Читать книгу Snowdrops on Rosemary Lane - Ellen Berry - Страница 10
Chapter Three
ОглавлениеThree months later, as the village sparkled with late January frost, Rosemary Cottage was theirs and ready to be transformed into the B&B of their dreams. Well, Lucy’s dreams really; she was the one driving the project, looking into ways to manage bookings and marketing, as well as overseeing an upgrade of the house. Although it had been spruced up for sale, there was still a substantial amount of work to be done in order to create the kind of B&B she yearned for.
A team of tradesmen set to work upgrading fixtures and fittings. As the days turned milder – there had been no snow so far that winter – they took away the damp-riddled conservatory, and the area where it had stood was transformed into a decked seating space where Lucy planned to serve breakfasts on summer mornings. She was all for dismantling the ancient garden shed, and perhaps building a summerhouse for guests to enjoy – until Ivan and the children made a plea for keeping it. ‘But it’s falling to bits,’ she reasoned. ‘It must be as old as the house itself.’
‘That’s part of its charm,’ Ivan reasoned, so she let it go and he set about making it a hobby shed for himself and the children. Although his spare time was still sparse, at least he seemed to be enjoying it now instead of huddling over his laptop, staring at reports, drinking wine. Sam and Marnie were thrilled to have more of his attention, and they were full of ideas for all kinds of construction projects they could get up to together.
‘Can we make a birdhouse?’ Sam asked.
‘Sure!’ Ivan replied.
‘What about a bird bath and a bird table—’ Marnie cut in.
‘And bird hotel?’ Sam asked, giggling.
‘I’d never have guessed you were a shed man,’ Lucy teased Ivan.
‘I don’t think I knew it myself,’ he said with a grin. Meanwhile, the cottage’s ancient kitchen was refitted in readiness for all the breakfasts – and possibly evening meals – they would be preparing for guests. Gradually, the place started to come together and feel altogether more welcoming.
Lucy had already gathered that the cookbook shop on the village high street had put Burley Bridge firmly on the day-trippers’ map. In fact, Della, who had set it up and still ran it, had grown up in Rosemary Cottage alongside her brother and sister. It had been her mother, Kitty, who had shrieked at Lucy, Hally and the Linton children for sneaking into her garden and stealing her redcurrants.
‘You were brave,’ Della had laughed, when Lucy told her about her childhood antics. ‘Mum was pretty scary – especially when she’d had a couple of gins. Even I wouldn’t have taken berries without asking.’ Lucy and Della soon became friends, and she made other connections through chatting to neighbours, shop owners and mums at the school gate. Unsurprisingly, Della had only a vague recollection of the Linton family in the pink bungalow, who had apparently moved away many years ago. The name Hally meant nothing to her, and Lucy hadn’t really expected it to. Della was a decade older than she was, and would have already left home when Lucy and her companions were running wild through the village.
As Ivan had decided to hang on to his agency job for the time being, Lucy was grateful for these new friendships in the village. His 100-mile round trip was exhausting, but at least it wouldn’t be for too long. The plan was for him to go freelance, and work from home once the major bills for the work on the house had been settled. Now and again, he’d call to say he was shattered and couldn’t face the drive home, and would be staying over with a colleague in Manchester that night. While Lucy had no problem with that, she looked forward to the day when Ivan resigned from Brookes and was here at her side, being part of village life, being with them in every way.
Meanwhile, she took pride in the fact that they had managed the move and Marnie and Sam had settled happily into the village school. It was all going so well, Lucy thought. Too well, perhaps, as one grey March afternoon, she experienced intense cramping whilst out shopping in the village. She made for the bookshop, trying to convince herself that she had just been overdoing things and needed to slow down.
‘You don’t look well,’ Della exclaimed. ‘You’re kind of clammy.’
‘I’m getting these pains,’ Lucy said. ‘Could I just sit down for a moment?’
‘Of course,’ Della said, her eyes filled with concern. She turned to her part-time assistant, Rikke, who was manning the till. ‘Rikke, I think Lucy should go to hospital—’
‘No, I’ll be fine,’ Lucy protested. ‘Maybe if I had a cup of tea …’ But Della was insistent in her rather motherly way, and drove Lucy to Heathfield Hospital. Lucy tried over and over to contact Ivan, but he was in high-level meetings with clients all afternoon and couldn’t be disturbed. Finally, Lucy barked to the receptionist at Brookes that she was in a hospital waiting room and he had to take her call right now.
