Meet Me at Wisteria Cottage. Teresa Morgan F.
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never admit that. ‘Yes, I’m sure. This way you can pop back and forth, and when the insurance guy comes you can tell him to call for you at my house.’
‘The insurance company said something about paying for my accommodation, so I could always pay you.’
‘I don’t need paying.’
While Harry waited for Maddy to finish up and put her easel back in the garage, he took a closer look at her back gate to see if he would need any extra materials to repair it. Maddy stepped out of her garage laden down with a laundry basket piled high with damp clothes and a peg bag. He went to her aid, taking the basket off her, and helped peg out her washing. He grabbed the larger items like T-shirts and let Maddy hang out her underwear. Because that would just be weird.
‘I’ll fix the back gate tomorrow for you,’ he said, focussing back on the job. He would pick up some hinges and better locks in Truro.
‘Thank you. I can definitely pay you for replacing the back gate. It will come out of the insurance payment, so tell me what I owe you. I don’t expect you to do it for free.’
‘I’ll keep the receipts.’ Anything to keep the woman happy.
***
While Harry drove, Maddy enjoyed the views of the Cornish countryside and tried to forget about her scorched kitchen. Once the police had left her house, and she’d gone in to retrieve some washing, she couldn’t help taking another look at her devastated kitchen. Tears had fallen but, giving herself a pep talk, she’d wiped her eyes and ran upstairs. Valerie was right, she couldn’t change the situation, she couldn’t go back in time – time machines hadn’t been invented! – so she needed to get on with life and everything it threw at her. She could do nothing about her kitchen until her insurance company contacted her, but she could at least tidy and clean the upstairs.
Sitting up higher than she was used to in the cab of Harry’s pickup truck, and not having to concentrate on the road as a driver, Maddy was able to see so much more of the lush Cornish landscape. She watched the wind farms on the horizon, how some turned faster than others – what was all the fuss about those things? Surely people would prefer a windmill outside their house rather than a nuclear power station.
‘Your phone’s ringing,’ Harry said, pointing towards Maddy’s handbag where a muffled Bruno Mars’ Uptown Funk could be heard.
‘Oh, yes.’ Maddy scrabbled for her phone. Would she get to it in time? When she saw the caller, she wished she’d let the call go to voicemail. I must designate her a different ring tone.
‘Hi, Mum,’ she said as cheerily as she could. Maddy had avoided calling her mother until she had everything organized her end. Plus, she didn’t need Harry seeing her turn into another blubbering mess. She’d hoped to call her mother as soon as she believed she wouldn’t break down.
‘Are you all right? Gosh, I phoned the gallery, and Val told me everything … why didn’t you call me?’ Sandra Hart said with exasperation. She’d spoken so fast she sounded out of breath. Her mother was possibly more put out that Val knew more than she did. Although Valerie and Sandra were the best of friends, Maddy always wondered if there was a hint of jealousy in her mum over Maddy and Valerie’s closeness.
‘Mum, calm down. I’m fine. I haven’t had a chance to call you.’
‘Not a chance to call your own mother!’ Sandra shrieked. Maddy winced, taking the phone away from her ear briefly. ‘Where are you now?’
‘I’m heading into Truro.’
‘Are you driving? Should I call you back? You know you shouldn’t answer the phone while you’re driving.’
‘No, I’m not driving.’
‘Who is then?’
‘Oh, Mum, enough with the questions.’ She stared at the roof lining of the cab, biting her tongue and trying to remain cool, especially with Harry right beside her. He glanced at her but then returned his attention to the road.
‘Maddison, dear, why don’t you come home for a bit?’ This was another of the reasons why Maddy had postponed calling her mother. She knew her dad would worry unnecessarily and Sandra would urge her to come home. ‘It must be awfully scary there. And with so much work needing to be done to the house.’
‘Mum, it’s not scary, and there’s not that much work,’ lie mode cancelled, ‘but what work there is will need to be overseen.’
‘The insurance company will sort that—’
‘And then there’s the gallery.’
‘Valerie can manage there—’
‘And besides,’ Maddy wasn’t going to let her mother bully her into anything if she could help it, ‘Harry has said I can stay with him.’
‘Who’s Harry?’
‘My neighbour.’
‘Not the one you moan about all the time?’
Maddy gulped. She hoped Harry couldn’t hear her mother on the other end of the phone. She switched the phone to her left ear, just in case.
‘Yes, him,’ she hissed.
‘Pardon? I can’t hear you … You said you disliked the man.’ Is it me or is she shouting down the phone?
Maddy’s cheeks flushed. The cab was getting hotter. Had Harry turned off the air-con? ‘Mum, I can’t talk about this right now,’ she glanced at Harry, who appeared to be concentrating on driving and not listening to Maddy’s conversation – Thank God – ‘but Harry has been a tremendous help.’
‘Nothing any neighbour wouldn’t do.’ Harry winked at Maddy. The creases around his eyes, the dimple in his cheek sent heat rushing to Maddy’s inner thighs. What with Sandra’s embarrassing nagging combined with Harry’s good looks — Maddy’s body was suddenly on fire!
‘Connor would take you back.’ As Sandra blurted out the words, a chill coursed through Maddy, as if she’d had a bucket of icy water thrown over her. Her hackles rose.
‘Mum!’
‘Don’t bite my head off,’ Sandra said. ‘Only I saw him this morning, and he asked how you were, and said how sorry he was it hadn’t worked out with you, how much you meant to him. So I called the gallery, and here we are talking about him.’
‘I would not go back to Connor if my life depended on it,’ Maddy muttered, cupping her mouth over the mouthpiece as if it would help keep her conversation private. Fat chance. She knew Harry had heard what she’d said, but her mother needed putting straight. Connor did not bring out the best in Maddy, and now, having realised this, the better off she was without him. Until her kitchen fire, her single lifestyle had been treating her well. Yes, deep down she really wished she had someone to share this burden with, give her a hug, but she had to deal with it – on her own. Harry was helping, actually, keeping her strong, but she had to stand on her own two feet.
‘Okay, okay, I’m sorry I mentioned Connor. I thought he was a nice enough chap.’ Maddy bit her tongue. He was a control freak. And was her mother forgetting how he called her Sandy and she hated being called Sandy? ‘Please be careful, though, darling, you don’t know this Harry. He’s only a neighbour and you hear terrible things in the news. You don’t know what your neighbours get up to behind closed doors. You said you two didn’t see eye to eye, so for all you know he could have started the fire.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ Maddy glanced at Harry as a momentary coldness ran down her spine. He was an ex-fireman. He would know how to make a fire look like an accident. Even the firemen had hinted it was suspicious.
It was suspicious! The police were looking into it as arson.
Maddy had seen the evidence with her own eyes – it had to be arson.