Page 5 of Starting Over at Halesmere House
Thoughts of holiday reminded her of yesterday and herding sheep with the driver who’d stopped to help: their laughter and conversation, the curiosity he’d expressed in why she was at Halesmere. But she wasn’t likely to see him again and she wouldn’t be sitting around all day feeling sorry for herself. She had a new business to run and, along with it, her family and the friends she’d already made here; they would be all she needed to rebuild her life and start over.
Alice left her bedroom and stopped dead, trying to get her bearings. In front was the smallest of the barn’s three bedrooms, a bathroom shared between this room and the master, with an en-suite shower in hers. She crossed the narrow passageway and opened a door into the kitchen.
It was slightly bigger than the one in her old house, with units lining three walls and a staircase to the sitting room leading from it. She loved the blue Aga and pale grey cupboards, matching those in the compact utility room. Shelving was carved into the walls above white granite worktops and doors opened onto a small patio and shady garden on this side of the barn. A dining table with chairs for six sat around the corner, an empty Welsh dresser at one end.
Her stomach was already rumbling, and she thought longingly of the community shop up the road, the plentiful breakfasts on offer, and decided to make the walk again for something more inspiring than cereal. Last night had been beans on toast for dinner and her appetite was never stronger than when she was at Halesmere. Alice put that down to good company and the bracing country walks she loved to take, sometimes on her own, sometimes with Sandy or Marta, who lived on the farm next door with her partner, Luke.
Outside, Alice reminded herself that she needn’t rush as she usually would. The morning air was sharp, and she breathed deeply as she locked the door, the squeeze of anxiety about her move lessening. She pulled on a beanie, covering shoulder-length auburn hair, trying to hold on to that feeling of calm, a moment of hope and happiness. She’d always felt the cold and since the end of her marriage she seemed to be even more chilled, as though nothing less than scorching heat could properly warm her.
The walk up the lane was mercifully free of loose sheep and another reminder of the man who’d stopped to help, making her smile. Alice was soon at the shop, and a bell tinkled as she opened the door. The delicious aromas of coffee and bacon did her hunger pangs no good, and she wished she’d brought a bigger carrier bag; she was likely to need one.
‘Welcome back, Alice, it’s grand to see you.’
The woman behind the counter paused sliding chunky chocolate brownies onto a tray. Grey hair was curling and short, her face welcoming and attractive with clear blue eyes. ‘Sandy said you were moving into the barn this week.’
‘Hi, Pearl. Thank you.’ Alice picked up a wicker basket, ignoring the tremor in her voice. Everyone had been so kind since her divorce, and she would be very glad to get these infuriating moments of emotion firmly behind her. ‘Mince pies! Surely it’s too soon; it’s not even November yet.’ She didn’t want to think about Christmas, not until she’d settled into the barn and found her feet at work.
‘Don’t let Stan hear you say that.’ The tray was empty of brownies now and Pearl reached for two mince pies, dusted with pale icing sugar, and wrapped them in a small paper bag. ‘As far as he’s concerned, it’s never too early for mince pies. He’d eat them all year round if he could.’
She held the package over the counter and Alice accepted it. The pastry was still warm, and her mouth watered greedily. Breakfast, she mulled. She promised herself she wouldn’t make a habit of such things.
‘One for you and one for him, on me. I take it you’ll be at Halesmere later? Stan’s been sorting out that shed for you. Said he’s never seen so much rubbish and that’s saying something, given the state of those old stables when Max bought the place.’
Stan was Pearl’s husband of more than forty years, and he was also Halesmere House’s resident carpenter, handyman and agony aunt, or soft touch, as Alice had heard him say with a wink. He could turn his hand to just about anything and was at the centre of all that went on at Halesmere. The door to his workshop was permanently open for a brew, a listening ear and a kind word in between the bluster and the banter.
Halesmere was less than a mile from Alice’s new home, and she’d spent time there during her increasingly frequent weekend visits to Sandy after the end of her marriage. Part family home, part holiday business, the house had a range of artists’ studios in the old stables set around a cobbled courtyard. Halesmere was run by Ella Grant and her partner, Max Bentley, alongside his flourishing landscape architecture practice. Ella and Max were expecting their first child together next month and Ella was already a stepmum to Lily and Arlo, Max’s children from his marriage before he was widowed three years ago.
