Gilly was a bit surprised when Helena rang to say she wanted to come for soup and a sandwich. Helena had told her she’d moved the loom and Gilly would have thought she’d want to get it set up so she could press on with some work. But as Gilly had a butternut squash to hand she set about making soup. Pre-roasted with chilli oil and made creamy with coconut milk, it was Helena’s favourite.
As she hacked at the squash and made cheese scones to accompany the soup, Gilly wondered what was on her daughter’s mind. She couldn’t help remembering that she’d been a bit twitchy at the Sunday lunch when she’d brought Jago to meet her. Since then she’d seemed fine, although Gilly realised she hadn’t seen much of her. They’d been in regular contact and with Helena helping to get the barn ready for her loom and trying to get as much done for her wool fair, all had seemed normal.
Maybe the poor girl just wanted some of her mum’s soup, Gilly concluded, giving it a stir and tasting it. Not everything everyone did had an ulterior motive.
‘Hi, Mummy!’ said Helena quietly as she let herself in through the back door and Gilly’s heart sank. Helena hadn’t called her ‘Mummy’ since she was in primary school: there was definitely something wrong.
‘What’s up?’ said Gilly. She watched as her daughter tried to pretend there wasn’t anything but she’d always been an awful liar.
‘Let’s have lunch first,’ said Helena, taking a cheese scone from the cooling rack and breaking off a bit. ‘I’m starving!’
‘OK,’ said Gilly, ‘but promise me it’s nothing health-related, or something really ghastly.’
‘Nothing health-related,’ Helena said quickly. ‘Let’s have lunch.’
Gilly found bowls, plates and knives and put them on the table. The butter was already there. ‘Do you want a sandwich or will the scones do?’
‘They’re my favourite! Of course they’ll do.’
Gilly relaxed a bit. But as Helena sipped the soup Gilly noticed she was only nibbling her scone and was spending quite a lot of time fiddling with her knife, slicing off slivers of butter; she wasn’t actually eating much.
‘What’s wrong, darling?’ Gilly said. ‘I wish you’d tell me. Have you broken up with Jago?’
Helena put down her spoon. ‘Jago and I are just friends, Mum.’
‘So what is it?’ Seeing the anguish on her daughter’s face was killing her.
‘Mum, it’s about Leo.’
‘Leo?’ This was the last thing Gilly would have thought of. ‘What about him?’
‘It’s not easy to say.’
‘Oh, please, Helly! Just tell me! If it’s not health-related what on earth can it be?’ The thought that Leo might turn out to be married with a family did now cross her mind. ‘Is he married?’
‘OK, Mum. Do you remember that time we were going to visit Martin at uni and there was a car on the wrong side of the road, coming at us full pelt, and you had to swerve into the ditch to stop us getting killed?’
Gilly thought, then nodded. ‘Yes. It was terrifying. And afterwards I never thought I’d get the car out of the ditch.’
‘Leo was driving the car.’
‘What do you mean? How can you possibly know?’ Then Gilly began to realise what had happened. ‘You recognised him?’
‘As soon as I saw him, when we all had lunch. I got a very good look at him at the time of the accident.’
Gilly had never known Helena to be wrong about things like this. If she said someone was whoever she said it was, it was them. One hundred per cent. ‘So why wait until now to tell me?’
‘Because I wanted to find out more about it. He may well have been taking a sick child to hospital.’
‘We would have seen if there’d been a child in the back of the car.’
‘Not if it was lying down! Or it might have been an animal he was taking to the vet?’
Gilly’s head was spinning. What a horrible coincidence! A coincidence that it had been Leo driving – one she would never have known about if it wasn’t for her daughter’s uncanny ability. They’d always joked about her having a superpower but its effect was far from super now. She felt sick. ‘But how would anyone be able to find out anything like that! It’s not possible!’
Helena nodded. ‘You’re right. But my friend did find out other things about him, things you ought to know too.’
‘Gossip, in other words!’ Gilly was cross now and glad to be. It was so much better than being devastated.
‘No, not gossip. Facts that can be proved.’
Gilly realised that Helena was as upset as she was but she still wanted to kill the messenger. ‘Like what?’
‘He did time in prison for embezzlement.’
‘Well, that’s not murder, is it? And he’s served his sentence. Does he have to be treated as a criminal for the rest of his life?’ Gilly got up from the table and started flinging things in the dishwasher in a way that she knew meant she’d have to reload it later but not caring. She was shocked and angry and wanted to make a lot of noise.
‘Mum! I’m not telling you what you should do with the information, but when I found out I couldn’t not tell you.’
