An ideal husband, p.9
An Ideal Husband, page 9
‘Wow,’ she’d exclaimed, ‘that’s a whole world of crazy hurt, isn’t it?’
‘Tell me about it,’ he’d said grimly.
They arranged to meet again, this time to go for dinner at a nearby Indian restaurant, and then she invited him to a fund-raising concert she and her quartet were involved with. The concert was held inside a marquee in the grounds of a beautiful manor house in Northamptonshire and seated in the second row from the front of the audience Angus had a perfect view of CeeCee.
Observing her playing had an extraordinary effect on him. And to be clear, it had nothing to do with the sight of her fantastically long legs wrapped around her cello, and everything to do with how in awe of her he was. He sat there spellbound, watching the intensity of her facial expression as she moved the bow across the cello strings and how she swayed seemingly as one with her instrument. He was no classical music buff, but he recognised many of the pieces the quartet played from what he’d heard CeeCee practising. But seeing her play was another experience altogether, she was mesmerising. She often closed her eyes as though to lose herself in the music, and only once did she look directly at him while playing, whereas he couldn’t take his eyes off her for the whole performance.
‘You were amazing!’ he said afterwards when the concert was over.
‘I was okay,’ she said, hitching the cello case onto her back. She had already refused his offer to carry it for her.
‘We’ll have to agree to disagree on that,’ he said in response to her modesty. ‘I thought you were brilliant.’
‘Then I have a lot to teach you about music,’ she’d said.
The next time they saw each other it was to go out for another meal. That was the evening she asked him if he was totally over his previous girlfriend.
‘Yeah, of course, I am,’ he’d said, ‘why do you ask?’
‘It’s just that I’d hate to go any further with you – with us – if there’s a chance you’re still screwed up by what she did.’
‘Is there an us?’ he’d asked cautiously.
‘Sure there is. There was an us the moment you opened your door to me. So answer the question, is this ex-girlfriend of yours, who might end up as your stepmother, still an issue?’
He had to admit that she was right to ask the question because until then he hadn’t felt like taking the risk when it came to pursuing another relationship with anyone new. There was also the small but not insignificant matter of him not having met anyone he’d considered worth the risk.
‘I was upset,’ he said, ‘but I was never screwed up by it. At least I don’t think I was. But the long-term consequences of what my ex and my father have done has the potential to screw us all up as a family. Not just me. And that makes me angry.’
‘Not too angry, I hope. How’s your mother coping?’
‘Pretty well in the circumstances.’
‘The mother of a friend of mine went through a divorce, and her way of coping was to step out of the box she’d always been in and reinvent herself. She gave up her well-paid job in the City and went to live in the Outer Hebrides. She now runs a wildlife project up there.’
‘Very laudable, but I don’t see my mother doing something like that. Apart from anything else, she wouldn’t want to put any distance between herself and her grandchildren. She dotes on them. But tell me some more about there being an us. What does that actually mean?’
Smiling across the table at him, CeeCee said, ‘Oh, I think you’re smart enough to know exactly what it means. That’s if you’re up for it.’
He returned the smile. ‘Like you said, there was an us from the moment I opened the door to you.’ The funny thing was, it was true; he’d known it from the get-go, even if he’d tried to kid himself otherwise.
‘Something amusing you, Angus?’
He was in his mother’s car and on their way to view the house which she’d been so secretive about. ‘I was recalling a recent conversation with someone,’ he said.
‘Somebody special?’
He shot her a quick sideways glance, but her gaze was fixed on the road ahead, her hands at their customary ten-to-two position on the steering wheel.
‘Possibly,’ he said casually. He hadn’t as yet told his mother, or his brother and sister, that he was seeing anyone. He had wanted to keep CeeCee to himself, he hadn’t been ready for his family to leap to any conclusions. He just wanted to enjoy the moment without a big thing being made of him having ‘moved on’.
‘What’s her name?’
‘Mum!’
‘That’s a strange name for a girl. Unless she has a child.’
