It felt nice, unexpectedly so. Gina had never found it easy to make new friends – she really only had Naomi, and a few old workmates whom she met up with sometimes – but although Rachel didn’t mention the self-help books again, Gina felt something was understood between them, and it was a relief.
Conversation moved on to the CDs she’d brought in, then to the kennels Rachel had inherited a few years ago. Once or twice Gina glanced down at Buzz, to check he was still with her, but he never pulled or tried to stop to sniff anything. He seemed resigned to their walk, not really enjoying it, his long thin tail curved down between his legs.
‘Am I doing this right?’ she asked eventually. ‘He doesn’t look like he’s enjoying it much.’
They were nearly all the way round now. Rachel’s collie, Gem, had never left her side, yet he’d been taking in every passing dog, every person, every plant along the way, his sharp eyes noting everything. Buzz seemed robotic in comparison.
‘He’s shut down, poor lad. They do it out of self-defence.’ Rachel stopped and re-attached Gem’s lead. ‘It sounds cruel, but the best thing you can do with Buzz is not to make a huge fuss of him. Dogs need time to suss you out.
‘Anyway,’ she added, ‘he’ll be out of your hair by the end of the week. So don’t beat yourself up too much if you’re not best pals by Friday. I’m eternally grateful for this week, and so’s he.’
Gina looked down at Buzz. He met her gaze, then looked down again, and her heart broke.
‘Here’s my ride,’ said Rachel, jerking her head towards the muddy Land Rover parked on a double-yellow line by the entrance to the gardens. ‘Better go before he starts yelling. He’s not the most patient cabbie, my other half.’
As they got nearer, Gina saw in the driving seat a handsome countryish man with salt-and-peppery hair, his checked shirt rolled up at the sleeves to reveal strong forearms; in the back, cocooned in a child-seat, was a round-faced, dark-haired toddler, the spitting image of Rachel with her long straight nose. When they both saw Rachel through the window, their faces lit up with an identical beam, although the man went through a pantomime of outrage, stabbing at his watch with his finger and scowling unconvincingly.
‘My boys,’ said Rachel, rolling her eyes. ‘George and Fergus. Fergus is the less grumpy one.’
Gina smiled, but a brief twinge of jealousy pinched her: it was always easier to be positive about starting again when you were back on the right side of the fence.
Rachel let Gem into the back of the Land Rover, but before she went round to the passenger side, she took hold of Gina’s upper arms, and looked her right in the face. ‘Listen,’ she said quietly, ‘I’m the last person to dish out relationship advice. I’m not even the best person to give advice about dogs. But one thing I’ve learned from spending a lot of time around dogs like Buzz is that they live in the moment. If they’re fed, warm and walked, they’re happy. And it’s amazing how happy that can make you feel, too. You’re doing a very kind thing for him. Be just as kind to yourself.’
She said it with such intensity that Gina felt like a spy being given some secret code information. She didn’t know what to say in response.
But when she took Buzz home, and measured out the kibble that Rachel had given her, she hesitated over the boring tin of beans she’d started to open. Instead she made herself a pea risotto and ate it on the sofa with a glass of wine, listening to an Ella Fitzgerald album she’d forgotten she’d bought, enjoying each forkful as the smoky-sweet tracks of broken hearts and endless loves downloaded onto her laptop.
The CD finished, and she got up to put her glass and plate in the dishwasher. She hadn’t heard a sound, but Buzz had crept nearer, still not too near, and was sleeping with his head on his paws.
Ella Fitzgerald, she thought, watching the lights over the town, the crescent moon rising over the roofs. This’ll be my music to remind me of now. Mournful, soulful . . . but hopeful.
Chapter Twelve
ITEM: a letter from Terry Bellamy
Matterdale Drive
Hartley
10th May 2001
Dear Georgina,
This is just a note to remind you that you’ll need to put the Mini in for her MOT on 2nd June. I know you won’t have forgotten, but you’ve had a lot on with your examinations and I just wanted to be sure. I’m an old fusspot, I expect you’re saying! I gave her a once-over while you were home last time, so don’t let the mechanics tell you she needs more oil, or spark plugs, or wiper blades because I replaced those, and she seemed to be running fine.
