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‘It’s okay. It’s a bit of a shock, I know. You can wait here – this is where he’ll be coming back to after his tests are finished. You’ll be able to sit with him for a little while before we know what’s happening next.’
‘What’s happening next?’ The girl was on the verge of tears.
‘Don’t worry. You know as much I do, for now. Sit here and try not to worry too much, okay?’
Bunkum. Of course she was going to worry. Wasn’t Liv herself in a bad way, and she didn’t even know the man, however drawn she’d felt to him.
4
‘It’s the phone, for you, Liv.’ Her mother, still in her dressing gown, handed the phone over, rolling her eyes as she did, so there could be no mistaking who was on the other end of the line. Barbara Quirke. Her mother never actually said it, but Eddie’s mother was like salt in an open wound. They didn’t get on, but Yvonne would never admit to the fact. Or at least, not once it became obvious that Eddie was going to be a regular feature in their future lives.
The most recent skirmish involved Imran, a yoga instructor that her mother adored. Barbara had managed to scupper his Mindfulness classes in the local community centre. It was exactly the sort of thing she did, and probably how she’d managed to step on just about every toe in the village over the years. The weekly classes had been popular with everyone, from the mother and baby club to the local retirement group. It was all going so well, until one evening when Barbara had arrived for her ‘chat and crochet circle’ (or ‘the knit and knife coven’ as Maya called it) and spotted Imran rolling up his mats.
Hard to know if she’s an old-fashioned killjoy, or just an out-and-out racist,Liv’s father had said. Liv worried it might be a bit of both, but she’d never admit this. Soon, Barbara was on a mission to shut down the yoga classes and by piling on the pressure with the committee about health and safety, eventually Imran had to move the class to the next village over.
‘I was just telling your mother – I’m sure you already know, Eddie will have mentioned it – but I seem to have developed an allergy to gluten now.’ Barbara paused for a moment, waiting for this news to settle on Liv. ‘It’s shocking how these things just creep up on you. One moment, I had the constitution of an ox and the next, well, I suppose, I’m a lot more fragile than I was…’ Barbara’s voice quivered pathetically as she let the words hang in the air between them.
‘No. He never said a word about it.’ To which of course, Maya would say,Well, wasn’t that just typical of Eddie?
‘Oh, dear boy, I’m sure he’s been so worried about me, but what with how busy he’s been in the run-up to Christmas… He probably doesn’t get a chance to talk to you properly these days anyway.’
‘So, you’re coeliac now?’ Liv was mentally checking through every part of the lunch she’d finished preparing. She looked at the clock. They were due in less than half an hour. If Barbara had a decent bone in her body, she’d have let them know a few days ago.
‘Oh, those labels – poof for all that. I simply can’t have any gluten; it makes me terribly unwell and I’ll be in absolute agony for days on end if I so much as look at the stuff.’
‘It’s a pity Eddie didn’t mention it.’
‘I’m sure he did.’ As usual, Barbara jumped immediately to her son’s defence. ‘It’s hardly his fault if you’re so taken up with everything else that you don’t listen to him properly.’
‘Never mind, hardly the end of the world. I’ll just make sure that everything is gluten-free for you, okay?’ Liv managed not to sound as if she was speaking through gritted teeth.
‘Fine.’ Barbara sniffed, perhaps hoping that it would take a little more work than just mentally ticking off every item that had already been prepared, cooked and was just being browned off in the oven.
When Liv put down the phone, she took a deep breath. Eddie and Barbara were due at two o’clock, which she knew meant closer to three, if she factored in Eddie’s tardiness. They would be here for roughly three hours – leaving again at six, hopefully. If they hadn’t left by then, her dad would probably insist on them all trotting down to the lambing shed, which would be enough to make Eddie want to get home as quickly as possible. Eddie didn’t entertain anything vaguely agricultural and he’d appreciate the sight of a birthing yew even less. Yes, Liv was fairly certain that by the time her father wanted to sit in front of the evening news, they’d have the place to themselves again. There was no doubt that a discussion of sheep tick and an invitation to pet the lambs would be enough to send Barbara scuttling back to her own tidy if a little shabby semi on the far end of the village.
