James was up and out early to tend to the farm, but he was back by the time they were all having breakfast. Lewis had been eager to help and had enjoyed being involved with the animals. As promised, James had allotted a tiny lamb to Lewis. It was only a few weeks old and was currently being bottle fed. There was no doubt that it was a sweet little thing and Lewis fell in love instantly.
The sheep were Herdwicks, or Herdies as they were usually known; James told her they were a strong breed, well-suited for living high on the fells in all weathers. For something so tough they were surprisingly cute. They had stocky white legs, brown curly coats and smiley faces. Lewis called his little Herdie Wellyboot and he cuddled the lamb’s wriggling body to his chest and gazed at it adoringly. Despite setting out the terms and conditions as only a parent could, Nadia knew it would be hard for Lewis to leave it behind when they had to go home again.
After the chores were finished, James had shown them round another part of the local area every day. Some of the sights she’d seen had been stunning. They’d walked round Buttermere and had stopped for delicious ice-cream in a farmyard at the end. Lewis had been in heaven, sharing his cone with the enthusiastic collie dog who was clearly a resident.
The next day they’d climbed up Haystacks, taking it slowly for the children – and her. Lunch had been an alfresco picnic they’d carried in rucksacks. They’d eaten it sitting beside a tarn that was as smooth as a looking glass. The view at the top down the valley to Derwentwater was stunning. She’d never done anything like that before and it felt like a great achievement. For the first time, she knew what it was like to have fresh air in her lungs and there was a colour to Lewis’s cheeks that was sadly missing in London.
They’d made the short, sharp climb up Catbells, James tempering his pace to match hers, as Nadia discovered muscles she never knew that she had. If he’d kicked out with his long, determined stride, she’d never have been able to keep up. To compensate for all the exercise, they’d also eaten the best cake ever at a trendy café by the river Brathay at Skelwith Bridge. Then they’d gone to explore the waterfall, a short distance away, that thundered over the rocks. James was solicitous and eager, his joy in their surroundings never waning.
‘My parents never walked for enjoyment,’ he said. ‘That was something tourists did. To them, this was always our working landscape. Nothing more. But I love getting out on the fells when I can. I’ve not travelled much, as I’ve never had the urge to go far from here. For me, there’s no place like it. I try to find time every week to sit, nice and quiet, with my sheepdogs for half an hour and just take it all in.’ He grinned at her. ‘Sometimes, I even manage it.’
His enthusiasm was infectious. She liked that he was very keen to show them his home in a good light. By some miracle the weather had been kind, with bright sunny days and the isolated showers reserved for the evening when they were tucked up and cosy at home.
Today they’d visited Castlerigg, a circle of standing stones like a mini Stonehenge. It was a beautiful and atmospheric area surrounded by hills. The sun had cast a golden glow on the mountains and purple brooding clouds stooped low over them. You could keep your sandy beaches and palm trees; this rugged landscape had spoken to her soul. Nadia watched on, smiling, as James patiently named each of the surrounding hills for Lewis.
They’d walked up to another beautiful and hidden tarn. Sitting on smooth rocks, they’d eaten the sandwiches and fruit cake from their backpacks that she’d prepared for them this morning. It was becoming a welcome habit. After lunch they’d all pulled off their socks and boots and had, very bravely, paddled at the edge of the tarn. James had held onto her tightly and she’d tried not to shriek too much as the breathtakingly cold water hit her skin.
Afterwards they’d walked through the fields of sheep and over stiles. She and James had taken their time while the children had run ahead of them and tired themselves out – they would be ready to go to bed early, leaving James and Nadia to have a long and leisurely evening by themselves.
There was only one problem: the week was flying by too quickly. Any fears she’d had about them not getting on together were completely unfounded. Even the children had slotted into a comfortable routine, with Seth and Lily welcoming Lewis like a brother. It would be good for him to have siblings, she thought. Being an only child must be miserable. It had always been the plan for her and her husband to have another baby. It had just never happened. It wasn’t too late for her, though. There was still time to give Lewis a brother or sister. She looked shyly at James, hoping he couldn’t read her thoughts.
