The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,145

to have things out with Saul, could it? And it might just resolve the matter once and for all.

Ned asked me later if I’d heard anything more from Mike. ‘Only if you have, or you’re worried about anything at all, you know you can count on me, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But there’s really nothing the matter at all – just the headache and then a bad night. But I think perhaps I won’t come over to the Hall this evening.’

I summoned a smile. ‘If I don’t lavish a bit more attention on Caspar, he won’t be speaking to me any more!’

‘You probably do just need an early night,’ he said, then added guiltily, ‘Perhaps I’ve been working you too hard!’

‘Oh, nonsense, I’m having the time of my life,’ I told him, and his expression cleared.

‘Well, I’m glad to hear it, because I hoped that’s how you felt, too,’ he said and gave me his warm, all-enveloping smile.

35

Misery

‘Are you absolutely sure about this?’ asked Treena that night, when I got into her car.

‘Yes,’ I said, even though I wasn’t any more and telling Ned suddenly seemed a much better option than a night-time rendezvous at the pig farm with my obnoxious relatives. There was a cold, shivery feeling in my stomach about it, but I am nothing if not stubborn.

‘OK,’ she said, driving off, but when she parked in the layby opposite the rutted, dark track to the farm, which showed only a glimmer of light from a downstairs window, she turned to me and said, ‘You’ve got exactly one half-hour. Then if I don’t see or hear from you, I’m leaving Luke a message and coming to find you.’

‘Agreed,’ I said, glad she’d insisted on coming with me, then resolutely set off up the track, the torch I’d brought sending a warm yellow circle of light in front of me.

I’d been able to both smell and hear the pigs as soon as I got out of the car and I could see the large, low buildings on either side of the track that must house them, as I made my way up it and across a paved farmyard. Dogs began to bark from a nearby outbuilding when I knocked on the door next to the lighted window and it was opened at once by Wayne, who grinned unpleasantly at me and moved aside just enough to let me through.

I was in a big, untidy kitchen, where someone had made a brave attempt to introduce a feminine touch, with flowery curtains and matching cushions in the wheel-back chairs and a rack of brightly painted decorative plates.

‘You’ve come, then,’ said Saul, stating the obvious. He was sitting in an upright wing chair by the fire and, with his large head and torso, looked more impressive sitting down than he had standing up.

‘Yes, though I don’t know why it had to be at night, in the dark, like this,’ I said.

‘We don’t want people seeing you come here – and it had to be tonight, when my eldest, Sam, and his wife have gone off to her brother’s wedding down south. He don’t know nothing and she’s a blabbermouth.’

‘Right,’ I said, not moving any closer. He didn’t suggest I sit down, or have a cup of tea – or hemlock. Wayne had closed the door and I was conscious of him standing just behind me.

‘But I know, don’t I, Dad?’ Wayne said eagerly. ‘I’m not a blabbermouth and—’

‘You shut up, our Wayne,’ Saul snapped. ‘You’ll be sorry if I ever find out you spoke a word of it outside this house.’

‘Look, can we keep this short and civilized?’ I said brusquely. ‘I assume you’ve realized I’m your sister Martha’s daughter?’

‘Her bastard,’ Saul nodded. ‘Knew it was by an Eyetie, too.’

‘He means an Italian,’ Wayne translated, in case I hadn’t got it.

‘So, how did you recognize me?’

‘Our Wayne said you looked foreign, but sort of familiar and that set me wondering, even though your name was different. And then, when I saw you, I knew. Our mam kept a school photo of Martha hidden away – I found it after she died – and you look just like her. Same eyes, too.’

My likeness to her didn’t seem to be a recommendation, since he practically spat the words out.

‘That explains it, then. I wasn’t sure at the time that you’d realized who I was, but I hoped not,’ I said frankly.

‘I told Dad you and Ned were sweet on each other, but he wouldn’t