Teepee for Two Page 4

  ‘What’s that you got on there?’

  Her thoughts were muddled as she stared down at the pinny. It wasn’t strictly Agent Provocateur, but …

  ‘Oh this? I found it in the pantry.’ She smoothed her fingers over the hand-stitched goldfinches and thick cotton fabric that had obviously been through the washing machine more than a few times then threw him an apologetic smile. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘No, no.’ He narrowed his gaze. ‘I think it’s one Freya made Mum quite a few years back.’ He looked up and met her eyes ‘It’s lovely.’

  Something flickered deep inside Charlotte that she hadn’t felt in years.

  Oh, sugar plum fairies.

  Raw, unabashed lust was tripping the light fantastic through her nether regions. How embarrassing. Was this what happened when you were an almost divorcee. According to the latest letter from her solicitor, Hazel, all she and Oli had to do was sit back and wait for the decree absolute and then they could all get on with their lives. Oli had obviously jumped the gun in that department. If the past few months had taught her anything, it was that their lives – Oli’s and the children’s – had been her life. Developing a sideline with the cakes and revamping the shop with Lady V had been a huge help. As had driving out to see the children in their West Country schools when they’d forgotten something at home, or going to see Poppy’s school play, but really? They were time fillers, not soul satisfiers. Would she ever have the courage to make one of her own dreams come true?

  Her stomach flipped as Rocco closed the gap between them, her heart pounding so hard she could feel its beat at the base of her throat. Every single cell in her body was on high alert. Was this what happened when you met the person you were meant to have been with all along?

  Rocco put his hand on her arm and gave it a squeeze. ‘You all right, darlin’? You’re looking a wee bit pale.’

  Rocco’s voice was like warm butter. Better. Syrup. It trickled through her body in all the right places. Could crushes really last twenty years?

  ‘I understand things at home have been, ah, tricky for you.’

  Oh. He was just being polite. Well, in that case she may as well be honest.

  ‘Yes, mostly for the children. I was shocked at first, of course, and upset. But now that I’ve had some time to think about it, I sometimes wonder whether we’d known one another at all. Our interests are – were – so wildly different. Anyway. I’m presuming it’s all happened this way for a reason.’ Her voice was getting higher pitched as she spoke, ‘All that’s left for me to do is work out the silver lining.’

  Rocco nodded, sat with what she’d said for a minute then said in a rush, ‘I’d always meant to come down to London to see you – and Freya of course – back in the day, but …’

  Her eyes caught with his again. He had felt it, too? The connection.

  ‘That summer you spent up here was memorable.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, her voice almost a whisper. ‘Yes it was. I would’ve loved to come back, but …’

  He gave the back of his neck a rub, eyes still glued to hers. ‘Funny how life gets in the way of living sometimes, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded and they shared a smile so full of meaning that she suddenly felt less alone in the world than she ever had. Rocco seemed so confident, but perhaps he too had an insecurity that he had yet to overcome. Perhaps he lacked confidence on the romance front. It couldn’t be easy getting away from the farm. Maybe he thought women might want something different to what he had to offer. She remembered how he used to joke that she and Freya were taking a step up on the social ladder thanks to their degrees. Did he think she wouldn’t have considered him an option because he couldn’t break down the finer plot points of Ulysses? How ironic. Charlotte Bunce of Sheffield’s least plummy tower block, too high-falutin’ for the most honest, kind, man she’d ever had the privilege to meet. Her mind reeled as she absorbed all the things their lives could have been if just one of them had said something.

  As if by internal conditioning, she stepped back, unable to be quite so close to him any more, her nervous laughter filling the space she’d just been standing in. Rocco probably wasn’t even flirting. He was simply being kind. Asking after the poor divorcée in the wake of her husband’s latest reminder that neither she nor the children had ever been his priority. How was it she could no longer read a simple kindness?

  Fifteen years of marriage to someone who never entirely approved, perhaps?

