The Forever Home by Sue Watson

Chapter Twelve

The following morning, I woke, showered, dressed and wandered downstairs into the kitchen to make some breakfast. I stood in the state-of-the-art white kitchen diner that Mark had bolted on to the end of the house. I remembered him building it, and how he’d torn down the lovely, chintzy old cottage kitchen of my childhood. I’d wept like a baby; I didn’t want him to make such drastic changes. It felt like he was tearing down my life.

Fortunately, my phone rang, taking me away from the bad memories for just a little while.

‘Hey Carly, long time no see.’ I didn’t recognise the number or, at first, the voice.

‘Hello?’

‘It’s Charlotte, the journalist? I came round to interview you a few months ago. Sorry, thought you had my number and my name would pop up.’ She giggled.

‘Oh, hello Charlotte, lovely to hear from you,’ I said, wondering why she was calling out of the blue like this.

‘I hope you don’t mind me calling,’ she said, ‘but I am desperate. I’ve got to do an article on the décor in little fisherman’s cottages, they are suddenly very chi chi.’ She giggled again. ‘I need a little fishing village, is there one near you?’

‘Yes, actually. Polperro is near us, there’s a lovely old harbour, little cottages, just what you’re looking for I would think…’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fab… Is Mark with you?’ she suddenly asked.

I stiffened. I knew this script. ‘I’m afraid not,’ I said, unsure if she knew we’d split up.

‘Oh, no worries, my editor wanted a word with him,’ she lied. ‘Anyway, I’d better get off.’

‘Okay, nice to hear from you,’ I said, certain that there was no article on fisherman’s cottages and I wouldn’t hear from her again. She was just another of Mark’s groupies.

‘You too, Carly, we must do coffee soon. Ooh meant to say, love the hair.’

I felt a punch in my chest. ‘My hair?’

‘Yeah, you’ve had it cut really short, suits you.’

‘It was you who sent the note,’ I said, shocked.

‘Note? What note?’

‘Charlotte, stop playing games,’ I snapped, annoyed at how all these women still thought I was fair game as Mark’s wife?

‘Carly, I can assure you I am not playing games. What the hell are you talking about?’

‘The note, warning me about living alone; you said in the PS that you loved my hair.’

‘Whoa, Mark said you could be a bit of a bunny boiler,’ she said.

‘Me? It’s you who’s the bunny boiler,’ I snapped. ‘I only had my hair done a couple of days ago; you must have been following me .’

‘Er, hello 1950s, anyone heard of Instagram? I saw your photo. I follow the same hairdresser as you. Sally posted your photo on the salon account. God, Carly, get a grip!’ With that, she hung up.

I felt so foolish, my face was burning. I’d just accused an innocent young woman of being a stalker. When she said she loved my hair, she was just being nice. I wanted to die – then again it was odd the way she cut me off to ask if Mark was there. Or was she telling the truth, and her editor did want to speak to him?

The mention of my hair in the note I’d received had made me think it had to be Gemma who’d sent it, because she was the only person who’d seen my hair that day. Now I knew that Sally the hairdresser was posting the photos, it could have been anyone who’d seen the picture on Instagram! So if it wasn’t Gemma who posted the nasty note, who was it?

I was pondering this, when I noticed something on the floor of the living room and went over to look more closely. I wondered if it was yet another tiny shard from the broken vase, so bent down. The floor was covered in grains of sand. If Ryan had walked it in the previous day, I’d have seen it then. Besides, he’d been in the garden not down on the beach. It unnerved me slightly: had someone been in the house the night before, when I was asleep upstairs on my own?

‘Are you using sand for any of the work on the exterior?’ I asked Ryan an hour later, after he’d begun work. He was outside, with his back against the wall, but turned around, lifting one leg to rest his foot on the wall.

‘No. Why?’

I explained about the sand on the floor.

‘Really?’ he said, looking at me quite intently. I felt slightly uncomfortable having drunk too much gin and told him my life story the previous evening. ‘That’s odd?’ He was clearly as puzzled as me.

I was now beginning to freak out slightly. If it was nothing to do with Ryan, then what the hell was it doing there?

‘The sand might have blown in?’ he offered, probably picking up on my growing unease and trying to temper it slightly.