As always, if there’s a problem with the garage, give me a call and I’ll speak to them on your behalf. I often think about the two of us sitting in the garage while we were restoring old Minnie. You with your books, me tinkering away. Happy times.
Your mother and I are both very well. We’re hoping to have a few days in Harrogate next month, if her migraines clear up. The warm weather doesn’t agree with her, but I think a change of air’s always nice.
I’m enclosing a little something for you to treat yourself now you’ve got some time to relax. We’re both very proud of you, and are looking forward to seeing you go up and get your degree in a few weeks’ time. Don’t worry, we won’t embarrass you with our glad rags!
See you soon, Georgina
All the best
Terry
Oxford, June 2001
Two days ago, Gina had sat her last finals paper and she’s been in a pleasantly hazy state of drunkenness ever since.
For the first time in her life, it feels as if the pressure to be doing something has vanished. The sun’s shining, time blurs, and one party wanders into another, then another. There are different lawns, different shady willows, the same jugs of Pimm’s, and now the highlight of her week has finally arrived: Kit, coming from London with a bottle of champagne to celebrate.
When Kit strolled into the college gardens looking for her, Gina felt the red-faced rower who’d been trying to chat her up lean back in defeat. There’s no point competing with this. OK, so he’s come straight from his office wearing a suit, but it’s rumpled, his linen shirt unbuttoned and his walk confident. The golden hair’s shorter, but Kit still looks more like a charismatic young professor than a very junior venture capitalist, from a place somewhere between the self-conscious student life and the dry adult world.
In her three years at Oxford, Gina’s never even been tempted by anyone else. No one else is like Kit. And now she’s free to move to London with him and be a proper part of his world. Him in hers, too, of course.
They’re lying on a secluded stretch of grass under the trees, and Gina’s letting the sound of clinking glasses and blurred chatter, with the smell of flattened grass, suncream and Kit’s city-heated skin, wash over her.
Gina’s birthday trip to London with Kit for her twenty-first had been magical, but this – exams done, tension over, nothing left to go wrong – is better. I need to remember this, she thinks, in case I’m never this happy again - but she doesn’t feel the answering grip of panic that she usually does. How many times has she thought that now, only to have something even more amazing happen?
This is just the start, she thinks, secure in her happiness. This is where it all begins.
‘. . . talking to a guy who’s developing this incredible new software in San Francisco which will totally revolutionise . . . Gina? Are you OK?’ He touches her nose. ‘You look like you’re miles away. Sorry, I know it’s boring. Work.’
‘No,’ she says truthfully. ‘I love hearing about your job. You’re my sexy older man, don’t forget. Go on, explain about hedge funds again.’
He rolls over onto his elbow, and Gina thinks he’s going to kiss her, but instead he has a question in his eye. ‘Work’s just a means to an end. What are we going to do now?’ he asks.
Gina smiles tipsily. ‘Well . . .’ That could be anything. Kit is very imaginative.
‘No, I mean, now you’ve finished your exams. Now you’re free!’
A cloud passes across the sun. ‘I don’t know. Mum’s been on my case about jobs again.’
‘What? Didn’t you tell her about the art foundation course?’
She sighs. ‘Sort of. It just ended in a row. Terry tried to calm her down but she stormed off to bed with a migraine. She doesn’t want to hear anything. apart from “I’ve got a job with KPMG.” They know I did the civil-service entrance test.’
The truth is, Gina doesn’t know what she wants to do next. Oxford was all she’d thought about for years, Oxford and Kit. Kit thinks she should go to art college, do a foundation course. When he says it, it sounds completely normal, a good idea, even. When Gina says it to her mother, it sounds ridiculously self-indulgent.
Kit traces the curve of her cheekbone. ‘Well, they can’t begrudge you a holiday, can they? You’ve worked so hard for your degree.’
‘No,’ she says, though she suspects Janet can.
‘I’ve been looking into tickets for a round-the-world trip. You can get some amazing deals. Shaun’s living in Sydney now, so we could stay there for a bit, and my cousin’s in San Francisco . . .’
