A Place in the Country (7 page)

Caroline thought sadly about the James she had first known, the astute businessman, the man about town, the charmer, the caring lover, the good father.

“James is in trouble,” Mark said. “I don't know yet exactly what
kind
of trouble, but something's wrong. Money went missing then was replaced. He's not always where he says he is going to be.” A frown creased Mark's forehead. “He's not always doing what we had planned on doing. He's lost me clients because of it.”

Caroline stared at him, stunned. James had always been the perfect executive; showing up for meetings anywhere in the world, always correct, always on time, always there for his clients. And his partner.

“That's why I asked about your payments,” he said. “I wanted to know he was being straight with you.”

“He isn't,” she admitted. “Well, sometimes. I mean I get some money and then I don't, but I thought that was just James being mean. If he were a woman I'd say he was being bitchy.”

Mark laughed. He said, “Now, tell me about Issy. She'll be growing up so fast I'll hardly know her.”

“Of course you will,” she said. “Issy will never change.”

“We'll take her out to lunch, tomorrow, if that's okay?”

“More than just ‘okay.'”

It was time for him to leave. A black Mercedes with a driver waited for him, parked illegally across the street. Men like Mark always parked wherever they wanted, Caroline thought.

“I'm at the Randolph, in Oxford,” he said. “I'll call you first thing, make arrangements to pick you up.”

She waved him goodbye then stood for a minute, staring at the empty spot where his car had been. Had it been a mirage? Had James's old friend come to find her and offered to take care of her? Had he
almost
asked her to marry him? She looked across the road at the reality of the Star & Plough, at the young people leaning up against the wall, smoking, chatting, laughing. Flirting.

The door opened and another crowd spilled out. Among them was the carpenter. He spotted Caroline and lifted a hand in a goodnight salute. She waved back.

Of course she wasn't flirting. She didn't even know how, anymore. Still she felt better.

 

chapter 13

Mark returned
the next morning and picked them up in the chauffeured black Mercedes.

“Look at you,” he said to Issy, teasing. “I'd swear you were twenty-three.”

Caroline saw the blush rise all the way up her daughter's neck. She also noticed she was wearing the precious cashmere sweater her father had sent from Hong Kong months ago, and that she knew Issy kept hidden in the old Hello Kitty bag under her bed.

She also knew how much that sweater meant to her; it meant her father had thought about her long enough to go to the store and pick it out for her and have them send it, with a little card that said
With love from Daddy.
Despite his neglect, James must still love his daughter, he was just too ashamed and guilt-ridden to come to see her. James's mind was elsewhere these days.

The sweater was a pale blue crewneck. Over it Issy wore her parka and her red school scarf. She'd pulled her hair into a ponytail and wore pink lip gloss.

Caroline was in a brown wool dress. She wondered when she ever thought
brown
was a good color for her? She'd bought it five years ago on a trip to Hong Kong, in their famous department store Lane Crawford. It wasn't the most attractive dress there, but it had fit perfectly and required no alterations and, since she'd needed it for a dinner that evening, that was what she got. And the fact was now it was the only one of her old dresses that actually did fit, thanks to those extra pub pounds. She'd vowed late last night a diet was absolutely necessary. Did she remember that though when they ended up for lunch at the famous Manoir aux Quat' Saisons? Of course not.

Sitting opposite Issy, with Mark between them, at a window table with a view of the rolling lawns dotted with shade trees, Caroline thought that to the other diners, they must look like the perfect family, a daughter having lunch with her parents.

To Caroline's surprise, Issy decided to have oysters. She sipped champagne, feeling good. Her brown dress looked nice, thank-the-Lord not too tight, and she'd filled the deep V-neck with a faux-gold tangle of necklaces. The narrow skirt stopped just above the knee and she'd added a gold mesh bracelet, bought at Agatha in Paris a decade ago, and gold stud earrings. She'd also slung a pashmina round her shoulders, a little dated perhaps but those shawls served a multitude of purposes; they kept you warm and added a spot of color where needed—bright turquoise in this case—and also hid a multitude of sins, like an added pound or so. Her shoulder-length black hair was brushed smooth, the fringes carefully swept to one side so as not to tangle with her glasses, horn-rims today, sort of like Mark's actually. They went better with the brown dress, even though Issy had said they made her look like a schoolteacher.

