was mortified and dug Henry in the ribs. ‘Shut up.’
‘Just saying,’ he said, clutching his side. ‘Will the pasties keep for an hour?’
‘Yes. Go on. They’ll keep. I’ll take your bag up to your room. You’re in Kit’s studio. For now.’
‘I’ll take it up later. It’s heavy.’ He opened it and hauled a bulging carrier bag out. ‘Here, take this bag – it’s got a huge pile of post for you. When you left me in London I didn’t think you’d be falling in love and not coming back.’
Ella couldn’t keep a blush from her cheeks. ‘God, you are so embarrassing.’
Kit saved her. ‘Neither of us expected to fall in love, but we did. I love your sister very much.’
Henry half closed his eyes and weighed up this open declaration. ‘Good on you. Don’t muck her about or I’ll flatten you.’
‘Fair enough.’ Kit smiled. ‘Now, how about that pint? Ella, do you want to come?”
‘No thanks. You two go and get to know each other. I’ll make myself a Pimm’s and have a look through the post Henry’s brought.’
She waved the boys off with their promise to be only an hour, or so, and took the Waitrose bag of post to the garden.
Getting a glass of Pimm’s, she settled herself at the garden table and sifted through the mail.
The piles in front of her grew tediously. Catalogues. Charity requests. Bank statements. A postcard from an old school friend now living in Peru. Pension firms. Insurance firms. Funeral savings plan. And, a letter from a publisher. Months before she had written and illustrated a children’s book called Hedgerow Adventures. She had hoped that her departed granny would guide her to a fruitful contract. She opened the envelope.
Dear Miss Tallon,
Re Hedgerow Adventures
Thank you for your submission. Unfortunately this is not the sort of book we would publish. We will return the manuscript under separate cover,
Yours etc …
She sat back and blew out a long breath of frustration.
‘Granny,’ she said, ‘you got me excited for a moment. Ah well. C’est la vie.’ She picked up her Pimm’s and took a long, cool, self-commiserating mouthful.
Her phone buzzed. It was Henry.
‘Hi, Henry, is everything okay?’
‘Have you looked at your emails?’
‘No, I’ve been going through the post. So much crap …’
‘Check them now,’ he said urgently.
‘Okay, hang on.’ She put her phone on speaker and looked at the screen. There was an email waiting to be opened. ‘I’ve got it. It’s from Granny’s solicitor.’
‘Open it.’
She did so and as she read it her heartbeat began to accelerate ‘Oh. My. God,’ she whispered. ‘It can’t be true.’
‘It is true.’ Henry’s voice was gruff with anger.
Ella’s hand was shaking as she gripped the phone. Swallowing hard to stop any tears she said, ‘Our mother is alive?’
‘Yes,’ said Henry. ‘And she wants to see us.’ He was having difficulty keeping the shock from his voice. As soon as he had read the message, relaxing with a pint on the Dolphin’s oak bar and chatting to Kit, he’d excused himself and gone to the relative privacy of the pub car park to phone Ella.
He was scuffing the gravel with his shoes. ‘I can’t believe she’s got the nerve.’ He bit his lip, his face the definition of rage and pain. ‘After all these years.’ He pushed his free hand into his floppy fringe and pulled his hair. ‘She’s bloody alive. Well, I can tell you now, we are not seeing her.’
Ella sat down. ‘But she’s our mother.’
‘Ha! She lost the right to call herself that years ago.’
‘Henry, this is shock talking, we need time to think about it.’
‘No, we don’t. There’s only one reason she’d come back. Because Granny’s solicitor has told her that Granny is dead and that she is in for an inheritance. That’s all there is to it.’
Ella loved her brother very much, but she didn’t always agree with him. ‘It must have been a shock for her to hear that. Her mother dead, her father too.’
Henry snorted and ran his hands through his floppy blond hair. ‘Well, it was a bit of a shock for me too, you know, when I heard that my mum had run away. I was only two.’
‘I know.’ Ella looked at the garden she and Kit had started to plant. ‘I can’t imagine how she could leave you. She knew you. It was easier for me. I was just a baby. She didn’t have time to know me. I don’t have a clue what she was like … and that’s why I’d like to see her.’
Henry sat on the wall of the pub’s entrance, all the adrenalin leaving him. ‘I don’t know what to think. I was hoping they wouldn’t find her. Or if they did, that she had died.’
‘Don’t say that!’ Ella flopped into her squashy sofa. ‘Is Kit still with you?’
‘He’s inside. I saw the email and came out to tell you first. He doesn’t know.’
‘Come home. The pair of you. Come home now.’
Ella had been hugging herself with joy just ten minutes ago. How quickly everything can change for the worse.
Ella took Henry’s bag up to Kit’s small studio and put it next to the single bed. It was getting on for late afternoon and through the open window a blackbird was singing in the magnolia tree. Instantly anger rose in her. How dare the bloody birds be so happy while her world was turned upside down? She shut the window with a bang, making the bird fly off. Good riddance, she thought to herself.
Downstairs she heard Kit’s car pull up. She ran down and opened the front door.
Kit was looking serious, as if there had been a terrible accident and he now had the responsibility of the fallout. Which he had, she supposed.
Henry was pale and blowing out his cheeks in a childhood mannerism that always signalled upset.
‘Hi,’ she said softly.
Kit came to her immediately and put his arms around her. He felt the softness and sweetness of her incredible red curls then stood arm’s length from her, his hands on her shoulders. ‘You okay?’
She shook her head and at last felt hot tears springing to her eyes. ‘Not really.’
Kit shepherded brother and sister into the kitchen and made them sit down. ‘You both
