Chapter 29

29

‘Theo, come here, darling!’

Frida’s shrill tone cuts through the early afternoon stillness as Pearl and Niall head back towards Shore Cottage. Then: ‘Theo, please stop that for a moment, sweetheart. Isn’t this beautiful? You must come and look at this view!’

Pearl catches Niall’s glance. ‘He’s six.’ He chuckles. ‘I don’t think he’s interested in views…’

‘She might as well say, “Come and see this fascinating tax return, darling”,’ Pearl adds. But then her expression drops as Stan barks sharply and she sees what’s happening in front of the house. ‘Theo!’ she cries out as Niall runs ahead.

‘No, you can’t do that to Stan,’ he says firmly. When Pearl catches up he is already disentangling a length of frayed old rope that’s been wound in a complicated fashion around the dog’s collar and forelegs.

‘What were you doing, Theo?’ she exclaims.

‘I made a harness.’ He grins proudly.

‘Yes, but he doesn’t need a harness.’ Niall stuffs the rope into a jacket pocket.

‘Yes, but I want to ride him?—’

‘Yes, but Stan doesn’t want to be ridden,’ Niall says firmly.

‘Yes, but I want to ride him?—’

‘Yes, but he’s a dog’ – Pearl has jumped right into the yes-but game – ‘not a pony.’

‘Come over here and see how the water ripples in the sunshine, Theo!’ his mother trills, to no effect.

‘ I want him to be a pony .’ Theo’s dark eyes beam fury.

‘He’s not, though,’ Niall says lightly. ‘Sorry, but it’s biologically impossible.’

‘And Theo, it’s not kind to do that to Stan.’ Pearl bobs down to his height. He has the look of a sculpted cherub: plump-cheeked and pouting, face so pale as to be almost translucent, crowned by light blond curls. She pictures him in a museum, on a plinth, with a little label on it: Irritating child, mid-2020s, marble.

His bottom lip protrudes. ‘But he likes it.’

‘Hmm, I’d say that evidence suggests otherwise,’ Niall remarks as Stan mooches away, head dipped, back into the house.

Theo looks around for his mother. However, it’s his father who appears, excitedly brandishing an Ordnance Survey map. ‘What d’you say we go for a nice big walk, Theo? Just me and you, let Mummy have a rest?’

‘Where to?’ The child glowers.

‘Well, I thought we could climb that big hill there?’ He points in some seemingly random direction.

‘What’s there?’ Theo peers over as if there might be something he would like to see.

‘Well, it’s just a hill, but?—’

‘There’s nothing there!’

‘Yes but we could climb it and see the amazing view?—’

‘No.’

‘Or just… walk towards it?’ Roger says brightly. ‘So we could look it?—’

‘No.’

‘Well, how about we just go to the end of the lane?’

‘What’s there ?’

‘You know, just sheep and things. This is the countryside, Theo?—’

‘I want to go to Happy Castle,’ Theo announces.

‘Oh, there is a castle,’ Pearl announces. ‘You’d probably need to drive there, but it’s not too far. We could pack you a picnic…’ Get you off the premises for a while, dog molesting little monster.

‘It’s not a real castle,’ Theo growls.

‘No, it is,’ Pearl insists. ‘It’s hundreds of years old. A proper historical castle with a moat and?—’

‘Erm, the one Theo’s talking about isn’t a real castle.’ Roger grins apologetically. ‘Happy Castle is a soft play centre near where we live.’

‘Can we go there?’ Theo brightens.

‘Not today, darling.’ Roger pats his shoulder. ‘But we’re going home tomorrow, so very soon?—’

‘Hurrah!’ Theo punches the air.

‘I’ll second that,’ Niall murmurs as he and Pearl leave father and son in intense negotiations over what to do next, while Mummy ‘rests’. ‘I mean, for them,’ he adds as they step back into the cottage. ‘I could happily stay here for longer, couldn’t you? Although I realise this is hardly the kind of break you’d planned…’

‘No, I love it here,’ Pearl says. ‘And it’s fun, you know, helping to run this place, even just for a weekend. Like nothing I’ve ever done before.’

‘That’s good to hear,’ he says with a smile.

She stops and looks at him. ‘And I really needed to get away. We all did.’

