Chapter 27
Holly walked home through the streets of Larkford as though in a dream. The tiny streets that radiated from the Market Place like a cobweb had been her home for the last two years and her life had changed so much in that short time that really, what was one more change? One more adjustment?
‘Holly!’
She startled from her thoughts, looking around to see who was calling her, and was delighted to see the Major striding towards her forcefully, little Grover having to run to keep up.
‘Evening, Major,’ she said. ‘How’s tricks?’
‘Andy McLeod is dead,’ he said abruptly. ‘Rather puts things into perspective.’
‘Oh Major,’ said Holly, reaching out to clasp his shoulder – as close to an affectionate hug as this bluff old gentleman was generally comfortable with. Andy McLeod, his best friend and long-time adversary when it came to dodging the doctors. ‘Are you okay?’
The Major gave her a funny look. ‘I’m not the one who’s dead, dear. Bit of a wake-up call, though. Poor old sod.’ His gruff delivery did nothing to hide the pain in his eyes. ‘So I thought, hang it all, I’m going to visit little Jess.’ He held up a hand. ‘And I know, I shall have to face her ghastly mother, but it’s the right thing to do. Honestly, it’s the only thing to do.’
Holly nodded. ‘You might feel better once you’ve seen her. By all accounts, she’s making an excellent recovery. It’s just going to take a little time.’ She couldn’t help but admire the Major’s bravery; even feeling so bleak these last few weeks, he was still thinking of others and doing ‘the right thing’.
The Major harrumphed a little. ‘I wanted to say thank you to you too. For coming over the other day. For not judging me.’
‘Oh Major,’ said Holly, ‘we all make mistakes.’
‘Well, I reckon my Andy would have given anything to be around for a few more mistakes. So, I think the time for doubt has passed. I’ve every intention of living life to the fullest until my time’s up.’ He strode away then, before the thickness of his words could spill over into tears.
Holly stood still for a moment, watching as the shadows of Larkford church spire grew longer across the Market Place. There was something to be said for the older generation in Larkford; they seemed to weather their experiences well and always come out fighting. Thoughts of Elsie’s house were obviously still uppermost in her mind and the Major’s sentiment seemed to echo Elsie’s own wishes.
She looked up to see Amanda Lightly running circuits across the parkland in the dappled sunlight, stopping every now and again to sip from a large bottle and wipe the perspiration from her brow. Even from here, it was obvious that this was a beautiful woman enjoying the prime of her life and certainly not suffering from depression as her husband had implied.
Holly had discreetly asked around after Gordon’s visit to The Practice – Amanda was popular and well-liked, even if her husband was widely considered a bit of an arse. In fact, last she’d heard, Amanda was shagging Dishy Dad – renowned local Lothario and triathlete – on the quiet. Quite why Amanda didn’t ask for a divorce if she was so unhappy at home, Holly couldn’t say, especially as she watched Dishy Dad sprint out of the woods towards his mistress and openly swing her around in his arms, making her squeal in delight.
There was an awful lot to be said for seizing the day, Holly decided as she walked home, even as she mentally wrote off the twenty-pound bet she’d placed on that marriage lasting until Christmas.
Letting herself in through the front door, she was greeted by whoops of laughter from the back garden, where Taffy was obviously entertaining the troops. She glanced around her cramped kitchen, unable to resist drawing comparisons with Elsie’s stunning conservatory. She felt the first prickles of excitement that this move might even be a possibility, for the first time her better angels shouting down the voice of responsibility and reason in her mind. This could actually happen, she realised; all she had to do was say yes.
She swallowed her own whoop of excitement that sprang unbidden to her lips just as the back door was flung open with such force that it ricocheted off the kitchen worktop, barely missing giving Tom a hefty black eye. ‘Can we have tea in the playhouse, Mummy, Mummy, can we?’ He played his best card, turning the full blaze of his Disney-sized eyes on Holly, having somehow clocked that she was increasingly becoming a soft touch these days.