James turned to her. ‘Happy?’
‘Blissfully,’ she said. ‘This place is heaven.’
‘Think you could live here?’
The question pulled her up short. ‘I don’t know.’ ‘What else can I do to sell it to you?’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘It’s all wonderful.’
‘It can be harsh and unforgiving, too,’ he said. ‘Wait until
you’ve had six solid weeks of sheeting rain and all the coats and boots in the house are permanently damp and we’re having to catch drips in buckets in the loft where the roof’s leaking. You might view it differently.’
‘Should us townies only come in the summer months then?’ she teased.
‘I could give you a great life,’ he said, frankly. ‘But I can’t leave here. Ever. This is my home, not just somewhere I live. This is me right down to my bones. The farm is my life, my heritage. My family have farmed here in more or less the same way for generations. I learned all this from my grandfather.’ He swept a hand around to encompass the hills. ‘I went off to university in Sheffield to study Business Management because my dad insisted I use my brain, but I loathed every moment I was in the city. Any spare time and I’d run straight up here. When I got my degree, I wanted nothing more than to be back on the farm.’ He gave her a rueful glance. ‘Now, I don’t think I’d know how to function anywhere else. You know that I couldn’t uproot that.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course.’ This was his land, all that he’d known. And why would he want to leave? His life was hard work, but it was pretty idyllic. She thought of herself sitting in a call centre all day, being mugged outside her own home. Who would choose that over this?
‘I don’t want you to go home.’ James threw his arm round her shoulders and pulled her close as they walked. ‘It’s been great having you here. We’ve all got along so well.’
‘It’s been a fabulous week.’
‘Why don’t you make it more permanent?’ He tried to make the question sound casual, but there was an underlying tension in his voice.
Everything in her heart wanted to scream ‘yes’ at the top of her voice, but she had to be sensible about this. It didn’t matter what she wanted; it had to be what was best for Lewis. She watched him running across the hills chasing Seth and Lily, all of them shouting joyfully. Was this what he’d want?
‘Say something,’ James said.
‘It’s a tough decision,’ she said. ‘I have family back at home. I have commitments. Your wife was from a farming family and could help you. I’d be useless. My family have jewellery shops. I didn’t even know there were different types of sheep until this week.’
James laughed at that. ‘I’ll soon have you in wellies with hay in your hair.’
‘I’m sure!’ She knew that she couldn’t come to live on a working farm and be a bystander. It would mean rolling up her sleeves and getting stuck in. Was she cut out for that? If she saw a worm in her garden at home, she ran a mile.
‘I realise that it’s a lot to ask, but I don’t want this to be a part-time relationship, Nadia. I know we’ve only known each other for a short time, but it feels so right. I’m not a man to rush into things . . . ’ He ran out of words.
She knew exactly what he meant, though.
‘You get on so well with the children and they need a mother figure in their lives. You’re brilliant with Lewis and I want that for them,
too. I do my best, but I worry about Lily. She needs a mum. Perhaps not so much now, but in a few years.’ He grinned. ‘I find it hard enough to answer her questions now. What’s it going to be like when she hits her teens?’
Nadia laughed.
‘More importantly, they love you.’ He stopped still in the field and kissed her warmly. ‘As do I.’
‘Oh, James.’ Her heart was in turmoil. This could be so good for them, but she was stepping into the unknown. It would mean giving up her job, her home, her family and, most difficult of all, her friends. She wanted change in her life, but could she cope with something quite so radical?
She felt as if she was falling in love with James, but she’d been burned so badly before. Could she really turn her back on everything she knew and throw in her lot with this man and his family?
‘You could do what you liked to the house,’ James added. ‘It’s a bit battered round the edges. Like me.’
‘It’s wonderful,’ Nadia said. ‘Like you.’
‘I make enough money to support us all. You wouldn’t need to work if you didn’t want to. I know that it worries you that you’re not around enough for Lewis. He could start school here in September at the same one as Seth and Lily. So he wouldn’t be on his own.’
