Song of the Skylark Read online

  That pride would very likely prove to be the problem now; it would dictate that she wouldn’t be able to accept that her current predicament had been brought on by a terrible error of judgement. Lizzie should never have broken up with Simon in favour of a married man – a married man with a young child. It had been an act of madness. Every time Tess thought of the man’s poor wife sitting at home while her husband was with Lizzie, her stomach churned.

  They didn’t know exactly why Lizzie had lost her job – there was something about her story of being made redundant that didn’t quite ring true – but when Tom had started talking about her seeking legal advice for unfair dismissal, Luke had hinted it might stir up a hornet’s nest that was better left well alone. Luke obviously knew more about what had gone on, but in loyalty to his sister he was keeping quiet. Which only served to worry Tess more.

  The first she and Tom and known about this Curt character had been when Lorna had rung Tess – Lorna Duncan was not only Tess’s closest friend in the village, she was also Simon’s mother. ‘How long have you known?’ Lorna had asked, her voice tight with hurt and recrimination.

  ‘Known what?’ Tess had replied innocently.

  ‘Oh, come on, Tess, you’re her mother! Of course you know Lizzie’s dumped Simon and taken up with some man she works with. At least have the decency to be straight with me.’

  So shocked had Tess been, both at the news and the tone of Lorna’s voice, it was some moments before she could respond. ‘But – but that can’t be right,’ she managed to say. ‘Lizzie loves Simon. You know she does.’

  In the uncomfortable silence that followed, Tess had thought of all the times when she had secretly allowed herself to plan Simon and Lizzie’s wedding – a small marquee on the lawn at Keeper’s Nook, the catering firm that had provided the buffet for her and Tom’s thirtieth wedding anniversary, and a disco. Once or twice she had even joked with Lorna that they were practically family these days. It seemed impossible that none of that was going to happen now.

  There was a lengthy pause before Lorna spoke. ‘You mean you really didn’t know?’

  ‘I promise you, Lorna, this is the first I’ve heard of it. But surely there’s been a mistake. Surely it’s nothing more than a lover’s tiff. It’ll blow over. Of course it will. I’ll speak to Lizzie.’

  Another of Tess’s traits was to believe that there was no problem she couldn’t fix. But in this instance, no amount of talking or reasoning with Lizzie was of use. Lizzie’s mind was made up. She was sorry for upsetting everyone, but there was nothing to be done: she loved Curt now, not Simon.

  Poor Simon, he was distraught. Tess and Tom had seen for themselves the state he was in when he’d turned up unexpectedly one evening. He was home for the weekend to see his parents and had called in on them at Keeper’s Nook in the hope that they might be able to persuade Lizzie to change her mind. It had saddened Tess profoundly to see how upset he was, but knowing how stubborn their daughter could be once she’d made her mind up, all they could do was repeat how sorry they were and hug the lad they’d thought would one day be their son-in-law.

  Since then relations between the two families had deteriorated. Tess suspected that Lorna found her accountable in some way for hurting her precious only child. There had been no meals out together like they used to, or lazy Sunday lunches spent at each other’s houses.

  Tess had never believed that anger or the laying of blame served any good purpose but now, as she entered the village of Great Magnus and passed Orchard House with its immaculate front garden of box hedging and roses, and where she hadn’t set foot in some weeks, she felt a strong urge to be very angry indeed with her daughter. Not just for what she’d done to Simon, but to them as a family and their closest friends. Had Lizzie given any thought to the consequences of her actions? Tess wasn’t proud of having these thoughts, but there was no denying the strength of what she felt.

  Orchard House now behind her, she drove on slowly to the heart of the village with its elongated triangle of village green lined on all sides by a variety of prettily painted timber-framed cottages, their roofs a mixture of thatch, slate and clay tile. Not so long ago Great Magnus had boasted five pubs and a wide selection of shops, but now, and despite its growing population, it possessed just the two pubs, an antique shop cum tearoom and a community shop run by a rota of helpers, including Tess.

