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Despite the relentless heat beating down on her, Iris’s feet pounded the tarmac. As she followed the road around to the right, she waved to a woman sitting on a bench in her front garden, and further on, said a breathless hello to a neighbor walking his Dalmatian. She no longer socialized with many people in the village. Once Beth had left for boarding school, Iris had gradually lost contact with the other mums. It didn’t bother her much. She enjoyed her own company and until now, her work had kept her busy. But now and then, she would have liked to have someone she could drop in on for a chat, or have someone drop in on her.
Close to the village pub stood a house that Iris had always coveted.Set back from the road, the gray-stoned manor house sat at the end of a driveway bordered by trees and, despite its air of obvious neglect after being empty for years, it had managed to retain something of its original majesty. When it had finally come onto the market six months ago, Iris had tried to persuade Gabriel that they should buy it. She’d badly needed a new project, and restoring the interior would have been a dream. But Gabriel pointed out what Iris had already known, that the house was too big for the two of them, and that they would have had to take out another mortgage to be able to buy it.
Soon after, they’d heard the house had been sold. The removal lorry had been parked in the driveway the day Iris and Gabriel had left for Scotland. Now, Iris slowed her pace to peer through the open gates, and then she came to a stop, sweat trickling down her back, her eye caught by something bright and colorful coming into her line of vision, then disappearing again, then reappearing. It was a child, she realized, swinging backward and forward on a rope strung over the branch of an ancient oak tree, halfway up the drive. Intrigued, she watched as the girl, her arms stretched taut so that her body was almost parallel to the ground, swept to the left, then to the right on her makeshift swing, her flame-colored hair brushing the grass as she spun on each turn until, aware of Iris’s eyes on her, she pulled herself upright and slid off the rope, stumbling a little at the sudden loss of movement.
“Do you want to come in?” she called, grabbing the rope to steady herself, and Iris saw that it wasn’t a child, but a woman. Embarrassed at having been caught watching, unsure if the woman was being genuine or sarcastic, Iris hesitated. “Please! I need a break,” she called again. “And a friend! I don’t know anyone here.”
Her plea was so heartfelt that Iris found herself walking down the drive toward the woman, who was hurrying barefoot to meet her, her canary yellow dress billowing behind. She came to a stop in front of Iris and held out her hand. She was tiny, bright and beautiful, like an exotic bird.
“I’m Esme, and I’m dying for a cup of tea. Would you like one?”
Iris couldn’t help laughing. “I’m Iris and I’d love some tea.” Her hand, grasped warmly in Esme’s, felt like a giant’s.
“Please tell me you live in the village.”
“I do. At the far end.”
Esme put a hand on her heart. “Thank God. I’ve hardly met anyone yet.” She waved toward the swing. “I was trying it out before the baby comes.” Her hand slid down to her stomach and Iris noticed the bump protruding from under the folds of her dress. “Do you have children?”
“One, a daughter. Beth. She’s nineteen.”
Esme turned to Iris, her aquamarine eyes wide with surprise. “Gosh, you don’t look old enough to have a daughter that age. You must have had her when you were very young.”
“I was twenty-five,” Iris said, realizing that Esme now knew her age. She wondered how old Esme was. It was hard to tell; she could be anything between thirty and forty. “Is it your first?”
“Yes.” Esme’s eyes danced with amusement. “I’m what they call a geriatric mother.” She began walking toward the house. “Does your daughter live with you?”
“No, she took a gap year. She’s in Greece at the moment, volunteering at a dog shelter for the summer before she goes to Bristol in September.”
“How wonderful! Does she love it? All those dogs to cuddle!”
Iris smiled at her enthusiasm. “She does, although some of the dogs are so traumatized by their past experiences she says it’s impossible to even touch them. It’s a case of sitting near them for hours at a time so that she can eventually win their trust.”
They arrived at the impressively large front door and Esme pushed it open. “There is one little haven of peace amid all this mess, I promise,” she chattered as they picked their way down a hallway littered with paint pots and ladders. Darting forward, she opened a polished oak door, at odds with the rest of the house. “Here it is,” she said with a flourish. “The only room that is liveable, apart from our bedroom.”
“This is lovely.” Iris moved farther into the room and turned slowly,trying to take it all in. The room was vast, with a kitchen area at the far end, a long oak table with two cushioned benches in the middle and, in an alcove to the right, two fat sofas separated by a low table the size of a door. Looking more closely, Iris saw that it was a door—or at least, it used to be.
“I’d always wanted a big kitchen and I wasn’t bothered about having a separate dining room, so we broke down a couple of walls,” Esme explained, filling an old-fashioned red kettle, the water splashing noisily into its tinny interior. “I think it’s much nicer to eat in the kitchen, even when we have guests. It means I can keep up with the conversation. And, best of all, there’s a fireplace. I love a fire, it makes everything so cozy.” She spun around. “Is herbal tea all right?”
“Lovely.” Iris smiled at her. “Congratulations, by the way. A new baby and a new house. You’re going to be busy. When are you due?”
“The beginning of September, so twelve weeks to go.” She laughed. “Believe me, I’m counting!”
Iris walked to the window and looked out at the tangle of a garden. “I wanted to buy this house,” she confessed. “I wanted us to renovate it, but Gabriel, my husband, was worried I’d never want to move out and it would be too big for the two of us.”
“Are you good at that sort of thing, then—decorating? Because if you ever want to give us a hand, feel free.”
Iris smiled, her eyes still on the garden. “Not actual decorating. I’m a home enhancer.” She cringed inwardly at the name she’d invented to describe what she did. Although Gabriel called her an interior designer, she never described herself as such because she didn’t have any qualifications in interior design, something she was at pains to point out to potential clients. They didn’t care; her work spoke for itself. Her career had started fifteen years before, when she’d helped a friend choose furnishings and colors for her new house. The result had been stunning, and more work had quickly come her way.
Esme gasped and clasped her hands together. “I think God must have sent you.”
Thankfully for Iris, the need to reply vanished when a man came into view, pushing a wheelbarrow piled high with stones along a narrow path. From where Iris was standing, she could see the tendons in his forearms straining as he tilted the wheelbarrow and tipped the stones out.
“Is that your husband?” Iris asked.
There was a peal of laughter from behind her. “No, that’s Joseph. That’s Hugh, over there.”
Iris turned to look to where Esme was pointing, and moved to the mantelpiece where a photograph stood, of a man with twinkling eyes, a bald head and a bushy white beard. Aware of Esme’s eyes on her, Iris hid her surprise. He looked so much older.
