Page 4 of Best Summer Ever

I ducked outside before he could do or say anything else he was going to have to make amends for and quickly walked back to my car.

Chapter 2

It was a slow drive out of the village, west towards Wynbrook Manor. Not only because I was feeling apprehensive about how my arrival and subsequent explanation of recent events was going to be received, but also because the verges were wildly overgrown and the road was extremely narrow.

The passing places were riddled with suspension-wrecking potholes and the last thing I wanted was to get tangled up with a caravan on one of the many blind bends. My car was practically on its last legs and a nosedive into one of the dips would doubtless sound the death knell.

Fortunately, luck was with me and I drove through the huge, ornate estate gates and across the cattle grid having met nothing more than a hare, which could easily outpace me. The cattle grid wasn’t necessary as there was no livestock on the estate now, but Algy liked to keep it in place to slow drivers down as they entered his domain.

The manor itself wasn’t open to the public, but there was a large and lucrative pick-your-own fruit farm, managed along with much of the estate, by my friend Nick. Sometimes the gardens, which my dad was responsible for, were available forOpen Garden days and other charitable events. The fruit farm, Nick’s place and my parents’ cottage were accessed via the sweeping curve of drive to the left, while the beautiful brick and flint manor and gardens could be found on the right.

I felt a lump form in my throat as I drove along the tree-lined drive. Nothing had changed in the slightest and when the cottage came into view, I had to blink hard to turn back an unexpected tide of tears. It really had been too long since my last visit and even longer since I’d made a solo trip.

‘Mum!’ I called, as I left everything in the car, unlatched the picket gate and raced along the flower-edged path to the back door, suddenly desperate to see her and Dad. ‘Dad!’

There was no reply and the door to the kitchen was locked. I had expected to find them both eating their usual early lunch. Mum was housekeeper at the manor and at midday she and Dad had a hot meal together at home. They maintained that, at their age and given the physical demands of their jobs, they deserved a break during the working day.

They had both been in their late thirties by the time they had me. They’d given up after years of trying to conceive and then about a year later, I unexpectedly landed. They were now bowling towards their mid-sixties, but I’d never broached the subject of them retiring as I knew they were both melded to a life working at Wynbrook forever.

I rifled through my bag for my key and let myself in. As I listened to the ticking of the clock above the row of wooden coat pegs and breathed in the comforting smell of home, a wave of nostalgia flooded over me. The oilcloth-covered table was set for one and there was a note next to it. Apparently, Dad had already eaten and gone back to work and he hopedMum wouldn’t be too far behind him. There was no time on the note so I couldn’t guess about that.

With one ear listening out for Mum’s potential arrival, I had a speedy shower, pulled on an old floral tea dress I’d left behind in my bedroom wardrobe, properly combed out my hair and headed on foot back along the drive to the manor. It was then long after midday and I wondered what was delaying Mum’s, usually set in stone, lunchbreak.

It didn’t take long to work out.

‘That’s as maybe,’ I heard her say crossly, as I reached the open back door to the manor kitchen via the herb-filled courtyard, ‘but I’m not going until you’ve eaten yours, Algy, so you might as well get on with it unless you want me to waste away like you are.’

‘I’ve already told you, my dear,’ came Algy’s shockingly resigned response, ‘I’ve no appetite.’

‘You said the same thing yesterday,’ Mum exasperatedly said, ‘and the day before that. How do you expect to recover if you won’t eat?’

‘Perhaps I don’t want to recover,’ Algy muttered mutinously, and I felt further taken aback.

He was always so full of life; he could easily have been mistaken as being more or less the same age as my parents when in fact he was well over a decade older. I had no idea what it was that he was recovering from, and again, felt that pang of guilt for not having kept properly in touch.

‘And in the meantime,’ Mum wearily carried on, completely ignoring Algy’s hint that he was giving up on life, which suggested it wasn’t the first time she’d heard it, ‘the place is going to wrack and ruin and filling up with cobwebs and dust because I’mspending all of my time trying to coax you to eat, instead of getting on with the cleaning.’

Tough love! That was Dad’s forte, not Mum’s, so I knew she really was feeling at her wits’ end.

‘Well, no one asked you to, Janet Patterson!’ came Algy’s belligerent rejoinder, which was also completely out of character for him.

‘Knock, knock,’ I said loudly, as I stepped inside and found the pair of them locked in a stand-off, except Algy was sitting.

‘Daisy!’ Mum gasped.

Her hands, which had been planted firmly on her hips, flew to her face at the unexpected sight of her daughter in the doorway.

‘Daisy, Daisy!’ Algy echoed, referring to me as he always had and sounding far happier than he had just seconds before.

I rushed across the huge flagstone-floored kitchen to Mum and pulled her in for a hug that she enthusiastically returned.

‘My darling girl,’ she said, her hands cradling my face when I eventually let her go. ‘What a wonderful surprise. What are you doing here? Is Laurence with you?’ she hopefully added, looking over my shoulder.

‘I was going to wait for you at the cottage,’ I said, hoping to distract her from trying to winkle out the details of my return until she and Dad were together, ‘but I kept getting the waft of this most amazing smell and I just knew it was your chicken soup, Mum.’

‘Would you like some?’ she offered, as eager as ever to feed me as she rushed to the cupboard for a bowl.

‘You can have mine,’ said Algy, sounding mutinous again as he pushed his bowl, with a slightly shaking hand, across the table towards me. ‘Because I don’t want it.’

---