“It's better than looking like a pub cook,” Caroline had said.

“You know, Issy,” Mark was saying, “I wish your father could be here. He's just so busy these days, but I know he thinks about you.”

“He was
always
too busy for us,” Issy replied, unwilling to be fobbed off with platitudes about her dad loving her. “At least he could find the time to call me, or write.”

Mark sighed. “There's nothing I can do about that.”

“Never mind.” She sounded so grown up and composed, Caroline wanted to cry for her. Then the oysters came and Issy even decided she liked them.

They drank a bottle of excellent Puligny-Montrachet and a lot of laughter and good food later, Caroline decided it was time to take Mark to look at their barn.

First though, she and Issy went to the ladies' room. It was beautifully done up, with pretty wallpaper, linen hand towels, and mirrors that allowed you to believe you didn't look half-bad, especially after a bottle of wine.

“Mom?” Issy called from the stall.

Caroline was combing her hair, adding some lipstick. “Yes?”

“I really,
really
like Mark.”

“Good,” she replied cautiously. “I like him too.”

Issy emerged, standing next to her, washing her hands. “Mom?”

“What now?”

“He'd make a very good substitute father. And besides I know he likes you. I saw the way he looked at you.”

“Mark is a very good friend,” she said, noncommittally, waiting for Issy to dry her hands.

“Yeah, that's good too. But with Mark we could go back and live in Singapore.”

“Isabel Evans you are getting way above yourself,” Caroline said, shocked. “Enough. Right now, we're going to show Mark our new home.”

Standing at the bottom of the rutted driveway, Caroline thought her future home looked a lot better under the spring sunshine. The little tree had sprouted a few green leaves and the river slid gently past, throwing off sparkles here and there. She had been to look at her barn so many times by now she knew its layout and its history by heart.

“It dates from the early seventeenth century,” she told them and saw Issy turn away, deliberately not listening. “The stone was hewn by local men thought to be monks running from religious persecution under Cromwell, hiding out in the deep countryside, building their little house and the tiny secret chapel. Of course the chapel has long since disappeared but some of its stones can still be found under the grass.”

She pushed open the squeaking barn doors and stepped into the flagged hall, which led into another enormous room. The floor was covered in worn linoleum, and there was a raised platform at one end, for the band and the dancing, Caroline supposed. A passage off the hall led to a squalid kitchen with an ancient cooker and a worn stone sink. Double French doors opened from that onto a small walled courtyard. A spiral stone staircase led up to a beamed room filled with a watery-river light. Another short turn in the stairs led to three more rooms and a fifties-style pink-tiled bathroom that matched the kitchen in its squalor.

Outside, across the little courtyard and through a gate, was a tiny cottage. One corner had been made over into a kitchen and upstairs was a bedroom and small bathroom.

Best of all, though, Caroline thought proudly, was the terrace: the lovely curve of the river, and she imagined herself sitting on that low stone wall on a lovely summer morning, with a cup of coffee, and her dreams.

Looking at the two of them, though, she realized they didn't understand. Only
she
saw the barn this way. Only
she
saw the bones of the place, stripped of its ugly linoleum and Formica, its sordid kitchen and bathroom. Only
she
could imagine it, warm and cozy with an Aga in winter, cool and sunny and filled with light in summer, alive with Issy's young friends while she barbecued burgers on the terrace for them and eavesdropped on their conversations.

Mark was looking at the faded sign,
Bar, Grill, and Dancing.
He said, “They must have had a license for this place. I'll bet you could reapply for one.”

She stared at him, astonished. “Run it as a bar, you mean?”

