‘Well, it probably needs a lot of work doing to it.’
‘You know it doesn’t. Your mother has always made sure it was kept in good repair.’
Brian intervened hastily as they glared at one another. ‘I’ll go and see Mrs Benton next door. She’ll know where Mum is. I always got on quite well with her.’
‘Let us know too,’ Jamie said.
Rachel made another scornful noise. ‘Don’t bother!’
Jamie spoke to Brian. ‘Look, I’m seriously worried about your mother and I feel guilty. I shouldn’t have let you all treat her like that at the wedding. She was the mother of the bride and deserved to sit in the correct place, not by herself at the end of the table, with no one talking to her. My mother gave me hell for it afterwards, said she wished she’d known. If she had, she’d have insisted on being seated near Molly.’
‘Mum was still on the top table, it’s no big deal,’ Rachel said.
But Brian remembered how unhappy his mother had looked and she’d been very pale, now he came to think of it. Why hadn’t he paid attention to it, then? Because he’d been sloshing down the booze, that was why.
He stood up. ‘I’ll go and see Mrs Benton straight away. Thanks for the meal, Rach.’
His mother’s tenant opened the door at the next house and greeted him with, ‘Oh, it’s you again.’
Brian kept his voice polite with an effort. ‘Can I see Mrs Benton, please?’
‘Not now, lad. My father’s just collapsed and we’re waiting for the doctor.’
Lad! Who did he think he was talking to? Then Brian realized what Stuart had said. ‘Sorry about that. I hope Mr Benton gets better soon. Look, I just wanted Mum’s forwarding address or her mobile phone number.’ He whipped out his business card. ‘If you know them, could you email me? Her old mobile number doesn’t work and I’m getting a bit worried about her.’
‘So you damned well should be. Where were you when she was being harassed by that group of yobs?’
‘What?’
‘Rocks thrown through windows during the night, trouble caused every time someone came to view the house. No wonder she couldn’t sell it.’
Brian stared at him in shock. ‘I didn’t know about that.’
‘How come? Didn’t you ever go round to see her?’
‘Well . . . not lately. I’ve been too busy trying to find somewhere to live. I was camping out at a friend’s place and I’ve only just found somewhere of my own. Things were a bit hectic at work, lots of overtime and I really needed the money.’
‘Shows where your priorities lie, doesn’t it? If she were my mother, she’d be more important than my job and I’d take better care of her, too. Ah, here he is . . . This way, doctor.’ He turned back to Jamie. ‘Why don’t you try emailing your mother? I told you last time: her email address is working perfectly well. She hasn’t changed that.’
‘I wanted to talk to her.’
‘If I were her, I’d not want to speak to anyone from the family. No wonder she changed her mobile number.’ He shut the door without another word.
Brian walked down the drive looking sideways at his old home as he passed, wishing he was still living there. He hadn’t realized how easy he’d had it in those days, hadn’t even paid his rent most weeks, felt ashamed of that now. He’d mooched a meal off his sister tonight, but he’d mooched a lot more from his mother.
Now he couldn’t afford to go out for a drink with his mates, couldn’t even afford to get an Internet connection, so would have to take his laptop to work and ask permission to email his mother from there in his lunch hour. They were a bit sticky about you using their email system in work time, but he’d tell his boss how skint he was and promise only to hook up to the network outside working hours.
He cringed at the memory of how scornfully Stuart had talked to him. And his brother-in-law had been disapproving, too. He’d never seen Jamie look like that, so icy and disapproving. He was only a couple of years older than Rachel, but many years wiser.
The trouble was, the two men were right. He hated to admit it, but they were. Even if his mother was mad at him, he still wanted to know she was safe . . . and happy.
Rachel didn’t seem to care, though. Well, she’d always been Daddy’s little princess, hadn’t she? But surely even she couldn’t go on believing the lies their father told her? If she did, his sister was far stupider than he’d thought. Actually, he didn’t know what Jamie saw in her. He’d never fancy a spoiled brat like her, however pretty she was.