  ‘What’s that you’re doing there?’ Rocco’s dark curls piled onto his forehead as he leant in to inspect the huge mixing bowl Charlotte had unearthed from the pantry. She’d forgotten how much Freya’s mother had enjoyed her baking. She’d read somewhere recently, most likely in Waitrose Weekend, that baking was healing for the soul. She’d certainly taken to it with a near slavish energy since she’d been knocking around that huge house on her own. Little wonder Lady V knew she’d get an answer to her pleas for cake in the wee small hours.

  Rocco was about to plunge his finger into the batter so she reached out to stop him – almost short-circuiting at the electricity that shot from his hand to hers.

  She said the only thing she could think of, ‘Just knocking up some pancake batter.’

  ‘Pancakes?’ Rocco looked delighted, eventually extracting his hand from hers and running it through his hair.

  ‘The American kind,’ she clarified, just for something to say.

  Rocco tapped the side of his nose. ‘You know those “American” ones were originally called Scotch pancakes?’

  She liked how he said American. It was about nineteen syllables and sounded utterly erotic.

  Charlotte! she chided herself. The poor man is not flirting with you!

  ‘Scotch pancakes,’ Rocco sighed. ‘I haven’t had those since Mum died.’ His expression softened. ‘Thank you Charlotte. That’s really thoughtful.’ He tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear, his hand lingering ever so slightly before he took a brisk step back and rubbed his hands together.

  Oh. Maybe he was flirting with her.

  ‘Right. I’ve got a few more things to see to out in the cowshed, but you can count me in if you’re making enough for everyone.’

  ‘It shall be done.’ She waved her mixing spoon at him as if it were a magic wand. A ridiculous thing to do really, but he smiled and gave her the thumbs-up.

  She would’ve made ten more batches there and then if he’d asked. And every day after if he’d asked again.

  When the door shut behind him, she had to press her hands together to stop them from shaking. Ridiculous! Getting all giddy at the first male to show her common courtesy after all of the fuss with Oliver.

  Fuss that involved lawyers, dates for selling the family home, spreadsheets of joint assets, only to see in black and white that all she had contributed to the marriage had been herself. And, of course, the children.

  It was all so crude. Putting a price tag on the emotional devastation Oli had wrought on her and the children.

  She poured a bit more flour into the batter and slowly stirred the pancake batter, watching the little clumps of flour dissolve into the milk and egg mixture. It was like bearing witness to the slow and subtle elimination of her own hopes and dreams. The ones of having a big, happy, bustling family, then, one day, starting up a little business of her own. One of those kitchen-table businesses she’d read about in Waitrose Weekend, where a bad situation had brought about something good. Gourmet crisps from a beleaguered potato farm. Insanely expensive scented candles from an abundance of lavender.

  She saw Rocco passing from the cowshed out to another, smaller barn. He looked over to the kitchen window, stopped and waved, then headed off again, that lovely smile of his playing upon his lips.

  Would he whisk her away from all of this ‘real life’ business and show her what it felt like to experience genuine pleasure?

  She laughed into the empty kitchen.

  This wasn’t Madame Bovary. It was
real life, and she needed to start seeing it as such. Rocco was a very kind man. That was all.

  What did she have to offer someone anyway? A couple of over-privileged, emotionally distressed children, and some pin money she’d earned from offering people a bit of obvious advice about how to improve their farm shops.

  She was going to have to start her life over from scratch. Just like a cake. Figure out what combination of skills she could put together to finally get a grip on her life in the way she’d imagined all those years ago when she’d been a little girl in a council flat.

  A couple of hours later, the huge kitchen table teeming with three generations’ worth of pancake fans, and Charlotte was back in her element. This was what she’d needed. To be part of a busy household again. She had been born to organize. To pick up granddad’s dropped serviette; to pull out the extra tray of bacon no one had remembered was in the Rayburn. Wash it all up. Put it all away. Then start all over again.

  That said, she didn’t mind that each time her eyes just happened to meet Rocco’s, he dropped her a little wink.

  Yes. That was nice. That was very nice indeed.

  The kitchen was the warmest room in the house and, as a result, where everyone was congregating.

