Julian is sleeping off the effect of last night’s visit to the cottage. From the sounds of smashing on the flagstones which woke her up at midnight, he was inebriated. His jacket, slung over the bannister, reeks of smoke. She hopes it is only from tobacco; the doctors suggested his medication prohibited him from smoking anything else.
Miriam did not go with him to cottage last night. She said one of them had to stay with the sleeping Peter. Unlike some parents she has read about, Miriam does not trust to baby monitors. She does not tell Julian she will not befriend ‘the group’, as she calls David, Maggie, Amy and Simon. She will be pleasant and helpful but that’s it.
Miriam sweeps up the glass shards and fetches a bucket of water to wash the hall. It is still hard to refer to the farmhouse as ‘home’; the place smacks of her father-in-law. It is as though they have carved out small runs through the forest of Seymour’s life to scuttle between bed, bathroom and kitchen. Some parts, such as Seymour’s darkroom, they do not enter. Julian locked it as soon as Seymour died as though the room contained secrets. But once the money from Julian’s inheritance comes through, things will have to change. The place is tumbling down.
28
She presumed the knocking was Andrew Bishop coming for her shopping list. So it was a shock to see Seymour standing there, a scarf wrapped around his neck like one of those African tribesman with an extended neck.
‘Mrs Morle,’ he said sheepishly, ‘I have come to make amends and to beg your forgiveness. To apologise for my insufferable behaviour in foolishly suggesting I no longer needed your services. I could not have been more wrong. I’ve brought you these.’
He handed her a large bunch of flowers; the softest pink carnations, a sprinkling of tiny white rosebuds and feathery fronds. Despite everything, her arms accepted them.
‘Mrs Morle,’ Seymour said as she breathed the heady scent, ‘is there any way you could come back to work for me and Julian? We would be so grateful.’
She peered through the foliage. She’d only occasional glimpses of the man these past six months when he drove in or out of the farmyard. There’s been no sign of him or anyone at all over Christmas. Seymour’s tanned face suggested a visit to warmer climes.
Since that police visit last September, Julian’s friends had disappeared like a bad smell. Good riddance. She had asked Andrew Bishop what the police had been after but, despite his contacts in the local force, he couldn’t find out. That-girl-Amy had not been round asking for chutney recipes and the one who picked dock leaves saying she’d use them as toilet paper, and the boys too, all vanished. The only people Mrs Morle ever saw were Julian and sometimes that man Gerald. City types never lasted long in the country and that was a fact.
‘Would you come back as our housekeeper, Mrs Morle?’ Seymour’s tone was just this side of pleading.
When Seymour sacked her, Mrs Morle had quickly found two cleaning jobs. One for a family who lived in the village and another for a couple in the town. The three-mile walk to the village was manageable but the other job meant taking the bus. That was unpredictable and the journey tiring, especially in the winter. His offer was tempting. But Mrs Morle could not forget the insulting way Seymour had terminated her work, out of the blue and by letter.
It was as though he’d heard her mind working.
‘I did not discuss with you properly my need to change your working arrangements, and that is unforgivable, Mrs Morle. But I hope you can be generous enough to see your way past my misdemeanour with my sincerest apology. Could you, Mrs Morle?’ Just then Andrew Bishop pulled up in his Cortina. ‘Morning,
Mr Stratton, cold enough for you? Anything you want getting from the shops, Mrs Morle? I’m on my way.’
‘Yes Andrew, I do,’ she replied. ‘I’ll just fetch my list.’
The most exciting item on it was a packet of sausages. Two cleaning jobs did not replace the money she had earned from Seymour and she had to be careful. No one was averse to economy, of course, but it would be nice to have a roast on a Sunday and not to worry about the electricity bill.
Seymour was talking to Andrew. ‘Morning, you off to town? Mrs Morle, let me save you the walk and take the list over to Andrew.’
The man guffawed at something funny Seymour must have said. That infuriated her. ‘Something wrong with your neck?’ Why was the man trussed up like a turkey with that silly scarf? ‘How is Julian these days?’
‘He’s fine. Missing you, though. Especially when I’m working away so much.’
‘He always did, Mr Stratton. I suspect he misses his friends too. Haven’t seen them about…’
‘Yes, well, that situation didn’t work out the way we hoped, I’m afraid. There we are. I took him away on holiday for Christmas and now he’s going to…’
‘I’ll be off then, Mrs Morle, if there’s nothing else you want at all,’ Andrew Bishop called out.
‘Give me a minute, will you, Andrew?’
It would suit her so much better to work for the Strattons. She did miss Julian, too. He was a queer boy but a good one. Her resolve melted.
‘Get me a leg of lamb as well would you, Andrew? A small one mind.
