A Family of His Own. Liz Fielding

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      On the point of offering her hand, she managed to stop herself. It was a little late to be shaking hands. Instead she tried to concentrate on an explanation of what she was doing in his garden. ‘I’m just…’ No. It was no good. Any attempt to explain what she was doing, explain anything, was, for the moment, totally beyond her. And he didn’t want to know what she was doing. He just wanted to know why she wasn’t his wife. There was no explanation that would satisfy him. No answer that would help. ‘I’m just a neighbour,’ she said.

      He took another step back as if, with every moment that passed, the enormity of his mistake increased. Then he looked beyond her to the peach trees, the newly cut brambles.

      ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ he said. ‘Yesterday?’

      He’d been here then? He’d seen her? She saw all hope die in his eyes and knew he had. Knew what he’d thought. ‘Yes, I was here,’ she said, guilt washing over her at the damage she’d done. At the forlorn hopes she’d unwittingly raised and then dashed.

      ‘And the child? The little girl?’

      She frowned. If he’d seen Polly then surely he must have realised that she couldn’t be Sara?

      ‘Who is she?’ he persisted.

      ‘My daughter. Polly. We were picking blackberries to make pies for the harvest supper. She’s gone out with friends today. To the sea. The Hallams? I think you know them. Their youngest boy is just a few months older and they’re best…’ She stopped. She was talking far too much. ‘I’m so sorry—’

      ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he snapped, cutting off her apology.

      ‘If I’d known you were home I’d have—’

      ‘You’d have knocked and asked permission?’ he enquired, with cutting sarcasm. ‘Why did you come back? To make sure you hadn’t missed any? Or was there something else you’d taken a fancy to?’

      He glanced at the shrub, then at her, raised one brow about half a millimetre—more than enough to imply everything that he was thinking—and she felt the blood rush to her face.

      ‘No! I was just…’ She let it go. If he really thought she’d come to steal a shrub that size armed with nothing more than a pocket knife and a screwdriver, there wasn’t a thing she could say that would convince him otherwise. ‘The lock on the gate was rusted through. I came back to fit a new one. It should hold now. And I—’

      ‘Will it keep you out?’ His voice was no longer soft, but hard and cold as ice, perfectly matching the chilling lack of emotion, lack of anything, in his eyes.

      ‘It will if you bolt it behind me,’ she managed, with measured politeness, despite the fact that her heart was still pounding like a jackhammer. ‘In fact you’d be doing me a favour. I thought I’d have to bolt it from the inside and then climb over and it’s rather a long drop.’ She made a stab at a smile. He didn’t respond. Well, fine. She was in the wrong here, she reminded herself. He had every right to be angry. She gestured vaguely towards the wheelbarrow filled with the thorny trimmings that were destined for her bonfire. ‘I’d better go. I’ve done everything I came for.’

      He glanced across at her barrow as if to reassure himself that she wasn’t making off with a haul of valuable plants. Frowned when he saw the contents.

      ‘Why did you do that?’

      ‘Fix the gate?’

      ‘Cut back the brambles. Why did you do that?’

      ‘They were growing over the peach tree. It was suffering…’ Then, because he didn’t say anything, it occurred to her that she’d never have a better chance to put her case for some work. The very worst he could do was throw her out and he was pretty much doing that anyway. ‘I’m a gardener. I was going to contact the house agents tomorrow to see if they were interested in giving me some work. To tidy up in here. Now it’s on the market.’

      ‘Don’t bother,’ he said abruptly. ‘I like it just the way it is.’

      Suffocating. Like him, from the heart outwards.

      ‘You’re probably right,’ she said, bending down to pick up her hat. ‘Better let the new owners clear it out. Start again.’

      ‘Maybe they’ll employ you.’

      ‘I doubt that. It’ll take months to put this straight. I expect they’ll get in a contractor. Someone who can provide instant results with an earthmover. They’ll just dump all this in a skip and bring in fully grown plants like they do in those television makeover programmes.’

      If she’d hoped to drive the chill from his eyes with hot anger, wake him from the coma of grief, she realised immediately that she was reaching a long way beyond her grasp. He was far beyond such pathetic pseudo-psychological tricks.

      All she got was a blank expression.

      Of course, he’d been working abroad for a long time. He’d probably never seen one of those programmes where a garden was transformed from backyard tip to easy-care Mediterranean landscape—with water feature—in a weekend. For a man who’d been working on aid programmes, the very idea of such a frivolous waste of resources would probably be anathema.

      ‘Well, I’ll go, then. If you need anything, I live at Old Cottage,’ she said. ‘Just down the lane.’

      ‘What could I possibly need?’ Between them hung the unspoken corollary “…from you?”

      Nothing was clearly the answer. He was wrong. She could offer human contact. Be there for him, as Amy had been there when she had been lost in depths of despair, guilt. Day after day. Week after week. Gently persistent. Unwavering in the face of rejection. Refusing to be pushed away.

      ‘One day someone will need you, Kay,’ she’d said when she’d bemoaned her inability to repay such patient, unasked-for, unrewarded care. ‘Just pass on the love and don’t count the cost. That’s all any of us can do.’

      She had a sudden, terrible premonition that this was her moment. And she wasn’t ready. Hadn’t a clue what to do.

      ‘I could offer you a cup of tea,’ she prompted. Oh, good grief. How English. How predictable. ‘Breakfast?’ she persisted. ‘The eggs are organic. I keep a few hens…’

      He didn’t reply. Not by one twitch of his facial muscles did he indicate that he’d heard.

      For heaven’s sake, politeness cost nothing.

      ‘How about a towel to dry your feet?’ she tried, but a little waspishly, rapidly losing any desire to pass on anything, let alone care.

      He glanced down and frowned as if only then aware that he was wading through damp grass in his bare feet. That his trousers were soaked through to the knees. Then he turned, without a word, and walked back towards the house.

      Kay watched him walk away from her. Stiff-backed, rigid with anger and pride and misery. Probably hating himself for having mistaken another woman for his beloved Sara. Hating himself for having kissed another woman.

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