He’d acted pretty badly. He’d been spoiled too. What would any woman see in him? The one he’d met in the supermarket had dismissed his invitation to coffee out of hand. She might already have a fellow, of course, but she wasn’t wearing a ring. No, she hadn’t even shown a flicker of interest in him. Probably thought him a useless oik after he’d needed help with such basic things.
He was useless at looking after himself, but he was doing something about that, at least. A man ought to be able to look after himself!
He went into his flat. It had been advertised as a studio flat, grand words for one small room with a sink and two-burner cooker, and a minuscule bathroom. At the moment the place looked like a campsite. He burped. Rachel’s food was sitting very heavily in his stomach and he couldn’t even afford a can of beer to take the greasy taste away.
The only thing Brian was certain of at the moment was that he had to hang on to his job. He’d become Mr Eager Beaver and was working harder than he ever had before, because times were chancy and people were being laid off everywhere. His boss had complimented him last week on a job well done.
He wasn’t getting into any more debt, either. Look where his spending spree had brought him! He was living like a tramp.
He’d look up some of his boyhood toys on the Internet tomorrow. If he could sell one or two on line, he might scrape together enough money to buy a bed, at least. Sleeping on a narrow, old-fashioned air mattress in a tatty old sleeping bag was the pits.
It suddenly occurred to him that his sister hadn’t even asked where he was living. Selfish bitch! Well, she’d had her big day as Princess of Wedding World. Now she had to come down to earth, just as he’d had to. He burped again and grimaced, making himself a slice of bread and jam to try to get rid of the taste. She was a lousy cook. So was he. But if he couldn’t do better than that tough meat of hers, he deserved shooting.
He hunted through a pile of old newspapers for the free cookery book he’d been given at the supermarket and sorted out the stuff as he went. It occurred to him that if he didn’t let the place get untidy in the first place, he’d not have so much to clear up. When he’d finished sorting them out, he sat down and looked through the list of recipes. Plenty of stuff he liked here.
He read the introduction and chose a simple dish – well, they said it was simple. Pulling out his mobile phone, he began to list the ingredients he’d need to buy tomorrow.
Actually, now he’d got started, he was quite looking forward to having a go at cooking. How hard could it be if you followed the recipes carefully?
When he’d finished that, he didn’t know what to do with himself, so played card games on his laptop.
He couldn’t even scrape together enough for a TV, because he’d maxed out his credit card. Perhaps he should join the library. Books were still free, weren’t they?
He looked round the room and groaned. If his workmates could see him now, they’d fall about laughing and he’d never live it down.
But he was managing, wasn’t he? Independent.
He hoped his mother was managing too. He’d definitely send her an email tomorrow.
But would she reply?
Later in the afternoon, Molly looked after the sales office on her own while Euan went to show a couple round the houses. She started to go through the stationery supplies and the jumble inside the two cupboards. She’d ask permission before she touched Euan’s drawers, though.
At nearly closing time, he’d still not come back so she phoned through to ask Avril if she should lock up the office, since she didn’t have a key to open it once that was done.
‘Lock it up. You’re not paid to work all the hours God sends,’ Avril said. ‘I’ll make a note to get you a key.’
Molly went shopping, buying some more bottles of wine and a very small TV. It had been nice to have Euan visit her last night, but she’d be on her own most evenings, so it wasn’t an extravagance. Of course, she could visit Helen occasionally, or invite her cousin to visit her, but that would still leave a lot of empty evenings. They were the hardest part of single life, she found, those evenings. No one to chat to.
When she got back, she couldn’t be bothered to cook the steak she’d bought, so settled for a cheese toastie and an apple. Then she got out her laptop and went on line, relieved to find that Euan had been right. His Wi-Fi network did extend to where the caravan was and the password he’d given her worked.
She found emails from her friends, but nothing from her children. That made her feel sad but it was no use dwelling on it. She replied to Nikki, sent off a cheerful email to her cousin Helen and closed the laptop.
Television reception with the small indoor aerial recommended by the salesman was adequate, but not brilliant. She found a couple of programmes to watch.