‘I don’t thinkso, it never has before…’ I replied.

‘Is it still there?’ He glanced through the glass doors into the living area floor.

‘No, I swept it up. But I took a couple of photos, just in case.’

‘Oh, you’re a detective in your spare time then?’ he joked, making me feel a bit silly.

‘Forget it, I’m just being paranoid.’

‘Hey, Carly, I didn’t mean…’ He followed me into the house, but just at that moment, I heard someone in the hall. I cautiously walked across the room to where the sound was coming from, when my son, appeared in the doorway.

‘Jake,’ I yelped, delighted to see him, and swept him into a big hug.

‘I wanted to surprise you,’ he said, once I’d released him.

‘You did, you nearly scared me half to death,’ I said, laughing.

He nodded to Ryan, who nodded back, and then went back outside to continue working. ‘How long are you staying, Jake?’ I asked.

‘I can’t stay long, I’ve got a lecture later this afternoon,’ he explained that he’d driven over from Exeter to get some text books.

Even now, in his second year, I still wasn’t used to him being away. He missed home too and I wasn’t convinced he needed the books; I think he just liked to come back and make sure everything was okay. Where Phoebe was never homesick and happy to go off to London and live in a bedsit, Jake loved Cornwall and the house as much as I did.

‘Can you stay for lunch?’ I asked, a rhetorical question for most mothers, and I didn’t wait for an answer, but went straight into child-feeding autopilot. ‘Cheese and chutney okay?’ I asked, opening the bread bin and taking out a small loaf.

‘Yeah, great Mum, thanks,’ he said, then lowered his voice. ‘So, what’s Ryan Jarvis doing here?’

I explained about the work that needed doing.

‘Good, but there’s a lot to do, will he be able to get it all done? I was planning to stay in Exeter over the summer, get part-time work, but I could come home and help?’

‘Well, that would be lovely, but you are not responsible for maintenance of the house, or checking up on your old mother,’ I said.

‘I know, but it’s our home, I do have some responsibility.’

Mark’s leaving had made both the kids feel like I needed looking after, and I had to keep stressing how fine I was to both of them.

‘No, you must stick with your plans,’ I said, surprised he was staying in Exeter for the holidays.

Jake sat down on a kitchen stool, and I placed a plate of sandwiches in front of him.

‘A crisp garnish for monsieur?’ I suggested, and threw him a bag of salt and vinegar crisps from the cupboard.

‘Sublime,’ he said, with a smile, tearing open the bag.

‘And for dessert, would monsieur enjoy the delights of a rather special chocolate bar, grown from south American cocoa beans? It’s called the Snicker bar?’ I said in a French accent. It was a game we’d played since he was little, and the older he was the more ridiculous my descriptions had become; it never failed to amuse us. And we were giggling about it when Ryan came inside to wash his hands.

I offered him a drink, but I think he was sensitive to the fact my time was precious with Jake, and declined.

He was just heading off to his van when he said, ‘Do you have those photos?’

I was puzzled for a moment, and looked at him, baffled.

‘The ones you were telling me about before, the sand on the floor?’

I immediately saw Jake’s face, and really wished Ryan hadn’t said anything.

‘What sand?’ Jake asked, putting down the bag of crisps he was holding and looking from me to Ryan.

‘Oh, I just noticed there was some sand over there this morning; it’s nothing.’

‘So why did you take a photo?’ Jake said, not smiling.

‘Because… Oh, I don’t know, I just thought if… Okay, I wondered if someone had been here. I just wanted to take a photo in case I decided to go to the police.’

‘The police?’ Jake was alarmed. ‘Let me see them, Mum.’

Ryan now seemed to have realised that this wasn’t something I wanted to worry Jake about. ‘Sorry, I just thought…’ he said, looking uncomfortable.

‘It’s fine, it’s fine. Come over here, Ryan, so you can both see the photos.’ I laid my phone on the table where Jake was eating, and they both looked.

‘Is that a pattern in the sand? Is it trainers… boots?’ Jake asked.

‘Not sure, could be, or it could be just the grain in the wood,’ Ryan replied.

‘Oh yeah, I see what you mean,’ Jake said, sounding relieved.

