at the door and lengthened his stride, walking into his front room.
Or walking into the room that used to be his front room.
Bonnie was on her hands and knees on the floor, a basin next to her, scrubbing away at the floorboards. Freya was sitting on a towel on the faraway leather sofa playing with her dolls.
He sucked in a breath at the sight of his perfect white walls.
They weren’t perfect any more. There was a huge black streak that seemed to have puffed out from the fireplace and left an ugly, angry, giant-sized handprint on the wall.
Bonnie jumped up to speak to him. Soot was smudged across her cheeks and forehead, even discolouring her dark auburn hair. The front of her T-shirt was dirty, as were the knees of her trousers. ‘Oh, Jacob. I’m so sorry. I thought I would have a chance to clean this up before you got home.’
He stepped forwards into the room and held out his hands. ‘What on earth happened?’
Freya tutted from her sofa and shook her head. ‘Naughty Mummy.’ She fixed her eyes on Bonnie. ‘Told you,’ she said in the voice of someone at least fifty years older than her.
Tears streaked down Bonnie’s face. ‘I thought it might be a nice idea to get the chimney swept for you. You know—so you could come home to a nice warm fire. The house was so cold today. So I contacted a chimney sweep. And they seemed so professional. They even put a covering on the floor and some kind of plastic seal around the fireplace. But when he swept the chimney, there must have been a gap.’ She turned to face the blighted wall again as her voice wobbled. ‘And it just seemed to go everywhere. And they tried to clean up, they really did. And they’ve promised to come back tomorrow and repaint the walls.’
He should be angry. But Bonnie was babbling. Just as she had that first day he’d met her. Just as she did when she was really, really nervous and thought she’d just blown things.
It was kind of endearing. But he’d never tell her that.
‘Okay,’ he said quietly.
She looked confused. Another tear streaked down her smudged face. ‘Go and get washed up. I’ll finish the clean-up.’
He was too tired to be angry. He’d wanted to come home to a quiet house and rest. But the days of coming home to a quiet house were over. He could never imagine a house being quiet while Freya stayed there. She was questioning. She was curious. She was relentless.
Her head bobbed up from the menagerie of dolls she had accumulated on the other sofa. She shot him a smile. ‘Hi, Jacob. How many babies did you see today?’
‘Four,’ he said promptly.
This had turned into a game. She asked every day. She frowned at him. ‘Just four. Your record is six. You’ll need to do better.’
‘I agree.’ He nodded towards Bonnie. ‘On you go. Go and get showered. Freya will be fine.’
Bonnie still seemed surprised by his mediocre reaction. The truth was he was surprised by his reaction too. If he waited to see the chimney sweep tomorrow the reaction might not be quite so contained. But he wouldn’t do that either.
He noticed the extra coal scuttle by the fire that contained wood-burning logs. Bonnie must have bought them to help light the fire.
When was the last time someone had done something like this for him? Sure, a few of his friends had offered help when they knew about his diagnosis. Hope and Isabel were the only two people—apart from his consultant—in the entire hospital who knew about his diagnosis. He’d worked with Hope for years and even though Isabel had only arrived a few months ago he’d known straight away she was completely trustworthy. When she’d caught him being sick in the sluice one day she’d just pulled the door closed and come over and asked what was wrong.
Both tried to help by feeding him various items of food. Hope had even tried to bake chocolate muffins for him and Isabel had handed him some tubs of beef casserole to stick in the freezer. Anything to get him to eat and keep his strength up. But he was embarrassed to say he’d only been minimally grateful. He was so focused on people not knowing what was wrong that he didn’t really want to accept help.
This felt different. This was nothing about his illness. Bonnie knew nothing about that at all—and that was the way he liked it. The last thing he wanted to see on her face was pity.
This was something spontaneous. Something completely unique to him and her. Of course, she currently felt indebted to him. And that did kind of irk. But the fact she’d wanted to do something for him...just warmed him from the inside out.
He finished scrubbing the floor and carried the basin of dirty water back through to the kitchen, scrubbing his hands and turning the oven on for dinner. He put on the TV for Freya and headed upstairs into the shower. It only took two minutes to wash the smell of the hospital from his skin and hair, and pull on some jeans and a T-shirt.
As he headed back along the corridor Bonnie passed him on the stairs carrying Freya in her arms. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I made her dinner earlier and she’s knackered. I’m just going to put her to bed. I didn’t get a chance to put anything on for our dinner.’
Jacob noticed the circles under her eyes. He didn’t want her to feel as if she had to do anything for him. ‘How about I make it simple? Beans on toast?’
She smiled. It was the first genuine smile that he’d seen today. ‘Perfect. Thank you.’
His culinary skills were just about up to beans on toast. He opened a bottle of white wine and spent a few minutes setting a new fire and lighting it. As his fingers touched the coal he was swamped by a whole host of memories. Last time he’d lit a fire he’d been trying to keep his shivering mother warm. She’d been at the stage when she’d been permanently cold, even though their house hadn’t been cold.
Once she’d died, he’d never gone to the bother of cleaning out the fireplace and restocking it. Neither had his father.
The fire lit quickly. Probably due to the modern firelighters. By the time he’d finished the dinner in the kitchen and walked back through with them both on a tray, Bonnie was sitting on the leather sofa, mesmerised by the fire. She jumped when he set the tray down on the low wooden table. ‘Give me a sec,’ he said, before returning with the wine and two glasses.
Her freshly washed dark auburn hair was piled up in a loose knot on top of her head, with a few little curling strands escaping. She’d changed into her favourite jeans and a gold T-shirt with a few scattered sequins that caught the flickering flames from the fire. Her pale skin glowed in the light.
She sighed as he poured the wine and she settled the plate on her knees. ‘I don’t know if I deserve this.’
Jacob looked at her sideways. He couldn’t hide the smile on his face. She seemed so despondent. ‘I’m not sure you do either. But it’s either we drink wine together, or we fight. Take your pick.’ He held up his glass towards her.
She paused for a second before catching a glimpse of the laughter in his eyes, then lifted her glass and clinked it against his. ‘I’m too tired to fight. I’ll just drink the wine.’
They ate companionably together. Finishing the first glass of wine, then pouring another. Jacob hadn’t bothered to put the