‘But why were you even looking?’
‘You know why.’ Helena was very quiet, possibly a bit tearful now, but Gilly didn’t care.
‘Because of your stupid “thing”,’ said Gilly. ‘Why can’t you find out something nice with it from time to time!’
Helena got up. ‘I’m going now. I’m really sorry to have upset you. And if Leo is the love of your life I’ll learn to get on with him.’
Helena went to Gilly as if to embrace her but Gilly kept her arms by her side, refusing a hug from her daughter for possibly the first time in her life.
‘I’ll ring you,’ Helena said and walked out of the kitchen, leaving the soup still steaming.
Tears were pouring down Helena’s face as she drove back to her studio. She felt as awful as she could feel given that nobody had died. Jago came across when he saw her getting out of her car.
‘Not go well?’ he said, taking in Helena’s tear-streaked face and tragic expression.
‘As badly as it could have gone, given that we didn’t actually come to blows. I was as tactful as I could be but Mum was just devastated. I could have tipped a barrel of water over her and she’d have been less shocked. Honestly, Jago, I think I’ve made a terrible mistake telling her. I should have just kept it all to myself. She’ll never want to speak to me again.’
Jago came forward and took her into his arms, pressing her face into his old Guernsey jumper. It was dusty, a bit smelly and scratched her face. She didn’t ever want to move away.
‘Look, it seems terrible now but you and your mum love each other. You’ll be friends again in no time. It’s just the shock of it. When she gets used to the idea of it all she’ll think about it and realise you only did it for the best.’
‘I know,’ Helena told his jumper. ‘But I’ve shattered her dreams, and for what? If she loves him, she’s going to stay with him. It’s just me she’ll hate.’
‘Come into the house and have a cup of tea,’ said Jago.
‘You’re busy. You haven’t time for tea.’ Reluctantly Helena let go of Jago’s jumper; she’d been unaware of clutching it.
‘If I haven’t got time to give a friend a cuppa when they’re in a state we might as well give up. Come on.’
He put his arm round Helena’s shoulders and took her into the house.
‘I’m so sorry to cry all over you like that,’ said Helena, sitting down at the kitchen table. ‘I hope I haven’t got snot on your jumper.’
‘My jumper would be honoured and besides, it’s had far worse. Fish guts being one example.’
‘Oh, yuck!’ Helena had stopped sniffing now and felt bizarrely better for her cry.
‘I know!’ he said. ‘I had a job on a fishing boat one summer and I kind of liked the uniform so I kept it.’
Helena nodded, not knowing what to say.
‘Now,’ he went on, pushing a mug of tea towards her. ‘Tell me what Gilly said?’
When Helena had finished, he said, ‘So you didn’t even eat your soup? ‘You must be hungry.’
‘Not really. I’ve lost my appetite. The tea is good though. I should go, anyway.’
‘I expect you want to finish sorting out your loom.’
‘Yes, but I’ve also got a room to look at, for me to live in, for when I have to move out of my studio. It’s in a shared house at the top of town. Not huge and quite expensive for what it is, but OK.’
‘I’m probably way out of order here, but why don’t you live with me? There’s a room at the end of this house that is finished, near the bathroom, and I’d let you have it for nothing. Because you’re a mate,’ he added, possibly aware she was about to protest.
‘But if I say I’ve moved in with you, everyone will think we’re a major item and not “it’s early days yet, who knows how it will turn out”.’
‘Just tell them you want to stay close to your loom and not share a house at the top of town?’
Helena nodded. ‘That could work.’
He laughed. ‘I do love the way you’ve defined our relationship, by the way.’
‘I’ve got it!’ said Helena. ‘If I pay rent, it makes perfect sense. Then they can think what they like.’ She studied him. ‘Are you sure? You see enough of me as it is.’
‘I could never see enough of you,’ he said and then added, ‘Joking!’
Negotiating a rent that was satisfactory to both of them took a little while. Helena wanted to pay Jago what she would have paid for a room anywhere else; Jago insisted that anywhere else would be more comfortable if less convenient. Eventually they reached a compromise that they could both live with.
When they had moved Helena’s things over to her new room she said, ‘Now I’m going to cook you supper to thank you for taking me in. But it has to be chilli as it’s my signature dish. I didn’t inherit my mother’s cooking skills, I’m afraid, but my chilli is good.’
‘You don’t have to—’ Jago began.
‘Yes I do!’ said Helena quickly. ‘It’s what I’d do if I wanted to get on with my new housemates. No reason why you should miss out just because we’re friends.’