‘Yes, that’s what it is,’ I said, desperate not to worry Jake. And it seemed to work as he wolfed down his lunch without another word about the sand or any footprints.

When it came time for Jake to go, I walked him to his car on the drive.

‘Look after yourself, Mum,’ he said, hugging me.

‘You too, sweetie, and don’t worry, I’m great.’

‘Be careful what you tell Ryan Jarvis too.’

‘Why?’ I said, surprised.

‘Because you don’t know him. You shouldn’t have told him about the sand.’

‘Jake, don’t be daft. I had to tell him, I wondered if he’d walked it in.’

‘Mmm, well, he was a bit too interested, if you ask me.’

‘No, he wasn’t. He’s just trying to be helpful, that’s all,’ I said, feeling slightly unsettled by his words.

‘Maybe,’ Jake sighed, and got into his car.

It was only after he’d gone that I realised he hadn’t taken his books. I guess he really had just come home to see if I was okay after all. And not for the first time, I felt so proud of my amazing kids, my caring, protective son, and bright, funny daughter. They made everything worthwhile.

‘Thanks for dismissing the idea that the sand was a footprint in the photos earlier,’ I said to Ryan when he’d finished work. He was wandering into the kitchen to wash his hands, and I was looking through the drawer for the blue envelope I’d received after my encounter with Gemma at the hair salon.

‘No problem. Sorry, I didn’t realise you hadn’t told Jake.’

‘He worries,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to add to it.’

I was now almost face deep in the drawer, but couldn’t find the blue envelope. I’d put it from my mind, and almost forgotten, but the sandy footprints had made me feel a little uneasy. I wondered if I should call the police, just to be on the safe side, but I could hardly say, ‘I’m reporting an incident of sand on my floor.’ After all, I lived near a beach! But I figured I could tell them about the letter too, the smashed vase, and that the lock on the back door had been broken – having discovered it, Ryan had now fixed it, but still. But now, even as I moved stuff around and opened the drawer right out, I couldn’t find the envelope. There was nothing for it but to empty the drawer.

‘What are you doing?’ Ryan asked, as he leaned against the sink, drying his hands with a towel.

‘Oh, looking for an envelope. I put it in here, but now it’s gone.’ I looked up. ‘The only problem with living alone is you can’t blame someone else when stuff goes missing,’ I said. I emptied the drawer – all the takeaway leaflets from the past couple of years, some pots of glitter, a lipstick, and all kinds of treasure – but no luck. I checked behind it, to see if the letter had slipped, but nothing. I was puzzled. I’d been tempted to burn it, but I definitely hadn’t, had I?

I was in the process of trying to push the drawer back in the casing, which was proving far more difficult than taking it out, when Ryan put the towel down and came over.

‘Why did you take it out?’ he laughed. ‘Don’t you have any other envelopes?’

‘Oh, no, it was an envelope with a letter in…’

‘Oh?’

‘A fan letter… sort of,’ I said. ‘I just wanted to reread it.’

‘You wanted to reread your fan mail?’ he teased, as he slid the drawer back in with ease.

‘Wow, thanks Ryan,’ I said, watching the muscles in his arms as he adjusted the springs or knobs or whatever a drawer has.

‘So, you still get fan letters?’ he asked, as I put everything back in the drawer.

‘Mark does, but this one was addressed to me. It wasn’t quite fan mail, though… it wasn’t exactly nasty… more like a warning that now I live alone I should be careful,’ I said. ‘Something along those lines anyway. I’ve forgotten the exact wording,’ I added, trying to downplay this. I really was beginning to wonder if I was imagining things, and I didn’t want Ryan thinking I was mad.

‘Didn’t you take a photograph?’ he asked.

‘No. I’m not paranoid.’

‘Well, you took one of the wall with the pictures on and the sand on the floor?’

I gave a nervous laugh. ‘I just thought, along with the sand, the note might be significant.’

‘Why?’ he said, puzzled, and that made me realise that if it wasn’t obvious, I was probably overthinking things.

‘Because I’m bloody paranoid of course,’ I joked. Still wondering if I actually might be.

