Creature Comforts. Trisha Ashley

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СКАЧАТЬ – though it can also create new “memories”,’ she gently suggested.

      ‘You mean, I might have imagined the scene I saw? But it seemed so real! We were going along the lane up towards the Green and the others, Harry, Cara and Simon, were all singing. They’d been celebrating their exam results and Harry wanted me to go back to Sweetwell Hall with them to a party, but I’d already told him I couldn’t. If I wasn’t home by ten, Judy would go down to the pub to look for me … and that’s the last real memory of that evening I have.’

      Aunt Debo, who had become my guardian after my mother’s early demise, had tended to lose track of my movements and the passing of time, while Judy, her best friend, who’d originally moved in to help with the childcare but never left, was more practical and firmly set the boundaries a teenager needed.

      ‘Judy was surprised you’d disobeyed her, but we knew Harry must have persuaded you. But to return to the flashback you had, if everyone was singing and happy, that was a good memory?’

      ‘I suppose so,’ I said, and though I think she guessed I was still holding something back, she didn’t press me. I changed tack.

      ‘I had another argument with Kieran on the phone last night and I’d decided things weren’t going to work out – or not the way he wanted them to – so I was going to have it out with him tomorrow, when he got back.’

      ‘You did seem unhappy about the way his parents were taking over your plans, last time we spoke.’

      ‘That was certainly part of it. Do you know, his mother had even started planning a huge wedding in Oxford, when I’d told her I’d always dreamed of a small one in the Halfhidden church.’

      ‘Well, Izzy, you certainly couldn’t have a big one in St Mary’s, because it can’t hold more than about thirty people at once, can it? And it’s your wedding, so you must have it where you want it.’

      ‘Or not at all. And there’s more. They’ve found us a house round the corner from theirs, which they think I’m going to put that legacy from my father into. Kieran can’t see any problem with any of that. In fact, he’s entirely failed to see my viewpoint at all, and last night after we argued he put the phone down on me!’

      ‘I’m very sorry to hear it isn’t working out, but it’s better to find out whether you’re entirely compatible before you get married, rather than afterwards,’ Daisy said. ‘If Kieran’s set on joining the family GP practice in Oxford, you’d definitely have to see a lot of his parents.’

      I shuddered. ‘I don’t even want to live in Oxford.’

      ‘It’s a very lovely place.’

      ‘I know, only it’s not my place.’ I tried to explain. ‘I know I wasn’t born in Lancashire, but despite what happened there, Halfhidden still feels like home and the one place where I truly belong. It … pulls me back.’

      ‘You were only about five when Debo and Baz Salcombe became an item and you all moved into Sweetwell Hall with him, so you probably don’t recall much before that.’

      ‘No, nothing at all. I think I remember Judy and I had our own suite in the Victorian wing of Sweetwell, where the housekeeper and her family live now, but mostly my memories are of after the affair finished, when we all moved to the Lodge.’

      ‘Debo does have the knack of staying best friends with her former lovers,’ Daisy said with a smile. ‘And it made sense to stay in the country, because by then she and Judy had got about eight or nine rescued dogs between them, way too many for town.’

      ‘Baz liked dogs, too,’ I said. ‘He never minded when Debo’s escaped and ran around the estate, or that she extended the kennels beyond the garden into the grounds.’

      ‘He was a very likeable, easy-going man,’ Daisy agreed, for she had got to know him on her frequent visits to the Lodge.

      I sighed sadly. ‘He was, and the nearest to a father figure I’ve ever had. I missed him so much after he went to live abroad …’

      Baz had been so broken by the loss of his only child that he’d shut up Sweetwell and gone to live permanently in his beachfront house in the Bahamas, leaving the housekeeper as caretaker and Dan Clew to look after the garden and keep an eye on the wooded grounds.

      Baz had rarely visited after that and never at times that coincided with my visits, though he and Debo had always remained friends – and occasionally, I suspected, more than friends.

      ‘Kieran absolutely idolises his father,’ I said, following this train of thought. ‘So he’s going to be a bit upset about the accident, though I don’t know if Douglas will tell him I refused to take the blame for it.’

      ‘If he does, since Kieran knows about your history, he’ll hardly be surprised about that. And if he truly loves you, he’ll be more concerned with how it’s affected you.’

      ‘I’m not at all sure he really does love me, and in any case, when push came to shove, he seemed quite prepared to override what I wanted to please his parents.’

      ‘It certainly sounds to me as if you two at least need some breathing space apart,’ Daisy said. ‘Things will seem clearer then and you may even find that you do have a future together.’

      ‘Perhaps,’ I said doubtfully. ‘But if so, it definitely wouldn’t be in Oxford. And not only have I already used some of this legacy they seemed to have been counting on, I’ll probably have to bail Debo out with the rest.’

      ‘Oh, I don’t think it will come to that. Debo does stagger from financial crisis to crisis, but she always manages to raise the money she needs from somewhere,’ she said, surprised. ‘I mean, for a start she can get as much modelling work as she wants and she often pops down to stay with me for various assignments.’

      Debo had been a famous model in the sixties and seventies, and even though she was now the wrong side of sixty, she was still much in demand. Tall, thin and elegant, with huge grey doe-eyes and cropped ash-blonde hair, she hadn’t changed much since her heyday. Judy always told me I looked like a miniature version of Debo, but with my father’s dark colouring and lack of height, though I think she was just being kind …

      ‘Debo hates leaving the dogs though, so if she’s been down a lot recently it shows how bad things have got – and this time there’s no Baz to come to the rescue,’ I pointed out. ‘She was devastated when he died so suddenly – not to mention the shock of finding out the whole estate had been left to some illegitimate son she’d never heard of!’

      ‘Actually, when she rang to tell me, the main shock seemed to be more that Baz must have had a fling with Fliss Gambol, an old enemy of hers from her early modelling days, even though it was before Debo took up with him,’ Daisy said. ‘Even worse, she’s always blamed Fliss for your mother’s death.’

      ‘Oh? In what way?’ I asked, puzzled. I knew from Debo that my mother had been sweet, but a bit of a wild child and died young from an accidental drug overdose. I was the result of a brief fling with a married American artist twice her age. Although he’d known about me, we’d had minimal contact until, to my surprise, he’d left me a little bit of money a few years ago. ‘Fliss Gambol was some sixties singer, wasn’t she?’

      ‘Yes, until drink and drugs got the better of her. Lisa, your mother, was very young when she came СКАЧАТЬ