‘Ha ha, funny you.’
Now his mother did look at him. ‘I can tell you have met someone; I can see it in your face, and the way you look at your mobile so often. But I do understand how you like to compartmentalise your life. You’ve always kept yourself ever so slightly at arm’s distance from people, and that’s okay, we’re all different and like to do things our own way.’
Bemused, he said, ‘Where’s all this coming from, Mum?’
‘I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what makes us uniquely who we are.’
‘Any conclusions reached?’
‘Only in as much as this time last year I would probably have known exactly who and what I was, but I’m floundering now. So much of my identity was wrapped up in being a wife and mother, but your father has somehow made that seem meaningless, as though I valued it too much.’
‘That’s letting Dad’s selfish actions eclipse all that you’ve achieved, because as far as I can see, as well as being a brilliantly supportive wife and mother you’ve been a highly regarded teacher, an excellent grandmother and now you’re a respected miniature maker.’
‘But is that really who I am?’
‘Do any of us really know who or what we are?’
‘Well, and this might surprise you, but I’ve decided it might be time to embrace a new me.’ Then with a sudden smile she slowed the car and pointed at a for sale board on the righthand side of the road. ‘We must be nearly there,’ she said brightly. ‘Now I want you to do something for me. I want you to close your eyes and keep them closed until I say you can open them.
‘And this is not at all weird, Mum,’ he said.
‘Go on,’ she said, ‘humour me.’
‘Okay,’ he replied, ‘if I must.’
‘And no looking until I say.’
To prove he was willing to play along with her, he covered his eyes with his hands and wondered what on earth she was up to. What kind of house was it that she had made an appointment to see? Was it a wreck of a place that she imagined doing up as a creative challenge?
If the scratching noise he could hear was anything to go by they were now on a narrow single-track lane with hedges brushing against the sides of the car. The track was rutted in places, and they slowly bumped along and then picked up a bit of speed on a much smoother surface of road before coming to a stop and the engine being switched off.
‘You can open your eyes now.’
He did as his mother said, and there, looming above them, was the last thing he expected to see. ‘It’s a windmill!’ he said, and with all the wonder of a small child.
‘Yes,’ she said. ’And it could be my windmill.
He stared up at it, and then looked at his mother and saw the happy excitement on her face. ‘Cool,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and see it.’
Chapter Thirteen
‘What am I supposed to call you now?’ asked Lexi.
‘Call me Zoe, like you did before when we met last year.’
‘Not Grandma Zoe, then?’
There was an awkward silence around the table, followed by a laugh from Zoe. But it was Kip who answered the question.
‘I think Zoe will do just fine,’ he said smoothly. ‘How are your vegetarian sausages?’
Lexi pulled a face at him. ‘They smell funny.’
‘Perhaps they’re comedy sausages.’
She gave him a scornful look. ‘What do you mean?’
‘They crack jokes,’ he said with a light-hearted chuckle. ‘That’s why they’re funny.’
The girl’s look of scorn intensified and, making it clear she wasn’t going to eat the offending items, she pushed them to the edge of the plate. Shrivelling inside, Kip wished he’d kept his mouth shut.
‘Aren’t you even going to try the sausages?’ this was from Arabella, who looked as miserable as Kip felt.
‘I just said they smell funny, didn’t I, so why would I want to make myself puke by eating something that is so minging?’
‘Lexi, there’s no need to be so rude,’ Arabella said.
‘I’m not being rude, I’m being honest. What’s wrong with that?’
‘It’s okay, sweetheart,’ Giles intervened, ‘you don’t have to eat anything you don’t want to. Just eat the chips.’
‘But they’ll make me fat. And give me spots.’ She gave the plate a dismissive shove with her hand, bumping it against the vase of flowers Zoe had put there earlier – flowers which Ashley and Caro had brought with them. The girl then pulled out a mobile phone from her pocket.
‘We had an agreement,’ said Arabella. ‘Never at the table.’
