Old Dogs, New Tricks. Linda Phillips
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and carpets?’
‘Yes, yes, they had. But nothing we wouldn’t have chosen ourselves. That’s the beauty of it all: we could move in straight away.’ His eyes glazed over. ‘Just imagine! No more worries about this jerry-built heap. No more patching up the roof, or the dodgy bit of guttering round the back …’
‘Bit on the pricey side for the provinces, isn’t it?’
Phil waggled his hand judiciously. ‘So-so.’
Marjorie frowned; events felt as though they were racing along at a rate of knots beneath her reluctant feet. Phil had told her the other day that they wouldn’t even have to sell their own house before buying the new one: the relocation company would take it on. All they had to do once the legal side had been completed was to move out with their furniture.
He’d been drip-feeding her such tit-bits of information for days by then, no doubt hoping to wean her towards full acceptance of his plans. Aware of his tactics, she had armoured herself well against them.
‘You can manage to afford this –’ she flapped the brochure ‘– but you can’t afford to go in with your father? I don’t quite see your logic.’
‘I’ve told you a hundred times –’
‘Three bathrooms? Three?’ She pounced on a black and white room plan. ‘What would we need three bathrooms for?’ In her mind’s eye she saw a lorry load of Harpic trundling up to the front door, a trailer of toilet rolls dragging behind. ‘And five bedrooms!’ she gasped. It would be like running a boarding house. She looked up at her husband as though he had taken leave of his senses.
‘You were worried about leaving our friends,’ he reminded her. ‘Well, that’s why we’ll need extra rooms – for when they come down to visit us. And for the girls, of course.’
‘Our friends?’ Marjorie snorted. ‘If Beth and Tom are anything to go by we’ll never see any of them again.’
The house details forgotten for a moment, Marjorie stared into space. ‘I simply don’t understand it. Beth and Tom were so … well, uppity, I thought, when we saw them the other day.’
They had met up by accident at a mutual friend’s house the day after Spittal’s closure was announced, and the minute Tom and Beth had put in an appearance the atmosphere had noticeably chilled. Naturally Spittal’s plans had been first on the list for discussion, but Tom and Beth had stood to one side looking awkward, even frosty, and had hardly attempted to join in.
Marjorie had come away puzzled and not a little hurt. Philip had gone quiet too, so she presumed he was feeling the same. ‘It’s almost as if they were jealous of us,’ she remarked on their way home in the car, ‘jealous because you’ve been given the opportunity to move with the firm and Tom hasn’t. Funny, I never would have thought they could be like that. Would you?’ But Philip, offering no comment, simply stared at the road ahead.
Marjorie had smiled grimly; she would have liked to reassure Beth that she’d be delighted to change places with her any day, and would have said as much if it had just been the two of them having a cosy chat, without Phil there, ready to glare his disapproval. As it was, she had pretended a resigned acceptance of her fate and said little.
Turning back to the brochure she wondered what Beth would do if confronted with a huge new Tudor-style house at Brightwells. She peered more closely at the artist’s impression and feigned an innocent expression
‘What sort of trees are these?’ She knew that as far as new gardens went, two rolls of turf and some chicken wire were all you were likely to be given.
Phil fixed her with his most quelling expression. ‘You have to plant those yourself.’
‘This one’s bigger than the garage.’ She jabbed her finger at a large, impossibly green willow tree, arching over a perfect lawn. There were none of those messy bits of twig and leaf lying about underneath it either. ‘Take all day to dig a hole for a tree like that,’ she scoffed, ‘and then you’d need ten men.’
‘Marjorie. Please. Don’t be tiresome. I know you’re going to miss the garden here, but just think what you could do with this plot. You’d have a whole new canvas to make your mark on.’ He rustled through the leaflets in search of a plan of the entire ‘paddock’. ‘Look, the garden’s going to be a bit smaller than we’re used to, I know, but you’ve been saying lately that this one will soon be too much for you to keep up with, and I’m sure you could make the new one just as nice …’
‘Oh yes, I’m sure I could. Given twenty-odd years and a fortune. We’d have to go back there on day trips from our nursing home to see how it was all coming along.’
Phil flung down the specifications.
‘I can see there’s no pleasing you,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t know why I bother to try.’
She jumped up from the settee. ‘You know how you can please me,’ she wailed back at him. ‘You can tell me we’re staying put. You know how I hate the thought of moving. At our time of life it’s ridiculous. And you know how much I’ll miss my lovely garden. I’ll miss all our friends as well!’
She stood up, letting the brochure and its contents scatter. ‘You don’t seem to give a damn about me any more. You don’t give a damn about anyone. All you think of is yourself.’
Tears had not been far away. She’d stormed back into the kitchen where she had been scrubbing the grids from the cooker and started clanging them about.
It must have sounded as though the bells of hell had been let loose, Marjorie thought as she popped the last piece of toast into her mouth. She put down her knife, wiped her fingers on her napkin and sat up straight. The moment could be delayed no longer. Her new life was about to begin.
Sunshine warmed the back of Jade’s neck as she paused in front of the antique shop. She hadn’t meant to come down this street today. She need not have done so. The firm of Bath solicitors for whom she worked could be reached just as easily by any number of back street routes. And yet here she was, balanced on the balls of her feet as a gesture towards making her stop a brief one, but knowing full well that she would not. She had passed this window before and knew that in the middle of the tasteful display sat a wonderful Moorcroft vase. A vase that she fiercely coveted.
Her eyes gleamed; her lips parted. A hunger gnawed at her stomach. Oh, but it would look so good in their little hallway! The yellow ochre of the walls and the tones of the rug that she had chanced upon last month at the antiques market, would complement it perfectly. She had to have it!
Her ankles relaxed; her heels touched the pavement. The decision had been made. Fending off a fleeting vision of Oliver’s dark displeasure she swivelled one fashionable navy blue loafer towards the entrance to the shop, and the other quickly followed.
OK, she told herself as she pushed on the heavy glass, so it costs a lot of money. A hell of a lot. Far more than I ought to lash out. But it’s my own money, isn’t it? What’s it to do with Oliver?
It was almost as though she were echoing her sister’s words of the previous day. Jade had complained to Selina that recently Olly seemed to be growing twitchy with regard to her spending too much money and that he hadn’t been like that when she’d first met him.
‘What’s it to do with him?’ Selina had said, adding rather nastily, Jade thought, ‘Don’t tell me your blinkers are wearing out. I always wondered what on earth you saw in him.’
Jade had glared back at the shorter, dumpier version of herself and not answered. But she had sometimes wondered the same thing herself. What had she seen in him? Especially after that crazy speech of his, when he had suggested they move in together. The conditions he’d set down!
Right at the beginning she had had no doubt as to his attractions: intelligence, energy, ambition. He was a mature man with knowledge of the wider world, and she couldn’t abide silly, inexperienced boys just starting out in life. He might be a bit on the short side,