Page 43 of Once Upon a Thyme
‘What? No!’ Now the anger staged a resurgence, leaping up as though it had learned a new trick and my releasing it on Mika had given it permission to go through the routine again.
I saw Zeb’s head come up and he looked at me with his eyebrows lowered, half frowning and half quizzical.
‘You could go and live by the sea,’ my mother said, vaguely. ‘You’ve always liked the sea.’
‘No I haven’t!’ I was forcing the anger back down, packing it back into that unopened trunk where it had always lived. She didn’t have the power to force a sale, she could only suggest it, and even the suggestion was laughable. We’d always owned Drycott.
‘Really, Natalie darling, you’re becoming dreadfully forgetful.’ My mother picked up her cup again. ‘You always say you love the sea.’
‘I love the sea, that doesn’t mean I want to sell up and buy a house beside it!’ I could hear my voice escalating in volume. ‘I love nice cars, it doesn’t mean I want to buy a house beside the A1! I love a good steak but I’m not about to move next door to an abattoir, am I?’
Now I got the pursed lips. I dreaded the pursed lips, they were my mother’s ultimate weapon. She pressed her mouth closed so that her top lip concertinaed into a fan of fine lines and little tension brackets opened on each cheek. She was losing her temper but wouldn’t show it. She’d just be icy towards me until I folded, and if I didn’t she’d be ill and invisible for weeks. ‘I think,’ she said heavily, ‘that selling Drycott would be best for both of us. I’m feeling poorly again now, you know I can’t cope with this sort of thing. You ought to leave now, Natalie.’
I felt Zeb touch my shoulder and turn me, moving me out of that kitchen with his body. We passed out of the front door into the overgrown little square of garden, where he stepped back to let me slow to a stop just before the gate.
‘Well, that was unexpected,’ he said. ‘But she can’t fire me, I work for you now.’
I found that I was breathing very, very deeply; my hands were curled into fists at my sides and my entire body felt as though an icicle had fallen from above, piercing me from my skull to my ankles.
‘What…’ My voice sounded squeaky, so I tried again. ‘What the hell just happened?’
I couldn’t see Zeb, he was standing behind me, but I could feel him. He was the stream of warmth in the cold that I had become. ‘I think the metaphorical brown stuff just hit the air movement device,’ he said slowly. ‘Things are surfacing.’
Now I turned around. The intrusive rose that snagged the hedge instead of arching decoratively above the gate caught in my shirt. ‘Did you know? Did she tell you that’s why she hired you, why she wanted profits maximised – to sell the business as a going concern?’
My turning had clearly surprised him. ‘No! No, of course I didn’t know. All I was told was that she wanted to make sure that everything was running as efficiently as possible.’
The rose had torn a stammering patch across the top of my arm and I could see bright beads of blood welling through the fabric. I concentrated on those, it was easier than thinking about what my mother had said.
‘But she can’t sell the place. It’s yours.’ Zeb pushed the reluctant gate open against the pressure of the grass. The sudden release of the scent of lawn made me desperately want to be back at Drycott. It was stupid but I had the feeling that if I were there, I was safe. This place, which had been a second home to me, no longer felt as though it offered any security.
‘It is mine,’ I said, as we limbo’d under the flailing rose. Then again, with ferocity. ‘It ismine.’
‘Then we’ve no need to worry, have we?’ Zeb said lightly.
I didn’t even bother with the stepping stones. Instead, I splashed my way through the calf deep water of the little beck running down outside the houses to join the main river just before the bridge. The water was cold, the weed draped my jeans and there was something about the eddy and curl of its movement against my legs that made me feel better.
‘No. No, we don’t. She can’t sell, she’s only got a tiny percentage interest.’ My feet sloshed as I stepped out of the water. ‘Unless she can guilt me into it, and my mother is very,verygood at guilt.’
Here came the anger again. I’d opened that secret trunk and, like Pandora’s box, I’d released something that had been better contained.
There was nobody else about in the village. Away along the street I could see the corner shop, its awning still pulled across to shade the goods in the window from the relentless sun. I should pop in there and pick up some bits, Mum would have used all the milk I’d bought her yesterday. She always said it wasn’t as nice as the farm shop and that they’d once sold her some out of date Battenberg so she preferred me to go elsewhere, but it was handy for last minute bits and pieces.
Then I looked at the distance. It was less than a couple of hundred metres, along a fully paved lane. There was rarely any traffic. Mum could get herself to the shop if she wanted something.
I walked on.
‘Guilt I’m practically an expert in.’ Zeb was just behind me. ‘Having had all my imperfections and shortcomings listed for me as my marriage imploded, I’ve got a degree in handling guilt.’
I half smiled. We’d got that much in common, Zeb and I. His guilt over not being present enough in his marriage, and mine – actually, whydidI feel guilty?
‘So it’s the money.’ Zeb caught up and fell into step beside me, seemingly not disturbed by the fact that my wet shoes and jeans were spraying water with every step. ‘She needs the money. I wonder why?’
I stopped on the bridge and turned to him. ‘Zeb,’ I said, keeping my voice as level as I could. ‘I don’t even know what my own father looked like. I don’t know why I was brought up at Drycott instead of in the village. I have nothing to go on except little hints and Granny’s mutterings. We arenota family that talks, as you may have gathered.’
His face twitched in something that might have been a suppressed smile. ‘You’re not, are you?’ he said. ‘It’s great. You don’t shout random commands at me which is very refreshing. You ask me to do something, then just let me get on and do it. Youexpectme to get on and do it, as though any kind of refusal doesn’t cross your mind. It’s just one of the reasons I’m enjoying working with you.’
Beneath us, deep in the river, there was the plop of a fish jumping. Zeb and I were facing one another on the summit of the bridge, surrounded by ancient stone and the smell of moving water. He reached out a hand and touched the rip in my shirt sleeve. ‘You’re bleeding,’ he said.