Lexi puffed out her cheeks and rolled her eyes, but she made no attempt to put away the phone. ‘What else am I going to do to stop myself from dying of boredom here?’
‘How about we make an exception for today?’ suggested Giles. ‘Nobody would mind, would they?’ he asked the rest of them.
There were murmurs of assent, probably because they’d all be glad of the peace, and wishing this nightmarish day was over, Kip drank deeply from his wine glass. He was knocking back far more wine than was sensible, but it was the only way he could keep the worst of his nervousness at bay. He regretted now agreeing to Zoe’s idea that they invite the family here for the day; it was too soon. They were all still too angry to be at ease with him and Zoe. But then as she’d said, when would it ever be right? They had to try at least.
It had been fine initially when everyone had arrived, they’d been able to hide behind Peggy and Heidi’s giddy excitement at being somewhere new. Oblivious to the tension amongst the rest of them, the two girls had raced about exploring the house and then the small garden, squealing and chasing each other with happy abandon like a couple of puppies. They had created the perfect icebreaker while drinks were offered, and the proposal was then made that Ashley and Giles would go with Kip to fetch lunch from the fish and chip shop in the High Street. That was when Lexi put in her two penn’orth and said she would go with them to choose her own lunch because she was vegetarian, and she couldn’t possibly eat fish.
‘It’s a recent thing,’ Arabella had said to Kip. ‘Probably no more than a passing fad. I should have warned you in advance, but I forgot.’
‘It’s not a thing,’ Lexi had corrected her. ‘Or a passing fad. It’s a belief that it’s wrong to eat meat of any kind. It’s child abuse to make me eat anything I don’t want to!’
It was obvious that Arabella now had her hands full with her stepdaughter who, at the age of twelve, and dressed like an underage member of a girl band in a short denim skirt and skimpy top that showed her midriff, was on the cusp of entering the twilight zone of adolescence. The last time Kip had seen Lexi she had been a perfectly normal child, but in the intervening months she had undergone a dramatic change. He didn’t want to be critical of Giles, but it was as clear as daylight that his son-in-law needed to man up and support his wife a hell of a lot more than he was currently doing if he wanted to avoid problems between them as a couple.
It was also clear to Kip that Lexi was using his relationship with Zoe to get at Arabella. The father in him wanted to protect his daughter, and the lover in him wanted very much to defend Zoe against this child who was intent on stirring up trouble.
Realising that his glass was empty, again, and once more adopting a cheery tone, he said, ‘Who’s for more wine or beer, or a soft drink? What about you girls,’ he added, looking at his granddaughters, ‘would you like some more apple juice? Or maybe some fizzy water?’
Peggy waved a big chip at him, ‘Feeezy water!’
Heidi shook her head, but then nodded.
‘Is that a yes?’ he asked her.
She smiled back at him revealing two rows of perfectly straight milk teeth and then reached for her plastic beaker cup. ‘Feeezy for me! Feezy, feezy, feezy!’
Everyone laughed which made the girls giggle and, pushing himself to his feet to go and fetch the drinks, Kip silently thanked his granddaughters for bringing some much-needed levity to the lunch.
‘I’ll give you a hand,’ offered Caro. She took the plastic cups from the girls and followed Kip into the kitchen.
‘How are you bearing up?’ she enquired when they were inside and out of earshot from everybody else.
‘Oh, you know,’ he said lightly, ‘not too badly in the circumstances. I could do without Lexi’s sly comments.’
‘Ignore her, she’s just asserting herself. She’s at that age when she’s full of snark, and she’s found a button which she’s going to keep on pressing until she grows bored of it.’
‘I don’t mind so much for myself, but I mind immensely for Arabella and Zoe. I won’t have them upset by a stroppy child trying to cause trouble.’
‘They’re old enough to stick up for themselves, it’s not your place to do it for them.’
Passing her a bottle of fizzy water from the fridge, and opening another bottle of rosé, Kip gave Caro a grateful smile. He had always been fond of his daughter-in-law and had known from the start of Ashley’s relationship with her that she would be good for him.
