There were other changes, too, beyond the café. The farm shop beside it seemed to be doing a brisk trade, and on the other side of what was now a car park the big building that she was sure had once been the milking parlour now housed an enterprise called Valley Timber Products. She could see chunky wooden playground toys and what looked like garden furniture in a small lawned area beside it.
There was a basket shop, as well, selling all sorts of things like willow wreaths and planters and wigwams for runner beans, as well as the more traditional baskets, and she could see that, at a quarter to eleven on a Saturday morning, the whole place was buzzing.
A thriving cottage industry, she thought, and wondered who ran all the various bits and pieces of this little complex and how much of it was down to Will. He probably let all the units to enterprising individuals, she reasoned. There wouldn’t be enough hours in the day to do anything else.
She turned back to the house, conscious of the fact that it was still not eleven o’clock and she was probably rather early for lunch, but she’d been asked to vacate her room by ten, and after driving somewhat aimlessly around for half an hour, she’d decided to get it over with and come straight here.
Get it over with, she thought. Like going to the dentist. How strange, to be so nervous with Will, of all people, but her heart was pounding and her palms were damp and she hadn’t been so edgy since she’d held her first board meeting.
At least then she’d had an agenda. Now she was meeting the widowed husband of her old schoolfriend, father of the child whose conception had been the kiss of death for their relationship.
Bizarre.
‘If you’re looking for Will, he’s in with the lambs,’ a woman called, pointing round the back of the house, and with a smile of thanks, she headed round towards the barns.
‘Will?’ she called. ‘Are you there?’
A dog came running up, a black and white collie, grinning from ear to ear and wagging at her hopefully, then it ran back again, hopping over a gate and heading into a barn.
She eyed the mud thoughtfully, glanced down at her Gucci boots with regret and picked her way over to the gate.
‘Will?’
‘In here,’ a disembodied voice yelled, and she wrestled with the gate—why did farm gates never swing true on their hinges?—and went through into the barn. It took her eyes a moment to adjust, and when they had, she spotted him crouched down on the far side of the little barn with a sheep. It was bleating pitifully, and as she picked her way across the straw bedding, Will grunted and glanced up, then rolled his eyes and gave a wry smile.
‘Hi,’ he said softly. ‘Sorry, didn’t realise it was you. Welcome to the mad house. You’re early.’
‘I know. I’m sorry—do you want me to go away?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Can you give me a minute? I’m a little tied up.’
She suddenly realised what he was doing, and for a moment considered escaping back to the café to give him time to finish, but then the ewe tried to struggle to her feet, and with his other hand—the one that wasn’t buried up to the elbow in her back end—he grabbed her and wrestled her back down to the straw.
‘Anything I can do to help?’ she found herself asking, and he gave her a slightly incredulous look and ran his eyes over her assessingly.
‘If you really mean that, you could kneel on her neck,’ he said, and she could tell he expected her to turn tail.
She did, too, but then, to her own amazement as much as his, she gave a little shrug, dropped her Louis Vuitton bag into the soiled straw and knelt down in her Versace jeans and Gucci boots and put her knee gently on the ewe’s neck.
‘By the way, good morning,’ she said, and smiled.
Will was stunned.
If the paparazzi who hounded her for the glossy society mags could see her now, he thought with an inward chuckle, they’d never believe it.
‘Morning,’ he said, and then grunted with pain as the ewe contracted down on his hand and crushed a sharp little hoof into his fingers. Well, at least he knew where one leg was, he thought philosophically, and the moment the contraction eased, he grabbed the offending hoof, traced it up to the shoulder, found the other leg, tugged them both straight and then persuaded the little nose to follow suit.
Moments later, with another heave from Mum and a firm, solid tug from Will, twin number one was born, followed moments later by the second.
And the third.
‘Triplets?’ she said, her voice soft and awed, and he shot her a grin and sat back on his heels, using a handful of straw to scrub at the soggy little morsels with their tight yellow perms and wriggling tails.
‘Apparently so.’ They struggled to their feet, knees wobbling, and made their way to their mother, on her feet by now, and Will got up and looked ruefully at his hands.
‘I’d help you up, but—’
She grinned up at him, her soft green eyes alight with joy, and his heart lurched, taking him by surprise. She stood easily, brushing down her knees with a careless hand. ‘That was wonderful,’ she said, the joy showing in her voice as well as her eyes, and he wanted to hug her.
Instead he took a step back, gathered up his bucket of hot water and soap and towel, and quickly made a pen around the little family.
‘We’ll leave them to it. They’ve got all they need for now.’
‘Why isn’t that one feeding?’ Izzy asked, staring worriedly at the lambs as one of them stood by bleating forlornly and butting its mother without success.
‘They’ve only got two teats, but she’s had triplets before. They’ll take turns and she’ll sort them out. She’s a good mother. Come, Banjo.’
He ushered her towards the back door, the dog at his heels, and, kicking the door shut behind them, he stripped off his padded shirt and scrubbed his arms in the sink.
‘Don’t mind me,’ she said dryly, and he looked up, suddenly self-conscious, to find her laughing softly at him across the kitchen.
He felt his mouth quirk into a grin, and he shook his head. ‘Sorry. Didn’t think. Actually, I could do with a shower. Can you give me five minutes?’
‘Of course.’
‘Make yourself at home,’ he told her, and then, as he ran up the stairs, he remembered the photos of Julia and the children all over the piano in the corner.
He shrugged. What could he do? She’d been his wife, the mother of his children. She deserved to be remembered, and he couldn’t protect Izzy from that reality any more than he could have prevented Julia’s death.
She looked around the kitchen, so much as it had been all those years ago, and felt as if she was caught in a time warp.
Any minute now Rob and Emma and Julia, and maybe Sam or Lucy, would come through that door from the farmyard, laughing and chattering like magpies, and Mrs Thompson would put the kettle on the hob and pull a tray of buns out of the oven.
She’d always been baking, the kitchen heady with the scent of golden Madeira cake and fragrant apple pies and soft, floury rolls still hot in the middle. She’d fed everybody who came over her threshold, Izzy remembered, and nobody was ever made to feel unwelcome.
And at Christmas they’d always come here carol-singing last, and gather round the piano to sing carols and eat mince pies hot from the oven.
With a tender, reminiscent smile still on her lips, Izzy turned towards the piano—and stopped dead, her heart crashing against her ribs. Slowly, as if she had no right to be there but couldn’t help herself, she crossed the room on reluctant feet and stood there, rooted to the spot, studying the pictures.
Julia