LITMIR.BIZ

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of their marriage bed. Lily, wanting to always keep him to herself.

      Always Lily, laughing, joyous, as they wallowed in the sensuous happiness of being together, alone, with no one but themselves to consider.

      In his memory, the sun always shone on those early days of marriage. Every morning they would awaken, and walk down the lane at the end of the garden to fetch milk and eggs from the farmer. Then Lily would make breakfast on the stove, determined to show him that not all domestic skills were beyond her.

      Often he sketched her, sitting in the garden, or lying on the grass, staring up at the bright summer sky.

      ‘Come and join me,’ she’d say. ‘You see the world differently from here.’

      And together they would lie and look up at the bright, white clouds scudding across the azure blue sky. Lily seeing all sorts of things in them he could never have imagined. Where he saw soft, rolling shapes, Lily saw castles, animals, witches and princesses. He loved the way she allowed her imagination to transport her somewhere completely different. She had an other-worldly quality that he found entrancing.

      At other times they walked down the hill to the brook, and followed it to where it widened to a stream and then a river. There they would picnic underneath an old willow tree, delighting in the freedom of being unchaperoned, and leaning against each other, talking about their plans for the future.

      ‘We shall have six children,’ declared Lily, ‘three boys and three girls.’

      ‘When we come back from India,’ promised Edward, who had arranged for them to go on a three-month expedition to Lahore in order to search for exotic plants. ‘We can bring back plants for each of the children we are going to have. I shall build a greenhouse, so we can nurture them.’

      ‘And plant them in the knot garden,’ said Lily. ‘It will be wonderful, you’ll see.’

      Those days seemed endless and gloriously heady, in Edward’s memory, filled with laughter and fun and love. He wished the time could stretch out endlessly, but alas, honeymoons cannot last forever, and all too soon, real life intruded. Work must be done, Lily must become the lady of the house, though he hadn’t quite realized how very ill-suited she was to the task, prone as she was to wandering off into the gardens to smell the roses when she was meant to be telling Cook what to prepare for dinner. Or helplessly looking to him for advice when it came to the servants’ wages. Though she had been brought up to it, Lily simply didn’t possess the right character for the ladylike genteel world she had to inhabit; her spirit was far too free for that. And with his mother away for several months, there was no one for Lily to ask. He knew she chafed at the constrictions of afternoon teas with the neighbours and visits to the poor of the parish. His wild and wandering Lily, tamed and hemmed in by domesticity. He should have known it would lead to trouble.

      Chapter Five

      Late. Late again. Joel hated clockwatching, particularly when he had to discuss painful decisions about funding cuts that a few months of coalition government was forcing the small charity he worked for to make. Redundancies he had reluctantly had to tell Dan Walters, the director, were going to be necessary. At the very least they’d have to have a job freeze, and this at a time when services were going to be more squeezed than ever.

      When he and Claire had first mooted a move to the country, Joel had been tempted to jack in his job and retrain in carpentry – something that had been a slightly obsessive hobby in his pre-married life, but which had gone by the board in the years since he’d met Claire. But with a big mortgage, and a baby coming, both he and Claire had decided this wasn’t the time. So the compromise had been that he joined the charity Look Up!, which catered for the needs of the blind, as a finance director. Up until now he’d enjoyed it, feeling at least he was working on something that made a difference to people’s lives. But hearing the staff regaling stories of the difficulties encountered by various service users, who were finding it harder and harder to get the help they needed, had made him feel pretty depressed about the future.

      The meeting broke up, to Joel’s relief, but he felt gloomy as he left the room. In the main, people were supportive of his domestic situation. Most of them had families too, but everyone else worked hard and late in the office; Joel didn’t like them to think he was being a slacker, but he knew he was already late for Lauren.

      Finally – too late – he understood Claire’s point of view. She’d frequently complained about the stress of leaving work early to get home for Lauren on the couple of days a week she’d worked (thank God they’d employed Lauren while Claire was still alive. It had ensured at least some stability for Sam). Joel hadn’t understood. Like so much else. Too late. He’d always been too late.

      He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.

      ‘Can we review the situation in a month, Joel?’ Dan said, calling Joel back in. ‘Any chance you can get those figures I need by tomorrow?’

      Joel surreptitiously looked at his text message. Lauren. Of course. Where r u? The message glowed at him, bristling with resentment. It was amazing how guilty Lauren could make him feel. But then he often felt racked with guilt these days.

      ‘Sure thing,’ said Joel, looking forward to another late night date with his laptop.

      ‘Brilliant,’ said Dan. ‘On my desk, first thing?’

      Joel had never been late yet delivering figures, but Dan always made him feel as if somehow he were likely to be.

      ‘First thing,’ he promised, and tried not to leg it out of the meeting room and to his office.

      He rang Lauren as soon as he was back at his desk, rooting around for the information he needed to take home with him that night.

      ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ll be with you as quick as I can.’

      Thank God he’d got a job not too far outside Chiverton. Switching jobs when they moved to Heartsease had felt risky at the time, but turned out to be a godsend. There was no way he could manage a job that involved a big commute now.

      Ten minutes later he came flying up Lauren’s path, his heart pounding, sweating like a pig, and feeling like he might be about to have a coronary any minute. Lauren already had the door open, Sam in her arms, bag ready, disapproval rippling from her every pore. He couldn’t blame her. If life was tough for him, he knew it was equally hard for her. Lauren had told him snippets, and Claire had told him more, about Troy, the feckless father who’d left her in the labour ward, and on several occasions she’d confided in him how tough she found it being a single parent.

      ‘I’m so sorry, Lauren,’ said Joel. ‘I was stuck in the meeting from hell.’

      ‘It’s not me you’ll have to answer to, it’s my mum,’ said Lauren, her voice tight with evident frustration. ‘I’ve just had to put up with twenty minutes of nagging about why I let you get away with it. Mum did offer to stay with Sam, but I don’t like to leave him with anyone else.’

      ‘I’m really sorry,’ said Joel, again, feeling terrible. It was unusual for Lauren to actually say what she thought. ‘I promise I’ll do better next time.’

      ‘You always say that,’ said Lauren, but her tone was softening.

      He took Sam from her. ‘Thanks, Lauren,’ he said. ‘Look. I don’t say it very often, and I should.’

      ‘Should say what?’ He could still feel some hostility.

      ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Since – since Claire died, I don’t know what we’d have done without you, Sam and I. You’re always there for us, and I take you for granted.’

      There was a silence and Joel felt more awkward than ever.

      ‘And I am sorry,’ he added.

      ‘Oh stop,’ he detected a wobble in Lauren’s voice. ‘You know I’d do anything for the pair of you. It’s the least I can do for – for Claire.’

      She turned

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