Kit waves his hand to indicate the limitless possibilities, and smiles the easy smile that still makes Gina’s stomach flutter. Five years of weekends, wishing, letters, emails, bed, phone calls. Never long enough to get bored with that smile.
‘You know how you think I look like a mole first thing in the morning,’ she says, only half-joking. ‘Are you sure that’ll still be cute halfway across Death Valley?’
‘Course it will. I could ask you the same about my snoring.’
‘You don’t snore,’ she lies.
Kit stretches an arm around her, and Gina shoves the idea of her parents and the job fair and how she’ll pay for the ticket from her head. He keeps offering to pay for her – he claims the only reason he’s stayed on at the venture capital firm he interned at is to save up money to travel. It’s not his fault he’s good at it and they want to keep him.
‘What do you reckon?’ he murmurs. ‘Australia? I can see you on the beach.’
It’s a joke: Gina can’t stand the sun. At least, she thinks Kit’s joking. Is she a beach bunny type? Maybe she could be. She could be anything now.
‘Or we could drive across America?’ she suggests. At least motels have indoor loos. ‘Just us, anonymous motels, autumn trees, the Eagles on the stereo . . .’
‘We could do that,’ Kit agrees, into her neck.
‘What about a Gone With the Wind tour of plantation houses?’ Gina loves big historical houses. She loves Kit’s family home, a rambling, book-lined arts-and-crafts place. It’s the kind to have secrets and history and interesting things under the floorboards, not like the Bellamys’ over-clean house. The only downside is Kit’s mother, Anita, whom she senses doesn’t think she’s quite in Kit’s league. Anita, Gina suspects, would rather Gina was one of the up-and-coming actresses or novelists Kit went to school with.
‘Mint juleps. I like the sound of that.’ He nudges the soft skin behind her ear, and she melts into the grass. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he whispers. ‘Are you going to come and stay with me for a bit? The guys are going away. We can pretend it’s just us living there . . .’
Gina closes her eyes as his lips move towards her mouth, blocking out the sun and all rational thought; he kisses her.
Behind her eyelids, she sees herself driving in an open-top car with Kit, her long black hair flying in the breeze. She sees herself walking across a deserted beach in Australia. Dancing in a club in London, drinking wine in a French bar at midnight. If she’s with Kit, she can see herself doing anything, because he can. The possibilities make her dizzy.
She keeps her eyes closed when the kiss abruptly stops and the sunlight returns in a bright glare on her eyelids.
‘Gina?’ says a woman’s voice.
‘Can it wait?’ she asks flippantly.
‘Gina.’ Kit touches her arm and something in his voice makes her sit up. Her head spins. She’s drunker than she thought: that last glass of Kit’s champagne was one too many.
Miriam Addison, her pastoral-care tutor, is standing over her, shading her eyes with her hand. She’s dressed for the garden party, but her expression is wrong, thinks Gina. Her expression is the one she wears when she reminds Gina that she’s going to need to pull her socks up if she wants to get her degree.
‘I’m sorry to interrupt,’ she says, ‘but can you come with me, please? There’s something . . .’ Miriam pauses. ‘You need to call home.’
‘Why?’
Miriam glances around. Half the guests at the garden party are staring at them, too pissed to care whether it’s rude or not. Gina wonders what they think Miriam’s telling her. Failing finals? Medical problems?
Maybe she hasn’t got her degree. She feels sick.
‘Come with me to the office,’ Miriam says gently.
Kit sits up, suddenly serious. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Tell me now,’ Gina says. ‘Please. Just tell me.’
Miriam crouches down. ‘I’m afraid your father’s been taken to hospital,’ she murmurs. ‘He’s had a heart attack. It’s . . . not good news.’
‘Her stepfather,’ Kit is correcting Miriam, but in this second Gina’s heart isn’t making that distinction. She’s seeing Terry in his chair the last time she was at home, trying to calm Janet, trying to pacify Gina, his pleasant face grey with distress at their silly row about the phone bill. He hadn’t looked well then.