A keen ceramist who sold much of her work, Sandy also had a studio at Halesmere and back in the summer had suggested to Alice that she might find a way to combine her passion for gardening with a future in Cumbria, and Alice had fallen in love with the idea at once. The haulage business was already in the process of being sold as she searched for a new opportunity, and Halesmere made perfect sense. She loved the community there and had already taken a couple of courses as well as enjoyed mindfulness sessions in the large barn used for events.
Alice had approached Max with a tentative request to take on the flower meadow he’d planted last spring after redesigning the gardens. He’d accepted at once and also offered her the use of a shabby old corner building attached to the stables, known as The Shed, and a part-time role looking after the gardens at Halesmere, with a view to her supplying and arranging the flowers in the house once the meadow was more established.
‘Yes, I’m going down as soon as I’ve had breakfast.’ Alice dropped a couple of homemade frozen ready meals into her basket to tide her over until a first online shop arrived tomorrow. She couldn’t wait to get started at Halesmere and sort out The Shed. She’d always worked long hours and didn’t plan to reduce them by much now she was here. ‘I’ll take Stan’s mince pie with me.’
‘Thanks, Alice. He’s already been in for his bacon butty.’ Someone else arrived and Pearl went to the coffee machine to make the Americano they’d ordered. ‘How about a nice chai latte to take away,’ she said to Alice over her shoulder. ‘It’ll warm you up; you look perished.’
‘That sounds lovely, thanks.’ And a perfect accompaniment to the mince pie. Alice could almost taste both already, she was so hungry.
‘Don’t tell Stan about the latte,’ Pearl said cheerfully. ‘He’s a stickler for his tea or hot Bovril. You should’ve seen his face when I tried him on the chai and told him it was tea. I thought he was going to spit it out and most of it went down the sink.’
‘I won’t say a word,’ Alice promised. She’d been invited into Stan’s workshop on previous visits and had once ventured to try the Bovril, which she’d found as disgusting to drink as Stan obviously did chai lattes.
‘How’s your mum, is she still down in Cambridge near your brother?’
‘She is, yes. Steven works from home now and his wife has just got a job in a primary school, so they don’t plan to move again.’
Alice ignored the pang of guilt. She’d meant to spend a few days with Steven and her sister-in-law, Jenna, before her move, but she’d run out of time once the house sale was complete. It had taken a while to wrap up her role in the haulage business and she’d clung to it for as long as she could, dreading making that final goodbye.
She and her mum weren’t especially close, not like her mum was to her brother and his family. Alice had been her dad’s little shadow, interested in everything cars. Steven had been the musical one, playing the violin and saxophone through his teenage years, which had suited her mum’s interests more than Alice and her cars had. Alice had more or less grown up in her dad’s workshop, covered in grease and oil as she’d learned about restoration and how to change a set of spark plugs.
Within a month of losing her dad, the family home went up for sale and her mum bought a bungalow a couple of miles from Steven and Jenna. Alice knew they appreciated the support with a young family, even if they sometimes did find the attention and expectation of near-daily visits smothering as her mum tried to settle into a new community.
Nothing important between her and her mum was ever really put into words, and yet Alice had been surprised to find the move more hurtful than she’d expected. Still coming to terms with not having the family she’d longed for after a diagnosis of polycystic ovaries in her twenties, followed by years of treatment and two IVF failures, it felt as though her mum had made Alice’s heartbreak just a little bit louder by moving so close to her only grandchildren. Not for her mum a home between son and daughter, where she could travel between the two and spend time with both. Steven was the one with the grandchildren and down to Cambridge she had gone.
‘Good that she’s settled, after your dad an’ all,’ Pearl said kindly as she popped a lid on the latte. ‘Takes time, more than you think, when someone passes.’
‘It does.’ Alice was still wandering around the shop, adding all sorts of treats to her basket she never normally bought. ‘Steven and Jenna are coming up next month for a weekend, and I’m seeing them at Christmas with Mum. We’ve booked Center Parcs for a few days.’
She adored her little nieces and was looking forward to sharing their excitement over the holidays. Her basket was heavy now that she’d added more milk and three soy candles that Marta from the farm made in her studio at Halesmere, and Alice placed it on the counter.
