Page 7 of Coming Home to Roseford Villas
Which was surprising, given how embarrassed he’d been to be sprung inside the chalet last night. He tried to push the memory to one side, to focus on the stretches through his body as he prepared himself for the day, but the sight of Rory Henderson, RoryDean, he mentally corrected himself, standing there brandishing a frying pan had filled him simultaneously with mortification and laughter. Thankfully, she’d recognised him before she’d clunked him around the head with it.
And push… one, two, three…Leo reached forwards, flattening his back as far as he could, holding himself in place for a few more seconds. Pilates, in addition to the physio, had been a game changer, and he thanked his lucky stars for the excellent medical staff in Melbourne who’d put him back together, many of them expats from the British NHS.
Winding his torso back up to a standing position, Leo took a few more breaths, holding the last one and then letting it out in a long huff. This was almost muscle memory these days, and a long way from his mornings of old, when he’d be grabbing a coffee, kissing his wife goodbye and heading out the door to catch the rail link into town, where he’d spend the next eight to ten hours in the high-pressure world of the corporate lawyer. Contract law had been his speciality, and he’d loved every minute of it. But after the accident, things had needed to change.
There were plenty of times when he’d felt grief at the loss of the life he’d had in Australia, but his counsellor was fond of reminding him that the future, moment to moment, was what mattered now, and for the most part he could remember that. But when he’d seen Rory for the first time in forever yesterday, the past had come rearing up from the depths of his memory to greet him. And now here she was, living in the chalet at the bottom of his garden for a summer, back in his life, but not quite in it, both of them with twenty years of experience since the last time they’d met.
Shaking his head, Leo ran through the list of things he had to do today. Rory was a different person now, just as he was. You couldn’t go back. He knew that, from bitter experience. He opened the door to the small office at the back of the ground floor of Roseford Villas and settled into his morning routine – checking the business’s emails for any bookings, seeing if there were any invoices that needed paying from suppliers and making sure he hadn’t missed anything. He had to steel himself not to keep glancing down the garden. It didn’t stop him from wondering what she was up to, though. Why was she here? Of all the places she could have chosen to spend the summer, why Roseford?
Shaking his head, he replied to a few emails and then went to double-check the rooms that had been booked for a couple of days’ time. It was quite nice not to have anyone in the house, but it did mean he was rather at a loose end. When the B&B had guests, he’d be in a constant cycle of being host, cook and cleaner, but on the rare occasions when it was empty, he didn’t quite know what to do with himself. His aunt and uncle had told him to try to make the most of the quiet periods, as, when the place was occupied, things could be intense, but Leo hadn’t quite got used to the solitude. Back in his lawyering days, he’d been accustomed to the high pressure of meetings, phone callsand constant information flow. This lifestyle was different, and although he’d needed different in his life, it still took a bit of getting used to.
As if to highlight this fact, the inbox pinged, and Leo grinned to see the contents of the message. The annual meeting of the Somerset Badger Action Group (SBAG for short) had requested to book three bedrooms at Roseford Villas for some of their members during the annual Big Badger Watch in early September. Roseford was a hotspot for badger activity, much to the excitement of SBAG, and his aunt and uncle had briefed him that these particular visitors would keep rather anti-social hours while they were here. As a result, they often wanted a later breakfast, having been staking out badger sets all night.
Still grinning, Leo confirmed the booking with Airbnb and entered it onto Roseford Villas’ internal system. He wasn’t sure if he’d still be around in September, since his aunt and uncle would be returning from their retirement recce to Spain at the end of August, but he wanted to make sure he’d put all the details down so they’d be aware of their visitors.
That job completed, Leo checked the supplies in the kitchen, and the dates on all of the provisions in the fridge. He’d had a crash course in food safety and needed to keep on top of things. Just as he was closing the fridge door, his phone pinged. Picking it up from where he’d slung it on the kitchen island, his heart began to race.
Leo. Am sending the papers via UPS in the next twenty-four hours. Please sign and return by the end of the week. Regards, Corinne.
All of those careful deep breathing exercises he’d completed when he got up might as well not have happened. He’d been expecting the text at some point, but now that it had arrived, itdidn’t stop the feelings that threatened to overwhelm him. Leo pushed his phone away from him and shook his head. He still wouldn’t believe it: not until the papers were in his hands.
