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4
Satisfied with Denby’s soon-to-be home, Gus drove away from the Heritage View Stables, catching one final glimpse of Hazel in his rear-view mirror as she helped a young girl mount Peony. The brother and sister duo, apart from having a bit of tension between them, definitely knew what they were doing when it came to horses, and he was relieved to have nabbed the last stable available. He’d have hated to leave the horse with Joan for any longer than he had to or to keep Denby at stables further away from the village. Abigail liked to see him pretty much every day, often more than once.
He pulled out onto the main street and past the bus stop before making his way along The Street, the road that brought people into the village from one direction and took them out in another. He drove slowly, not only because the speed limit required him to take his time, but because he wanted to take in the quaint feel of the place. Prior to Heritage Cove, he and his daughter had lived in a stunning area of the country, no doubt about it, but their house had been one of only three set back from a main road that brought tourists to the region, and not much had been within walking distance at all. Here was very different, with amenities close by and a seemingly relaxed pace in the heart of the village.
Gus swung into a parking space outside a bakery with a Tudor-style exterior and latticed glass windows. He had time for a little walk around before he headed back to the house they now called home, conveniently situated around the corner from his new veterinary practice, and carried on with some of the unpacking. He needed some more milk and bread anyway, so he’d pick those up as he explored The Street.
Gus had come to Heritage Cove a few times prior to their actual move, but his visits had always been focused on getting the practice ready. He’d met with the project manager, the architect, made sure everyone was on the same page, then he’d sorted out the rental property for him and Abigail. Most of his visits were made when Abigail was still attending school in the Peak District, apart from the day they’d enrolled Abigail in the local school here after a meeting with the headteacher. Abigail had had the opportunity to meet some of her classmates too, something which he’d dreaded but that she took in her stride.
On so many levels, Abigail was your average ten-year-old girl, but after an accident had left severe scarring on one side of her face, she’d gone from a fun-loving kid to someone who thought carefully about everything she did. And he’d gone from a parent who didn’t worry unnecessarily to constantly obsessing about whether she was all right. Was she staying safe? Were others taking care of her? Were people paying her unwanted attention and upsetting her?
In the days following the accident and for months afterwards, Gus protected Abigail at all costs. It was what a parent did. If Abigail went with him to the shops and didn’t like it, they would leave straight away. If they went for a walk and she thought someone looked at her strangely, they’d turn and go back home. They didn’t go to the local display on bonfire night for the two years after the accident because she didn’t want to be in a crowd. She wouldn’t go shopping with him for a new school uniform or shoes and he’d had to guess the size. She had refused to go to the hairdresser’s when her hair was in desperate need of a cut because all that time looking in a mirror with someone else looking in it too and being so close to her scars was too much to cope with. Gus had ended up cutting it himself until Joan had invited Abigail round to hers the day she had her own hairdresser visit. They’d both had their hair done and followed up the activity by making scones together, which they served with jam and cream piled so high Abigail could barely open her jaw wide enough to get the treat inside.
Gus wasn’t quite sure what they would’ve done without Joan, but she’d always been very honest with him and told him that being overprotective of Abigail would do her no favours in the long run. She told him he could still love and protect his daughter without it being too much. But Gus had still found it difficult not to spend the majority of his waking moments after the accident on high alert, waiting for something terrible to happen, and then, even when it didn’t, for someone to make a comment or ask too many questions and ruin her day in that way instead. It was exhausting, stressful, and he’d had to learn the entirely new skill of not constantly worrying about what might or might not happen.
Joan had been a close friend through the whole ordeal, and she’d tried to educate him the best she could, telling him Abigail would learn by example, that his behaviours had an effect on his daughter and only he had the power to make them positive or negative behaviours. Joan had even said that of his relationship with Abigail’s mother, Julie. Julie and Gus were no longer together, but Julie was still in Abigail’s life, something Gus struggled with. Not because he didn’t want her and her daughter to have a relationship, but because Julie was unreliable and had a tendency to cancel pre-arranged visits at the last minute or buy Abigail expensive gifts out of guilt for what happened. When he’d tried to talk to his ex-wife about the presents she showered Abigail with, her only rebuke had been that he’d bought her a horse and you couldn’t get much more expensive than that.
