AllFreeNovel
Share Us
can’t… I… I want to get some more work done on my vegetable bed while the weather’s good. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stay on here, but maybe I’ll have some early vegetables to pick before the bank tells us to go.’
Philippa knew that she was flushing and hoped that Susie would put her increased colour down to the effort of carrying the heavy binliners of clothes. It was true that she did want to work in the garden, but it was also equally true that there was another reason why she wanted to stay at home, and it wasn’t one that she wanted to reveal to her friend.
He probably wouldn’t come, of course, probably hadn’t even really meant it when he’d offered to look at her car, and really, after all, there was no reason why she should want to see him again, was there? Except that she had enjoyed talking to him… except that he was the first person she had really felt able to let down her guard with… except that when he had stood next to her on the street, protecting her, she had felt so…
‘Well, that’s the last of them!’ Susie exclaimed cheerfully as she dumped the last of the binliners in the back of her estate car. ‘I’d better get them down to the refuge… Oh, by the way, I nearly forgot… I brought you these. Mother will insist on sending me home with goodness knows what from the local farm. Honestly, you’d think, to listen to her, that decent fresh food isn’t something that’s available once you leave the boundaries of Yorkshire, but I suppose old habits die hard, and having been a farmer’s wife… Heaven knows how long it would take us to get through three dozen free-range eggs and all the rest of the stuff she made me bring back with me.’
She avoided looking at Philippa as she handed over a covered basket.
It felt very heavy, Philippa acknowledged, and it had to contain far more than a dozen or so eggs and a couple of jars of Susie’s mother’s home-made jam and pickles.
Tears pricked her eyes. Her pride made her want to refuse but as she looked at her friend she saw that there were tears in Susie’s eyes as well.
‘Please take it, Pippa,’ Susie begged her quietly. ‘You know if our positions were reversed you would be the first…’ She swallowed and shook her head. ‘I hate the thought of you staying here on your own, especially after what you told me the other day. I wish you’d think again about what I said about coming to us.’
‘Not yet,’ Philippa told her huskily, adding, ‘Don’t make it too easy for me, Susie, otherwise I might be tempted to give in and take the easy way out, and I can’t… I mustn’t… Don’t you see, that’s what I’ve done all my life… taken the easy way out? This time… this time it’s going to be different. You know what they say,’ she added, with a weak grin. ‘No pain, no gain…’
‘Huh… I know it’s what they say,’ Susie agreed. ‘But…’ She stopped and looked at Philippa. ‘OK, OK, I hear you, but just remember…’
‘I will,’ Philippa assured her softly, smiling as she looked at her friend and said drily, ‘Oh, and you will remember to thank your mother for her generosity, won’t you?’
She waited until Susie’s car had disappeared down the drive before picking up the basket and taking it into the kitchen. As she had suspected, it contained far more than what Susie had said; the cheese was farmhouse-fresh and so was the thick slice of pie which Philippa remembered was a delicacy which Jim loved and which Susie always brought back from Yorkshire with her, like the home-cured ham and bacon.
There was probably enough food in the basket to last for two or three weeks, and all of it far more wholesome and appetising than the diet she had grown used to recently.
Tears blurred Philippa’s eyes as she unpacked the food and put it away. This, she suspected, was one of the hardest lessons of all to learn, this acceptance of charity… receiving it rather than giving it.
* * *
Sally tensed as she heard the phone ring. Joel got up to answer it and her stomach muscles locked. It was silly to feel like this, she scolded herself. After all, what really had she done wrong? What if Kenneth did ring her? He was an ex-patient who…
Who had what? Kissed her and made her see all the things that were missing from her life?
‘It’s your sister,’ Joel told her abruptly, coming into the kitchen.
The relief that flooded her was dangerously entangled with disappointment as well.
The postman had arrived as she picked up the receiver and her heart sank as she saw the bills in among the circulars.
‘Have you spoken to Joel about when he can do my decorating yet?’ Daphne wanted to know. ‘Only I’d like him to come and make a start on it as soon as possible, Sally. We’ve got a dinner party next month. It shouldn’t take him long, after all, should it? I mean, it’s not as though he’s got anything else to do…’
Sally sighed under her breath. ‘I’ll have a word with him about it now,’ she promised her sister.
‘What did she want?’ Joel demanded when Sally walked back into the kitchen.
Sally sighed again. Joel and her sister had never really hit it off and she knew that Daphne could be something of a snob at times, but was it really too much to ask of Joel that he didn’t react aggressively to everything Daphne said or did? Couldn’t he see how difficult it made things for her?
Sally looked tired, Joel recognised as he looked at her. She had lost weight as well. He started to frown.
As she walked towards the sink she bumped into the corner of the table, stumbling slightly.
Joel reacted instinctively, reaching out to steady her, putting his hand on the hip she had bumped and rubbing it with his fingers.
She smelled of soap and shampoo, the slightness of her body against his reminding him of how protective towards her he had always felt, of how vulnerable she sometimes seemed. It was one of the most basic and deep-rooted aspects of his character, this need he had to protect and secure those weaker than himself, and now suddenly he had an urge to wrap his arms around her, to hold her and tell her how ashamed he felt. He wanted, he acknowledged, not just to hold her, but to be held in turn; to be told that she understood, that she…
‘Joel, no…’
The sharp protest in her voice as she pulled away from him felt like a knife slicing into the vulnerable flesh of his emotions, the irritation and rejection he could both hear and see freezing back the words he had wanted to say.
