As spring edged its way into a glorious summer, the steady stream of guests brought benefits – and not just in providing Lucy with an income. It meant there was little time for her to stop and wonder where her life was going, and what her future held. Looking after these strangers, as well as her children, was pulling her along, and the long summer’s days often saw Rosemary Cottage’s garden filled with children as Marnie and Sam had friends over to play.
Whereas once Lucy had crept in to steal redcurrants, now her own kids’ friends would arrive en masse for lengthy games and sprawling picnics that Lucy would somehow manage to throw together with zero notice. She made real lemonade, syrupy flapjacks and mounds of chocolate chip cookies, which she would dole out whilst still warm from the oven. She had become known amongst the other mums for ‘going the extra mile’, as Carys put it, fondly – and perhaps she was trying to compensate for something she couldn’t give Marnie and Sam.
She probably didn’t need to go to such lengths. Her garden seemed irresistible to children anyway – perhaps because everything grew abundantly and was wild and cottagey, rather than neat. Lucy was happy for the children to play freely here, and so tents were pitched, dens constructed, blankets and cushions dragged outside, and Bramble the spaniel was a near-permanent fixture as he scampered around on the lawn.
James had taken to dropping round too, and she welcomed his company. She had learned more about his home life and about Spike, whom he clearly adored, and even more about the break-up with his son’s mother.
‘Things settled down,’ he told her, when she’d gently quizzed him about where things stood one Sunday in June as they drank tea in her garden. Chocolate-sausage-Josh was here, and the three children were busily building a den, involving a wooden clothes horse and blankets and no small degree of bossing by Marnie.
‘After the phone smashing and whisky slugging,’ Lucy remarked with a smile.
James nodded and smiled too, and told her that he’d managed to behave rationally even when, that first summer after she’d left, Facebook had buckled under the sheer quantity of Michaela’s holiday photos – just like their photos, but with James replaced by Ali, and the Brittany coast swapped for Ali’s holiday home in Gran Canaria, complete with hot tub on the decking, in which the three of them were pictured, grinning in the bubbles, as if life was just one big long jacuzzi now. But at least Spike seemed fine, which was all that mattered really.
She learned that James had met Ali, the acupuncturist, numerous times, when he’d picked up or dropped off Spike from his ex’s new place – and managed to remain civil, partly because Ali was something like six foot five with a barrel chest and oddly dense, vertically sitting hair, ‘like a sandy-coloured shag-pile carpet,’ as James put it. They chuckled over his description.
The two men’s encounters tended to be mercifully brief, he explained: the first involving an awkward handshake on Michaela and Ali’s doorstep, when it had felt as if Ali had wanted to crush his bones, and James had certainly wanted to punch him extremely hard. However, over the months and years, James – and, crucially, Spike – had become used to the new shape of things.
‘Are things still working out with Rikke?’ Lucy asked as they headed indoors; the day was growing cooler and she needed to cook dinner for the kids. Sam and Marnie had accepted her friendship with James without question, and why not? She enjoyed him being around. It made a pleasant change to have a man about the place from time to time.
‘She’s brilliant,’ James replied. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without her, to be honest.’
‘No sign of your brother coming back?’
‘Doesn’t look like it at the moment. Seems like Switzerland’s his home now – at least, for as long as this liaison lasts.’
Lucy smiled and gave James a quick glance as she extracted pizzas from the freezer. Occasionally, she wondered whether he had had many ‘liaisons’ since he and Spike’s mum had split up. He hadn’t mentioned anyone, and she got the impression that with his son, his work and weekly dashes to Burley Bridge to see his father, James’s life was pretty full.
‘I forgot,’ he said as he was about to leave. ‘I have something in the car for you. It came from a boat I was working on—’
‘What is it?’ Lucy asked.
They headed outside where he lifted an enormous cork pinboard from the boot of his car. ‘Please say if you don’t want it,’ James said quickly. ‘I just thought, with Sam having that museum in his room, maybe it’d be handy—’
‘Oh, I’m sure it would,’ she started.
‘I don’t want to dump it on you.’ He smiled apologetically.
‘No,’ she said, beaming, ‘it’s fantastic. That’s so thoughtful of you … but doesn’t Spike want it?’
James shook his head. ‘He’s always rescuing bits and bobs from the boats I work on. There’s not a spare inch of space on his bedroom wall.’
‘Well, thank you for thinking of us.’ Lucy called Sam over as James carried the board towards the house. ‘Look what James brought for your room, love. You could pin exhibits to it – feathers, leaves and all sorts …’
‘That’s great,’ he enthused. ‘Thanks!’ The sight of her son grinning up at James made Lucy’s heart turn over. How lucky they were in so many ways, she reflected, with friends who cared about them. And how lucky she was that she had run into James in the hospital car park last year.
As he left that day, she hugged him warmly without a second’s thought, and it felt just right.