To Mend a Broken Wing, page 12
My favourite mornings at work were the ones when Lucien was around, for the principal reason that I would forever be a little bit in love with him. Partly because he trusted his three small children to the care of a man with only one functioning hand and partly because I never knew what would come out of his mouth next. Noah, yet to feel so comfortable in his presence, flushed at being the centre of his attention.
“I’m okay,” he mumbled. “Sorry. Orlando wanted me to pick him up. I won’t if you prefer me not to.”
“Of course, you should!” Lucien exclaimed. “He’s clearly extremely happy in your lap. And why wouldn’t he be?”
When the crafty bugger threw me a sly look, I may or may not have pointed the paring knife at him. He’d been all mischievous Lady Louisa this morning and dressed as her too.
“Jay tells me you were my Toby’s knight in shining armour on Monday evening. Cricket bats at dusk.” He fluttered his eyelashes at Noah, who all of a sudden developed a fascination with the thick dark crown of Orlando’s head. “How terribly virile, if I may say so.”
“I’d rather you didn’t say so, thank you, Lucien,” I responded briskly. “And I don’t imagine for a second that’s how Jay reported it.”
“God, no, but one has to make one’s own entertainment in the countryside, don’t you find? Would you like to hear how I embellished the story further?”
I wasn’t sure whether Noah or I had turned the brighter beetroot, and I waved the paring knife at Lucien menacingly.
Fortunately for both of us, his laptop buzzed, signalling an incoming call, diverting Lucien’s attention.
“Ooh, look. It’s Marcel,” he declared happily. “Goody. Probably about to whinge that I finished The Telegraph cryptic crossword before he did yesterday. Let’s put him on FaceTime and see what horrific clothing combination he’s come up with today. I’m predicting beige corduroy, from head to toe.”
Which was pretty rich coming from a man dressed in a tangerine kimono paired with one of Jay’s soft blue hoodies. As Lucien tilted the laptop screen, Marcel’s beaming face came into focus.
“You googled thirteen down, Lucien,” he began. “No way did you know the word for a lieutenant in the Egyptian navy.”
“Gosh, I very much hope you aren’t accusing me of cheating, darling.”
“I am,” replied Marcel stoutly. “And you did. And before you say it, no, I didn’t get dressed in the dark. Unlike yourself. And don’t tell me that you once had a romantic liaison with a dashing Egyptian sailor on board a luxury yacht in the Med because I shan’t believe you. I’ve seen your maritime activities, and they mostly centre around clutching a vomit bowl. Now, I’m a busy man, so where are my adorable godchildren hiding?”
Lucien smiled at him. “If I told you Eliza and Arthur are in the playroom unwittingly trying to grow marijuana on a soggy paper towel, you may not believe me, so I’ll show you my scrumptious Orlando instead.”
He spun the computer slightly so it faced Noah. Embarrassed, he gave Marcel a quick wave of hello, then concentrated his gaze down at Orlando. Marcel cooed with delight.
“Well! Somebody looks like he’s found himself a very comfortable seat. So cute! Look at this, Guillaume! You are yesterday’s news, I’m afraid!”
Guillaume’s handsome face popped into view over Marcel’s shoulder, and I sensed Noah stiffen.
“Would you like me to take Orlando?” murmured Lucien, but Noah shook his head.
“No, it’s okay, I can…”
“Hello, Noah. You look well.”
“Hi.”
A drawn-out pause was filled by Orlando, who had realised where his favourite person’s voice was coming from and started chattering delightedly to the screen.
“How is the work going at the pub?” Marcel asked, ignoring the awkwardness. “Lucien says you’re still considering the car maintenance course too. That’s excellent news. Well done, my dear.”
“Uh…yeah. It’s…uh…yeah, the pub’s fine,” answered Noah, glancing up and then away.
Marcel, sensing he needed a second, began talking gibberish to Orlando.
“Reuben says you’ve joined the house cricket team.” That was Guillaume again. He spoke softly, but only a fool would miss the anxiety etched into his voice. Reuben would have relayed their frank exchange of views by now. I willed Noah to say something.