Liv felt vaguely guilty for counting down the time until Barbara Quirke left before she had even arrived, but then she could easily convince herself she was only doing it out of consideration for her own family. Anyway it would all be worth it when Eddie dropped down on one knee and… She felt that familiar rush of prickliness creep over her, a mixture of excitement and something else she couldn’t quite put a finger on, but it had to be all good – after all, it was all she’d ever wanted, wasn’t it?
‘Okay,’ her mother said examining a list of foods on Google. ‘The only thing that I can see here that might be a problem is the gravy, stuffing and the pudding.’
‘It will be fine. She can steer clear of the stuffing and we’ll give her stewed apple and cream for dessert,’ Maya said. She had already checked the deep freeze in one of the sheds and pulled out a container that she’d filled with apples stewed in sugar, ginger and cloves at the beginning of autumn when the trees around the farm were weighed down with far too much fruit to get through in apple tarts. Maya had even less time for Barbara than her mother, but because Maya was a solicitor, Barbara tended to look at her with a certain amount of grudging respect. Probably, she would much prefer if Eddie had fallen in with the solicitor in the family than the nurse, but the truth was, Maya wouldn’t have looked twice at Eddie. She was happily single until she met someone amazing – Liv figured; she was waiting for the movie-star version of their father.
By the time Eddie and his mother arrived, the Latimers were all suitably braced for Barbara. They’d dressed up in their finest; Liv’s mother had bought a dark green velvet dress for the occasion, which showed off her still-great curvy figure perfectly. Maya looked elegantly expensive in palazzo pants and a silk blouse and Mikey had donned the Christmas jumper, complete with a flashing-nosed Rudolph that Liv had given him earlier just for fun. Liv had brought down a simple cream woollen dress she’d bought at the local mills a year earlier when she and Eddie had been invited to a rather posh party one of the consultants was throwing for New Year’s Eve. For now, of course, it was covered over with one of her mother’s aprons, but she quickly tugged that off to welcome Eddie and Barbara.
They sat for a while with pre-dinner drinks in the sitting room, making small talk about what was happening in the village, with Eddie, Maya and Liv taking it in turns to give an update on how things were with them. It was too early for her mother to pull out her seat at the piano – Barbara would need a lot more sherry in her before she’d be rattling out the Christmas carols. Liv wondered what she’d be like if she ever truly let herself go.
‘I think I smell turkey?’ her father said jovially after half an hour.
‘I’ll just check on it.’ Liv looked across at Eddie meaningfully. He’d already had two glasses of brandy and her mother was about to pour another for him. Thanks to Yvonne’s heavy hand with the brandy bottle, he wasn’t in much of a condition to take a broad non-verbal hint. ‘Will you give me a hand, Eddie?’
‘Sure,’ he said, taking his glass with him.
‘Hey,’ Liv said once they were alone in the kitchen. ‘I got you this…’ She pulled out the slim envelope she’d been waiting to hand to him; honestly, she wasn’t sure how she hadn’t already blabbed about it to him a hundred times over. Pete had helped her get two VIP box tickets to a premier game with his favourite team. It was near what promised to be the high point of the team’s decade, if they continued to play as well as they’d been playing. Or at least that was what Pete had said and she believed him; Liv had next to no interest in soccer.
‘What is it?’ For the first time since he arrived, Eddie left down his glass; he looked at the envelope a little dubiously.
‘It’s a summons? What do you think it is? It’s your Christmas gift from me.’ She leant in to give him a kiss, but he was so intent on opening it, she just about skimmed past those enviable cheekbones. His hair smelled of minty shampoo and she imagined him, jumping into the shower before he left – he smelled and looked good. Better than he had done for the last few weeks, when all he seemed to do was go to work and stay there far too long each day. He’d looked tired, he’d been irritable, but he told her often enough that was just the price of trying to keep his bespoke jewellery-making business afloat. The last few months were his busiest season. Hopefully, this January, they’d be able to put some money aside – they’d need it if they were going to have any decent-size wedding.
‘Bloody brilliant.’ He looked at her, his eyes shining and bright. Honestly, sometimes, she could see that enthusiastic eight-year-old he’d been in school. He was still standing right there in front of her and when that happened, it made her feel a little… guilty? Yes, she could admit to herself, sometimes, that she had settled for Eddie – they had fallen into a relationship after Rachel died and she used to wonder if she’d just been trying to fill the huge emptiness left by her sister, rather than falling in love with him. ‘How on earth did you manage to get these?’
