I had genuinely started to feel at home here.
Now, sitting on a cracked old toilet, in a ruined dress that belonged to a woman I felt scared of, while a few metres away, rumours spiralled about my catering incompetence, no doubt fuelled by a person who despised me, I had never felt so alone or longed more to be sitting at my usual food-court table, eating a bowl of lentil soup.
I’d left my phone in the kitchen, so had no idea how long I sat there, sobbing pitifully, until I was startled by a loud knock on the door.
‘All right in there? Or will I have to drag myself to the bathroom upstairs?’
Great. Richard was probably the second-to-last person I wanted to see right then. He was still a footnote on my suspect list – the only other name, now I’d discarded Aster.
‘One moment,’ I croaked back.
I blew my nose, splashed cold water on my blotchy face and tried to unzip myself, but the awkward hook at the top of the bodice was stuck.
Even greater. Now I’d have to ask a sinister old man who suspected I was here to cause trouble to undo the preciousdress his mother had preserved for decades, and I’d wrecked in minutes.
After another few seconds hovering about in case I woke up from this nightmare, I reluctantly opened the door, my shorts and T-shirt clutched to my chest. My plan was to slip past him and reach my phone, but he had planted himself right in front of the doorway.
‘Didn’t answer my question.’
‘What?’
Richard’s gaze remained impassive. ‘Are you all right?’
I blinked a few times, eyes darting across the floor between us. He looked less daunting in his crumpled suit and wonky tie. ‘Um…’
‘There’s a rip in your sleeve.’
‘I know. I feel terrible. I could say that I honestly don’t think it was me, but I’ve denied so many things over the past few days, I probably already sound like someone with a pathological lying problem. To say I’m dreading what your mother will say is an understatement.’
‘What’s she got to do with it?’
‘This is the dress she wore to your father’s funeral.’
Richard scratched his beard. ‘We’d best fix it, then.’
I boggled at him, astounded.
‘If you’d be kind enough to vacate the bathroom, first, so a crippled old codger can use it.’
After more awkward dialogue, and an excruciating eon where his careworn farmer’s fingers fumbled at the hook, hot breath huffing on my neck, I swapped back into my own outfit and trailed after Richard into the office, noting that someone had chopped up and served most of the cake while I was bawling in the bathroom.
He rummaged in a drawer, then handed me a spool of white cotton and a needle. ‘Thread this for me.’
‘You can sew?’
‘Seems as good a time as any to give it a try.’ He glanced up, and for the first time, I saw warmth flicker behind his watery blue eyes. I risked a weak smile at what I hoped was a joke.
‘Yes, I can sew,’ he said as I handed back the threaded needle. ‘Skin, mostly. Mine, and plenty of animals’. But every Siskin farmer knows how to patch a hole or mend a tear.’
I suspected the quality of needlework required to sew up a hole in a farmer’s jacket was not quite the same as a satin gown. But given my current reputation, at least it wouldn’t be me butchering the repair job.
‘You’re leaving tomorrow.’ Richard squinted at the sleeve as he held it up to the light.
‘Yes.’
‘Probably best.’
He made a bold stab at the fabric, and I flinched.