Gus locked the car and passed the archway after the bakery that separated it from a tearoom. It pleased him that there were so many eateries around here for him and Abigail to wander to whatever the season – it was something they’d never had before. He’d spotted a sign for a waffle shack too, across a green space behind the bus stop. Abigail loved her waffles.
He came to a small shop called Tilly’s Bits ’n’ Pieces and after he looked in at the window display of ornate furniture and accessories, he decided to go inside. It wasn’t that he didn’t want Abigail getting presents, Julie could buy her things whenever she liked, it was just that Julie had missed his point. His point wasn’t the gifts or the expense, it was that she was buying them instead of showing up, as an apology. And that was what didn’t sit well with him.
As he looked around the shop, he hoped that when he picked Abigail up from school at 3.30 p.m., he’d see a smiling girl, one who’d had a happy day, someone who hadn’t faced a barrage of questions about her scars, or worse, ignorant and nasty comments, which he knew she’d had at her last school. There’d been one particular day when she’d claimed to have an awful tummy ache and had stayed off school. She’d admitted to him later on that the real reason she hadn’t wanted to go in was because they had French class. At the last lesson, the boy who sat behind her had asked her, in French, why her face was such a mess.
Gus had cradled his crying daughter, letting her get the anger and the upset out of her system. She’d sobbed and told him she hadn’t known what the words meant until the girl she sat next to told her. Gus had a good mind to march up to school, find the boy, and demand to know why he was such a prick. But he couldn’t do that. And so instead he’d brought up Google translate on his iPad and found a really rude and totally inappropriate insult for the boy, which he said out loud, and at Abigail’s puzzlement showed her the English words. ‘Dad!’ she’d said, wide-eyed, but the shock and the laughter at her dad being so naughty had scared away her tears. He’d told her not to say it out loud but to repeat it in her head if that boy ever said another word. She’d done just that, but she also told Gus that the teacher had found out what the boy had said to her and given him a detention, and since then he hadn’t said a word to her, in French or English.
Inside the shop, a woman around Gus’s age, dressed in a floaty, floral dress with her hair pinned up, smiled at him from her position over at the till. Gus had no idea what he was looking for. He picked up scented candles but wasn’t sure about those. Abigail was a bit young and he suspected she might leave them burning unattended – a drama he would rather avoid. He found cute bookmarks, coasters, pretty scarves that were too old for his daughter, a selection of keyrings.
‘Are you looking for anything in particular?’ the woman asked after he’d been in there a few minutes. She came over to him. ‘I’m Tilly, welcome. This is my shop.’
‘Hello, Tilly. I’m Gus and yes, I am looking for something in particular.’ He rubbed a hand around the back of his neck. ‘It’s for my daughter. A little gift, kind of a housewarming present. She’s ten and we just moved here. Today is the first day at a new school.’
‘Always daunting,’ Tilly agreed. ‘Well, firstly, welcome to Heritage Cove. I don’t suppose you’re the new vet?’
‘I am,’ he laughed.
‘Don’t be alarmed. I don’t mean to make you feel as though everyone will know your business. It’s not like that around here, I promise,’ she smiled. ‘But we’re a friendly bunch and a lot of people have been waiting for your appearance.’
‘Do you have pets?’
‘I don’t, not yet. Thinking about a dog, so I might ask you more on that if I need to.’
‘Happy to help, any time.’
‘Great, now let’s find something for your daughter.’ She looked around the shop and, indicating the central display, suggested a cushion. ‘We have some pretty ones, and girls love scatter cushions. We have plain or here’s one with a moon and stars,’ she said, pulling out the design and then finding another. ‘We have woodland creatures too.’
‘Unless you have a cushion with horses on it, I’m not sure,’ he said as politely as he could.
‘She’s into horses?’
‘In a big way,’ he laughed. ‘We have a horse, I’ve just come from the Heritage View Stables, where we’ll be keeping him.’
‘Then I have the perfect gift.’ They squeezed down the aisle on the other side of the central display and towards the end, Tilly found what she was looking for. She held up a water bottle with an illustration of a horse and the words ‘Born to Ride’.
Gus took the bottle to inspect it. ‘She’ll love it.’
‘It’s not a traditional housewarming gift, but she’ll be able to take it everywhere – bedroom, lounge, school, to the riding stables.’
‘Sold.’ He followed her over to the till.