She was managing just fine.
In the middle of the night she woke up abruptly. She lay in the darkness wondering what had disturbed her sleep, then heard it again – the sound of breaking glass.
She went to the open window and stared out through the security mesh. There was some moonlight, enough to see if someone was around. There was no sign of anyone at the front of the houses, but that had definitely been breaking glass, so she phoned through to the night security guy at the hotel.
‘I’ll be down straight away,’ he said. ‘It’s probably nothing, but I could do with some fresh air.’
She hurriedly put on some jeans and a top, then continued to watch through the window. The security man came down the hill quietly, not needing a torch, but it could only be him, surely? She saw him move along the front of the finished houses then disappear behind them.
Suddenly there were yells and shouts, and she didn’t know what to do. The security man was on his own. What if he’d had two or three intruders to tackle? But she was small and would be no help in a fight.
Two figures appeared suddenly from behind the house, running up the hill, pursued a few seconds later by another figure. The first one was thin, looked like a youth and ran so fast he pulled ahead of his companion. The second was bigger, not running quite as easily, but still pulling further and further ahead of the security man, who wasn’t the slimmest fellow on the planet and who was pounding along heavily behind them.
The two men disappeared into the hotel car park. She heard an engine start up and a vehicle pulled away with a screech. Had they escaped? She doubted he’d have caught them, but perhaps he’d got their registration number. She did hope so. She hated thieves and vandals. What right had they to steal or spoil other people’s hard-earned possessions!
The phone rang. The security man, sounding breathless.
‘They got away but I saw their car reg, so I’ve called the police.’
If the police were coming, she’d keep her clothes on and not go back to bed. She decided to make some drinking chocolate. Milk was supposed to help you sleep. Closing the curtains, she took out her book.
While she was sipping her drink, there was a knock on the door which made her jump. She went to look through the little spyhole and saw Euan standing there.
‘Just wanted to thank you. You disturbed some thieves and saved me quite a bit of money. They were after the appliances and had disconnected them ready to remove. They had a transit van waiting in the hotel car park. I don’t know whether we’re going to become a target for organized theft, but I think it’s time to put automatic gates across the entrance to the village and lock them at night. I’ll give you a remote, of course, so that you can get in and out any time. I’m sorry you were disturbed.’
‘You must have been disturbed too, if the police rang you at home.’
He ran his fingers through his rumpled hair. ‘Tell me about it. I’d not long been asleep.’
‘Would you like some drinking chocolate while you wait for them?’
‘Don’t you want to get back to sleep?’
‘In a few minutes. Anyway, the police might want to talk to me as well.’
It felt good to have him sitting opposite her again. Too good. She was sorry when the police arrived and he went to talk to them.
She got annoyed at herself for feeling like that. This was just a fleeting attraction and she mustn’t read more into it, either on his side or her own. It happened all the time, a man and a woman met, were attracted, then life moved them apart or there weren’t enough things right to keep them together.
It didn’t usually happen to her, though, she had to admit. Once married, she’d taken her marriage vows very seriously and not even looked at another man. Since Craig left her, well, she’d not been ready to look at men in that way.
But she was ready now. And Euan was well worth looking at.
Someone knocked on the door and she went to answer it. ‘The police would like to talk to you, Molly.’
‘Bring them in.’ She smiled at the two uniformed officers. ‘Would you like some drinking chocolate?’
She got them drinks, answered their questions and after Euan had gone, she yawned and got into bed again, smiling. Who’d have thought she’d meet with such excitement in a quiet place like this?
On his way home from work that evening, Craig made another detour into Lavengro Road. He’d not heard from the lads he’d hired and wanted to make sure they’d done their work before he paid them.
To his disappointment, there was no sign of damage to the house, though someone had spilled paint on the footpath in front of it. He should really have driven past this morning. The broken window could have been repaired by now. Those security gates looked very strong. Must have cost a packet. She was stupid to go to that expense, but maybe the tenants wouldn’t take the house unless she put them in, given the trouble there had been. He smirked at the thought of how easily he’d stopped her selling.