Читать книгу The Little Clock House on the Green: A heartwarming cosy romance perfect for summer - Eve Devon - Страница 12

Kate emerged from the cut-through into brilliant sunlight and couldn’t understand why there was a lot of shouting going on. As her eyes adjusted, there, under the shade of the oak trees lining the right hand side of the green was her answer… Someone had gone and let the army in to train on the green.

Her first thought was, did Crispin know about this?

Her second thought, as she looked closer, was that the army would probably be full of fitter, younger individuals, who wouldn’t give away their position by training in varying eye-watering shades of neon Lycra.

So the noughties had truly arrived in Whispers Wood. Prior to this, outdoor exercise in the village was usually of the T’ai Chi pace, rather than full-on, cardiac-arrest-inducing (by the looks of some of the participants), sergeant-major-style-y circuit-training.

‘Kate? Kate Somersby? Sweetie, is that you?’

Kate looked over in the direction of the voice, a smile breaking out over her face. ‘Hi, Trudie – looking good.’

‘Oh, thanks, sweetie. Trying to lose these last fifteen pounds is killer,’ she puffed out as she lunged not so much gracefully as disgracefully across the green towards her.

‘I see that,’ Kate replied.

Kate always thought of Trudie McTravers as the Eddie to Aunt Cheryl’s Pats because whenever they got together and alcohol was involved, mayhem wasn’t usually far behind.

Wonderfully larger-than-life and the self-appointed creative director of the local Whispers Wood am-dram society, rumour had it that during the eighties Trudie had starred in several Alan Ayckbourn plays in the West End.

Rumour also had it that before quiet and reserved bank manager, Nigel, had snapped her up she’d also starred in several films of an adult nature. Trudie never confirmed nor denied the rumours and as her Twitter ID was: @AFlairForT‌heDramatic, Kate suspected she wasn’t only the star of such rumours but the source as well.

‘You just get back?’ Trudie puffed out.

Kate nodded. ‘A couple of days ago.’

Trudie’s gaze strayed to Kate’s ‘do’ and grinned. ‘Cheryl?’

‘Cheryl,’ Kate confirmed.

‘How long are you back for?’

‘Oh, this time I was thinking,’ she leaned forward conspiratorially and whispered, ‘of forever’.

Trudie’s laugh took on a braying quality before she brought herself under control. ‘Okay, but actually, that’s got me thinking… How long are you back for really, because we’re doing Midsummer Night’s Dream again, and you always made a fabulous Titania.’

Kate winced at the disbelieving laugh and determined not to gently remind Trudie that it had been Bea, not her, who had played Titania, to everyone’s delight.

Some years Trudie ‘encouraged’ (begged and bribed) so many of the Whispers Wood inhabitants into her production that she had to rope in the residents of Whispers Ford to make up an audience. But the year Bea had played Titania and Oscar Matthews had played Bottom, everyone had agreed it had been Trudie’s most inspired production yet. Of course, that was the year that Bea had finally got Oscar Matthews to notice her, so…

‘McTravers, are you chatting or exercising?’

Kate glanced over in the direction of the booming voice. ‘Oops,’ she whispered out of the side of her mouth to Trudie, ‘I don’t think Private Benjamin is allowed to talk.’

‘I’m a woman,’ Trudie shouted back at the fitness instructor, ‘I can talk and exercise.’

‘Prove it,’ ordered Mr Sergeant Major, ‘and give me fifteen star jumps while you’re standing around chatting the day away.’

‘Is he for real?’ Kate asked in equal parts scared and impressed as Trudie duly obliged.

‘Trust me, he is definitely for real,’ Trudie puffed out. ‘Last week, he caught Crispin chatting to Sandeep and made him drop and give him twenty.’

‘No! And Crispin did it?’

‘Managed twelve before he passed out.’

‘Oh my God, that’s barbaric.’ Although, darn, because she would have loved to have seen that.

She looked over at the rest of the class, hanging out in the shade of the trees, doing burpees. Burpees! On Whispers Wood green. It defied all village logic. Or maybe she’d been away too long. ‘Trudie, are you sure this guy isn’t violating your civil rights or something?’

‘Sweetie, I can’t afford to care if I want to lose the fifteen pounds. Besides,’ she gasped mid star-jump. ‘Have you seen the way his butt looks in those shorts?’

Kate couldn’t help it – she looked over at the fitness instructor and, yes, checked out his butt encased in the kind of white shorts last seen in an eighties Wimbledon final. ‘Wow. Um. Very Magnum P.I.’

‘Such a shame that the face was made for radio.’

