Anything but Vanilla(55)

‘Uh-oh.’

‘That’s the second time you’ve said that. I’m suspecting the worst.’

‘Geli has been in London all week, Gran and Basil have been at KG all day. No one has been shopping.’ She looked round the fridge door at him. ‘Clearly it wasn’t just Gran’s tiredness that prompted an adjournment to the pub. What we have is a chunk of cheese, a carton of milk, a couple of cans of beer and some water.’

She turned to look up at him. Her skirt was brushing against his thigh, her lips were just inches away and for a moment neither of them moved. Then Midge nudged him, demanding his attention.

Sorrel looked away.

He caught his breath. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be doing this. A swift adjournment to the pub was the sensible move.

‘The options are limited, but if your repertoire includes an omelette,’ she said, holding up the cheese, ‘I can handle the salad.’

‘Great idea...’ sensible clearly wasn’t on the menu ‘...but we appear to be missing two of the vital ingredients. Eggs and salad.’

‘Not a problem. Come with me.’ She closed the door, picked up an old basket and headed down the garden, followed by the dogs. Once they were beyond the lilac, a daisy-strewn lawn opened up surrounded by perennial borders coming to life. Beyond it there was a well-maintained vegetable garden.

The walls were smothered with roses beginning to put out buds, suggesting that it had once had a very different purpose, but what had once been flower beds were now filled with vegetables. One had a fine crop of early potatoes, onions and shallots were coming along apace and sticks were supporting newly planted peas and beans. On the other side of the wide, herb-lined grass path, rows of early salad leaves, spring onions, radishes and young carrots basked in a weed-free environment.

‘Salad,’ Sorrel said and, with a casual wave in the direction of a large chicken run sheltered beneath a blossom-smothered apple tree at the far end of the garden, ‘Eggs.’

‘You’re into self-sufficiency?’ he asked as half a dozen sleek brown hens and a cockerel paused in their endless scratching for worms to regard him with deep suspicion from the safety of a spacious enclosure.

‘Not by design. There was a time when growing our own wasn’t a lifestyle choice, it was a necessity. I hated it.’ He caught a glimpse beneath the façade of the bright, confident woman who knew exactly what she wanted and took no prisoners to get it and saw a girl who’d had to dig potatoes if she wanted to eat. ‘Fortunately, Gran has green fingers.’

‘Not Basil?’

‘Basil is the skeleton in our family cupboard. We didn’t know he existed until five years ago when he and Rosie turned up on our doorstep.’

‘That would be the long story?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it would.’ She was smiling, so he guessed that part of it at least was a good one, but she didn’t elaborate. ‘When I was little this was a mass of flowers. The kind of magical country garden that you see in lifestyle magazines. It was even featured in the County Chronicle. Gran had help in those days and she held garden open days to raise money for charity.’

‘What happened?’

‘What always happens to this family, Alexander. A man happened.’

‘I feel as if I should apologise, but I don’t know what for.’

Sorrel shook her head and a curl escaped the neat twisted knot that lay against her neck. ‘Gran’s always been a bit fragile, emotionally. That’s what a bad marriage can do to you. And then my mother died, leaving her with three girls to raise on her own. She was easy meat for the kind of man who preys on lonely widows who have been left well provided for. She needed someone to lean on...’ She sighed. ‘It wasn’t just her. We all needed someone and he made the sun shine for us at a very dark time. He took us out for treats, bought us silly presents, made us laugh again. We all thought he was wonderful.’

‘If your mother had just died, you were all vulnerable,’ he said, wondering where her father had been while all this was happening. ‘And likeability is the stock in trade of the con man.’

‘I know...’ She shook her head. ‘He romanced us all, entranced us, but it was all a lie. He took everything we had and a lot more besides.’

‘Did the police ever catch up with him?’

‘We never reported it. What was the point? Gran had signed all the documents and I don’t suppose for a moment he used his real name.’