  She passed the duck pond on her right and took the turning afterwards, then, passing the church and going further down the narrow lane, she indicated right for Keeper’s Nook.

  A double-fronted Victorian red-brick villa that over the years had been treated to a mishmash of extensions, it was not what you’d call a looker. But it was the location that Tess and Tom had fallen in love with, in particular the swathe of open farmland behind the house. They had moved here from Essex the summer Lizzie and Luke sat their A-level exams. Tess always remembered that summer as being a good one.

  She was out of the car when, from the depths of her handbag, she heard her mobile ring.

  It was Luke’s wife, Ingrid, a young woman who, if Tess were completely honest, thoroughly intimidated her. She was a clinical and medical negligence lawyer and, having returned to work when Freddie was eight months, she radiated the kind of competency that Tess had never in her life achieved. There was a measured coolness about Ingrid, which meant she rarely said anything off the cuff, her every word seeming to be carefully weighed before uttered. Tess and Tom had always put this down to a Scandinavian influence; her mother was Swedish. She had been their daughter-in-law for three years now, but despite clearly making Luke happy, and being the mother of their delightful grandson, Tess didn’t feel she knew Ingrid any better than when Luke had first brought her home to meet them.

  ‘Hello, Ingrid,’ she said now, packing into those two small words an excessive amount of cheerfulness. It was another effect Ingrid had on her; she made Tess behave out of character, as though she were trying too hard to please. The result was she always sounded horribly insincere.

  Chapter Three

  Over in Cambridge, throughout her conversation with her mother-in-law, Ingrid had been scrolling through her emails, dismissing anything that could wait until the morning and prioritising the rest.

  The call now ended, she reached across for the form that Liam, the latest in a long line of office juniors, had left on her desk. Attached to the form was a handwritten note. She didn’t know what was worse, Liam’s appalling handwriting or the ridiculous text-speak he used to communicate with her – No hury nd of nxt wk ok. Just how much time did the boy think he was saving by writing in this idiotic manner?

  Despite Liam’s instruction that there was no hurry, she removed the cap from her pen and began filling in the details the form required of her. She hated needlessly putting things off; she preferred to get things dealt with as soon as possible, just as she liked to be honest and direct with those around her. Admittedly not everyone appreciated the candid approach she favoured. Twice now she had corrected Liam on his grammar and his spelling and both times he had looked at her as though he had no idea what she was talking about.

  Luke’s family were prime examples of people who didn’t go in for the direct approach, preferring instead to tiptoe around the edge of what needed to be said. For Luke’s sake Ingrid had learned to hold her tongue when around them, especially when it came to his twin sister who, in her opinion, was in dire need of a reality check – she was a thirty-two-year-old woman, not a child of thirteen, who believed the world revolved around her. It was high time that girl grew up and took responsibility for her actions – and herself. Running home to mummy and daddy when the going got tough was nothing short of pathetic at her age.

  From all the stories Ingrid had heard about Lizzie as a child – usually told in a jocular how-did-we-ever-survive-it? tone – it never failed to surprise her just how indulged Lizzie must have been. Luke said that his parents beh
aved in the way any loving parents would: with patience, tolerance and love. ‘Isn’t that how we’d be with Freddie?’ he’d asked her.

  Holding her tongue, she’d kept to herself that she would never allow Freddie to behave the way Lizzie had. Her love for her son was absolute; she could never love him more, or less, but she would haul him quickly into line if he started to show the slightest similarity to his feckless aunt.

  Ingrid had never let on to anyone, not even Luke, just what a wrench it had been for her to leave Freddie in the care of others so that she could return to work. The only way she could cope with the sense of loss she’d experienced was to absorb herself thoroughly in the legal cases she dealt with. It also served the purpose of leaving her no time to dwell on whether the nursery was looking after Freddie properly – did the nursery staff wash their hands enough, did they know what to do if he was choking, or had a fever, did they watch him at all times, was he drinking enough water during the day, was he learning anything, was he making friends? Her list of concerns was endless.

