He reluctantly loaded his fork, sniffed, peered, then tentatively ate a mouthful. She waited with bated breath for a reaction. ‘And…?’
‘Edible. Just. Now, tell me where you were working before. How did you come to be here?’
‘Well, I did a few years in London, then I was head-hunted and moved to New York. I’ve been there just over five years, working for quite a prestigious agency called Baddermans.’
‘New York, eh? You like it there?’
‘I love it. It’s… wonderful. It has everything I could ever want.’ She paused. There was something niggling at the back of her mind, like a word she was trying to remember but that was just too far out of reach… a feeling that didn’t quite sit right with her when she thought about New York.
No matter how much she tried to force it she couldn’t make it tangible, real. It was an itch, or… something she couldn’t put her finger on. ‘Anyway, Tamara called and said you needed some help for a few days, so here I am. Is there anything you particularly need help with? Should we make a list or have a chat about your routine?’
‘Someone’s always interfering. Do this, don’t do that, go there. A man isn’t in charge of his own life these days. I don’t need any help, I’m perfectly fine.’ For someone who didn’t like the look of the food he was certainly managing to demolish it. He smacked his lips together. Took a slurp of Earl Grey. Scooped up more eggs. ‘Tastes like soap, but I’ll let you off this time. One more slip-up, though, and I’m afraid we might have to let you go.’
A smile hit her lips. Good Lord, he was curmudgeonly. ‘And yet somehow you’ve managed to eat it all.’
‘Beggars can’t be choosers. A man needs to eat. Now I have to go to work.’ He scraped the chair back and pushed himself upright, uncurling slowly, as if all the bones in his body were creaking awake one by one after a very long hibernation. ‘I’ll be in the library.’
She scooped up his plate and popped it into the dishwasher along with hers, wiped her hands and turned as he was shuffling towards the door. ‘Wait… Work? Are you still working?’ Because, God help the poor client, if there was one. ‘I thought you’d retired. Aren’t you retired?’
‘Actually… I don’t know… Maybe I am. Retired, eh? Already?’ He looked down at his veiny hands as if the answer were there in the curl of arthritic fingers. His shoulders slumped forward. When he looked back at her his eyes were clouded with confusion. ‘What am I meant to do now?’
‘Oh, Judge.’ Surprisingly, her heart contracted at the thought of a once highly respected and very busy man being so utterly lost. Where she’d expected to feel anger she now just felt sorry for him. ‘Hey, we’ll figure it out. Don’t worry.’
‘Good.’ He nodded, and even though his voice was barely audible she caught his words. ‘Thank you.’
‘Right, then. Next thing…’ There wasn’t any point getting emotional about this; it wasn’t going to help. She had to hold herself together and fix things. Write a list. Make a plan. Action. That was what she needed.
No point in sitting around ruminating.
Emily looked round for another job to fill her time. In the cold, early-morning hours after Jacob Taylor, the International Man of Mystery, had gone back home, she’d scrubbed every surface in here clean. Washed their bedding and hung it outside to dry on the saggy line in the walled kitchen garden. Emptied and replaced the buckets under the suspicious-looking ceiling cracks.
Then she’d run around The Hall, opening all the doors and windows to let some fresh air in, and reacquainted herself with the place – which had clearly gone to rack and ruin in the time she’d been away. It needed a complete decoration overhaul and a lot of cosmetic fixing; of broken door handles, cracked wooden frames and blown light bulbs. But now she didn’t feel like staying in the place a second longer, especially if The Judge needed entertaining. ‘You know what, Judge? There’s a wee bit of sunshine out there. Get your coat on, we’re going for a walk.’
He looked grateful to have been given a task. ‘Right you are, then. Give me a minute.’
It was humbling the way he did as he was told and it felt wrong giving him orders, but if she didn’t keep him going he’d just sit and stare into space. In fact, the more he sat the more confused he seemed to get.
So, tempting as it was to just sit in her room, too, and try to get some 3G signal on her phone – she harboured no illusions that 4G might be available in this forgotten part of the twenty-first century – she couldn’t let him stagnate. He needed stimulation and company. ‘We need to buy some groceries and hopefully find somewhere in the Land That Time Forgot that has Wi-Fi.’
Maybe then she could actually reach Tamara or Tilda and start solving all these problems she’d only just discovered she had.
From their vantage point at the top of the hill Emily could see the rolling green hills surrounding the village that spread out towards Greater Duxbury and beyond; the many different colours of grass punctuated by stone walls and bright blooms of red and yellow. She’d forgotten how pretty it could be – or had she never even looked? She’d forgotten, too, about the sheep and the quaint noises they made. And the lambs! She grinned as she walked by them, and then laughed at herself. She was supposed to be a sophisticated city dweller now, entranced by the bustle and vibrancy of urban life, not by fluffy lambs.
But still… cute.
On her walk last night, she hadn’t noticed a couple of other shops that hadn’t been there all those years ago: a fish and chip shop that smelt divine even at this early hour of the day, a busy hardware shop, plus a nice-looking café that advertised Wi-Fi on its Cosy Café sign outside.
That one had been an old-fashioned newsagent’s years ago, a place her mum would take her for some sweets and her favourite comic once a week when they’d first arrived at The Hall. That was before her mum had died; before being shunted off to boarding school; before being expelled from boarding school and having to try to make a place for herself at the local high school.
Before all of that. Back when her mum had made a game of exploring their new home, feeding the ducks in the pond, playing Pooh sticks at the bridge, having picnics on blankets lakeside at The Hall. When her mum had tried so hard to make everything work. She’d been an optimist, the kindest, gentlest soul – a complete contrast to The Judge. Opposites in every way. But even at eight, Emily had understood the intensity of their passion for each other, the love in her mother’s eyes for this larger-than-life man who was a father replacement but not a daddy.
There was a sudden swell of sadness in Em’s chest. She wondered what her mother would have thought of what followed. The rage, the anger. The unbearable grief. The graffiti on the surgery walls. The smashed pub windows. Slashed tyres. Stolen alcohol. Running away.
Yet, here she was, shoulder to stooped shoulder with the man she’d believed had been the cause of it all, even though now she could see she’d been nothing more than a heartbroken little girl lashing out at the world in revenge for her abandonment and isolation. But, because of his illness, she still had nowhere to channel the vapours of those emotions that ricocheted through her.
And to add to that there was shame. Shame that she’d damaged property, caused hurt and pain and distress to people she barely knew.
‘Coffee?’ she asked The Judge, infusing her voice with sweetness. Be more like Mum. Make her proud – because, God knew, she wouldn’t have been proud of her daughter back then.
Emily assumed the Cosy Café was the place Greta had been talking about and she started to walk towards it, beckoned in by the beautiful hanging