He smiled at my comment. ‘I don’t think it’s anything to worry about,’ he said, then he seemed to hesitate slightly. ‘Carly… if you’re ever worried, and you’re on your own, call me. I’m only a few minutes away.’

‘Thanks, Ryan, I appreciate that,’ I said. ‘I was just going to have a gin and tonic, would you like one, finish the day off before you go?’ I felt slightly uneasy after finding the sand, and had been glad to have Ryan around, and as dusk settled, I didn’t want to be alone.

Again, he hesitated, then said, ‘Yeah, yeah, thanks.’

I grabbed two glasses and started preparing the drinks. ‘This is getting to be a habit, you and me drinking gin at the end of the day,’ I laughed.

‘Yeah, and I like it,’ he said.

‘Me too.’ I sliced into a lemon, filling my nostrils with the fresh, tangy spritz.

‘I never drink gin. I usually have beer, or wine – I like gin, it feels a bit decadent,’ he said.

‘Deliciously decadent. Like a celebration,’ I added, aware of a hint of flirtation in my voice.

‘What are you celebrating?’ he asked me, and I saw a glimpse of the dimple in his cheek.

‘I don’t know.’ I stopped for a moment to think. ‘Oh, I know, I’m celebrating getting through the first six months of being single,’ I said.

‘I’ll join you in that. I didn’t realise being single was a reason to celebrate,’ he laughed.

‘Yes, it is.’ I handed him a glass. Not that you’d know about that, I’m sure you have lots of gorgeous women on the horizon.’

‘No, not one. And what about you?’

‘Sadly no gorgeous women on my horizon either – or men,’ I added, with a smile. ‘But at my age, what can I expect?’

‘What do you mean “at your age”? You could have any man you want, Mrs Anderson.’

‘I’ve told you, call me Carly. This is starting to feel like a scene from The Graduate – you know, Mrs Robinson?’ I laughed.

He smiled, but I don’t think he understood, probably too young. Perhaps it was just as well.

‘I’m telling you, Carly, you could have anyone you wanted,’ he said, looking directly at me.

I felt a flush creep up my face. ‘You’re very sweet, but you don’t have to say that.’

‘I mean it,’ he said, putting down his glass.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, you must want to get off.’

‘I don’t want to – but I have to, promised I’d pick Max up, his car’s not—’

‘God, Ryan, you don’t have to explain to me. I hope I haven’t been rambling on,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry… last night, I drank too much gin and told you my life story.’

‘Don’t apologise…’

I didn’t wait for him to finish, just carried on talking to cover my embarrassment. ‘You probably think I’m a lonely old woman who forces workmen to drink spirits with me in the afternoon for company.’

‘You’re not an old woman,’ he laughed.

‘But I am forcing you to drink spirits with me.’ I touched his arm, hoping it felt motherly rather than cougarish, but have to confess, my pulse was racing.

‘Quite the contrary,’ he said, ‘it’s my pleasure,’ and our eyes met. For a moment, just a fleeting moment, I thought we might kiss, but I brushed it away. I was being silly. I had to get a grip. God, he was young, single, attractive, of course he wouldn’t be interested in me. I’d spent the previous evening regaling him with tales of my unhappy marriage, not exactly a come on. It was just the fact of me being on my own for so long; it was starting to have a strange effect. Maybe it was the menopause after all?

But as I turned to move away and put my glass in the sink, his hand caught my wrist. Electricity ran up my arm with such a jolt, I couldn’t speak, and we both stood facing each other. The way he was looking at me, I thought my heart might stop. I had no idea what was going to happen next, until he slowly, gently, pulled me closer, reeling me in, and then his mouth was on mine, the bristly skin on my soft flesh. I could so easily have sunk into this and taken it all the way, but instinct told me this was too much, too soon. And too dangerous. I hardly knew him. So, reluctantly, I pulled away.

‘Sorry…’ he said, but he was smiling. I wasn’t sure why.

‘That’s okay.’ I heard my own breathless voice. I was somewhere high above, watching this. It didn’t feel real. I was Carly Anderson, Mark’s wife, mum to two golden-haired kids. What would people say?

‘See you tomorrow.’ Ryan gave a slight nod, and grabbing his keys, left me standing there, wondering what had just happened.