Creature Comforts

Chapter 2: Fault Lines

‘By then other drivers had stopped and the police were there in minutes,’ I said, trying to describe the scene to Daisy Silver, one of Aunt Debo’s oldest friends. ‘An ambulance came soon after, and then it all got a bit confusing.’

‘I expect it did, after such a shock,’ Daisy said in her calm, warm voice, pouring me a mug of coffee and pushing it across the wide, battered pine table in the cosy basement kitchen of her Hampstead house.

Her ample curves were enveloped in a familiar old rubbed purple velvet kaftan and she had loosened the thick plait of hair that usually circled her head like a silver crown so that it hung down her back to her waist … or where her waist would have been, had she had one.

‘Douglas is an awful man! I mean, he’s a doctor, yet instead of getting out to see if the people in the other car needed any help, he just kept on and on at me to say I was driving. Luckily no one was seriously injured, but the mother and two small children in the other car were really shaken up.’

‘He does seem to have entirely disregarded his Hippocratic oath,’ she agreed drily.

‘Yes and even when the police were questioning him, he insisted the driver of the other car was at fault and wanted me to back him up.’

‘Which I’m assuming you didn’t?’

‘No, of course not. I told them it was entirely his fault for overtaking on a bend and then, of course, he was even more furious with me. When they breathalysed him, he was way over the limit, so they charged him with drink-driving as well as dangerous driving and goodness knows what else … though, come to think of it, I didn’t tell them about him asking me to pretend to have been the driver.’

‘It sounds like he’ll be in enough trouble without that, so I wouldn’t worry about it.’

‘It would be just my word against his anyway, wouldn’t it?’

She nodded. ‘What happened next?’

‘We had to go to the police station, but eventually they said I could go, so I got into a taxi and came here. I never gave a thought to how much the fare would cost until we arrived, but I’ll pay you back tomorrow.’ I clamped my hands around the mug of hot coffee.

‘That’s not important, and you know I’m always glad to see you, whatever the reason.’

‘I do, and it seemed natural to head here,’ I said gratefully, for as well as knowing Daisy from her frequent visits to stay with us in Halfhidden, I’d spent several weeks convalescing with her after the original accident when I was sixteen. She was a child psychiatrist by profession, but I hadn’t been her patient; it was just that Debo had thought a total change of scene would do me good.

‘Very sensible,’ she approved. ‘In fact, you behaved extremely well, given the shock you’d had.’

‘It could easily have been a fatal crash.’ I shivered. ‘All because he drank too much and drove like an idiot.’

‘Health professionals have all the human failings, just like anyone else,’ Daisy said. ‘But I’m horrified he should have asked you to change places in the car with him.’

‘I don’t suppose Kieran ever told him about the accident I was involved in – in fact, Douglas probably doesn’t even know I can’t drive.’

‘He should never have thought of asking you, whether he did or not. It’s wonderful that the family in the other car weren’t hurt.’

She smiled at me and pushed over the open tin of coffee-iced biscuits. ‘Have some soothing sugar.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, taking one and crunching into the crisp coating.

For a few moments we munched in amicable silence.

Then Daisy said with her usual acuity, which I suppose was a vital component of her success as a psychiatrist, ‘Did something else happen, Izzy?’

‘Yes – or rather, two things happened just as we hit the other car. One of them was that I briefly went back to Heaven, like I did after the first accident … and then I was right out of my body, looking down.’

‘So you went through the bright tunnel again?’ she asked, interested.

‘There wasn’t any tunnel this time, I was just momentarily enveloped by light and colour and a strange kind of music … it was lovely. But right before that, just as we struck the other car …’

I tailed off, trying to frame the words for what I had experienced, and Daisy didn’t push me. Any more than she had when I’d arrived by taxi half an hour before in a distressed condition, and she’d merely greeted me with her usual, ‘Oh, there you are, Izzy! Come in,’ as if I was the most welcome and expected visitor in the world.

She’d always made me feel that way, especially when I was convalescing with her after that first dreadful accident. It was during that stay, after a trip to the V&A Museum, that I’d developed the consuming interest in textiles that eventually enabled me to help other women escape from grinding poverty. If you looked, there seemed to be a reason for everything that happened in life, good or bad … and that thought brought me back full circle to what I needed to say.