Taffy stepped inside behind him before Holly could even reply. ‘Do you think that you and Ben could collect all those little twigs from around the garden and build a little pyramid with them in the fire pit? I’ll come and light it when you’re done and we can cook up some baked beans on the campfire.’
The door swung shut behind him as Tom departed with alacrity, shouting the news to Ben as they set to on their mission. Taffy grinned. ‘That should keep them good for a while. Hello, you.’ He leaned in and kissed her lightly on the lips. ‘Big day tomorrow.’ He smiled at her and, even as a yawn overtook her, she leaned into his solid warmth for support. ‘Do you think we should find out if it’s a boy or a girl? I feel weird saying “it”, don’t you?’
Taffy’s excitement about the scan was utterly endearing. Even though he knew perfectly well they were unlikely to discover the sex of their baby at this early stage, it hadn’t stopped him talking about it endlessly. ‘I just call it Beany,’ Holly said easily, still in two minds about finding out – this might be one surprise worth waiting for.
She paused and looked deeply into his eyes. ‘And Beany is clearly an overachiever, by the way – I felt the first movements earlier. Kind of a fluttering.’
‘Are you serious?’ Taffy knelt down and put his hand on her tummy. ‘Come in, The Bean. This is your dad calling. Come in, Beany . . .’ He paused in anticipation, looking up at Holly as though this were somehow within her control. ‘Do whatever you were doing last time – orange juice? Laughing?’
‘Ah,’ said Holly, glancing out of the window to make sure the twins were safely gathering kindling and out of earshot, ‘about that.’ She took Taffy’s hand and sat down at the kitchen table, pausing for a moment to gather her thoughts. She still had no idea how she truly felt about Elsie’s life-changing suggestion, swinging ambivalently from delight to discomfort every few minutes.
‘Elsie wants to give me her townhouse,’ she said simply in the end and watched Taffy’s face slacken in disbelief. ‘She wants to be at Sarandon Hall, apparently, and she wants us to move in as soon as possible.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Taffy said slowly. ‘Do you mean as tenants, because the rent on that place would be—’
Holly shook her head, emotion bubbling in her voice. ‘No, as in, she wants to gift me her house – leave it to me, technically, I think. But she made it pretty clear: she wants to see us settled and enjoying it. All the more so with another one on the way.’ She gave a nervous laugh. ‘I don’t know how to react – it’s like all my dreams coming true, but I can’t quite get over the feeling that I’m turfing my granny out of her house!’
‘But . . . I mean . . . Well, I—’ managed Taffy, still trying to get his head around the idea.
‘Do that for another hour and you’ll be where I am now.’ Holly laughed. ‘It is honestly the most wonderful, incredibly generous thing that anyone has ever offered to do for me, so why does it feel as though I’m taking advantage . . .? Oh God, I don’t know! And then I feel downright ungrateful for even questioning it!’ Holly sank her head in her hands, knowing full well that Elsie would be furious that her offer had triggered anything other than absolute joy.
‘It’s a beautiful house,’ said Taffy. ‘A proper family home.’
‘I know,’ said Holly, biting her lip, barely daring to let the threatening smile escape. ‘That’s what Elsie said. She reckons it should be filled with laughter and sticky fingers and fairy cakes – her words, not mine.’
‘You know,’ Taffy said equably, ‘we could all move in together. I for one would be only too happy to help out with Elsie if that’s what she’s worrying about. Joining a retirement community is a big leap.’
‘I asked her about that.’ Holly laughed as she recalled Elsie’s emphatic response. ‘She said she thought we might cramp her style, if we all lived there together, and that the move to Sarandon Hall was all about keeping her independence and her social life, rather than losing it. That visit really clarified things for her, apparently.’
‘Oh,’ said Taffy succinctly. ‘She probably has a point there. We have become couch potatoes of late.’
‘So what do you think? I’m so conflicted I can’t see the wood for the trees. Part of me cannot quite believe that we would get to raise our children somewhere so utterly heavenly – I mean, that house is like something from a novel, isn’t it? But the other part still feels like it’s cheating somehow.’