‘Damn his work,’ she muttered furiously to Della. But it wasn’t his fault – of course it wasn’t. Maybe she’d thrown herself into their project with too much gusto? After all, Marnie and Sam were only five and seven. Keeping on top of family life was challenging enough without trying to furnish the guest rooms and their en suites to an impeccable standard, get her head around health and safety rulings and – admittedly, this part was more fun – figure out what she could offer on her breakfast menu to set Rosemary Cottage apart from the rest.
The late miscarriage rocked them, and Lucy couldn’t help wondering: should they have stayed in Manchester, where life had just been jogging along? It was likely that the pregnancy had been unviable, a kind young doctor had told them. It was no one’s fault. But there was no way of knowing for sure; Lucy had had no tests other than the standard ultrasound, and everything had seemed fine.
At least Ivan had resigned from Brookes now, and was busying himself with putting the final touches to the house as well as starting to establish his own freelance work. Now and again, he’d make slightly disparaging remarks about village life, such as, ‘I’m sure they’re keeping a dossier on us, Luce. I went into the newsagent’s and a woman came over and said, “Oh, I see you’ve changed the colour of your gate!” They seem terribly interested in what we’re up to around here.’
‘Who’s “they”?’ Lucy asked, a tad defensively.
‘You know – just, people …’
‘People who happen to be expressing a friendly interest, you mean?’
Ivan raked a hand through his wavy light brown hair and took off his wire-rimmed spectacles. What was it with middle-aged men and their intolerance of strangers, she wondered? It wasn’t just Ivan. Without exception, all of her female friends claimed that their husbands hadn’t made any new friends beyond thirty years old, and had no interest in doing so. ‘I won’t have room for any more mates until some of these old buggers die off,’ Ivan once joked. In contrast, Lucy relished making new connections and had actively enjoyed arriving in Burley Bridge, with that ‘clean slate’ feeling that came with starting afresh. It was the aspect of running a B&B that appealed to her most – the unpredictable nature of welcoming strangers into their home.
‘Last week, three people stopped me in the street and asked why we’d got rid of the conservatory,’ Ivan went on now, filling two mugs with tea from the pot. ‘Someone actually said it was a waste, and that Kitty had loved sitting out there on summer evenings.’ Exasperation flickered in his deep brown eyes.
‘They’re just curious,’ she remarked.
‘Yes, because there’s not enough important stuff for them to think about—’
‘That’s so patronising,’ she retorted, sensing a wave of fatigue now. The children had just gone to bed and she had a list of chores to rattle through before she could kick off her shoes and relax. ‘This is what it’s like, living in the country,’ she added. ‘People notice all the little things around them. I know that might seem weird and intrusive to you, but it also means they actually care. Look how Della looked after me, when we lost the baby.’
‘Yeah, okay,’ he said hotly. ‘I s’pose I’m just not used to being so … noticed.’
‘What’ve you got to hide?’
‘Nothing!’ he exclaimed.
‘What’s this dossier you’re so afraid of then?’
His face broke into a reluctant smile, as if he had finally realised how curmudgeonly he was being. ‘Come on – country life’s new to you too,’ he added. ‘You can’t say where you grew up was rural.’
‘Well, no,’ she conceded.
‘So you must know what I mean.’
Of course she did. Naturally, they’d had friends in Manchester – but there had also been that relative anonymity that comes with living in a city. There’d been a pretty transient population in their street; it was the first house they’d bought together, before they’d had kids, and was in a more studenty area than they’d have chosen now. Whilst Ivan seemed to miss their life there, Lucy didn’t.
After the miscarriage her new friends in Burley Bridge had showed up with cards, flowers and pot-luck suppers. Women with whom she had only chatted sporadically at the school gate had stopped her in the village and asked if she was okay, suggested a coffee, and given her their numbers in case she ever needed anything. Touchingly, they had also made a point of inviting Marnie and Sam for extra playdates and even days out – as, of course, the children had been looking forward to the new baby coming too.
Burley Bridge was a special place, Lucy felt; even more so since they had lost the baby. Perhaps it had made her put down roots here more quickly than she would have otherwise.
She also knew her husband well enough to realise how stubborn he could be, and that there was no point in trying to force him into feeling entirely settled here. Ivan had agreed to move – and that had been nothing short of miraculous. However, Lucy was also convinced that he would come round, and eventually love the village as much as she did. It would just take a little more time.