I looked up at her familiar apple-cheeked, wise face with its clever dark eyes. ‘It was the weirdest thing, Daisy, just as if time was a curtain that ripped open to let me slip through – because suddenly, I was there in the Range Rover on the night of the accident when Harry … when I …’

‘That’s interesting,’ Daisy said, ‘because you had no recollection of even getting into the car, let alone subsequent events.’

‘So you think it was a memory?’

‘Possibly, because a sudden shock can bring back things the subconscious has hidden – though it can also create new “memories”,’ she gently suggested.

‘You mean, I might have imagined the scene I saw? But it seemed so real! We were going along the lane up towards the Green and the others, Harry, Cara and Simon, were all singing. They’d been celebrating their exam results and Harry wanted me to go back to Sweetwell Hall with them to a party, but I’d already told him I couldn’t. If I wasn’t home by ten, Judy would go down to the pub to look for me … and that’s the last real memory of that evening I have.’

Aunt Debo, who had become my guardian after my mother’s early demise, had tended to lose track of my movements and the passing of time, while Judy, her best friend, who’d originally moved in to help with the childcare but never left, was more practical and firmly set the boundaries a teenager needed.

‘Judy was surprised you’d disobeyed her, but we knew Harry must have persuaded you. But to return to the flashback you had, if everyone was singing and happy, that was a good memory?’

‘I suppose so,’ I said, and though I think she guessed I was still holding something back, she didn’t press me. I changed tack.

‘I had another argument with Kieran on the phone last night and I’d decided things weren’t going to work out – or not the way he wanted them to – so I was going to have it out with him tomorrow, when he got back.’

‘You did seem unhappy about the way his parents were taking over your plans, last time we spoke.’

‘That was certainly part of it. Do you know, his mother had even started planning a huge wedding in Oxford, when I’d told her I’d always dreamed of a small one in the Halfhidden church.’

‘Well, Izzy, you certainly couldn’t have a big one in St Mary’s, because it can’t hold more than about thirty people at once, can it? And it’s your wedding, so you must have it where you want it.’

‘Or not at all. And there’s more. They’ve found us a house round the corner from theirs, which they think I’m going to put that legacy from my father into. Kieran can’t see any problem with any of that. In fact, he’s entirely failed to see my viewpoint at all, and last night after we argued he put the phone down on me!’

‘I’m very sorry to hear it isn’t working out, but it’s better to find out whether you’re entirely compatible before you get married, rather than afterwards,’ Daisy said. ‘If Kieran’s set on joining the family GP practice in Oxford, you’d definitely have to see a lot of his parents.’

I shuddered. ‘I don’t even want to live in Oxford.’

‘It’s a very lovely place.’

‘I know, only it’s not my place.’ I tried to explain. ‘I know I wasn’t born in Lancashire, but despite what happened there, Halfhidden still feels like home and the one place where I truly belong. It … pulls me back.’

‘You were only about five when Debo and Baz Salcombe became an item and you all moved into Sweetwell Hall with him, so you probably don’t recall much before that.’

‘No, nothing at all. I think I remember Judy and I had our own suite in the Victorian wing of Sweetwell, where the housekeeper and her family live now, but mostly my memories are of after the affair finished, when we all moved to the Lodge.’

‘Debo does have the knack of staying best friends with her former lovers,’ Daisy said with a smile. ‘And it made sense to stay in the country, because by then she and Judy had got about eight or nine rescued dogs between them, way too many for town.’

‘Baz liked dogs, too,’ I said. ‘He never minded when Debo’s escaped and ran around the estate, or that she extended the kennels beyond the garden into the grounds.’

‘He was a very likeable, easy-going man,’ Daisy agreed, for she had got to know him on her frequent visits to the Lodge.

I sighed sadly. ‘He was, and the nearest to a father figure I’ve ever had. I missed him so much after he went to live abroad …’

Baz had been so broken by the loss of his only child that he’d shut up Sweetwell and gone to live permanently in his beachfront house in the Bahamas, leaving the housekeeper as caretaker and Dan Clew to look after the garden and keep an eye on the wooded grounds.

Baz had rarely visited after that and never at times that coincided with my visits, though he and Debo had always remained friends – and occasionally, I suspected, more than friends.

‘Kieran absolutely idolises his father,’ I said, following this train of thought. ‘So he’s going to be a bit upset about the accident, though I don’t know if Douglas will tell him I refused to take the blame for it.’

‘If he does, since Kieran knows about your history, he’ll hardly be surprised about that. And if he truly loves you, he’ll be more concerned with how it’s affected you.’