“He’s going to be our secret weapon,” pitched in Lucien smoothly. “And a much, much more pleasing one than…the alternative. Very pleasing. Toby totally agrees with me, don’t you, darling?”
Have I mentioned I was a little bit in love with my boss? I was rapidly revising that status downwards. Noah shifted Orlando in his lap and then looked straight into the camera.
“I received your letter.”
Lucien gave a sharp intake of breath. Noah nodded nervously, his eyes once more on Orlando.
“Do you want us to go?” Lucien whispered, and Noah shook his head.
“Did you read it?” Guillaume asked hesitantly.
I’d met Guillaume quite a few times now. Not a great talker, but not shy either. Just quiet, I guessed. On the screen, Marcel reached up to find Guillaume’s hand and held it tightly.
“Yeah, I read it.”
“And?”
God knows what was in the letter, but from the hope in Guillaume’s voice, it evidently mattered a lot to him.
“Yeah, all right,” said Noah.
Chapter Twelve
Noah
“ARE YOU OKAY?”
Toby knocked on my bedroom door before tentatively pushing it open to find me lying on the bed, fully dressed and busily occupied doing fuck all.
“You were blindsided down in the kitchen, yeah?” he said. “Sorry, they can all be a bit much sometimes. It takes some getting used to.”
I sighed and nodded slowly. He was right; I’d been totally caught off-guard, although it hadn’t been Lucien’s fault or Marcel’s really. He hadn’t known when he called that I’d be there. Toby edged into the room and sat in the small armchair next to the window.
“Guillaume looked anxious,” he observed, carefully avoiding referring to him as my father or my dad.
“Yeah. He wants to get to know me. Fuck knows why.”
“I’m not sure why either. You’re a right miserable sod.”
I flicked him the V sign, and we shared a comfortable silence for a moment. Can we give each other a chance? That’s what he’d written, and I’d said yes. The word had spilled out of me before I’d had time to think.
I’d begun looking forward to my daily text from Marcel. I’d started composing short answers in return. If I was being honest, his banter game was a little staid, but I’d found some memes on Insta about the French president and sent him a few, which he said Guillaume and he had chuckled over.
It had taken my altercation with Reuben for the penny to finally drop. Guillaume had no regrets about his one-night stand because I was the result of it. An almost visceral confusion had swirled around my head ever since.
“I know you’re taking the piss, but you’re right, Toby. I don’t exactly bring much to the party, do I?”
“Duh…” Toby slapped his forehead. “You don’t get it, do you? Apart from his husband, you’re the only family he’s got. He must be chuffed to bits you found him. Once he got over the shock of you turning up on his doorstep, obviously.”
“He’d have been more pleased if I wasn’t some homeless loser.” I was doing an excellent impression of a miserable sod. “And not everyone wants kids or a bigger family. He and Marcel look pretty happy, wrapped up in each other, to be honest.”
“You’re not a homeless loser.” His mouth split into a grin, the twin dimples putting in an appearance. “Not homeless anyhow.”
The bugger thought he was so funny. I hurled a pillow at him, which he caught and threw back. More dimples, so I threw it again, low-key flirting. We’d done a lot of that lately.
“Seriously, Noah. They’d love to have you in their lives. Did you not notice how thrilled Marcel was to see you? He’s brought you here, to Rossingley, for Christ’s sake. That says something about how much they want you to be a part of them, doesn’t it?”
When Toby became animated, he wheeled his arms around like he was bringing a plane into land. I’m not sure why I’d thought he was ordinary when we first met; watching him now, as he pushed his hand frustratedly through his rust-coloured hair, in his own way, he was as striking as Freddie. To me at least.
“They’ve brought me to the arse end of nowhere.” I smiled to show I was teasing him.
“You love it.” He scoffed. “You’re becoming a local already. You’re pulling pints in the pub, you’ve fed the ducks with Orlando, you’ve got into your first fight, you nearly had another one with Reu…”
“I don’t care what you say, those blokes at cricket shouldn’t have been taking the piss out of you.”
Toby just laughed. “Yes, I think they received that message loud and clear.”
