agreed.’
‘I know, love, but things have been difficult to get off the ground. There’s been a lot of bureaucracy and trouble with getting the right contractors. We’ve been working around the clock to get everything up and running, there’s been lots of schmoozing and lobbying … and then there’s the time difference to factor in.’
‘While Holly and I sit at home watching TV and sharing a cake from Kitty’s Spotted Pig café in the village, wondering when you’re going to come home?’
‘But Chris, you know I’m doing it for us. A few more jobs like this could set us up for life.’ He moved his hand from her back and brought it round to the front, where it cupped her breast and his thumb played lightly with her nipple. He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. ‘Come on, let’s get rude again.’
Chrissie grinned, but took his hand with her own and moved it back to where it had come from.
‘Seriously Sam, promise me things won’t stay like this. Every job you’ve had over the last few years has taken you further away. First it was Frankfurt for six months, then Dubai for the best part of a year, but you came home far more often then. And now you are here in Singapore and we’re still back home in Tindledale, missing you like mad. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to stay away from us.’
‘How could you even think that?’ Sam shook his head.
Chrissie raised her eyes at him.
‘OK, I see what you are saying, but we’ve always known my work would take me away.’
‘You know, it’s been much harder since Holly’s diabetes diagnosis.’
‘Everything’s all right though, isn’t it?’ Sam checked right away.
‘Yes, as far as it can be, but it’s changed things. You feel further away and I feel less … I don’t know … it’s just getting harder without you at home.’
‘Hey,Chrissie, you’ve always been strong, you can cope with this,’ he said tenderly. ‘And I’m only ever a phone call away. No matter what the time difference is.’
‘Maybe,’ Chrissie faltered, her eyes welling up. ‘But I feel like your career is taking you away from me here, Sam.’ Chrissie touched her chest, in the place where her heart was. She wasn’t the overly sentimental type, but as he caressed away her worries, he felt her soft tears on his own cheeks and, like her words, their memory stayed with Sam for the rest of the holiday.
*
Sam wished now, more than anything, that he had listened to what Chrissie had said that day. She had always been the strong one of them, holding it all together while he built his career. He was solid in his own way, of course. He’d worked hard, given them a beautiful home, sent Holly to a fee-paying secondary school – though of course it had been Chrissie who’d put the effort in to get her through the entrance exams, especially as the exam had been around the same time as Holly’s diabetes diagnosis. They were a team, weren’t they? Each bringing their best points to the marriage and the whole being more than the sum of its parts. That’s what he’d always thought – until now.
They were still married, though, for better or worse … and that had to count for something. It was a starting point at least, and he wasn’t about to give up on everything they had together, even if it seemed that Chrissie might already have.
And Holly, he couldn’t wait to see her, having missed her so much. Skype calls were OK for keeping in touch, although nothing compared to the real thing, like a proper bear-hug cuddle followed by a tickling session until she begged him to stop. But he had a chance to change that now; he’d be able to see her properly and make up for all those moments that he had missed.
Sam sat back in the seat and allowed himself a moment of contemplation. Time to go over his plan to put everything right. He had thought of nothing else for months now. Ever since he had made the decision to come back for good, and broken the news to his boss. He’d had to work some notice and hand over to his deputy but he’d finally made the break. And it was spring now, a time for new beginnings, he thought optimistically.
Looking back over the last few years, he understood that he had got things badly wrong. He believed that he and Chrissie knew what their priorities were but he could see now – too late – that Holly’s diabetes diagnosis had changed so much more than just the blood sugar levels in his little girl’s body.
Jude Darling tucked Lulu, her grumpy old caramel-coloured cockapoo, under her arm, and inhaled the crisp, spring air infused with a glorious aroma of fresh paint. Smiling, she stared at the black timber-framed, white wattle-walled shop with tiny mullioned windows in the middle of Tindledale High Street. Home. After several years of travelling around the world, before settling in Los Angeles for a while, it now felt surreal – but at the same time ever so good – to be back.
‘So what do you think?’ Tony Darling asked. Jude turned, and with her free arm she gave her dad an enormous hug.
‘I love it, Dad. Really I do.’ She stood back on the pavement, her rumpus of red curls bouncing on her shoulders as she beamed up at the swirly gold lettering above the window. ‘Ooh, it’s perfect! Darling Antiques & Interiors. Has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?’
‘It sure does! Though sorry again for the silly surname you’ve been lumbered with … it’s the family curse.’ He rolled his eyes and shrugged before going to give Lulu’s curly head a stroke, but thought better of it when she growled and lifted her nose up into the air. ‘Well, excuse me,’ he laughed.
‘Sorry. She’s still sulking over this wet weather – you know what a diva she is; looking down her nose at these muddy puddles everywhere after the heat of the streets in Los Angeles.’ Jude adjusted Lulu’s little tartan coat. ‘And don’t be daft! It’s a brilliant surname. It’s our family’s name, and I love it, always have, you know that …’ she replied, nodding her head as if to punctuate the point.
‘Hmm, if you say so. But three guesses who’s doing the Mr Darling’s Magic Show gig again this year for the kids at the May Fair?’ Tony sighed.
‘Ahh, Dad, you love it really. You’re the real deal, a proper magic man … especially now you’re turning into a silver fox. Very distinguished for when you don the velvet Willy Wonka suit and whip a rabbit out of a top hat. And you’ll have a full white beard and barnet in no time, the way you’re going!’ Jude laughed, giving his salt-and-pepper hair a quick ruffle, and remembering as a child how she loved having a magician for a dad, or the ‘Magic Man’ as her school friends used to call him. And she never tired of telling new people she met along the way that her dad was a magician. That he could do proper tricks, like make a white dove fly out of her ear. Of course, years later she had worked out that it was all an illusion. But back then, when everyone in Tindledale and the surrounding villages loved Mr Darling’s Magic Show, it had made her feel special. Proud and safe … and God knows she had needed that after her mum had died. Nine years old she had been when she’d got home from school one day and found her lovely mummy, Sarah, slumped over the sofa, lifeless after suffering a fatal asthma attack. And that