10
After a not entirely productive morning, Rory decided that fresh air was what she needed. She’d fiddled around with a snippet of a scene for about an hour, but still wasn’t really sure what she was doing. She hoped that spending the day in the Roseford Hall archives tomorrow would help her to get things a little clearer in her head and inspire her to get some more words on the page. She was off to Stella Simpson’s house later for an afternoon cuppa. Feeling excited about seeing her friend for the first time in years, Rory packed away her laptop and notebooks, stashed them safely out of sight in one of the chalet’s cupboards and set out.
As she wandered down the hill again, instead of taking a left back to the heart of Roseford, Rory turned right and headed out of the village. Stella had told her that Halstead House Writers’ and Artists’ Retreat that she and her partner Chris had founded a few years back, was on the outskirts, about three-quarters of a mile away. The buildings began to thin out as she walked, giving way to rolling fields that stretched languorously upwards to meet the foothills of the Quantocks, blurred a calm green in the distance. Having grown up in the Yorkshire countryside, Rorywas accustomed to wild and beautiful landscapes, but while the North Yorkshire moors had a kind of untamed beauty, the rolling hills of Somerset seemed softer, more pliant, promising visions of long summer days sipping cider in the rolling curves of its greenness.
Laughing to herself at the purpleness of her own interior monologue, Rory picked up the pace, eager to see her friend, and the place she called home. When Halstead House came into sight, she couldn’t help feeling a stab of envy. The tall Victorian house stood stately amongst manicured gardens, with a sweep of driveway from the gatehouse at the bottom of the road to the main house at the top.
The wrought-iron gates were open, so Rory mooched up the driveway. On her way up to Halstead House she saw there were two other dwellings that shared the drive – a gatehouse at the bottom, and a generously proportioned bungalow with its own well-tended garden a little further up. Rounding the undulating curve of the driveway, she neared the front door of the main house and, as she walked up the tiled pathway to ring the doorbell, the front door opened before she’d got halfway.
‘Rory!’ Stella exclaimed, a huge smile on her face. Her curly brown hair tumbled carelessly around her shoulders, and the statement tortoiseshell glasses suited her face, giving her an elegant air. For a long moment, Rory regarded her friend, the years rolling back in an instant, before she hurried up the rest of the path and into the welcoming hug that Stella offered.
‘It’s so lovely to see you,’ they both chorused as they let one another go.
‘How long has it been?’ Stella asked as she let Rory into the cool hallway.
‘Entirely too long,’ Rory replied. She glanced around her at the subtly decorated hall and gave a gasp as she caught sight of abeautifully proportioned reception room off to the left, adorned with huge bay windows to let in the summer sunshine.
‘What a stunning place,’ she breathed.
Stella grinned. ‘It was a wreck a few years ago, but it’s looking pretty good now, I’ll admit.’
They walked down the hallway and Stella led Rory through to a large kitchen, which was also bright and airy. ‘Shall we grab a coffee and head out to the back garden? I’ll give you a tour in a bit if you want one, but it’s too nice a day to lurk inside.’
‘Sounds good.’
Rory and Stella chatted while Stella made a couple of coffees, and then they wandered through to the slightly more secluded back garden. Stella gestured to a wooden patio set just off to the side of the lawn and Rory took a seat.
‘So, what brings you to Roseford?’ Stella asked as they sipped their drinks.
Rory paused, but then figured, what the hell. Stella was a writer, a very successful one, and had been a good friend, back in the day. She trusted her.
‘I want to write a novel,’ she blurted out quickly. ‘I’ve been wanting to write one for years, but this summer I thought it was time to actually do it. So, I’ve come away to get some headspace to do it while I’m on school holidays.’
Stella smiled. ‘Sounds like a good plan. So many people say they want to write but never do. So where are you staying?’
‘Well…’ Rory filled Stella in on the accommodation complications but left out the part about Leo. Years ago, after a drunken night out, Rory had told Stella all about her heartbreak over Leo, but it seemed daft to dwell on that now, and she really wasn’t ready to answer any speculative questions about their most recent encounter. She hardly knew the answers herself, yet.