Niall nods, and she knows that, for whatever reason, he did too. And later, as they amass what’s needed for dinner from the woodshed freezer, he tells her a little more about his life in Derbyshire, and the cottage he’s bought there and is doing up. And in turn, Pearl finds herself telling him a little of her own story. How Dean was the love of her life, and how, over the past eleven years, she has tried to build a different kind of life. And how that life now includes Abi.

Later still, as they fetch more wood for the fire in the lounge, Niall fills her in on why he’d decided to do Christmas alone this year. ‘So, my wife and I split up a year ago. She’s French and her parents still live in Rouen, where she grew up. And last year she decided to go over on a pre-Christmas visit with the kids…’

‘You have kids?’ Pearl isn’t sure why this surprises her.

‘I do, yes. A boy and a girl. I couldn’t go – I had a work assignment to finish – and Helene didn’t seem to mind.’ He pauses as the new firewood catches light. ‘In fact she seemed quite pleased that I couldn’t join them. She just needed a break, she said. A little break from…’

‘Christmas?’ Pearl suggests.

‘More like me, I think. Or our marriage. At least, that’s what I assumed because off they all went. And then came the announcement that they were in fact staying in Rouen for Christmas. And then…’

Niall rubs at his face. Clearly, this is still painful for him, and Pearl isn’t sure how to react. ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmurs.

He exhales. The fire is crackling comfortingly now, drawing them close with its warmth. ‘We started this year with Helene telling me she wanted to split,’ he goes on. ‘And that she planned to move back to France permanently, with the kids.’

‘Oh no!’ Pearl’s gaze meets his.

‘Yeah. It was all a bit… y’know.’ She doesn’t know – she can’t imagine – but she touches his arm, encouraging him to go on. ‘And then the kids were being enrolled into French schools,’ he adds quickly, ‘and that was that.’

She searches his expression, trying to imagine how she’d feel if Brandon had been whisked away to another country. She’s certain that her heart couldn’t take another loss. ‘But what about their life at home?’ she asks. ‘Their school, their friends… and you ? Were they okay about all that?’

He seems to consider how to answer this. ‘The thing is, they’d always had a life out there too, with their grandparents. Every year, they’d spent huge parts of their summers there and they loved it. So…’

‘Yes, but what about you? Didn’t you have any say in it at all?’

‘I did. Of course I did. But it’s what they all wanted, so we set up an arrangement where they’d spend their school holidays with me. The whole summer, for one thing. They’re old enough now – thirteen and fourteen – that we can travel together, so we did that this year and it was great .’

Pearl nods, resting her gaze on the glow of the fire. Although she barely knows him she can tell he’s being stoical, and that he’s found a way to make the best of the situation. ‘It still must be difficult, though,’ she ventures, and he nods.

‘We’ve made it work. And they’re happy there living in Helene’s family home with the pool and ponies. They’ve grown up bilingual so that’s not an issue…’ But what about other issues? she wants to ask. What about you missing them, and vice versa? ‘And Helene reckons I get the best of them,’ Niall adds, ‘away from the school schedules and homework, the tedium of the everyday. A whole two months to do fun stuff. And in a way, she’s right.’

Pearl wants to say how admirable it is, how he seems to have managed this. And also that, compared to what Niall’s been through with his children, it seems churlish to be upset about her current home situation. What does it matter if Abi hogs the bathroom and mashes up her Tom Ford lipstick? Because at least Brandon is still with her. She makes a mental note to be extra tolerant of Abi because, if and when they do move out, she’ll miss him terribly.

‘You seem like a really good dad,’ she tells him, ‘wanting what’s best for them.’

He shakes his head, dismissing the compliment. ‘Oh, I don’t think so. Not really—’ Then there are voices in the kitchen and he breaks off, perhaps relieved by the distraction.

‘Don’t worry, Frida,’ Shelley is saying. ‘Dinner will be exactly as advertised tonight…’

‘It’s not that I minded the surprise change of plan, but?—’

‘No, you can trust us,’ Pearl says as she strides through to join them. ‘Everything’s in full working order now and we’ll have dinner on the table by seven.’

‘On the dot?’ Frida raises a sharply plucked brow.

‘On the dot,’ Shelley says firmly. Then she steps outside into the gathering dusk where, for the first time since she arrived here, she plans to call her husband.