  Izzy had made herself quite at home on the lumpy old sofa by the fireplace. Freya was strangely comforted to see she and Luna had tucked themselves underneath one of her mum’s old patchwork quilts, reading trashy magazines they’d picked up at the services.

  Emily was not so subtly playing cognitive games with Freya’s father. She’d unearthed an old Trivial Pursuit game and had challenged him to a quick-fire game with Felix and Regan. Jack and Poppy had yet to look up from their iPads. Didn’t even ooh and aah when Charlotte pulled two trays of the most beautiful-looking scones she’d ever seen out of the oven.

  Charlotte was on some sort of baking mission. She’d found Freya’s mum’s old pinny this morning. The one to which Freya had added goldfinches swirling round a mixing bowl when her mother had wondered aloud if her new purchase – a light blue checked affair – was a bit plain.

  ‘Course it is, Mum! You never go flash enough for yourself,’ Freya had teased. She pressed her fingers against her closed eyes to stop the tears coming. It was nice, she told herself, to see the pinafore being put to use.

  Though they weren’t on the jolliest of speaking terms, her children were being less pointed in their ‘Dad would know’ responses whenever she wondered aloud when school started again or how to finish Felix’s science fair project – a device he was inventing to clean the ocean floor.

  What would their marriage be like, she wondered, if she’d spent more time complimenting Monty for the things he did, rather than snapping at him about the things he didn’t? She was so hard on herself, she supposed she thought he was getting it easy, but really? Being on the wrong end of her half Italian, half Scottish temper was very likely less than pleasant.

  Freya checked her phone for the nineteenth time that morning. Though they’d agreed to a ‘news blackout’ when he’d finally rung, she was still hurt there weren’t any messages. Apologies more like. When Monty had stormed out on Christmas night, her gut instinct had been to jump into her brother’s scrappy old Land Rover, chase him down and scream it out on the side of the M6. Tell him to take his ring and shove it where the sun didn’t shine. This was her first Christmas without her mother and he had made it all about him. The niggling possibility that she’d contributed to the drama was something she wasn’t quite ready to confront.

  Her mother was never coming back.

  The blunt truth of it had hit her like a lead weight when they’d pulled into the farmyard four days ago and seen none of the usual Christmas decorations. Rocco had tried his best with the tree, and her dad, well … he was struggling to hit the keynotes of his daily routine, let alone remember that they always had cock-a-leekie soup on Christmas Eve and smoked salmon with their breakfast eggs.

  She should’ve known it was up to her now to do all of the things her mother had done, but … the whole prospect of being responsible for more things when her business woes were eating her brain alive had, she supposed, made her rather miserable to be with.

  Now that she knew Monty was safely at his brother’s, Freya was quickly coming round to his proposal that they should spend some time apart to think about things. He was right. She needed the headspace to try and figure out what exactly it was she wanted from herself and husband. That idealistic dreamer she’d fallen so very much in love with that first day Izzy had brought him home.

  How had it come to pass that the precise attributes that had drawn her to him were now the repellents? Could she fall in love with them again? Or had she become the one who’d become impossible to love? Her brain began to short-circuit with the flood of questions that followed. There was an awful lot to think about.

  ‘Who’s up for a bit of Scottish raspberry jam on their scones?’ Charlotte asked.

  Rocco was clumping the snow off his huge feet in the boot room. The man had been in and out of the kitchen like a yo-yo. He squinted when his eyes lit on Freya. ‘All right, sis?’

  Once again she ached to tell him everything. How she was making a right hash of her life. How she didn’t even begin to know where to start fixing things. The business? Her husband? Her dad? Charlotte appeared in the doorway. ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘Yup! Absolutely. Come!’ She hooked her arm into her brother’s, knowing the physical contact would be enough to see her through for a bit. ‘Sit, you restless beast!’

  The name Rocco meant rest. The last thing on earth her brother did was rest. Never idle. Always something on the go. And always so happy. A man born to do what fate had allotted him: inheriting a dairy farm. An industry being demolished by a world desperate to make everything the same. And yet? A life of nonstop debt, a relentless workload and the fickleness of the weather never bothered him. He just got on with things. As had her mum and her father. Life meant work, and if you got some fulfilment out of it? So much the better. So she didn’t love her work. She did love her family. Their aspirations. Their ideals.

