The room was quiet and smelled of smoky log fires and furniture polish. She might never have been away. Paul was sitting at the wooden desk, behind a neat stack of paperwork. When she was a child, visiting for tea, his dad would be sitting in that exact same place, in that exact same position.
He didn’t look like someone who had a death sentence hanging over him. The dark hair was as thick and curly as ever, despite whatever treatments he must have had. His brown eyes roved across her face. In jeans and a well-ironed check shirt, he looked the cliché of a gentleman farmer. A glass jug of water and a half-full glass stood within reach on a little iron table. Three collies were sprawled at his feet, and the Welsh weather had burned lines and hardness into his slightly round face. Just like his dad.
In fact, he was still very attractive, and a good match for slight, blonde Penny. But Ava was casting quick looks around the room, her stomach churning. There was someone missing from this unhappy family reunion.
‘Where’s Stephen?’
‘Gone out with his girlfriend. Sorry, Ava, you know what teenagers are like… well, you don’t actually, but he’s old enough to make his own decisions now.’ Paul didn’t look sorry – he looked amused but his hand shook as he poured, then gulped another glass of water.
‘Doesn’t he want to see me?’ It came out as a plea, and she cursed herself for showing weakness. Her brain was stupid and numb, which was a blessed relief, because she could tell the pain would come roaring back later. After the smooth way Penny seemed to have welcomed her back, she couldn’t expect it all to be easy. After all, she hadn’t been married to Pen.
‘He does want to see you. He just needs to get used to the idea,’ Penny said hastily from the corner of the room. ‘Remember we always told him he could contact you when he was eighteen, if he wanted to, and I know he’ll have been thinking about it.’
Ava looked round gratefully. The other woman was quickly folding clean washing from a plastic basket. A lock of gleaming blonde hair fell across her forehead, and she glanced up, and smiled when she caught Ava’s eye on her. She still looked more like the girl who hitched to Cardiff for a night in the clubs, than someone who had been a farmer’s wife for over ten years.
‘You can sit down, Ava,’ Paul said blandly, indicating a brown leather sofa next to the fire. ‘What Penny means, of course, is that Stephen doesn’t want any contact from you. He’s happy here, and if this bloody cancer had never happened, we would never have dragged you over to cause trouble.’
Ava met his eyes, stormy and dark with anger now. It was as though she had never been away. Soon he would probably start telling her how everyone else managed to have a baby and look after it, so why did she have to be so weak? The dogs opened sleepy eyes, scenting conflict, but a word from Paul kept them under the desk.
‘I don’t mind them. I like dogs,’ Ava said with an effort. She was stronger now, and this man would not bully her as he used to. The shouting and the cowering were in the past.
‘I remember.’
‘What are they called?’
‘Amber, Rex and Tin.’
She further sank into the brown leather sofa, but forced herself to sit upright, knees together, shoulders squared. Silence, as the fire spat and hissed, one of the dogs snored, Penny sorted her washing and Paul stared at her, daring her to start an argument. He would always wait for her to make the first move, she remembered, and then leap on her with the solid fury of a fighting bull. Ava focused hard on the details of the familiar room. The good, solid oak furniture shone with polish, the floor tiles were clean and swept, and she noticed a dozen new horse brasses had been added to the gleaming collection over the fireplace. The place looked far better than when she had lived here. Housework had never been her thing, but then if Pen’s business was going well, she supposed they might have a cleaner.
‘I read about your baking – my aunt sent me a link to the Guardian piece. It named you as one of the top Welsh entrepreneurs. You’ve done so well.’
Penny smiled. ‘It was hard for a few years, but then it just took off for some reason. I suppose everyone likes Welsh cakes.’
Paul cleared his throat. ‘The farm’s doing well out of it too. We added another hundred ewes last year, and Pen wants to get some rare breeds for her meat sales.’ His pride in his wife was evident, and Ava blinked back a few tears. Whatever she had triggered in Paul, she could detect no hint of discord between these two. How cruel that all this was about to be ripped apart. She was never normally this emotional about things – she needed to get a grip.
A few framed photographs showed the happy family over the years, and a larger picture in a silver frame was Paul and Penny on their wedding day. Ava squinted at the other pictures, recognising some she had been sent when her son was younger.
The silence was back, and Paul clearly felt enough had been said. He stroked the dogs, and watched her, anger back in check. She searched for another subject, but everything she thought of had the potential to inflame the situation or hark back to their shared but unwelcome past. Ava coughed and complimented them on the new slate in the hallway.
Paul said nothing, and Penny just smiled again, still folding the washing quickly and neatly. Just as Ava felt she might scream at the awkwardness of the situation, someone hammered on the front door.
‘Are you expecting company tonight?’ Penny raised her eyebrows at her husband.
He shook his head, without moving his eyes from Ava’s face. ‘Unless Stephen’s lost his key again.’
Oh shit. Ava’s heart started pounding, and she rubbed sweaty palms together. Her neck prickled and she felt light-headed. Suddenly the cosy, tidy room seemed far too hot. She heard Penny greeting someone, and then the outside door banged shut and the room was full of people.
‘Hallo, mate, evening, Penny darling, you look gorgeous. Why are you all dressed up? Look who I found down the pub! I know you mentioned Ava was coming tonight, so I’d thought we’d all pop back and say hallo.’ Leo was grinning at his friend. ‘Ava. Nice to see you again.’
But Ava wasn’t looking at either her ex-husband or her ex-boyfriend. She was staring at her son.
He was scowling, the blue eyes very like her own, but his features, and the dark messy hair were all his father’s. Of course she knew what he looked like, but to have him in front of her after all these years in the flesh… she could hardly keep herself from crying out. All the emotions she had locked away were bubbling and boiling in her chest, and despite her good intentions she felt a tear trickle down one cheek.
‘You look… well,’ she managed, made stupid by the occasion. She cleared her throat, forcing herself to meet that scornful gaze.
‘No thanks to you.’ His voice was flat and sullen.
‘You’re actually his mum?’
Ava had hardly registered that Stephen had a girl with him, but now she turned to face her. Thin, black-haired, with unusual grey-green eyes and high cheekbones, she was also staring at Ava.
‘She’s not my mum, Bethan, I told you.’
The girl frowned at him, pursing her rosebud lips. She really was very pretty. Next to them both, Leo smiled, his face alight with mischief. The bastard.
Penny came back in with a tray of tea and a couple of bottles of beer. ‘Help yourselves to drinks. Stephen, do you want to talk to Ava in the kitchen where it’s a bit quieter?’
‘I suppose.’
‘Paul and I will have a catch-up in here. See you in a bit, Ava,’ Leo said, winking at his friend.
Ava noted Paul’s sudden malicious grin, and even in her confusion, equated it to the kind of look the boys used to exchange before they got up to some mischief at school. She pushed it aside and concentrated on her son, following him across the hall, noting his slender height, the square