He shrugged. “You're a cook, aren't you? Why not open it as a restaurant?”

It certainly gave her something to think about.

 

chapter 14

A few weeks later,
on a bright, sunny morning Caroline went with Maggie and Jesus to clean up the barn.

“Daunting” was the first word that came to her mind when she looked at it. “Impossible” was the second, after Jesus had jimmied open the front door which had swollen in the recent rains. “
God!
” was the third when she stepped over the threshold into the black hole that was supposed to be her new home. And also her restaurant, if the council ever came through with that license, a new battle in which the words “inspection” and “original footprint” featured frequently.

“Well, then,” Maggie said, sounding deliberately cheerful, pushing past in the dark and heading as though she had built-in radar, toward the row of French doors, throwing them creakily open onto the terrace. A couple of ducks glanced lazily over their shoulders, then continued cleaning their feathers, enjoying the sun.

A battered skip stood outside the door, ready for whatever they chucked out, which promised to be a lot, and then some. Knowing it was going to be dirty work, Caroline had worn old sweatpants with
SINGAPORE FLING GYM
on the backside, and the old yellow “running-away-from-home” sweater.

Maggie went to the truck and came back with hard hats and thick gardening gloves. “You never know what's in there,” she said, handing them out. Jesus was on his knees levering up dead linoleum. It cracked like pistol shots. He said that was a good thing, it meant the floor itself must be dry.

“One bit of good news today, then,” Caroline said pulling on a pair of the thick gardening gloves. She saw Maggie already cleaning off shelves, running her arm along them and letting everything drop into her trolley with a satisfying crash.

Caroline decided to start on the kitchen, but first she took a look at the courtyard. In the center was an overgrown flower bed, divided into four squares by low, box hedges. She leaned over and picked a sprig of lavender.
Real lavender.
And next to it was … could that be
true
?
Basil
.
And parsley, and lemon-thyme?

“Mags, Mags, we have our own herb garden,” she yelled, thrilled.

Maggie came and stood in the doorway, hands on her hips, but she was staring horrified at the kitchen, and the cooker that was encrusted with enough grunge to earn a fail rating from any inspector.

She said, “This is about the worst I've ever seen. And don't forget, I know what I'm talking about. I was a poor girl in Mexico.”

Caroline's heart sank as reality finally set in. What had she done? Her daughter was right and no amount of work or money would ever put this place into habitable condition, let alone turn it into a restaurant, even if she was an experienced cook, and even if Issy would come and live there, which she said she definitely would not. And even if James came and rescued her and said he would take care of it all for her, which he most definitely would not …

Jesus came to take a look at the cooker, and immediately got on his mobile.

An hour later a large pickup trundled up the drive, listing from side to side in the deep ruts carved by the mud. To Caroline's surprise the driver was the dusty dark-haired carpenter from Friday nights at the pub. So this is what he did? Shift people's junk for them.

“Hey,” he said, strolling over, thumbs stuck in the pockets of his jeans.

She noticed they fit him very well; in fact they fit exactly the way jeans should.

“Hey, yourself,” she replied, still caught up in admiring his butt.

“It's about a cooker?” he reminded her.

“We know each other.” Caroline got herself together and smiled at him. “I've seen you in the pub.”

“Right.” He waved his mate over, the huge giant of a man who looked capable of shifting the old stove all by himself. “This is Georgki, he's a stonemason. Heard you might be needing a bit of help.” He glanced at the barn. “Certainly looks as though they were right.”

Caroline led him quickly through the little courtyard-garden into the old kitchen. Thumbs still in his jeans pockets, he studied the situation.

“Lord save us,”
the giant named Georgki exclaimed, looking at the stove.

The carpenter said, “If anyone ever ate anything cooked on that bastard, he would have ended up at the Radcliffe Infirmary.”

“More like in coffin,” Georgki added, in what to Caroline sounded like a Russian accent.

The carpenter turned to smile at her. “Not to worry, we'll have this out in a flash. By the way, my name's James.”