Libby frowned and in her shock she made the mistake of letting go of Rosie’s hand. The little girl shot off back down the steps towards an excitable Beauty, Luther and Seb.
‘You … but I … ’ Libby stuttered to a halt and shook her head as if to clear it. After taking a deep breath she stepped closer to Giles and lowered her voice. ‘You don’t need to apologise for wanting more for your son,’ she told him, her expression earnest. ‘I totally understand that most families would not want … well; I understand that. It’s just, I can’t be around it, and I can’t allow my daughter to be around it either. You’re protective of your children so you’ll understand that I’m protective of mine.’
She touched Giles’s arm briefly, giving him a small smile, which did not reach her eyes, then stepped back to call Rosie. Luckily Rosie was already running towards her, holding a dead slug aloft for Libby’s inspection. At that moment Kira came bursting onto the patio followed by a stunned-looking Will.
‘Bugger me,’ she said as she spotted Libby. ‘This place is massive.’ She moved to Giles and Bunty and slapped them both on the back saying, ‘You must be Mr and Mrs G. Good going – fantastic pad. Have you thought about holding a mini festival in the garden?’
‘Bunty, Giles, this is Kira,’ Libby said, her wide eyes fixed on her friend, who was steadfastly ignoring Libby’s desperate head gestures towards the exit.
‘Bunty and Giles?’ Kira asked, her eyebrows lifting into her hairline and her lips smashed together to suppress laughter, which instead came out as a strangled snort. Jamie’s parents were too busy taking in Kira’s tie-dye-covered, pink-haired appearance to be offended by her amusement at their names. Kira had been threatening to go back to the full-on pink look for a while and Libby had assumed that working on the wards would be some sort of deterrent. Apparently not.
‘I thought I told you to wait in the car,’ said Libby through her teeth.
‘Goodness, what an interesting hair style,’ Bunty said, smiling over at Kira.
‘Thanks, Bunty. I can give you the name of my hairdresser if you like – half-price dye job at the mo.’
‘I’ll take it under consideration. Now, tell me more about this festival,’ Bunty encouraged.
‘Oh, I help organise it every year. Just some local folk bands, a few bongos, big bonfire, that type of thing. No hard drugs or anything like that, maybe a couple of reefers but it’s more about communing with nature than anything else. Naked fire-dancing, glitter blessings. We usually have to trek out to a field in Hampshire to do it.’ She nudged Giles with her elbow. ‘Be right up your street, eh, Giles?’
‘What a capital idea, young lady,’ Giles said through a wide smile, and Libby’s mouth dropped open. ‘We could get the parish council up here for it instead of the annual tea and cakes on the lawn. Shake those stuffy old buggers up a bit.’
‘Mummy, can I say bugger when I’m fifty-eight?’ Rosie asked.
‘Maybe best you forget that word for now, honey,’ Jamie put in as he lifted Rosie up from the ground and settled her on his hip.
‘Is Mr Tully an old bugger?’ Rosie asked, and Libby sighed. Mr Tully was their landlord and the very definition of ‘old bugger’.
‘Yes, of course he is, Squidget,’ Kira said, muzzing up Rosie’s hair.
‘Ki-Ki,’ Libby growled.
‘What?’ Kira shrugged her shoulders. ‘He is. You shouldn’t lie to children.’
‘Come on you two,’ Libby ushered Kira towards the patio doors and reached for Rosie, who was still on Jamie’s hip. Unfortunately neither Jamie nor Rosie were cooperating.
‘Stay,’ Jamie whispered in her ear.
‘I can’t,’ she muttered back, putting a hand around Rosie’s middle to tug her away.
‘Will you excuse us for a moment,’ Bunty suddenly put in and strode over to Libby, steering her away from the group and into the house.
‘Bunty I – ’ Libby started, as she turned to face her when they were away from the others, in the large living room, but Bunty raised a hand to cut her off.
‘Let’s start again, darling,’ she said. When Libby opened her mouth to speak Bunty shook her head. ‘Give us a chance. I’ve never seen Jamie this happy with a woman before. He’s never talked about anyone like he talks about you. He’s …’ Bunty’s eyes misted over and she leaned further into her. ‘He puts so much pressure on himself. We had a lot of … trouble with Dan when he was a teenager: drugs, alcohol, expulsions from schools, missing persons’ reports. It was very stressful. Eventually we had to send Dan away to a detox unit. When he came back he found out a girl he knew was pregnant. Will came along, which was probably the best thing for Dan, although Will’s mother …’ Bunty grimaced. ‘She’s an acquired taste; let’s leave it at that. Anyway, Jamie was younger and he saw how worried we were, how much it affected us. I don’t want to think about how many times he saw me crying when he came home from school. So he turned into Stepford Son. Everything he did had to be perfect. He had to come top of the class. Never put a foot wrong. I think he was trying to make up for Dan. He’s always been the type to take everything on himself.
‘But life’s not perfect, and he doesn’t have to be perfect for us. We just want him to be happy – and the way he’s talked about you and Rosie over the last few weeks, Iknowyou make him happy.’
‘That is kind of you to say, and please believe me that it means a lot to me. But Giles – ’
‘Giles is just an idiot and I know Jamie won’t speak to him for months if he’s buggered this up for him. It’ll damage their relationshipforever. Just stay. Ask your … interesting friend to stay, and you’ll see we’re not a bunch of stuck-up old farts.’
‘Is Mr Tully an old fart?’ Rosie said, peeking around Bunty’s legs, and Libby closed her eyes in defeat.
Chapter 26
Stand down, Casanova