  None of which they were achieving right now because of the financial sinkhole that Monty had led them into, but … people fucked up. She certainly had. No one had forced her to make clothes that made her miserable. Charlotte had tried to say as much when she’d come up to London a month ago. Freya had moaned endlessly about pulling her eyes out if she had to draw one more unicorn. After a thoughtful pause, Charlotte had pointed out that it was always possible to trial-run one or two items that didn’t savage her artistic integrity quite so violently. There were, after all, about fifty other stalls selling unicorn T-shirts. Or, she’d quietly suggested, how about Freya consider getting a day job. Teach maybe. Or work at a Waitrose and enjoy the staff discount. Anything to take the pressure off art having to cover her financially as well as fulfil her emotionally.

  The truth was she was terrified. Terrified of financial ruin, of having nothing practical (like a law degree) to fall back on. Of her family falling apart. But at the centre of it all was a young, dreamy-eyed teenaged Freya desperate not to let her parents down. She’d promised them that if they were happy for her not to help out on the farm, she would never, ever ask them for help. Unicorns meant money. Her own art? At this rate, she might never know.

  Freya took the jar of jam that Charlotte had set on the counter and was about to crack it open when she realized it was from the last batch her mother had made. She debated a moment before opening it. This was exactly the sort of moment her mother would’ve opened it for. A normal moment.

  What’s the point of keeping it for special? she would have asked. Life is special!

  Freya dolloped spoonfuls of the glossy red jam into a pair of bowls, wondering if she’d be able to taste her mother’s touch in it. She always added a bit of something extra ‘just to liven things up’. Lemon zest. Vanilla. Whatever was to hand, really.

  ‘Shall I be mum?’ Charlot
te heaved up the huge teapot and carried it over to the table.

  Charlotte’s son, Jack, made a gahh noise. ‘What else would you be? That’s what you are.’

  Rocco shot him a look. ‘And you should count yourself lucky to have one of the finest.’

  Jack looked shocked. As if no one ever dared to correct him. He quickly regrouped with a charmless laugh. ‘Thanks Mum, for being so perfect that Dad had to go find a new version.’

  Freya did an actual double take. Emily choked on her coffee. Izzy forgot to stop pouring water into her glass until Luna pointed out it was overflowing.

  Charlotte looked as though she’d been punched in the stomach.

  ‘Right, laddie,’ Rocco’s chair scraped against the stone flooring. ‘That’s you and me away to have a word in the cowshed.’

  Charlotte shook her head. ‘No, it’s all right. He’s just—’

  ‘He’s being bloody rude to his mother is what he’s being. Forgive my French.’ Rocco’s eyes narrowed at Jack who, extraordinarily, was looking about the group, apparently waiting for some positive response. He’d be waiting a ruddy long time if he wanted it from Rocco. ‘C’mon, laddie. Get your gear on. We’ve got some calves that’ll need destoning.’

  Freya pressed her fingers to her mouth to stem an inappropriate cackle. Jack wouldn’t have a clue what destoning a calf meant. She wondered if Rocco would do the age-old trick of offering him the bullock’s testicles for his tea.

  ‘But … Mum’s just made the scones.’ Jack suddenly looked like a little boy. A spoilt little boy. But a little boy just the same.

  Rocco gave him a polite but firm smile and pointed towards the boot room. ‘Not for you she didn’t. Not until you learn how to respect the work that went into making those scones.’

  ‘I … Mum?’

  Funny how a fifteen year old full of bravura could turn into a mummy’s boy at the drop of a hat.

  Charlotte very deliberately settled a tea cosy the shape of a hedgehog onto the teapot then, after a quick glance at Rocco, turned to her son and said, ‘We’re guests here, Jack. I think you should do as you’re told and help our host.’ Before he could respond, Charlotte busied herself gathering together a bunch of mugs onto a tray. Poppy made a move to start clapping but quickly stopped when she saw the sober faces around her.