Page 115 of A Recipe for Love
Today:Where are you? Seriously, people need youhere. You can’t just bugger off.
One day ago:Where are you?
Two days ago:Where are you?
Three days ago:Where are you?
Well that was direct. The last unread message was from Pavel. That one took a second to open. It was a picture message of Nina grinning at a massive chocolate cake. Bella scrolled down to the caption.
Tried your recipe again without the blood and fire and it turned outgreat. Mum loved her cake. Thank you!
Bella half-smiled at Nina’s beaming expression. Next she had to bite the bullet and listen to her voicemails. Only two new messages. The first was from Darcy. ‘Hi Bella. It’s Darcy.’ She giggled tinnily on the recording. ‘I mean you know that, don’t you? I saw you put my number in your phone, so it’ll have said who called you. Or will it? When you get a voicemail does it just say the number? I’m not sure. Anyway it’s Darcy. Which you definitely know by now. Oh my goodness. Listen to me! Anyway I know you were a bit shocked when Adam said he was selling, and well we all were, and I know how much work you put in, and what it’s like when you’re not from a place like this at all, and you’re trying so hard to fit in and make it work, so we all understand if you felt a bit overwhelmed and needed to get away. But we’re worried about you. And… well Adam is…’ She stopped. ‘We’re all worried about you. Just let us know you’re OK sweetie. OK?’
Adam was what? Clearly not sufficiently devastated at her disappearance that he could be bothered to call her himself. Adam was obviously fine. Better, if anything, without her.
Second new message. ‘Bella, it’s Veronica. I don’t know what you’re playing at but it’s frankly ridiculous. Phone me back.’
Bella deleted the message. Veronica was not the boss of her. She turned her phone face down on the bed, because she wanted to, not at all out of some strange feeling that Veronica was in the phone and might somehow rise up out of it and tell her off for not following instructions.
Adam spent the rest of the day in the garden. He cut back weeds, started harvesting produce that was at risk of turning overripe. He tied up the tomatoes and the peas and beans. It was after ten when the light finally began to turn hazy and he stepped back to assess what he’d achieved. There was still work to do, lots and lots of work, but that was always true in a garden. One of his father’s great pieces of wisdom was to tell him that a garden was never finished. It was a living breathing thing that you merely took care of and tended. There’d always be more to do tomorrow.
He was wheeling a final barrow over to the compost pile when his grandmother came into the garden. Adam braced for the lecture on why he was wasting his time out here when there were things to be done. Instead she sat silently on the old bench next to the gate and simply waited for him to join her.
‘I’m surprised you haven’t been out here more since you came back.’
‘I couldn’t face it.’
‘And now you can.’ Veronica nodded. ‘Time changes things, doesn’t it?’
He knew where this was going. ‘You think time will change how I feel about selling Lowbridge.’
‘Perhaps.’ She brushed an imaginary piece of lint off her trouser leg. ‘I didn’t say time changes everything though, did I? I suppose it all depends how you really feel about this place. And how Miss Smith really feels.’
He wished that question was still relevant. ‘I don’t think Bella’s coming back.’
‘Have you asked her?’
She’d been very clear how much he’d let her down already. ‘No.’
‘Then shall we not rush to conclusions? Time, as I say, can change a lot of things.’
Veronica in reflective mood was unnerving. ‘I thought you’d be furious with me.’
‘I was.’
‘And now?’
‘I’m mostly cross with myself.’
‘Why?’
‘I could see how hard all this could be for Miss Smith. I didn’t think about how it might be for you. One assumes that those who were born to this somehow know how to manage it all.’
Adam almost laughed. ‘I should though, shouldn’t I?’
‘I think coming here is different for everybody, but then we can’t really avoid putting our own experience onto everyone else. For Darcy, you see, Lowbridge was an escape. For your mother, it was a trap. And for your father it was a duty, which he took very seriously, but who am I to say that he wouldn’t have been happy, happier even, somewhere else entirely?’
Adam couldn’t picture that. His father, in Adam’s memory, had been the epitome of the idea that the laird and the place were all part of the same whole. ‘What is it for you?’
