Worth a try? Not really, I thought as I drove home later, full of beans and bacon and something indeterminable that must have been mushroom but, as Dad said, could easily have been toenail. Not worth it, because I knew Dad had been offended I’d even suggested it. He chose to live like that. He was a free spirit in the very real sense of the expression. But I’d been toeing some conventional line which dictated I make the offer to my ramshackle father; adhering to conformist nonsense that Dad never adhered to, and always turned and regarded me with surprise when I did. I squirmed behind the wheel. I wished too that I’d taken the children. Dad had been surprised not to see them. But I’d somehow imagined I’d wanted a grown-up financial conversation, complete with spreadsheets and charts and what have you, without two small children running around. Instead the conversation had taken all of two minutes and had offended my father, who’d much rather have seen his grandchildren.
I parked and smiled ruefully as I went up Jennie’s path to collect my offspring. Interesting. As ever, a visit to my father had made me feel better and worse, both at the same time. Just as the superficial chaos was thrown into starker relief when I’d been away a while, so too was his refreshing alternative outlook. To sparkling effect. I sighed. I should see more of him.
Jennie was clearly bursting with some sort of news as she opened the front door. She didn’t allow me to push on through as usual and was perhaps even lying in wait.
‘Guess what?’ she breathed with barely concealed excitement. She faced me in the hall, eyes glittering.
‘What?’
‘Word of the book club has spread to Potters Wood. The Americans want to join.’
I’d hardly even made it across the threshold. Hardly got my foot in the door. But I have to say, her delight was instantly matched by mine, as she knew it would be.
‘Oh!’ I couldn’t speak for a second. Stared at her bright eyes. Then cautiously: ‘You’re kidding.’
‘No, I am not! They absolutely want to join our gang!’ She shut the door behind me with a bang. ‘How about that?’
The Americans were a thrillingly exotic couple who lived in Chester Square, Belgravia, during the week and rented a cottage – more than a cottage, actually, a pretty big house – just outside the village at weekends. He was a film producer and she, a beautiful raven-haired mother of two. The only time Jennie and I had come across them was when Leila went missing and I went to help find her. Having asked everyone in the village, in desperation we’d gone to Potters Wood, a pretty white house with tall chimneys at the end of a no-through lane. We knew it was owned by the National Trust but were unaware who was renting it. The most divine-looking man, tall, broad, bronzed and naked to his jeans had opened the door. His hair was brown and wavy, his lips full and he had a smile which split his face. He’d shaken our hands and introduced himself in an American accent as Chad Armitage. Then he’d offered us proper coffee and listened to our stammering story. Instantly he’d suggested he help look for Leila, at which point his beautiful dishevelled wife had appeared down the stairs, dressed only in a silk dressing gown, at eleven o’clock in the morning.
‘Oh, God. Shall we help look? Shall I get the kids?’ She swiftly tied her robe and reached for her mobile, looking concerned.
‘No, no, she’ll turn up,’ we said hastily, drinking in everything. The tumbled, post-coital look of this golden couple so late in the morning. The fabulous modern art on the walls. The children out blackberrying with the nanny, apparently. The way he called her Honey and looked at her with true love. We probably had our mouths open, and certainly wouldn’t presume to have them look for scruffy old Leila, who was probably shagging some terrible mongrel. Eventually we’d taken our leave, regretfully; thanking them as they assured us they’d call if they saw her.
Before we left, I said shyly, ‘It’s a lovely place you’ve got here.’ It was. The garden was brimming with wild flowers and it was all slightly overgrown, as if they were too busy in bed to prune the roses.
She, Hope, as we now knew she was called, linked arms with Chad on the doorstep