deal with this now, in fact she was unsure if she ever wanted to deal with the hurt this man had caused her. She wanted to be on her way. She looked into his clear blue eyes and did her best to keep her face neutral. He smiled confidently. He had always been confident. It had been one of the things she had liked most about him. As a teenager he had been boyishly good-looking with the charm of youth to carry him. Age had allowed him to grow into his looks, and his once dark hair was now flecked with a little grey.
‘Hello, Lizzie,’ he said. ‘It’s good to see you.’ His voice was warm and genuine but Lizzie wasn’t about to be drawn in by his easy charm. Too much had happened since the time she had been his girlfriend. He had been one of the reasons she’d left Smallchurch and one of the reasons why she hadn’t come back until now.
‘Hello, Alex,’ she said coldly. He either didn’t pick up on her tone or chose to ignore it.
‘How are you holding up?’ he asked, reaching out to touch her on the arm.
She took a step back. ‘Yes, okay thanks,’ she said. It was a complete lie but she wasn’t about to share confidences with this man. ‘I was just leaving actually.’
He looked surprised but gave a small nod of his head. ‘Of course. I just had to tell you how sorry I am about Bea. I know how close you were.’ His eyes misted with grief and Lizzie felt enraged. How dare he try to hijack her loss? How dare he try to act as if he understood anything? ‘If there’s anything I can do,’ he said.
Such kind words, thought Lizzie, if they were uttered by another person, but from Alex they were like a cheap unwanted gift. She could have reacted in a hundred different ways, said everything she’d practised in her head over the years, but today wasn’t about Alex Chambers. Today was about Bea; her darling lost sister. ‘I’ll be fine thank you,’ she said turning away and walking back towards the house. It was another neat lie. Five reassuring words that meant nothing.
She hurried through the patio door, past a small gathering of people chatting in hushed tones over the strawberry pavlova. They turned as she entered but she ignored them all. She was giving herself permission to flee. Bea wouldn’t want her to stay, not after her encounter with Alex. She had almost made it to the front door when she heard a voice behind her.
‘Oh Lizzie. I didn’t realise you were here.’ From another person, this might have been a declaration of pure joy but from Stella Harris it managed to sound both cold and critical.
Lizzie turned to face her mother. In the gloom of the church, she hadn’t looked at her mother’s features properly. Now, in Bea’s brightly lit hall with the sun streaming into Stella’s face, Lizzie was shocked by how much she had aged in fifteen years. Her mother had been forty-five when she had last seen her. If someone had described Stella as being in her late sixties, Lizzie would have believed it. Her face was a mass of wrinkles, like a map of her life’s experiences. She observed her daughter, unsmiling, unimpressed. Lizzie couldn’t bear that look. ‘I’m going now. Would you say goodbye to Joe for me?’
‘I most certainly shall not,’ snapped Stella.
Her mother wanted a fight. Lizzie saw this now. ‘Goodbye,’ said Lizzie turning away. She couldn’t handle this. Not today. She knew it had been a mistake coming to the house. It was like being smacked in the face by the past over and over again. She might have been able to deal with this if Bea had been here but not on her own.
‘Well I don’t suppose I’ll see you again then,’ said her mother. There was something about the way she said this that was less critical and more regretful.
Lizzie turned back and looked at her, seeing sadness in her face that mirrored her own. She couldn’t bear it. ‘Goodbye, Mum,’ she repeated.
She hurried to her car and flung open the door, flopping down into the driver’s seat and telling herself that it was nearly done. She had almost made it through the day. All she had to do was drive home and she would be safe. Someone tapped on her window and she jumped. It was Joe. He was holding his hands up in apology, a parcel tucked under his arm. She sighed as she wound down the window.
‘Hi, Joe. Sorry, I was going to say goodbye but I couldn’t find you,’ she lied.
‘No worries,’ said Joe ever reasonable. ‘I just have something I need to give you. From Bea.’ He held out the parcel and Lizzie stared at it. As soon as she saw Bea’s writing and the name, ‘Lizzie Lou’, she felt her pulse quicken.
‘Do you know what’s inside?’ asked Lizzie, her voice almost a whisper as he handed the parcel through the open window.
Joe shook his head. ‘No, but Bea was very precise in her instructions. I was to give it to you on the day of her funeral. You know what she was like,’ he said with a fond smile.
Lizzie nodded. She looked down at the writing and ran her hand across it. Joe took a step back as if he were intruding on a private moment. ‘Well, I should let you go,’ he said. ‘Thank you for coming. It meant a lot to Sam and me.’
Lizzie knew that she should have a better response for Joe, something heartfelt and consoling, but she was too caught up with thoughts of Bea’s parcel and the need to be on her way. She laid it carefully on the seat next to her, like a mother placing her newborn in a cot.
‘Thank you, Joe. Goodbye,’ was all she could manage before she drove off. She didn’t make it very far before she pulled over at the side of the road and sat with her hands on the steering wheel, staring out at the bright summer sky, her mind racing with thoughts of her sister. She picked up the parcel and hugged it to her chest as the tears fell easily and the sobs overcame her so that she thought they would never stop.
August
‘How please?’
‘The green book. In the window.’
‘Where?’
‘In the window. Last week. You had a green book. I want to look at it please.’
Lizzie glanced over from where she was dusting a shelf of poetry books. The small round elderly lady behind the counter was fixing her customer with a bemused frown. The small round elderly man on the other side of the counter was matching her look with one of his own. Lizzie made her way over to rescue them both.
‘It’s all right, Mrs Nussbaum. I think I know what Mr Hobson is after,’ she said, plucking a paperback from a table display on her way past. ‘Was it the Hessayon, Mr Hobson? The updated Lawn Expert? It was in the window with some other gardening books last week? I’ve got another one I think you might like. On Clematis.’
Mr Hobson’s face was transformed into one of rapture as he allowed Lizzie to lead him over to the display. He left ten minutes later having purchased three new gardening books and told Mrs Nussbaum, ‘That girl is a treasure. An absolute treasure.’
Mrs Nussbaum nodded warmly and waved him off. As the bell above the door signalled his departure, she turned to Lizzie. ‘I have keine Idee what he just said,’ she declared. She perched on the stool behind the counter. ‘Perhaps I am getting to old for all zis,’ she added, gesturing towards the shop.
‘Not at all, Mrs N. You just need to turn up your hearing aid.’