‘It sounds as if you’ve been giving this a lot of thought.’
‘It’s kept me awake at night,’ he admitted.
‘Mummy, Mummy!’ Lewis shouted. ‘Come on! There are more sheeps!’
‘We’d better catch up.’ She called back to her son. ‘We’re coming!’
James caught her hand before she could move and put it to his lips. ‘Tell me you’ll think about it.’
‘Like you, I expect it’s going to keep me awake tonight!’
‘Good,’ James said. ‘I can think of an excellent way to occupy ourselves while we mull it over.’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
My parents are going! Yay! Whoopee! I’m sure I shouldn’t be quite so deliriously happy about this, but it’s all I can do to stop myself throwing off all my clothes and running round the living room. Instead, I smile sweetly and say, ‘Oh, really. That’s a shame.’
They’re holding hands and looking coy. ‘Daddy’s going to come home,’ Mum says.
I don’t point out that my dad doesn’t even know where she lives now, let alone call it home, but I don’t want to spoil their fun. Or say anything that might make them change their minds and stay. If I’m honest about it, I can’t wait to hustle Dad off my sofa and wave goodbye to him with his bag in his hand. I love him, but well . . . you know how it is. I want to be the one having noisy sex in my flat, not my parents.
‘We’re thinking of getting married again,’ Mum says. ‘Aren’t we, darling?’
My dad nods.
‘That’s great.’ I’ll give it six months.
But then I think that in their own strange way, their love is enduring and I’m pleased for them for that. Perhaps the key would be for them to buy houses next door to each other rather than try to live together in one.
‘We’ll have a little breakfast and then we’ll leave you alone.’
‘I’ll put some toast in.’ Not that I’m trying to rush them or anything, but I dash into the kitchen.
I can’t wait to tell Crush. We will have hot water. We will be able to watch what we want on the telly. We will be able to get down and dirty on the rug. Hurrah!
‘That’s great news,’ Crush says when I whisper it to him down the phone. ‘I knew they would.’
He is so wise.
‘I’m going to ravish you when I get home tonight.’
‘Oh, excellent,’ I say, going a bit jelly-like. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’
I think when my parents leave, I’m going to change the locks. It’s a plan.
I am happy, happy, happy when I get to Chocolate Heaven an hour later. I’m singing to myself as I open up. I hang up my coat and then dance round the tables, tidying the chairs and picking up bits and bobs that have been left behind. I don’t even get cross that it was Ms France’s job to clear up last night and she has obviously made a half-hearted effort at it.
I’m still singing when Marcus opens the door. ‘You sound cheerful.’
That stops me in full flight. ‘My dad is finally vacating my sofa. I couldn’t be any happier. He’s driven me bonkers.’
‘I always got on well with him.’
‘You didn’t,’ I remind Marcus. ‘He thought you were a slimy toad and would barely give you the time of day after you’d dumped me a dozen times.’
‘Ah, yes.’
I raise my eyebrows. They don’t call me Elephant Memory for nothing. Actually, they don’t call me that at all.
‘They’re getting back together,’ I tell him. ‘I don’t think Taylor and Burton had as many ups and downs as my mum and dad.’
‘Sometimes people just don’t realise when they’re meant to be together.’ He gives me a longing look.
‘Don’t start that, Marcus. It was all going very well.’
He moves closer to me and uses his sincere voice. ‘I’ll never give up, Lucy. It should be me and you getting married. That man . . . ’
‘Aiden.’
‘He isn’t your type.’
‘He very much is.’
‘I’m trying to stop you from making the biggest mistake of your life.’
‘Oh, really.’ I nod my head back towards the upstairs flat from where Ms France has yet to appear. ‘What about your current squeeze? Would she like to hear you talking like this?’
‘Marie-France understands me.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘We were a great team once, Lucy,’ he presses on. ‘We could be again.’
‘Let’s content ourselves with being a great business team,’ I suggest. ‘Sales are up, profits are up, Chocolate Heaven is bustling again. Thank me for that, Marcus, and let’s leave everything else in the past.’
