At the nurses’ station, the consultant asked if he could speak to her, and with her stomach clenching hard, she agreed and ended up in his office, perched on the edge of a chair.
“Your mother is making good progress,” she said with a kindly smile, “and the goal is for her to resume normal life after these twenty-eight days. But it’s important for her to be released into a safe situation, and from what Naomi has indicated, that does not exist here in London.” A weighty pause, and Emily knew what was coming.
“You want her to live with me.”
“If you feel that would be a viable option.”
“Yes, of course.” Without question. “I have a second bedroom, and lots of my mother’s things. I also work very locally, and could work from home if needed.” She swallowed hard. It would be a lot of adjustment.
“That’s wonderful. I’ll make a referral to a consultant in Oxford.”
Owen was already rising from his chair as Emily came down the corridor. “How was it?” he asked and she managed a smile.
“It was okay. Not as bad as it could have been, and not as good as I always wish it could be.”
“That’s understandable.”
“The consultant wants my mum to live with me when she’s released from here. I was expecting it, but…” Emily shook her head. “It’s going to be a big deal. The last time she came to live with me after being in hospital, I had to take a month of unpaid leave.”
“Will you do that again?”
“I don’t know. My job is a lot more flexible now, but…” She shook her head, closing her eyes briefly. “I can’t think about all that now. Yet.”
“It’s not for a few weeks,” Owen told her. “Look, why don’t we do something? Go somewhere?”
“Don’t you have to be back…?”
He shrugged. “The pub’s still closed. Let’s do something fun.”
She smiled, something like hope unfurling inside her. “Okay,” she said. “Henry said I could have the whole day off if I wanted. That sounds brilliant.”
Because it was still raining, they decided to stay inside, and Owen told her he was treating her to lunch at the Fortnum and Mason restaurant in St Pancras. Emily enjoyed avocado on toast while Owen ordered the manliest thing on the menu—a fried chicken escalope.
“Have you ever thought about serving food at The Drowned Sailor?” she asked as she cut her toast into neat squares.
“Certainly not food like this.”
“But what about really decent, plain pub grub? I haven’t been in The Three Pennies except to ask about the fundraiser, but I know Harriet was saying it had become too fancy. They serve escargot now, apparently.” She wrinkled her nose.
“I don’t know.” Owen shrugged as he stabbed a piece of chicken. “It’s not something I’ve thought about much. Most people come into my pub for a pint, not Pinot Grigio.”
“Yes, but everyone needs to eat.” She cocked her head as she noticed his slightly defensive stance—shoulders tense, gaze downcast. “What is it? Have I touched a nerve or something?”
“Not exactly.” He looked up with a wry smile. “It’s just…I’ve never wanted to pretend to be something I’m not.”
“How would serving food be doing that?”
Another shrug. “Just…trying to make The Drowned Sailor anything more than a watering hole, I suppose.”
Emily speared a piece of smashed avocado as she considered what he was saying—as well as what he didn’t seem to want to say. “Are you afraid people will sneer at you?” she asked cautiously. “For trying to be something more?”
“I’m not afraid.”
He sounded so stung, she had to smile. “You know what I mean.”
Restively Owen put down his fork. “I grew up poor, Emily. Dirt poor. Until I was twelve, our toilet was in the bottom of the garden.”
“Okay.” She shrugged right back at him. “I’m sorry about that, but so?”
A smile quirked his mouth at her challenge. “Don’t think I’m asking for pity. It’s just…I dropped out of school at fifteen, like I told you I didn’t even take my GCSEs, and no one bothered to check because too many of us were doing the same. I loafed around, getting up to no good…” He spread his hands. “Frankly, I’m amazed I got this far.”
“So am I,” Emily said, and he laughed at her honesty. Realising how she sounded, she shook her head with a smile. “What I mean is, you’re amazing, Owen. You’ve risen above so many challenges. If you’d followed the expected trajectory of your upbringing, you’d still be in Cwmparc, struggling to find a job—”
“And drinking my life away.”
“Perhaps,” she allowed. “But instead you got out, and you made something of yourself. You bought a pub, for heaven’s sake! So why not go even further, as far as you want?”
“We are talking about serving bar food, aren’t we?” Owen joked. “And not walking on the moon?”
“To infinity and beyond,” Emily quipped back. “Or maybe to fish and chips and beyond.”
“Maybe,” Owen allowed. She saw he wanted to drop it, and she decided she’d pressed enough. But it had felt good, to challenge and encourage, to have their relationship—if that’s what they had—be more give and take and not just her desperately needing Owen.
After lunch, they walked to the National Gallery and wandered through the elegant rooms for an hour or two, studying the paintings and then making a game of imagining what the people in portraits were thinking.
“He looks like he really needs to get to the bog,” Owen said in a carrying whisper, and Emily had to stifle her giggles.
By three o’clock, they decided to head back to Wychwood to miss the worst of the traffic, and they walked through a steady rain back to the van, getting soaked in the process.
“It’s been a wonderful day,”