  Having a child had been the biggest joint decision she and Luke had made so far in their relationship. They had both been perfectly content with the previous status quo, deriving all the happiness they needed from each other and their demanding careers, but then a friend’s husband had died and from nowhere Ingrid experienced the stark fear that, if anything happened to Luke, she would be left with nothing of him; he would be gone, completely gone. Whereas a child, she realised, would provide her with a uniquely precious part of Luke, as well as the strength to face life without him. Surprised by her turnaround, and her sudden anxiety about his mortality, Luke took some convincing, but before long he was as jubilant as she was by the positive result a pregnancy test kit gave them.

  Now, the form duly filled out, Ingrid added it to the files awaiting Liam’s administrations. Naturally precise and unhurried of movement, she straightened the files, squaring the corners to her satisfaction and wishing the rest of her life were as easy to order.

  Hearing loud voices from outside, she rose from her chair and went over to the window that looked down onto the courtyard garden at the back of the elegant Regency building that was home to Cavendish Court Lawyers. On her return from maternity leave, she had been given this office following a reshuffle after the retirement of one of the partners. It had been made clear to her that she should consider herself lucky to be given such a prized space in which to work.

  Luck be damned! She deserved this office as much as anybody else here. More so, in some cases. Actually, more so in plenty of cases.

  Down in the garden a man wearing ear defenders wielded a chainsaw, the noise ricocheting off the surrounding walls. The conifer that was being chopped down had been exhaustively discussed. There were those who wanted to keep the tree, citing its importance at Christmas time when it was decorated with lights. Others said it should be removed as a matter of some urgency before it caused any structural damage to the building – the surrounding flagstones were already lifting in places.

  Ingrid had readily agreed that the tree should go. Not only because it partially blocked the view from her window, but because it was obvious the tree had outgrown the space. Logic dictated her thoughts, not misplaced sentiment. Those in the firm who wanted a tree to decorate at Christmas could club together and buy one to play with if they cared so much!

  Mercifully, the madness of Christmas was a long way off. Right now she had a far more pressing problem. Over the weekend there had been a colossal flood at Freddie’s nursery and it was only first thing this morning that the flood, and the extent of the damage caused, was discovered. With sewage seeping up from the drains, the job of putting things right was going to take weeks, if not months. Which left them well and truly in the lurch and was the reason Ingrid had rung Tess to ask if she and Tom could have Freddie on a Monday to Friday basis. Fortunately Luke had managed to take today off to look after Freddie and had said he would ring his parents to ask for their help, but Ingrid had insisted he let her make the call, saying she felt it showed more respect to Tess if she was the one to ask the favour.

  However, the real reason she wanted to speak to Tess was to be very sure that her mother-in-law understood the ground rules, namely that Lizzie was not to be left in sole charge of Freddie at any time. The girl could not be trusted to look after herself, never mind a cherished two-year-old.

  Down in the courtyard, the man with the chainsaw had revved it up a gear and was moving in for the kill. The tree, thought Ingrid, as the branches the other side of the window began to shake as if in protest, was a symbol of stubborn and futile resistance to change. There it had stood all these years insinuating its way, little by little, into a space where it wasn’t wanted; now it had met its match and its demise was imminent.

  In a window adjacent to hers, Ingrid spotted Julian Redman holding up a handwritten sign – SAVE THE TREE … for firewood! Seeing her, he grinned. She smiled back at her fellow voice of reason and held up a thumb of triumph and solidarity just as the tree gave a violent shudder and fell away from the window with a loud creak of defeat, followed by a thud to the ground.

  Mentally cheering that today was a small victory for common sense, Ingrid turned away from the window and went back to her desk.

  Chapter Four

  ‘You might just as well give in graciously to Mum,’ Luke said, watching his sister crawl around on all fours in the garden with Freddie on her back. She was pretending to be a camel for some reason – anybody else would have settled for a horse or a donkey and made the appropriate noises, but not Lizzie; she always had to do things differently.

  ‘Since when have I done anything graciously?’ she said, pausing to look at him.

  ‘You could break the habit of a lifetime and give it a go, just to see how it feels.’

  Lizzie let out a yelp. ‘Hey, you back there, that hurts!’

