‘It’s weird,’ Alex murmured to Tony and Hugh at the bar. ‘There’s no point pretending my mother isn’t behaving like someone I don’t know. Look at her.’
‘I know,’ Hugh said, sliding wine glasses into overhead racks. ‘I’ll finish these and go upstairs. She’s working something out and I think the fewer people around to watch her, the better.’
Alex put a hand into Tony’s on the bar to make sure he didn’t think he ought to leave, too.
He gave her a quick smile. ‘Lily’s a very even-tempered person, very reserved, but she’s got a right to get upset sometimes. Something is really hurting her.’
Hugh dimmed the lights behind the bar and went around the room turning down wall sconces before locking doors on his way to the inn and his rooms. He wished goodnight to Lily and the Burke sisters when he passed. The three of them leaned their heads together over the circular oak table. Mary’s one-eyed ginger tabby, Max – curled up on the table as he was most of the time – having arrived in the covered shopping cart the sisters used for his transport. Katie lay on her side before the fire with Bogie resting his head on her back.
‘Look at them,’ Tony said. ‘Someone ought to paint them. Maybe you. I haven’t noticed you talking about painting in that studio of yours lately.’
‘I couldn’t do them justice. Not my style but they do make a lovely group.’ She looked across at them. ‘That’s the oddest part. Harriet and Mary wouldn’t have stayed tonight if Mum hadn’t asked them to. They’re never here at closing, let alone after closing. It’s as if they’re her most trusted friends in the world.’ She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
‘You’re hurt,’ Tony said. He ducked his head to look into her face. ‘Aren’t you? Please don’t be. Lily knew the sisters when you were very young, she’s said as much. And I’ve always had the feeling there was a special relationship between them – an understanding, if you like. If they can help her deal with whatever’s bugging her, let’s celebrate.’
‘Wise as usual.’ She touched his jaw. ‘And right. I wouldn’t say I can celebrate, but I can try to be a grown-up.’
‘Why didn’t you take a coat today?’
She took an instant to change focus. ‘Oh, I did. I threw it over Mr Hill’s legs to help put out the sparks. It’s in the back of my Range Rover but I’ll have to bin it.’ Her mother caught her eye. ‘I think my mum wants us to join them.’
They took their beers and went to pull extra chairs up to the table. Lily shifted closer to Harriet to make room for them – just.
‘I was still a teenager, wasn’t I?’ she said to the sisters. ‘When Alex and I came to live here.’
Alex glanced at Tony. This wasn’t a subject she would ever expect her mother to raise.
‘Just a girl,’ Mary said. ‘Not quite twenty. Hard times, I’m sure, aren’t you, Harriet?’ Both ladies were overly pink-cheeked.
All three women held the stems of sherry glasses. A bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream Sherry stood on the table, another first-time event in Alex’s memory.
‘Yes,’ Harriet said. ‘But I think parts of it were happy, too.’
‘A lot of it was.’ Lily kept her eyes downcast. ‘I knew what I had to do by then. You were good to me. Not everyone was, but they didn’t bother me as much as they wanted to.’
Alex’s mother never ever mentioned the history of how she came to live here. Growing up, Alex asked about and got the barest details of her early life. It had been obvious Lily didn’t intend to reveal more and eventually Alex had stopped asking.
‘We lived in Underhill,’ she said tentatively. ‘But you worked here at the Black Dog. I remember coming here after school from when I was little and playing in the garden in the summer. When it got colder I went in the snug if it was empty, or one of the rooms upstairs. I went to pre-school at the rectory. I remember bits about that.’
‘There’s nothing interesting about all that,’ Lily said. She flapped a hand. ‘All in the past.’
‘What’s the matter, Mum?’ Alex said. ‘Can you tell us? Do you want me to come to the cottage with you tonight?’
‘Anything I can tell you, I can tell Tony. That’s how it should be when two people are as close as you are. And he’s like his father – he keeps his own counsel.’
Lily and Doc James enjoyed each other’s company when they had time free from their busy lives and the mutual affection they held for each other was well known.
She stroked Max, who was supposed to be invisible when he was on the table, and gave a small, bitter laugh. ‘Harriet and Mary are my oldest friends.’
‘We’ll take that as a compliment,’ Mary said, her eyes huge behind very thick glasses.
‘We’ve been talking about old times,’ Lily said. ‘But I need to share this with Alex, too.’ From a pocket in her dress, Lily removed a legal-sized envelope. She put it on the table in front of her and smoothed her fingertips along the ragged opening.
The revolution in Alex’s stomach wasn’t a new experience but she hated the feeling. ‘What is that? Mum?’ She leaned forward and shook Lily’s wrist. ‘Mum?’
Lily’s skin was clammy, her face ashen.
‘Would you like to lie down?’ Tony asked. ‘You’re not feeling well, are you?’
She shook her head, no. ‘But I don’t want to lie down. I want to know why this makes me feel anything at all.’ She lifted the envelope and stared at the typed address. ‘I’ve had it for weeks.’
‘Lily—’
‘It’s just that I thought … I more or less thought she might have died years ago.’ She stared into Alex’s face. ‘She promised she’d come back. That was when I was ten but it was in the back of my mind all these years and I couldn’t help hoping she’d come through the door. Sometimes I still look for her among faces in the street, or in shops.’
Alex didn’t dare speak. They sat listening to silence but for the spitting fire.
‘My mother died in July last year,’ Lily said. She raised her chin. ‘It’s all right. I should have expected it, but I didn’t, not really. I suppose it’s normal to take a while to accept these things. There, out of my system. And you belong with Tony tonight, my girl.’