Gina feels herself falling down, down, down, even though she isn’t moving. Without Terry, the migraines and moods will choke the house. She can see her mother’s face, abandoned again. Her grief will be uncontrollable. ‘Which hospital?’ she says, but as she gets up, she stumbles, staggering on the daisy-free green of the college lawn. People can look: she doesn’t care.
‘I’ll call you a taxi to the station,’ says Miriam.
‘No, I’ll drive her,’ says Kit, and turns to her. ‘Gina. Where’s your car?’
Minnie the green Mini, the car that Terry had restored for her while she was sitting her A levels, then taught her to drive in. Gina remembers him squashed gamely into the passenger seat in his brown suit, a fixed grin plastered over his anxiety as she crashed the gears and swore. Her legs give way beneath her.
Amanda’s email accepting Gina’s proposed schedule of works – and projected invoice – was as short and prompt as Gina’s was long and detailed. It arrived at three o’clock, Amanda’s time not Gina’s, and was to the point:
This looks fine. Let’s do it! Please get the ball rolling asap with planning, etc, and liaise with Nick re payment going forward, as per the terms set out in your email. I look forward to meeting up soon to review developments.
Best, Amanda
Gina had started the renovation timetable from the top, by booking a thorough structural examination of the roof. It wasn’t quite as magnificent up close as it seemed from the long carriage drive; despite the massive chimneystacks at each end, hinting at stately fireplaces beneath, the actual roof was patched and uneven where the house had been extended over the years, and repaired more neatly in some spots than others. The surveyor had recommended a complete overhaul and, with the Rowntrees’ breathtaking budget now in hand, Gina had called in the best specialist she knew.
A steel web of scaffolding had already been erected around the house, and today’s meeting was to discuss making the lead valleys of the roof watertight, stopping the slow drip into the cavernous attics. Gina’s notes had a whole section about the chimneys, starting with sweeping them free of birds’ nests and the artificial blockages previous owners had stuffed up them for insulation. There was something about fireplaces, Gina felt, that brought a house to life even if you didn’t use them. It was like clearing the house’s throat so it could breathe properly.
When she knocked at the front there was no answer, so she picked her way past the heavy sacks of lime render stacked in the herb garden and knocked
on the kitchen door. Nick was at the big table, working on his laptop, and looked as if he’d only just rolled out of bed. His dark hair was ruffled and flattened on one side and he’d thrown a beige fisherman’s jumper over a pair of checked pyjama bottoms.
Gina wondered if she’d got the meeting time wrong, and was about to back away quietly, when Nick spotted her, shoved his chair back and beckoned her inside.
‘Sorry, I’m just trying to get this done before the roof guy arrives,’ he explained, offering her a cup of coffee from the half-full cafetière. ‘I was up all last night editing photos. Lorcan’s been here since eight – he asked if I was ill because I was in my pyjamas. Does everyone round here get up before dawn?’
‘Yup. Welcome to the countryside. And Lorcan’s got more to worry about this morning with the roofer coming than whether you’re up or not. Speaking of which, I was chucking out some stuff at my flat and I thought these might be useful for you.’ Gina handed over some books she’d sorted from her most recent boxes – guides to renovating old houses she’d been given over the years. ‘Don’t take it personally,’ she added. ‘I’m not saying you need an idiot’s guide but it might make things easier when Lorcan starts firing questions about joists and spurs at you.’
‘Thanks.’ Nick ruffled his hair and read the back of the first book with a wry grin. ‘The idiot-er the better. My idea of DIY so far has been phoning for a plumber. But I’m a quick learner, you’ll be pleased to hear. I wish I’d been more involved in our last place, but I was away so much with work.’ He looked through the selection. ‘These are a bit basic to be yours, aren’t they? Or do you hand out homework to all your clients?’
The coffee was so strong the spoon was nearly standing up. It made Gina wonder how late Nick had been working last night, alone in the echoing house. ‘No, they were Christmas presents. From my ex-in-laws. I don’t think they knew what to get me. Everyone else got cupcake aprons and Mum’s Diary, and that’s not really me.’