  Ignoring her words, Freddie giggled and tugged all the more on her hair, which she’d plaited specially to act as reins. ‘Lizzie go faster!’ he squealed.

  ‘You want faster, do you, young man? Well, you’d better hold on tight, because this camel’s about to turn into a racing camel, and you know what racing camels do, don’t you, they go racing in the desert!’ To shrieks of delight from her charge, she took off towards the end of the garden, then getting to her feet and with Freddie hanging on gamely, she turned round and thundered back towards Luke where he was sitting on the grass. Out of breath, she swung Freddie down and plonked him in Luke’s lap. ‘Your turn to entertain your son,’ she panted, ‘I’m all done in.’

  ‘But you do it so splendidly. Isn’t that true, Freddie? Auntie Lizzie really is the best auntie in the world, isn’t she?’

  ‘Thanks for bigging me up, but I’m the only aunt he has, so his experience is severely limited.’

  In answer to Luke’s question, Freddie wriggled out of his hands and threw himself on top of Lizzie, where she now lay on her back. ‘I thought we’d sneaked out here to have a quiet chat,’ she said with a grimace as Freddie sat astride her and began bouncing up and down, making clip-clop noises with his tongue.

  ‘Come on, you,’ Luke said, leaning over to grab his son, ‘you’ve worn poor Lizzie out.’

  Freddie pushed Luke’s hands away. ‘No, no, no, no, no!’ he said, shaking his head violently from side to side.

  ‘Look, sweetheart, just sit quietly for a while so your daddy and I can talk, and then if you’ve been extra, extra good we’ll have another camel ride. Can you be quiet for me?’

  He gave Lizzie’s request a moment’s consideration, then nodded slowly, pressing one of his fingers very firmly into the exposed skin of midriff where her top had ridden up.

  ‘So come on, Luke, tell me why you think it’s a good idea I give in to Mum and work at Woodside?’ Lizzie said, while letting Freddie prod some more in the manner of a clumsy doctor examining her. ‘Because I can’t thi
nk of anything more likely to make me feel a million times worse.’

  Five weeks had passed since Lizzie had moved back home to Keeper’s Nook and at Mum’s instigation, and considerable cajoling, she was about to start at Woodside as a volunteer helper. With all the appropriate background checks now carried out, it seemed a bit late in the day to be having a change of heart, especially as Mum had gone to so much trouble to set things up.

  ‘Well,’ Luke said, knowing he was on slippery ground, ‘my question to you is do you have anything else in mind to do with your time? Apart from watching endless daytime telly.’

  ‘Chance would be a fine thing! The minute I sit down, or even look like I’m about to sit down, Mum pounces on me. Honestly, it’s like being a kid again. She keeps shooing me about the place. I swear she’s worried I’ll grow roots if I stay still for too long.’

  Luke laughed. ‘That’s probably exactly what she’s worried about. The last thing any parent wants is their grown-up child living with them on a permanent basis.’

  Lizzie frowned. ‘The last thing I want is to be here on a permanent basis.’

  ‘So meantime you need to do something positive while you wait for the right job opportunity to come along.’

  ‘If it ever does,’ she said with uncharacteristic gloominess.

  ‘It will,’ he said firmly.

  Still frowning, she said, ‘Are you sure I can’t come and stay with you for a bit? I could look after this little monkey instead of him coming to Mum and Dad.’ She gave Freddie a taste of his own medicine and prodded his tummy, eliciting a happy giggle from him. ‘I wouldn’t be any bother. And you’d save me from the horror of Woodside.’

  This wasn’t the first time Lizzie had made this suggestion since a burst pipe had caused untold flood damage to Freddie’s nursery, putting it out of action for an unspecified length of time. If it were left to Luke, he’d be tempted to say yes, it would make things easier all round. In fact, asking Lizzie to come to their rescue had been his first thought, but Ingrid had been quick to veto the idea. ‘It would be like having a second child in the house,’ she’d said, ‘and frankly I’d lay odds on Freddie being the more sensible of the two.’