‘I’m not at all sure he really does love me, and in any case, when push came to shove, he seemed quite prepared to override what I wanted to please his parents.’

‘It certainly sounds to me as if you two at least need some breathing space apart,’ Daisy said. ‘Things will seem clearer then and you may even find that you do have a future together.’

‘Perhaps,’ I said doubtfully. ‘But if so, it definitely wouldn’t be in Oxford. And not only have I already used some of this legacy they seemed to have been counting on, I’ll probably have to bail Debo out with the rest.’

‘Oh, I don’t think it will come to that. Debo does stagger from financial crisis to crisis, but she always manages to raise the money she needs from somewhere,’ she said, surprised. ‘I mean, for a start she can get as much modelling work as she wants and she often pops down to stay with me for various assignments.’

Debo had been a famous model in the sixties and seventies, and even though she was now the wrong side of sixty, she was still much in demand. Tall, thin and elegant, with huge grey doe-eyes and cropped ash-blonde hair, she hadn’t changed much since her heyday. Judy always told me I looked like a miniature version of Debo, but with my father’s dark colouring and lack of height, though I think she was just being kind …

‘Debo hates leaving the dogs though, so if she’s been down a lot recently it shows how bad things have got – and this time there’s no Baz to come to the rescue,’ I pointed out. ‘She was devastated when he died so suddenly – not to mention the shock of finding out the whole estate had been left to some illegitimate son she’d never heard of!’

‘Actually, when she rang to tell me, the main shock seemed to be more that Baz must have had a fling with Fliss Gambol, an old enemy of hers from her early modelling days, even though it was before Debo took up with him,’ Daisy said. ‘Even worse, she’s always blamed Fliss for your mother’s death.’

‘Oh? In what way?’ I asked, puzzled. I knew from Debo that my mother had been sweet, but a bit of a wild child and died young from an accidental drug overdose. I was the result of a brief fling with a married American artist twice her age. Although he’d known about me, we’d had minimal contact until, to my surprise, he’d left me a little bit of money a few years ago. ‘Fliss Gambol was some sixties singer, wasn’t she?’

‘Yes, until drink and drugs got the better of her. Lisa, your mother, was very young when she came to live with Debo after your grandmother died and, unfortunately, she fell in with Fliss’s crowd and under her influence.’

‘That makes it a bit clearer,’ I said. ‘I can see now why Debo would be upset … and Fliss’s circle must have seemed very glamorous and irresistible to an impressionable young girl, so I understand better how she came to such a tragic end. Poor Lisa!’

I sighed. ‘This must have raked up some unhappy memories for Debo. Baz always promised he’d leave her the Lodge and the land round it where she’s extended the kennels, and instead this son of Fliss Gambol has scooped the lot!’

‘She does have the Lodge for life, though, and Baz may have thought if he left her any money she’d spend it on even more dogs,’ Daisy said astutely. ‘Or if he gave her the Lodge outright, she’d mortgage it.’

‘Perhaps,’ I admitted, because Debo did tend to pour every penny that came her way (except for what Judy could snatch away for housekeeping) on her Debo’s Desperate Dogs Refuge. ‘Anyway, I’ll have to see when I get home. With Baz’s son having all the land, she won’t be able to keep as many dogs.’

‘I can’t see her being happy about that,’ Daisy said. ‘And I don’t think she’ll want to take any of the money your father left you, either, however desperate things are.’

‘We’ll see,’ I said, sitting up straighter. ‘You know, I believe meeting Kieran was a wrong turn. I confused what I wanted with what I was supposed to be doing.’

Daisy smiled. ‘I think it all comes down to following your heart. But sometimes you also need to use your head.’

‘Both seem to be telling me to go back to Halfhidden and set up my mail-order company there. I want to go home at last, and not go away ever again,’ I finished.

Daisy regarded me thoughtfully. ‘Hmm … that might still be the shock talking and the cold feet about the wedding. But time will tell.’

‘It will – and there’s something else I’m going to do when I get home, that I should have done years ago: I’m going to meet the past head-on,’ I said with new resolution.

‘You mean, the accident?’

‘Yes, I want to fill in the blank bits and try to understand why I was driving that night. I mean, I remember clearly that I was working in the pub with Lulu and Cam and that I left to walk home early, because my old dog, Patch, was ill. And then in the car park I passed the red Range Rover and Harry invited me to the party at Sweetwell. I told him I couldn’t, though that bit’s fuzzy … and then I remember absolutely nothing until I came out of the induced coma in hospital weeks later.’