He sighs at me.
‘I’m a most excellent manager. Stop trying to mess with my heart and let me get on with my job.’
Now he grins at me and I hope that signals him knowing when he’s beaten. ‘Oh, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy.’
‘Oh, Marcus, Marcus, Marcus,’ I mimic. ‘Now, if that’s all, I’ve got stuff to do.’ I point to the ostentatious Ferrari parked on the pavement. ‘If I don’t keep your profits up you’ll never be able to afford to put petrol in that hideous thing.’
He has the good grace to laugh. ‘Where’s Marie-France?’
‘Probably still in bed. Punctuality isn’t her forte.’ I’m not exactly sure what is. I wish Marcus would let me give her the bullet and get in someone decent. Autumn isn’t working at the moment and she might be glad of a few hours.
Marcus glances at his watch. ‘I’d better get going too. I’ll call back later.’
I watch him jump in his car and roar off. We used to be good once, but it seems like a lifetime ago. I don’t like to think of Marcus being unhappy, though. Sometimes I look at him and, despite having everything you could want in terms of material things, I can’t help but feel that he’s lonely. And that sort of stops my singing for the day.
It’s gone six o’clock when I ’m getting ready to leave Chocolate Heaven. I don’t want to linger tonight because I am a woman who is going home to a flat without pesky parents in residence who has been promised a jolly good ravishing. I can’t wait.
Marie-France is imitating sweeping up by trailing a brush lethargically across the floor.
‘Can you make sure that you take everything off the tables tonight, please?’ I say in a slightly crotchety manner. ‘I don’t want to turn up in the morning and have to do it all before I start.’
She raises her gaze to mine and looks down her nose at me in her own very French way. There’s not much in the way of an entente cordiale between us. I give up.
‘I’ll see you in the morning. Have a good evening.’
‘Bonsoir,’ she says in a way that sounds more like ‘fuc
k off’.
Grabbing my coat, I swing out of the door. About half an hour to ravishing is my calculating. Can’t wait.
Dropping into the local supermarket, I pick up some meals that go ping. Can’t waste our precious first evening alone by cooking. I earmark some fishcakes and a bag of greens for dinner – healthy stuff, right? I add some baked churros with chocolate sauce and I’m thinking I could introduce these at Chocolate Heaven. Yum. I wonder if Alexandra would be able to do them for us? Then in a facepalm moment, I remember that the cake order I’ve scribbled out is still on my desk and I’ve forgotten to email it to her. If she doesn’t get it tonight then that will throw us both out. Bum.
I glance at my watch. I’m going to have to nip back to Chocolate Heaven and do it. If Marie-France was a different person, then I could ring and ask her to complete this simple task. As it is, I don’t trust her as far as I can throw her. It won’t take a minute. My ravishing will have to wait a little bit longer but, surely, that will add a little piquancy to it.
Hurrying, hurrying, loaded carrier bags in hand, I retrace my steps. Soon, I’m right back where I started, outside Chocolate Heaven. Marcus’s car is parked at the kerb and I have a momentary heart-sink. I don’t want to get embroiled in another conversation with him about the suitability of my fiancé as opposed to him. I’m going to run in, do what I have to do and make a sharp exit.
Shaking my head, I notice that the tables haven’t been cleared and there’s no sign of Ms France. I tut to myself and head for the back room. Throwing open the door, I see that Marie-France is bent over the desk with her dress hitched up to her waist and Marcus is . . . er . . . well . . . Marcus is doing what Marcus does best.
I stand and stare, transfixed, feeling ever so slightly sick. Marcus isn’t mine, but it still hits me like a punch in the guts. This feels like déjà vu. I have been in this situation too many times before with him. My heart was broken by his infidelity and its scars are still there.
Half-frozen, I force myself to tiptoe out backwards and feel behind me for the door handle. Which, of course, squeaks as I blindly make a grab for it. At that moment, Marcus’s head whips round towards me. ‘Lucy.’