I thought back to cricket practice and how much I’d been enjoying myself until those twats began teasing Toby. How was I to know they were his mates? And if a killer like Guillaume was capable of reining in his temper, like Reuben said, then why couldn’t I?
“Anyway, as I was saying,” Toby continued. “You’re such a local you’ll be entering your home produce in the biggest turnip competition before the year’s out. Although you won’t win—you have to have been born here and have three generations stacked up in the graveyard to be in with a chance of winning. That goes for the guess-the-weight-of-the-turkey competition at Christmas too. So don’t waste your money entering that. Or the tombola at the village fête. Oh my God, when Donna’s cousin came over from Canada and had the winning tickets for both the bottle of Glenfiddich and the Sainsbury’s prosecco, the church warden nearly combusted on the spot. And the tractor rally in a fortnight’s time—once you’ve experienced the dizzy heights of that trip around the estate, you’ll regret not having found Rossingley sooner.”
I rolled my eyes at him, and he stuck out his tongue.
“You’re funny,” I heard myself say softly, and my neck heated even as the words tumbled out of my mouth. He’d started dropping by my room almost daily, and his presence felt as if someone had thrown the curtains wide and flooded the room with sunshine.
“I’m never going to live it down, you coming to my rescue like that. My dad and Uncle Will found it hilarious.”
He looked around, studying the room as we both pretended that neither of us were reliving my awkward, over-the-top response to his mates’ banter. A couple of years older than me, Toby was a grown man with a proper job, a home, and friends. He didn’t need me looking out for him.
“I haven’t got much stuff,” I said defensively, following the direction of his gaze. That was an understatement. I owned the grand total of a toothbrush, deodorant, shampoo, a pay-as-you-go phone and charger, a pair of trainers, and a few items of clothing. Most of which had been donated by Marcel.
“I’m driving into Allenmouth later, if there’s anything you need,” Toby offered. “I usually pop into town once a week.”
“Yeah, okay. I’m craving another McDonald’s. And another pair of trainers might be good. They’d have to be cheap though.”
“Trainers, yes,” he answered. “McDonalds, no. My mum has invited you over for dinner.”
“Why the hell?” Okay, so not the politest of responses.
“I think what you meant is, thank you, Toby. That’s a very kind invitation. I’d love to.”
I stuttered. “Sorry. But why?”
“Because you’re new to Rossingley, your presence behind the bar has been reported, and that’s what she does. It will be very casual, but if you don’t come, she’ll be knocking on this bedroom door with food parcels and giving you the third degree. Believe me, it will be much easier to just say yes.”
*
I DIDN’T DO religion, which I explained in no uncertain terms to Toby as I hung my coat up next to his on the front porch of the ramshackle old house, slap-bang next door to the church, with its painted sign boasting, The Vicarage. He hadn’t bothered mentioning his mum was the bloody vicar. A deliberate oversight, I was fairly sure, because if he had, I’d have declined the invitation with the same amount of grace as I’d accepted. I’d climbed on my high horse, all revved up with my charity-case spiel, and then had to dismount again because even I knew that welcoming people to new communities and then trying to persuade them to join the church was kind of the vicar’s job.
“Just relax! FYI, I don’t do religion either. My mum doesn’t care—her theological philosophy is a broad church. That’s a religious joke, by the way.”
Fucking hilarious. Unfortunately, it was too late to make a run for it because a fearful-looking woman in a dog collar, with the same mad red hair as her son but also equipped with a pair of shot-putter shoulders he hadn’t inherited, marched down the hallway towards me. Three spaniels and two small children in scruffy school uniforms followed hot on her heels, swerving around a kid’s bike, a row of welly boots, various school satchels, and a side table heaped with old parish newsletters.
“Hi, Toby’s friend, and welcome! I’m Victoria—but everyone calls me Vic-the-Vicar.”
Vic-the-Vicar. You couldn’t fucking make this place up.
