His mouth lifted in a wry smile, and his eyes swept her face, their expression tender. ‘I suppose you have changed, a little, but you’re still you, every bit as beautiful as you ever were, and it’s really good to see you again. That’s what I was trying to say in my clumsy, inept way.’
She laughed, her turn now to be embarrassed, and shook her head. ‘I’m not beautiful—’
‘I’m not going to argue with you,’ he said, but his thumb came up and brushed away the last remnant of her tears, and the tender gesture nearly brought her to her knees. Then he dropped his hand and stepped away, ramming it into his pocket, turning away.
When he spoke, his voice was gruff. ‘It’s a bit of a shock, really, seeing you again—takes me back all those years. But that’s never a good idea, and you can’t really go back, can you? Too much water under too many bridges.’
And just then some of that water came pouring into the kitchen in the form of a tidal wave of giggling and chasing and high-pitched shrieks that skidded to a halt the moment they saw her.
The little girl she was ready for—dark-haired, blue-eyed, the image of her father. The boy, though—he stopped her in her tracks. His colouring was almost the same, but it was the shape of his face, the expression, the vulnerable tilt to his mouth.
Julia.
Will straightened up, looking down at them with pride in his eyes.
‘Izzy, meet my children—Michael and Rebecca. Kids, this is Isabel. She was at school with me and your mother. Say hi.’
‘Hi,’ they chorused, and then their four eyes swivelled back to him and mischief sparkled in them again. ‘Grannie says can we ask you for some more eggs, because everybody wants egg sandwiches today and she’s run out,’ Rebecca said in a rush.
‘And Grandad’s sold a climbing frame and a tree house this morning, and you know old Mrs Jenks?’ Michael said, his eyes alight. ‘She’s having a willow coffin. She’s going to have a woodland burial, and her son’s up in arms. I heard Grannie telling Grandad. They were arguing about it in the café, and she said it was her body, she could do what she wanted with it. And Grannie said to tell you there’s roast pepper flan today,’ Michael added inconsequentially, and Izzy felt her lips twitch.
Will was smiling at them, ruffling Michael’s hair and slinging a casual, affectionate arm around his daughter’s shoulders, and Izzy felt suddenly empty.
I’ve got nothing. Thirty years, and I’ve got nothing. Nothing to hand on except money, and no one even to give that to. No wonder I haven’t changed.
The kettle boiled, its shrill whistle fracturing the moment and freeing her.
‘I’ll make the tea—you get the eggs,’ she said, and opened the cupboard the mugs had always lived in.
‘Try the dishwasher,’ he said over his shoulder as they went out, and she pulled down its door and found mugs—lots of mugs, unwashed, even though the machine was full. She put powder in the dispenser, shut the door and set it going, then washed the two mugs she’d rescued and made the tea, lifting out the teabags just as he came back in.
‘Find everything?’
‘Just about. I put the dishwasher on.’
‘Oh, damn,’ he said. ‘I meant to do that.’ His grin was wry. ‘I meant to do all sorts of things, but you were early and the ewe was late, and—’ He broke off, the grin widening as he shrugged, and then he sighed and wrapped his arms around her again, and hugged her briefly against that wonderfully solid chest that she had no rights to.
‘It really is good to see you again,’ he murmured, releasing her to look down searchingly into her eyes. ‘Are you OK? Really OK?’
She found that smile somehow, and the lie to go with it. ‘I’m fine. How about you? You’ve had so much more to contend with.’
His eyes tracked away, then back, and his smile was fleeting. ‘Yes. I’m OK now. It’s been a rough few years.’
‘Tell me,’ she said softly, and he picked up his mug and pulled out a chair for her, then sat in the carver at the head of the table, his father’s chair if she remembered right, and stared down into his tea.
‘It was nearly three years ago. She’d been having difficulty swallowing, and she felt as if there was something stuck in her throat, so she went to the doctor. He referred her to the hospital, and they diagnosed cancer of the oesophagus. She had treatment, but it was only to make it less uncomfortable for her. We knew that right from the beginning. She reckoned it was because of the chemicals in our food, and she’d had concerns about that for some time, so by then we were already eating only organic stuff and the farm was in the process of going organic.’
‘And there was nothing they could do for her?’
He shook his head. ‘Only short-term and then it was all down to the Macmillan nurses and ultimately the hospice. It was agony to watch.’
Izzy could hardly imagine it. ‘Did the children know?’ she asked, thinking of the bright, bubbly young things who’d burst in on them just a few minutes earlier and chattered about coffins, of all things, and he nodded.
‘Yes. Eventually. We told them she was sick, and then when it was inevitable and the end wasn’t far away, we told them she was dying. She made them scrapbooks—snippets of herself for them to keep, memories they’d shared, things they’d want to know about themselves that only she could tell them. Some of it will only make sense to them when they’re older, of course—things about their births, philosophical stuff about being a mother and what it meant to her—but lots of it was very ordinary and just things she’d treasured about them.’
Something splashed on Izzy’s hand, and she blinked and swallowed. Tears. Tears for Julia, who’d always wanted to save the world, and for the children—and for Will, his voice quiet and thoughtful, telling her about Julia’s last days. He had loved her, she realised with shock. Really, genuinely loved her. She hadn’t wanted to believe it, but now she did.
She blinked again, squeezing the tears from her eyes and letting them fall, and then he made a soft, clucking noise with his tongue and handed her another fistful of kitchen roll.
She sniffed, scrubbing her nose with the tissue. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just all so sudden. I mean—I didn’t even know until last night, and now, talking to you like this—it’s all so real.’
‘It seems light years ago,’ he said gruffly. ‘We move on. Time heals, Izzy. The kids don’t stop growing just because their mother’s died, and they’ve dragged me with them. I’ve had to cope because of them, and we’ve got through it together. It’s been very positive in a lot of ways.’
‘And all I’ve done is make rich people even richer and rescue reputations that probably didn’t deserve rescuing, and acquire some of their wealth along the way. My God.’
Her voice sounded hollow, and it seemed appropriate. That was how she felt inside—hollow and empty and worthless.
‘I shouldn’t be here,’ she said, the tears welling again, and then his arms were round her again—again!—and he was cradling her against his body, standing in front of her so her cheek
