Part 6 (1/2)

The 'but' hung in the air.

'But what?'

He took a fortifying breath. 'Your mother and I are worried. We think that perhaps you're - '

Another hesitant pause.

Tired? Depressed? Thoroughly cheesed off that her life had hit the skids so spectacularly? Not to mention that she was homeless. Jobless. Boyfriendless. No, strike that one from the record. Spencer didn't come into it. Compared to everything else, his cowardly selfishness didn't even register.

'We think you're a little too hard on the children.'

Harriet sat back in her chair. What the h.e.l.l did that mean?

'Oh, dear, we knew you wouldn't take it well. I told your mother - '

'Dad, it's not a matter of taking it well; it's a matter of understanding. I haven't a clue what I'm being accused of.'

'We're not accusing you of anything.'

'Sounds like it to me. So come on, tell me what I've done wrong.'

'It's your manner. You're so short with them. So brusque. We're worried that you're scaring them. Adding to their problems. There's a chance you might be making things worse. Especially for Joel.'

Just then the telephone rang. With a look of relief, Bob went to answer it.

Left on her own, Harriet stared at the table. The injustice of her father's remarks made her head throb, and claustrophobia crushed in on her. She stood up abruptly. She had to get out of the house. Within seconds, she was hurtling down the drive and across the road, heading for the footpath and the ca.n.a.l. As a teenager it was where she had always gone when she was annoyed or upset. The soothing stillness of the water usually calmed her.

Right now she was far from calm. Boiling over with fury, she could hardly breathe at the unfairness of it. After all the sacrifices she had made, her parents had the nerve to criticise her. How could they turn on her? Was it her fault that she wasn't the maternal type? Not for the first time she wondered why the h.e.l.l her sister had thought she would be any good at raising her children.

At the end of the footpath she was about to go right but changed her mind when she saw a row of fishermen, their lines cast, their nets and wicker baskets in place. Instead she turned left. From here it was a twenty-five-minute walk into town, and to the nearest decent pub, The Navigation. Drinking her anger into submission could be the answer, but having left the house without any money, she was resigned to walking it out of her system. She ground the path beneath her, her arms swinging, her hands tightly clenched into fists.

And if her parents really thought she was doing such a bad job, then perhaps she ought to go back to Oxford and leave them to it! How would that suit them? Or perhaps they wished it had been her who'd died. Doubtless that would have been easier all round, especially for her father. She'd always known that Felicity had been the special daughter for him, the one he idolised. It had never bothered Harriet before, this preference, but it hurt now, knowing that her death would have had dramatically less impact. Let's face it, she'd been dispensable; no ties, no commitments, no responsibilities. Well, all that had changed. Now she had commitments coming out of her ears. It felt as if she had the full weight of the world on her shoulders.

She was so deeply locked into her thoughts that she didn't notice the man sitting on the bench until she was almost upon him. It was their new neighbour, and with his legs stretched out in front of him, he was drinking from a bottle of beer. He smiled at her over the top of his sungla.s.ses, which were set low down on his nose. 'You look different without the cap,' he said.

A week had pa.s.sed since he'd mistaken her for a boy late at night. She had been too upset at the time to stop and put him right, having just spent the previous half-hour on the towpath trying to walk off the fear that she was destined to live out the rest of her days cooped up with her parents and two small children. She'd learned that afternoon that completion had taken place on her flat. The finality of it had left her feeling trapped and isolated. The very last cord had been cut. She now had no reason to return to Oxford. And there hadn't been so much as an email or text message from Spencer - which shouldn't have surprised her; he was probably glad to be rid of her. Far worse, though, was the anger she suddenly felt towards her sister. Why did Felicity have to be so careless and die! If only she and Jeff hadn't gone out that night, they'd still be alive and Harriet wouldn't be lumbered with picking up the pieces. Appalled at her train of thought, Harriet didn't know who she hated more: the teenage boy who had done this terrible thing to them all, or herself.

Even if Harriet had had the nerve to blank their new neighbour and walk on by, she wouldn't have been able to. He was now on his feet, effectively blocking her path. 'Hi,' he said, removing his sungla.s.ses and pus.h.i.+ng back his hair.

