her throat like a ball of cotton wool.
Too afraid to turn for fear of meeting the presence at her shoulder, Susanna reversed down the corridor, hands flailing behind her, fingertips exploring the unseen, and when she met the rough wood of her bedroom door she whipped it open and dived inside, slamming it shut and flinging herself into the safety of the bed.
It was ages before she got any sleep. Some time later she was distantly aware of Cato climbing in beside her, and bewilderedly she reached for him, content to encounter his solid, reassuring bulk. Only then did she drift into dreams.
THE MORNING AFTER Saffron on the Sea, Olivia arrived at Usherwood early. The calm, quiet hours she spent in the gardens were a far cry from the hectic pace of city life, squashed in on the rush-hour tube or queuing for sandwiches in a café on Holborn, and while she was still hoping to get enough cash together by the end of the month to put down a deposit on a flat, she had to admit that being back at the cove was making her happy. With every day that passed she felt herself growing calmer, more centred and more like her old self—and she’d started drawing again.
‘Something’s got you inspired,’ Florence had commented at the weekend as Olivia had torn yet another page from her sketchbook. ‘Or should I say someone?’
‘Whatever, Mum.’
‘I’m just saying …’
‘Well, don’t.’
The last thing she needed was another lecture about Addy. It was so annoying!
Why did everyone feel the need to get involved in her love life? No wonder she hadn’t brought home either of the guys she’d dated in London, if this was the kind of interrogation they’d face. She ignored the voice that suggested it was because one had been a stoner who spent his entire time ‘gaming’ with nine-year-olds in Japan, while the other’s name had been Nimrod—he was Jewish, though, to be fair.
There was a mountain of weeding to be done and Olivia wanted to plant the geranium seeds before lunch. Her mother had given her a box of vegetable roots from the allotment and made her swear to ask Mr Lomax about them. All that space and he hasn’t got room for potatoes? Florence had wedged the crate into her pannier.
Olivia wasn’t sure what Charlie had room for in his life. He was perpetually indifferent. He never spoke to her. He never looked at her. He never touched her. Not that she wanted him to touch her, but just little things, like when he came to check on her progress and she held out a bulb, plump as a miniature gourd and gritty with soil, and he would never take it from her. Or if Barbara gave her a cup of tea to bring to him and he would never accept it directly, just keep on with whatever he was doing and wait for Olivia to leave it there, offering only a curt and dismissive, ‘Thank you.’ Or when she’d tripped one day in the Sundial Garden, putting out her hands to break her fall, and he could easily have caught her, but he hadn’t.
He seemed to go out of his way to escape having any kind of contact with her. If she had been the sensitive type, it might have upset her, but it wasn’t her business to dwell on the reasons for his withdrawal and so she didn’t bother taking it to heart. She didn’t like him, so there was only so far she could bring herself to care.
‘Breakfast!’ Barbara’s call travelled across from the house.
Olivia dusted off her knees, waving over the top of the wall to indicate that she’d heard. The orange bricks were mapped with vines that were brittle with age and perishing in the heat—climbing rose and wisteria and clematis, once upon a time—and the soil beds were crusted with earth, their borders collapsing. Beaten gravel paths ran towards a central kidney-shaped plot that years ago would have bragged an abundance of colour, azaleas, rhododendrons, fragrant lavender, but now was obscured in a burst of overgrown shrubs. It was more a wilderness than a garden, yet all it took was a bud pushing through the dirt, a swallow coming to rest on the dappled stone bath and beating its wings in a puddle of rain, or the sun setting behind the towering oak and throwing it into a heavenly blaze, to reassure Olivia that everything was salvageable. There was still life here, if you knew where to look.
She crossed to the house, aromas of black coffee and smoky bacon seeping into the morning. In the hall Sigmund was gulping noisily at a bowl of water, sandy paw prints dotted across the stones from where he’d been down on the beach. She glanced around for Charlie but couldn’t see him.
‘I hope you’re hungry,’ said Barbara as she entered the kitchen. Caggie was at the window buttering doorstop slabs of toast, and smiled when she saw her.
‘Starving.’
‘You’d better be. We had a delivery from Ben Nancarrow this morning—sausages, eggs, milk, you name it.’ Barbara poured the coffee. ‘He dropped by earlier, called it “a token of my admiration”. Cato always did know how to attract attention.’
Olivia’s tummy grumbled. After last night’s fall-out the evening had wound quickly to a close, with Cato angrily bolting his seafood and Olivia finding she couldn’t eat a thing. Susanna had chattered merrily about her plans for the party, prompting Cato to leap up and order a bottle of the establishment’s finest champagne, which he’d proceeded to quaff almost entirely himself.
‘This looks delicious,’ she exclaimed as Caggie deposited a plate in front of her. It was piled high with creamy scrambled eggs, herby mushrooms and crispy potato cakes, thick, salty rashers and sausages that popped with greasy flavour.
Susanna drifted in. She was bereft of make-up, a turban wound elaborately round her head. Immediately she put a hand to her mouth, her shoulders heaving.
‘Goodness, are you all right?’ asked Barbara.
Tightly she nodded. She was wearing a floating peach robe, and on her feet were dainty slippers with furry baubles on the front. Olivia had caught the end of one of her movies last year, a fluffy chick-flick about an eternal bridesmaid, and knew her friends would die to know she was sitting down to breakfast with its leading lady.
‘I’m seriously unwell,’ Susanna croaked, sinking into a chair.
Barbara was alarmed. ‘Do you need a doctor?’
‘I need caffeine.’
‘Here.’ Barbara was quick to oblige. ‘Have you a temperature?’
‘Something I ate,’ Susanna managed, casting a sickened squint at Olivia’s breakfast and turning a deeper shade of green. ‘I had to cut off a call to my agent, I felt so appalling. Just some dry toast, please, Mrs Bewlis-Teet.’
‘Right away.’
‘I hope it wasn’t something I cooked,’ offered Caggie.
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