‘You didn’t earn it, so it’s not really yours?’ Taffy said, nodding, understanding immediately what Holly meant. ‘And then I suppose you have to think about who the rightful heirs should be – I mean, Elsie has children in America, right? That Harriet character for one. Which probably means they’d think nothing of taking a litigious approach to any disappointment on that front. I mean, Elsie is in her eighties – they might suggest she’s not of sound mind and a court case like that would be just hideous for all concerned.’
Holly nodded. ‘So you see why I’m not dancing around the kitchen? Which in itself is awful, because that’s what Elsie intended for us – she wants us to dance around the kitchen and to sleep at night knowing we have space and the wherewithal to raise our children in Larkford.’ Holly stopped. ‘You know, she was remarkably up to date on maternity leave legislation as well. Kept mentioning how nice it might be for me to work part-time after this little one arrives. It’s like she’s got my life all planned out for me!’
‘Tricky,’ said Taffy.
‘You’d think,’ replied Holly happily. ‘But actually it was just wonderful. Knowing that she cared enough to take the time, to take the interest. She’s so invested in our family, Taffs, it knocks my mother’s pathetic efforts into a cocked hat.’ Holly’s mother was a spectral presence in their lives at best. Always travelling around the world, often with a new boyfriend in tow, always moaning, always complaining, never showing any interest in her grandchildren beyond the odd bragging postcard from wherever she happened to be that month. It was one way to live, and obviously it was her choice, but it hardly made her grandparent of the year when she saw the boys so rarely that she could never tell them apart.
‘I think we should just do it,’ said Taffy after a moment’s thought. ‘I mean, we’re renting here anyway, and it’s hardly perfect for our needs. So let’s take the adventure, jump in with both feet and enjoy it the way Elsie intended. I mean, when somebody loves you so much, Holly, to make such a phenomenal offer, it might actually be more upsetting to her if you said no.’
Holly nodded. ‘Plus it turns out, with the prospect of leaving, that I really and truly hate this house.’
‘You do?’ Taffy was astounded. ‘But you wanted to stay here after Milo left?’
Holly shrugged. ‘Only for a little while so there weren’t too many changes at once for the boys, but then life got busy and the months flew by and,’ she held up her hands, ‘here we are. Still living in Milo-Land.’
‘Oh for God’s sake!’ laughed Taffy. ‘What a pair we are. You know I hate this house too – I just thought you were committed to it, so I made it work.’
Holly blinked hard. ‘But you said how convenient it was for work—’
‘Well I had to find something positive to say, didn’t I?’
Holly shook her head, starting out laughing and suddenly finding there were tears pouring down her face. ‘This is mad.’
Taffy nodded, swallowing a little hard himself at the sight of such emotion on her face.
‘So we’re actually doing this?’ she queried, her hands pressed to her lips as though to restrain herself.
‘I know it’ll be a wrench to leave all this luxury behind,’ said Taffy with a smile, ‘but I think we’ll manage.’ He paused. ‘Is it weird that I still wish Elsie was staying put, though? I quite like the idea of an eccentric granny on hand for words of advice and killer cocktails.’
‘Me too,’ replied Holly. ‘You know what, though, I think it’s good that we’ve started to share our little foibles.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t believe we would just have stayed in this bloody house for ever, if Elsie hadn’t started the conversation for us.’
Taffy frowned. ‘Hang on, though. Elsie knew I hated living in Milo’s shadow.’
Holly leaned forward. ‘And she knew I hated feeling stuck here, waiting to move on.’
Taffy raised one eyebrow. ‘Well, I can think of cheaper ways to get us talking to each other than giving you her townhouse.’
Holly grinned. ‘But none of them quite so very effective.’ She kissed him gently on the lips. ‘You know this means that you’ll have to build a proper treehouse?’
‘For me and Dan?’ Taffy teased her.
‘Why not?’ she said, as Ben and Tom appeared breathlessly at the door, their clothes and hands utterly filthy but their faces beaming.
‘We’re ready for fire!’ Ben announced.
‘And beans,’ Tom chimed in.
Taffy squeezed Holly’s hand. ‘Well then, it’s decided; it looks like we’re ready for anything!’