‘Trudie,’ Kate admonished.

‘At least I get to spend one hour three mornings a week doing a little butt-staring,’ Trudie wriggled her eyebrows appreciatively.

‘And what does Nigel have to say about this new hobby of yours?’

‘Oh he’s far too busy reaping the rewards to complain.’

Kate screwed up her face. ‘Euw! T.M.I.’

‘What can you possibly mean,’ Trudie said, adopting an innocent expression. ‘I’m talking about having the stamina to help Nigel out in the garden – what are you talking about?’

Kate laughed.

‘Now all I have to do,’ Trudie added, her attention on the fitness instructor, ‘is to convince Mr Butt that after helping out backstage at the summer play, he really wants to be in the Christmas one.’

‘Playing what? The back end of the pantomime horse?’

‘Trudie McTravers, do not make me come over there,’ came the voice from the other end of the green.

‘Help,’ Trudie said, not very convincingly.

‘Run!’ Kate advised. ‘Run like the wind.’

Trudie finished her star-jumps and turned to give Kate a mock salute. ‘Back for forever, you say?’

‘Uh-huh,’ Kate murmured, saluting back, convinced she heard Trudie mutter a, ‘well, just when you think you’ve heard it all,’ under her breath as she sort of yomped back to the rest of the class.

Kate’s smile faltered when she realised she had nothing left to distract her from what she’d come to see.

She blew out a breath to prepare for her first proper glance… and turned to face The Clock House.

There it stood.

Rising up from the far end of the village green. Strong and straight and true.

Her gaze roamed greedily over it.

The three-storeys-high, Georgian red-brick building with the ornate clock perched proudly on top was finished off with a lead dome and brass weathervane.

The sash windows still had their white trim, and the matching double doors, gleaming in the sunshine, looked as if they’d only recently been re-painted. In the brick space between the second and third floors, simple, no-fuss, wrought-iron lettering spelled out ‘The Clock House’.

Her gaze sought out the face of the clock.

Without even being conscious of it, her hand moved to stroke over the locket watch she wore.

All this time, and, incredibly, a part of her had still expected the time on The Clock House clock to state 1:23pm.

She squeezed against the cool metal in her palm, the chain cutting into her neck slightly.

So selfish to think that here time would have stood still for four years.

Bold roman numerals in the same material as the signage, reigned stately over the white face of the clock and the fact that after more than a hundred years it kept good time at all was a testament to Old Man Isaac’s family of clock-makers.

Kate stared and breathed.

Deeply and evenly.

Right up until she clapped eyes on the For Sale sign staked to the low brick wall in front of the building. For the second time in twenty-eight years her little world came to a grinding stop.

So this was how it felt to be blown apart that the building she’d grown up loving was up for sale.

Thank goodness that pebble had landed vein-side up.

Because maybe she really wanted this building… maybe she really needed this building… She took a shaky step forward, and then another, and then another, so that by the time she’d hopped over the low brick wall and stepped onto the gravel drive, her heart was pounding clear out of her chest.

She hesitated and then rallied. She’d come this far, hadn’t she? Silly to turn away now.

With trembling hands she reached out to the key-safe Old Man Isaac had fitted years ago. Everyone in Whispers Wood knew the combination because everyone used the building for village events. Flipping open the cover to expose the keypad, she entered the code her mother used before she had started the B&B, when she’d been responsible for cleaning the building, and prayed it hadn’t been altered.

Seconds later and the key-safe opened to reveal a set of brass keys.

In for a penny in for a pound.

Kate put the largest of the keys in the lock, turned it, pushed open the door and stepped across the threshold.

The shouting from the exercise group was drowned out by the whooshing in her ears as mine after mine dropped into her field of memory and exploded. Too quick for her to check for injury – too sharp to doubt she would escape unscathed.

The Somersby Sisters.

Bea and Kate.

Five years old and wearing summer school dresses of green and white check. White ankle socks with frills and scuffed black shoes. Chasing each other round the building. Screeching with glee as they cartwheeled across the parquet flooring. Collapsing in a fit of giggles when they were told off for being too loud, too happy, too exuberant.

The Somersby Sisters.

Bea and Kate.

Fifteen years old. Their school uniform skirts rolled up short, their long socks rolled down. School ties shoved into their bags. Lying in the gardens behind The Clock House, bitching about Gloria Pavey and whispering about boys.

The Somersby Sisters.

Bea and Kate.

Twenty. In the main foyer, clearing up after Bea and Oscar’s engagement party. A little drunk and talking nineteen to the dozen about how, one day, they were going to open their own business – a little day spa that would use only the best organic treatments and would be set in the most perfect premises. Premises as perfect as The Clock House.

