won’t.’
‘Probably not,’ she agreed. ‘I think your mother must have been taller than you.’
‘No, she wasn’t. I’m exactly the same height as she was, she told me.’
Pride…so predictable.
‘Oh, well, these were hers, so that’s all right.’
‘Oh, please.’ Maisie, quickly recovering from her mistake, picked up a sweatshirt featuring a cartoon character and held it at arm’s length. ‘My mother wouldn’t ever have been seen dead wearing something like this.’
Having anticipated this reaction, Jacqui produced a photograph that she’d found pinned to a display board in the nursery. It was curling at the edges, very faded and had doubtless been pinned up because of the puppy a very young Selina Talbot was cuddling, rather than for any aesthetic reason.
Or maybe it was because, behind her, an older, taller, protective presence, stood her big cousin, Harry.
The reason didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was wearing that sweatshirt.
‘Why would she keep a dumb sweatshirt?’ Maisie demanded, giving her back the picture, not thrilled to be proved wrong.
‘Haven’t you ever kept a favourite dress, even when it doesn’t fit you any more,’ she asked, ‘just to remember how you felt when you wore it?’
Maisie shrugged. ‘I s’pose.’ Then, ‘Is that Harry with my mother?’
She looked at the photograph again and then offered it back to the child. ‘Why don’t you ask him?’
‘No,’ she said, fiddling with a button rather than take it. ‘It’s him.’
‘Unless he’s got a twin brother,’ she agreed.
On second thoughts, there was no question in her mind why Selina had kept the photograph where she could see it. The man might have some serious flaws, but the boy had been built for hero-worship. And his hand on her shoulder would have made the sweatshirt special, too.
Probably.
Or maybe that was emotional transference…
‘OK, it’s miserable outside at the moment so you can’t go out to play, but in the meantime I’ll put this through the wash and then maybe, if the cloud lifts this afternoon, I could take a photograph of you wearing it.’
No response.
‘With one of the puppies? You could give them both to your mother when she comes home. I’m sure she’d like that.’
‘Only if Harry will be in it, too,’ Maisie insisted, aware that she’d painted herself into a corner, but giving it one last shot. ‘So that it’s exactly the same.’
‘That’s a lovely idea,’ she said. Although whether Harry Talbot would think so was another matter entirely.
‘Will you ask him for me?’
There was a whole world of want—need—in those few words and she said, ‘Yes, sweetheart. Of course I’ll ask him.’
‘First. Before I put that on.’
She should have seen that coming.
Maisie was little, but she was bright and she knew when she was being sold a pup—in every sense of the word.
Jacqui was saved any immediate challenge to her negotiating skills, since—unsurprisingly—Harry wasn’t hanging around waiting for a chat. Once breakfast was over she left Maisie ‘helping’ Susan with some baking and went to call Vickie.
As she opened the office door, Harry looked up from the pile of post he’d tipped out of the carrier bag, his eyes so fierce that she took a step back.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.’
‘Your presence in the house disturbs the very air,’ he declared. Then, after what might have been a deep breath, or possibly a ten-count while he regained his composure, ‘I accept, however, that there’s nothing you can do about it so will you please stop tiptoeing around me?’
‘It would help if you didn’t look as if you were offended by the mere sight of me,’ she pointed out.
‘I’m not…’ he began irritably, then stopped, perhaps unwilling to perjure himself and dismissing the matter with a gesture that suggested she was being oversensitive. Then did what any man who knew he was wrong would do; went on the attack. ‘Did you leave this pile of garbage here?’
‘If you’re referring to the mail, then yes. The woman running the village shop asked me to bring it up. When I stopped for directions.’
‘Then when you leave I suggest you give it back to her and tell her—’
‘I’ve got a better idea, Mr Talbot,’ she said, fed up with being the butt of his ill-humour. Whatever trauma he’d suffered, she wasn’t to blame. ‘Why don’t you…’ breathe, Jacqui, breathe ‘…tell her yourself?’ Then, be-cause she wasn’t averse to a little subject changing when she’d overstepped her own aggression threshold, ‘Have you heard from your cousin?’
He shook his head. ‘No joy from your agency, I suppose?’
‘I was just about to ring them.’
‘Help yourself.’
He pushed the telephone towards her and she lifted the receiver, then jiggled the button a couple of times. ‘There’s no dial tone.’
He took it from her and listened as if he didn’t believe she knew her dialling tone from her elbow. The man, she thought, had a very underdeveloped sense of self-preservation.
‘Am I mistaken?’ she asked, with deceptive sweetness.
It was, of course, possible that his rudeness was a shield against unwanted pity.
If so, it was working.
He muttered something beneath his breath. She didn’t ask him to repeat it; she didn’t think it was anything she was meant—or would want—to hear.
‘It happens all the time up here,’ he went on. ‘Just as well you’ve got a cellphone.’
‘I’ll report the fault, shall I?’
‘If you must.’
She bit back her first thought, which was that, no, actually, she was quite happy to leave him without contact with the outside world and that she was sure the outside world would thank her.
No point in going out of her way to aggravate the man when she was doing such a good job of it without any effort at all, especially as she had a favour to ask him. For Maisie.
But not yet.
Phone call first.