Seeing Caro as his ally, and knowing that she could always be trusted upon to be honest, Kip said, ‘Do you suppose today was a mistake, that it was too soon?’
The two plastic cups now filled, Caro looked at him. ‘No I don’t. It’s five months now since you left Louisa and it’s time for everyone to accept the situation and get on with it. And look, we’re all here today, aren’t we, so that’s a step in the right direction. You have to be pleased with that, surely?’
‘I’d be happier if Angus was here too. I don’t want to lose him.’
‘You won’t. He just needs to accept this wasn’t about him and Zoe, it was about you and Zoe.’
Kip sighed. ‘I don’t think he will ever see it that way. He’s convinced Zoe cheated on him with me, but it didn’t happen like that. It really didn’t.’
‘I could try talking to him if you like.’
He shook his head. ‘That’s kind of you, but I think it would be better to wait for when he’s ready to talk to me face-to-face. I shan’t give up on him. I’ll never do that.’
‘In that case you must be patient. Patient with them all in fact. And with Louisa.’
He put a hand to Caro’s arm. ‘You’re a very wise young woman,’ he said, ‘and I’m a lucky man to have you as my daughter-in-law.’
He picked up the tray of drinks and they were back outside in the garden just in time to hear Lexi say, ‘Zoe, can I ask you something?’
Zoe and Ashley were hunkered down on the ground with Peggy and Heidi supervising the girls as they painted the stones Zoe had collected from the beach. ‘Of course,’ she said, smiling back at Lexi.
‘I was just wondering,’ the girl said slowly – deliberately slowly as if making sure that she had everyone’s attention – ‘don’t you think it was a bad thing what you did, stealing Grando Kip from Grandma Louisa?’
Kip banged the tray down very hard on the table, anything to shock this girl into behaving better. He threw a look in Giles’s direction, hoping that he’d step in and reprimand his daughter, but he wasn’t meeting Kip’s gaze.
‘Arabella stole Dad from my mum,’ Lexi continued, ‘so she would know just how Grandma Louisa must be feeling.’
‘That’s enough, Lexi!’ hissed Arabella. ‘I did not steal your father away from your mother.’
‘That’s not what Mum says. She says that you—’
‘Giles,’ implored Arabella, ‘for God’s sake, tell her to be quiet.’
‘Lexi, sweetheart, now’s not the time. Let’s talk about this later. When we’re alone.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s private.’
Lexi rolled her eyes and, muttering something about them all being boring, she returned her attention to the mobile in her hands.
Kip could have snatched it from her grasp and hurled it down on the flagstones, then ground it underfoot. He wouldn’t have believed he could feel such animosity towards a child, but he did. He felt angry with Giles too for allowing his daughter to be so rude to Zoe.
Chapter Fourteen
Louisa could not have been more charmed by Melbury Mill.
The converted windmill was minus its sails, but she loved everything about it, the quirky rooms with their curving walls, the random scattering of windows, the unevenness of the wooden floors to the upper levels, the delightful cosiness of the ingeniously created accommodation, and the cleverly added kitchen and dining extension. But best of all, she loved the room on the fourth floor, right at the top of the brick-built mill. With its 360-degree views, it was beautifully light and airy and would be perfect as a workshop. There were glass doors that opened onto a wooden balcony, and it was there that Louisa and Angus were now standing.
She hardly dared voice her opinion for fear of her son telling her that she would be mad to consider buying this place. Maybe she was a bit mad, but this was the first property she’d viewed to which she’d experienced an emotional connection. The funny thing was, she’d known that the windmill existed in the village of Melbury St Mary, but not once had she thought of it as somebody’s home. The village was a few miles from the market town of Chelstead, which she could see in the distance on the other side of the River Stour, so it would be handy for the shops and better still she would be that much closer to where Ashley and Caro lived. The thought that this quirky mill could be her new home gave her a pleasurable thrill of excitement.