A Somersby Sister, 15th October 2013.

Kate.

Twenty-four and staring up at The Clock House.

Dressed in black.

Blind with tears.

Filled with rage.

And completely and utterly finished with dreams.

The sound of a door closing brought Kate back to life. She whirled around, the echoes of memory so strong she half expected to see a replay of a five-year-old Bea disappearing around a corner. But there was no movement. No sound. Nothing.

Heaving in a breath she realised she’d been so caught up she’d been moving through the building by rote and now she was standing in the largest of the main rooms on the ground floor – the one that Trudie used for productions because you could erect a stage at one end and still have space for at least twenty rows of seating for the audience.

Kate’s gaze wandered from the soothing eau de nil paint on the walls, up to the high white painted ceiling with its ornate coving and now-naked ceiling-rose. At one time there’d been a Phantom-of-the-Opera-worthy chandelier hanging from the rose. Kate had seen photographs of it from when the building had belonged to Old Man Isaac’s great-grandfather – a famous clockmaker who’d settled in the village and built this place. If she did get to open this place as a spa she was determined to bring back a little of that opulence for customers to appreciate.

It was sad Old Man Isaac didn’t have anyone left in his family to pass the building on to, but given the chance, she’d make him proud with what she wanted to turn it into.

With the memories she’d been so worried about facing starting to fade, Kate walked back through the large open foyer and into the next main room. This room was slightly smaller because of the kitchenette. Kate knew that contained within the Formica cabinets were topsy-turvy towers of teacups with matching saucers and plates in what she was fairly certain Farrow and Ball would name ‘Catering Crockery in Hospital Blue’.

In the far corner of the room there was a lonely spinner of leaflets, their print faded with time and the sunlight that poured in through the floor-to-ceiling double doors. Soft-play mats in primary colours were stacked in the corner. Evidence that the local nursery still used the room.

Kate was going to need to work out how to zone the areas so that there was still plenty of space for village functions. Her mind drifted to thoughts of building regulations. What if there was some sort of covenant on the land that meant you couldn’t use the building for a commercial enterprise?

She thought of Bea’s box files. Ever since Kate had come up with the hare-brained scheme to open a day spa one day, Bea had got fixated on opening it in The Clock House. Not that they ever envisaged having the funds to buy the building. But still. The dreams had had to be corralled somehow and so Bea had collated files of research and made business plan after business plan.

If Kate was going to do this, she’d need to ask Oscar if he’d kept all of Bea’s files.

If she did this?

It hit her then how big a thing this was to do. And who was she, with her zero experience, to have a go?

The doubt she’d managed to bat away the moment she’d put that pebble in her pocket gathered and swooped, to peck at her.

What on earth had she been thinking? Had she even been thinking? If she really wanted to resurrect past dreams, she should do it in a place that didn’t know her. Somewhere where if she failed, that failure wouldn’t strike at the heart of those she loved.

Needing air, she unlocked one of the patio doors and stepped out into the walled garden. She walked towards the intricately carved wrought-iron moon-gate in the wall, overwhelmed with feeling.

She hadn’t realised how much she yearned for the opportunity to settle and build something. Something that would end all the regret and the running.

She’d toyed with this future like a cat toys with a mouse too many times to count and now she wasn’t sure she’d ever believe she deserved it.

How had she managed to convince herself that Old Man Isaac selling and Juliet sending her the postcards were signs from Bea? Now that she was actually here, standing in front of the moon-gate, and faced with the reality of what running a business would entail…

She should let it go.

It would find lovely owners. Old Man Isaac would make certain of that, she was sure.

And maybe whoever owned it next would turn it back into a house.

A home.

And on her visits back to Whispers Wood, she’d be able to walk past it without feeling so divided.

Without feeling.

With her heart heavy in her chest she opened the moon-gate and walked through, thinking she’d take one last look and then explain to Juliet that she was very sorry, but she wasn’t the right person to take over the place.

She stopped to take in the scene before her.

Oh my.

So ironic that here time had absolutely stood still, she thought, as she looked around.

It always looked best in spring and summer. The wild meadow on the other side of the moon-gate. Where tall grass vied for space with poppies, cornflowers and buttercups.

And there, tucked away amongst the large shrubs of buddleia, was what Kate had been unconsciously looking for since opening the main door of the building.

As she stared at the roofs of the white painted hives, the tears finally spilled from Kate’s brown eyes.

She’d found Bea’s bees.