“I’m Noah. The northerner.” I shook her hand—from her grip she may have actually been a shot-putter in her youth—then watched as Toby was swept up and squeezed as if he’d been gone six months and not roughly twenty-four hours. The two kids gave him the same treatment but with screeching sound effects, while the dogs attempted to lick him to death. The noise of more kids emanated from the back of the house. Toby waited while I unlaced my new trainers.
“Noah-the-northerner? Did you just make a joke?”
“It has been known.” I smiled up at him, wondering how he’d react if I grabbed his face in my hands and kissed it. “Don’t tell anyone.”
I followed him down the hallway. “Who are all the kids? Does she run some sort of after school club?”
“Hah! If only. They’re my younger siblings. And no, we’re not Catholic. But I did grow up in a house without a telly, so I guess my parents made their own amusement on long winter evenings.”
Eew. Having negotiated the obstacle course of the hallway, we entered the sitting room, which was in a similar state of chaos but with the added blare of a children’s colourful television programme. The youngest child glued to it looked to be around five, so maybe Toby’s parents had finally discovered TV as effective birth control. An older teen, surrounded by homework, coolly nodded his chin at me from his seat at the table. Toby’s dad, a slight, unassuming chap whom I’d already met in the pub and at cricket training, peered around the kitchen doorway and gave me a wave, a tea towel over his shoulder.
An old-fashioned highbacked armchair occupied one corner of the room, itself occupied by an ancient man. Like a wonky portcullis, a top set of dentures lolled in his open mouth. Slumped down, he was apparently asleep, although how the hell anyone could possibly take a kip in this madhouse defeated me. Concluding he must be dead and that no one else seemed to have noticed, I nudged Toby, wondering how to gently break the news.
“Oh, he’s fine,” he said airily. “That’s Derek. He lives on his own in one of the cottages next to the pub. He used to come over every day for a chat after his wife died because he was lonely. Eventually my mum gave him his own key. Trust me, he’ll soon wake up when his dinner’s put in front of him.”
Gesturing that I should take a seat on a sofa littered with cushions, a longhaired tabby cat, and numerous books and magazines, Toby then disappeared into the kitchen to help his mum. Gingerly, I made space to sit down, surveying the scene of devastation.
So, this was what happy family life looked like. Different to Lucien’s, but with obvious similarities. Lots of smiles for a start. Plenty of noise, too, like when Eliza and Arthur came home from school, bursting into the kitchen full of news and proudly brandishing their latest artwork. One of Toby’s siblings was pestering the older boy at the table in the way Orlando pestered me. The boy stuck his tongue out at him, then gathered him up anyhow. Perching him on his knee, he carried on with his homework.
Somebody decided the new visitor was more interesting than the telly.
“Are you Toby’s boyfriend?”
The source of the question was a miniature version of Toby, dressed in a grubby yellow bunny-eared onesie and sucking on a lollipop. It may have been a female sibling, but I was having a hard time deciphering them all. With the background noise, her question could have passed unnoticed, but typically, the TV show ended, and suddenly it commanded everyone’s attention.
“Toby’s homosexual,” added another child helpfully.
“If he was Toby’s boyfriend, you dickhead, he’d know that already, wouldn’t he?” drawled the boy with the homework. A fair point, succinctly made.
“Mummy wants you to be Toby’s boyfriend.” The first child again, ignoring her older brother. “She says she wants him to have a boyfriend who will take him on big adventures because he’s not brave enough to go on them by himself.”
“Because of his arm,” the second one interrupted.
“That’s why he came back home,” added the first.
I had a feeling Toby wouldn’t have wanted me to know all that. Nevertheless, it was interesting. Despite clearly loving Rossingley and his job, perhaps he’d felt other options weren’t open to him.
“So, are you?” said the first, stepping closer and critically examining me. “Are you his boyfriend?”
I felt a bit like a lad planning on taking his bird out to the cinema, only to be accosted by her scary dad demanding to know his intentions. Except worse, because I had four inquisitors, not one. In need of support, I looked across to the boy doing his homework, the only one old enough to really appreciate my discomfort. But the bugger had Toby’s sharp blue eyes, and they were lasered on me as keenly as his guileless younger siblings.
“No, I’m not,” I said eventually. “Sorry.”
