Moira was a sad and lonely woman who had once been a beauty and who was now bitter from her decisions in life.
Tassie had once said there was nothing sadder than a faded beauty, and she realised that was true. Moira was truly lost and part of Rachel felt compassion but she couldn’t forgive her.
She turned to Clara. ‘I can’t let this guide my life. I hated her for so long and would dream of one hundred ways to kill her. What does that make me? I don’t want to live with that anymore. I just want her out of my life and for my life to move forward. If that means I have to have a smaller life to be free of her, then that’s okay with me, so it should be okay with you.’
Clara was silent, clutching the steering wheel and Rachel noticed her knuckles were white.
‘I don’t expect you to understand about those things I spoke about, Clara. The pain, the violence, the guilt, and the sadness, but this is what works for me now. I just want her gone from my life.’
Clara drove them back to Merryknowe, and when Rachel got out of the car, she went to say thank you to Clara but she drove away before she could speak.
She watched the red car disappear in the distance, then saw Tassie’s curtain flicker in the window across the road.
Tassie would understand. She walked to the old woman’s front door and as she was about to knock, it opened.
‘Cup of tea, love?’ Tassie asked and Rachel burst into tears.
‘Come in and let it out, love. Nahla came and cleaned and made a nice butter chicken for me, not too spicy, and some of her fancy thin bread. Come and share, and we can talk. I will read your future and show you that everything has a funny way of working out.’
So Rachel did.
43
Tassie folded a tea towel over the handrail next to her sink, as Pansy ran outside in the neatly trimmed garden at Tassie’s house.
‘I just don’t understand why she let Moira get away with it all,’ Clara said.
‘But she’s not getting away with anything. She’s left with nothing, not a friend in the world and not enough money to live the way she thinks she ought to live,’ said Tassie. ‘That’s not much of a life. She’ll have to get a job, as she’s not the age for the pension yet.’
‘Still…’ said Clara, now tapping her nails on the table.
‘Still nothing,’ said Tassie firmly. ‘Just because you want a type of justice doesn’t mean you get it. She got the justice that Rachel feels comfortable with. You wouldn’t want her to have to live with guilt forever, would you? That’s not good for anyone. Secrets and guilt get very heavy to carry after a while.’
Clara was quiet; all her previous fight had gone with Tassie’s words.
Tassie sat opposite her with a bowl of peas and started to shell them.
‘Did you grow these?’ asked Clara, as she picked up some pea pods and started copying Tassie.
‘I did indeed,’ said Tassie.
‘I’d like to grow peas,’ Clara said, as she ate one.
‘You can grow anything in that soil out there,’ said Tassie.
They shelled peas in silence, Tassie occasionally looking at Clara and then out through the open back door to check on Pansy who was doing a dance routine and singing to the apricot tree.
‘You all right, pet?’ Tassie asked Clara.
‘Of course, why?’ Clara’s voice was tight but Tassie could sense the emotion beneath the tone.
‘You seem frustrated,’ Tassie stated.
Clara shelled some more peas and then looked at Tassie.
‘I don’t know where I am, or what I’m doing, and I don’t know what Henry wants. We never talk about the future. It’s only about what needs to be done in the cottage, but what happens when it’s finished? What then?’
Tassie kept shelling the peas. ‘Why don’t you ask him?’
Clara said nothing.
‘Because you don’t know what you want?’ Tassie encouraged.
‘I thought I wanted the country life, but I think I’m going to be bored… but I don’t want to go and work in a bank in Salisbury. That defeats the purpose of the move.’
‘Life in a small village isn’t for everyone, no,’ agreed Tassie.
‘And once the cottage is done and the garden is sorted and planted and besides maintaining it, and collecting the eggs, what else can I do?’
Tassie shrugged. ‘You could start a business.’
‘Doing what?’ Clara scoffed.
‘But it’s not just about the cottage is it?’ Tassie said being careful. Clara was in a mood and everything in her way risked being pummelled.
‘I don’t know,’ said Clara but Tassie did know and she understood.
‘Pansy is a fast learner,’ she said. ‘Whipping through the letters easily. I think she will be right as rain for school soon.’
‘And that’s the other thing – Henry still hasn’t got her uniform. He said he would go into Chippenham and get her sorted but he hasn’t and I don’t want to be in the nagging wife role, reminding him, but he hasn’t done it yet and it’s annoying me. She needs shoes and hair ribbons and new pencils and a bag and lunch box and, well, everything.’
‘That she does,’ said Tassie, nodding in agreement.
‘My mum always had my things ready for me when school started,’ Clara said. ‘But I can’t say anything, because what am I to him and Pansy? And meanwhile his dead wife is in my cupboard in the cottage pie container and I swear to God I can hear her sometimes.’
‘What does she say?’ Tassie asked, looking up at Clara.
‘I don’t know but it feels like judgement,’ said Clara, making a face at the peas in the bowls between them.
‘You look like a child when you make that face,’ said Tassie.
Clara sighed. ‘I know what I sound like. I’m feeling like I’m in between two worlds right now and