'I'm Will Hart. I expect the neighbourhood's rife with gossip about me, but I'd like to put the record straight and say that it's all untrue.'

She was in no mood for small talk, but forced herself to say, 'How long are you taking the lease on for? The usual six months?'

'Actually, I've bought the place.'

'I didn't know it was for sale.'

'It didn't get a chance to go on the market. The previous owners are clients of a friend of mine and when they told Marty they'd decided to settle abroad, I nipped in sharpish and made them an offer. I don't suppose you'd like to join me in a drink,' - he held up his bottle of beer as though indicating what sort of drink - 'so that I can pick your brains about the neighbourhood? I've been so busy since moving in that I haven't had a chance to get to know anyone.'

Small talk over a beer? No. It was out of the question. With her parents' criticism still ringing in her ears, she needed to be alone.

'It would also give me the opportunity to apologise properly for the other night,' he added.

She remembered her earlier desire to drink her anger into submission. Imagining herself gulping down a cold beer, she wavered.

'I have wine if you'd prefer. Or maybe a soft drink.'

All resolve gone, she said, 'Thank you, a beer would be nice.'

Down to his last two bottles in the fridge, Will snapped off the lids and put them on a tray, along with a gla.s.s - she was probably a refined sort who wouldn't dream of drinking straight from the bottle - and went back outside to the garden. He hoped she was feeling a bit less spiky now. When she'd appeared on the towpath she'd had a face like thunder. He wondered what she was so angry about. There was no mistaking her for a boy today. Her hair, which must have been tied up under her baseball cap that night last week, was shoulder-length and framed a small, pensive face with wide cheekbones.

'Here we go, then,' he said, pus.h.i.+ng open the gate and joining her on the bench. He set the tray down on the gra.s.s and handed her a beer and the gla.s.s.

She shook her head. 'The bottle's fine.'

Amused he'd got that wrong about her, he wondered if she would prove him wrong on anything else. So far his guesswork told him that she was in her late twenties and he'd put money on a smile from her being rarer than an eclipse. She was small and delicately built (his mother would describe her as sparrow-boned), and dressed in close-fitting flared jeans. Her foot was tapping the ground - the knee going like a piston - and he suspected she was one of those high-energy people, who are always on the move, always looking for a way to wear themselves out. She needs to learn how to chill, he thought.

Watching her take a long, thirsty swig of her beer, he said, 'Can I ask the name of the person with whom I'm drinking?'

Without looking at him, she said, 'Harriet. Harriet Swift.'

'Well, Harriet Swift, it's good to meet you. Am I right in thinking that you and your children live with your parents in the house directly opposite me?'

She turned round sharply. Blue-grey eyes stared back at him with laser strength. 'They're not my children. They're my niece and nephew.'

Ah, so that was it. The grandchildren were staying with the grandparents. Lucky them. 'So where are their parents? Whooping it up on holiday somewhere hot and exotic?' From the way her eyes narrowed, he knew at once he'd said something wrong. The foot had stopped tapping. The knee was still.

When she answered him, her voice was eerily flat. 'They were killed in a car crash in April. The children's mother was my sister. My only sister.'

Horrified by his blunder, he said, 'I ... I'm sorry. I had no idea.'

'Please don't say you're sorry. You don't know me and you didn't know Felicity. So no plat.i.tudes. However well-meant.'

All he could think to say was, 'How old are the children?'

'Nine and four and a half.'

'Nice ages. I remember them well.'

She said nothing, just drank her beer and resumed tapping her foot.

'I have children,' he said, 'older than that, but no matter what age they are, they're still hopelessly young and vulnerable through parents' eyes. Mine live with their mother in Maywood.' Aware that her silence was making him ramble nervously, he tried another question. 'What are their names, your nephew and niece?'

'Carrie and Joel.'

She reminded him of a hedgehog curling itself up into a ball when under attack. Her clipped answers told him she didn't want to discuss the matter any further, that if he knew what was good for him, he'd back off. But he never did know when to back off. Watching her out of the corner of his eye, he acknowledged to himself that he'd done a first-cla.s.s job of putting his foot in it so far. Time to change tack to a safer line of questioning - something innocuous and guaranteed to be non-controversial. 'I'm in the antique trade,' he said. 'What kind of work do you do?'