‘But you’ve been told what happened?’

‘Yes, mainly by Lulu and Cameron, because by the time I’d convalesced with you and got home again, no one ever mentioned it to me – it was like the elephant in the room. Even Judy and Debo didn’t want to talk about it.’

‘Well, they did think at one point they’d lost you, so it isn’t surprising that they wanted to put the whole tragedy behind them.’

‘Perhaps, but because I can’t remember what happened, it’s always made it very hard for me to accept what I did and move on. So now I’m going to talk to those most involved, especially Cara and Simon. I haven’t seen Simon since then and Cara’s always avoided me, or cut me dead. Lulu says it’s because she blamed me for the scar on her face that ended her hope of being a model,’ I added. ‘Lulu and I were amazed when she married Sir Lionel Cripchet after she left Oxford University, because he is more than twice her age and horrible! But his estate, Grimside, is only the other side of the hill from Halfhidden, so at least it means she lives nearby.’

‘I can see where you’re coming from and the need for closure,’ Daisy said, ‘but sometimes it really is better to let things lie. Cara’s anger is probably based on guilt because she was sober enough to realise that you shouldn’t be driving, yet she let Harry persuade you.’

‘If I really was driving,’ I said, looking up at her. ‘Because the thing is, Daisy, in that flashback I had, I wasn’t. I was in the back seat, with Cara.’

‘Darling,’ she said, leaning across and squeezing my hand, ‘that might not have been a genuine flashback, because don’t forget that the first two people on the scene after the crash said you were in the driver’s seat, didn’t they?’

‘Yes, though I don’t trust Simon’s father, Dan Clew, in the least … but Tom Tamblyn said so too, so I suppose you’re right,’ I sighed. ‘Tom has always been my friend.’

A message popped into my phone and I looked at it for a long moment. ‘Kieran. His mother must have got hold of him and – well, he’s not pleased with me, let’s put it like that. She’s on her way to spring Douglas from the clink, but Kieran says his father will lose his driving licence and probably be prosecuted, so it will make his life very difficult.’

‘That’s not your fault, is it? I expect Kieran will see sense once he’s had time to think of it from your viewpoint.’

‘He’ll have to, because I’m not shouldering the blame for things I didn’t do, when I still have to come to terms with the things I did,’ I said.

Before I went to bed I rang Lulu.

‘I’m sorry it’s all gone horribly wrong,’ she said when I’d told her my news, ‘but I’m really glad you’re coming home because we all need you! And if you’re back tomorrow, you can be at my Halfhidden Regeneration Scheme meeting on Tuesday, can’t you? It’s in the Village Hut.’

‘Regeneration?’ I echoed and she said mysteriously that she’d taken some of my ideas about involving the whole village and run with them.

‘Cam has to teach an evening watercolour class in Ormskirk, so he’ll probably get there only for the very end of the meeting, though he knows all about it. He’s been helping me draw up maps and stuff. So I’ll really need your support,’ she added, refusing to be drawn on the details.

‘Are you upset about Kieran?’ she asked.

‘Yes – no, I don’t know,’ I confessed. ‘I did fall in love with him and … somehow, I seem to have just as suddenly fallen out of love again. Or perhaps I fell in love with a Kieran who didn’t really exist.’

‘I know the feeling,’ she said sadly. ‘I never want to fall in love again. My friend Solange says that that woman Guy’s living with keeps coming into the café and crying into her coffee, and it’s rumoured they’re having huge rows.’

Lulu’s ex, Guy, was still occupying the house in the Dordogne from which she’d finally fled. He’d assumed she’d left because she’d found out about his affair, but she’d had no idea till afterwards, when her friend in the village told her the woman had moved in. Still, at least it meant that he left her alone.

‘I can’t say I’m surprised,’ I said.

‘No, Guy was always a mistake – a controlling, bullying mistake, and I’m glad I got away.’

‘With Cam,’ I said slightly pointedly, for I knew their old friendship had taken a slightly different turn on their journey home from France.

‘Cam has been a huge comfort to me, but we don’t want to rush into anything and spoil the friendship we have … I mean, it’s always been the three of us, hasn’t it? And we all need space to get our lives back on track.’

‘True,’ I agreed. ‘Time will tell – about many things!’