to live vicariously through other people’s love stories and I got carried away. I promise I won’t bring it up again in a therapy session.’
‘Thank you.’
She waited a few moments before continuing. ‘Having said that, we aren’t in a session now… and we are friends… so if you did ever want to talk about it…?’
‘I enjoy hanging out with Gideon, but that’s all it is. There’s no love story.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Especially while I’m having to lie about my real role here.’
She gave a thoughtful nod. ‘Fair enough.’
‘So, why is an incredible woman like you living vicariously through other people’s love lives?’ I asked, attempting to breach the awkward silence that followed. ‘If you’re such a romantic, why not have some romance of your own?’
‘What, apart from the fact I’m old and odd and can barely manage to take care of myself, let alone anyone else, even if I did have the time?’
‘Apart from those things, yes, why not?’
She put down her fork, her eyes fixed on something – or perhaps someone? – far off in the distance. ‘Because I am a Riverbend woman.’ Her head gave a slight shake. ‘Our lives are love and then loss.’
14
I found Lizzie in the boot room the next morning, pulling wellies on over her silver tights.
‘Hattie asked me to walk Flapjack,’ she said. ‘As if I didn’t have a million other things to do. She was in the studio until stupidly late last night, so could barely function this morning.’
‘I can walk him with Muffin,’ I offered. Hattie had gone to bed as soon as we’d finished eating the night before. I’d stayed in the living room with the dogs until well past eleven, and she’d not come downstairs again.
‘That would be amazing.’ Lizzie hurriedly handed me a lead. ‘Hattie’s been so distracted with all this book stuff lately, she’s really pushing the boundaries of a personal assistant in expecting me to pick up everything else. She’s always been disorganised, but I shouldn’t have to be reminding her to sleep and eat.’
‘Are you worried?’ I asked as she kicked off the boots. ‘Do you think she’s okay?’
Lizzie stood for a moment, the boots dangling from her hand. ‘I’m not the one in the attic, poring through the horrible history she refuses to talk about to anyone else. You tell me, should I be worried?’
I didn’t know how to explain that it wasn’t going through the attic that I was concerned about, so instead I mumbled something about us both keeping an eye on her and left it at that.
By the time I got back, Hattie had messaged to say that she was already on the top floor. I found her beside a box, a stack of photographs in her hand and a baby’s blanket draped over her knees.
* * *
Riverbend
Harriet Langford always thought of her earlier childhood in two halves. Not before and after, but Him or No Him. The periods her father was away, which varied from days to months at a time, were idyllic. As soon as his car sped out of the gates, it was as though the whole house, and certainly her mother, Verity, could breathe properly again.
During her younger years, every day with No Him felt like an adventure. School was an ordeal to be endured before racing home to find her mother and discover what delights they would be getting up to next. Weekends and holidays were even better. Whole days were spent with their rowing boat on the river, pausing when they felt like it for a swim, or a sunbathe, to pick bilberries or say hello to the sheep grazing near the bank. Other days, they’d cross the bridge and spend hours roaming the forest. Of course, with money often running short and the house and grounds to manage, there was always plenty of work to be done – mending and making, planting and pickling. But Verity’s enthusiasm made it joyful, rather than a chore.
Harriet’s favourite days were when, after a sticky morning digging up vegetables in the kitchen garden or stirring her mother’s giant jam pan crammed with wild blackberries and pounds of sugar, they’d pack up the produce and walk into the village. They’d visit up to half a dozen houses on these trips, exchanging a punnet of fruit or a jar of chutney for a cup of tea and a glass of milk for Harriet. She learned that they weren’t going to stop by the pretty cottages with the neatly trimmed privet hedge and snow-white net curtains. Verity preferred the run-down, neglected homes that appeared to be slumped over with exhaustion, much like their inhabitants. Harriet would sit and cuddle grubby, gangly infants while her mother stood at a cracked sink washing pots in tepid water as if it were a perfectly natural thing to do. Often they would return to Riverbend with a bagful of dirty washing, returning it the following day neatly ironed and darned where necessary. In other houses, they would simply sit, and listen to someone talk, Verity offering a hand to hold if there were tears.
