‘You managed to find me, then?’ Jago said.
‘Were you hiding?’
‘No. You’d better come in and meet Fred. I’ll make a cup of tea.’
His words were hospitable but his manner wasn’t. But as she didn’t have a choice, Helena walked up the path to the house and followed him to the threshold of the back door. There she stopped and started unlacing her trainers, which were caked with mud.
‘Don’t worry about that—’ Jago began and then saw just how dirty her shoes were. ‘OK, take them off. I’ll find you a pair of clean socks to wear on top of yours.’
‘My socks are soaking,’ she said, peeling one off.
‘Thick socks then.’
Helena removed the rest of her footwear and leaned against the doorjamb, taking in the view. A series of valleys, small woods and fields lay like a bumpy quilt before her, leading down to a thread of silver that was the river. The sun coming out after the rain caused mist to drift across the landscape like skeins of carded wool. She couldn’t help planning a wall hanging inspired by the spectacular scene – or maybe an actual quilt that could go on a bed or sofa.
She was summoned back to the present by Jago’s ‘Here!’ He was holding two pairs of socks, one pair of them extra thick, designed to go inside climbing boots or wellies. It took a few moments to get the thinner pair on over her damp feet but when she had the second pair on she had hope that her feet would one day be warm again.
‘Come in. I’ll get the fire going. It’s not that cold but Fred needs to be kept warm,’ said Jago.
The thought of a fire encouraged Helena to go into the house.
Jago was in the kitchen, a lean-to attached to the back of the property: a cottage, one room deep, that smelt of damp and slightly rotting vegetables. There was a small piece of land outside the kitchen window and then there was the hill. ‘Go through into the front room. Fred is there.’
‘Is there a bathroom of any kind I could use? I need to get the mud off my hands.’ She was expecting to be shown to an outdoor privy. It was that sort of house.
‘Oh! Of course, sorry.’ He indicated a door just off the kitchen. ‘It’s in there. Not very salubrious, I’m afraid, but it has running water.’
There was an ancient lavatory with an overhead cistern and a cracked handbasin, both of which were fairly stained but, because of the broken window, the little room didn’t smell. She felt a lot better when she came out.
‘Right,’ said Jago, who had obviously been waiting for her. ‘I’ll introduce you to Fred.’
Although he was making all the right gestures, Jago’s manner was making Helena feel unwelcome and if she had had her car outside she would have got into it and driven away. But she didn’t have that choice.
Jago ushered her into the front room, which was small but had the most amazing view. An old man was sitting in an armchair there; next to him was a small table covered with invalid paraphernalia. Going on what she could see, Fred was in need of quite a lot of support. ‘Fred? This is Helena. Helena? This is Fred. Right, I’ll make tea.’
‘Don’t rush off, lad,’ said Fred, who looked frail but seemed to be in command of all his senses. ‘Is Helena your girlfriend?’
Jago looked at Helena and gave a tiny shrug, as if he didn’t know. Then he went to make the tea.
‘Yes,’ said Helena firmly. ‘Yes, I am his girlfriend.’ She went further into the room and sat on the chair next to Fred’s. ‘This view is wonderful! I could look at it all day.’ It was similar to the view that had inspired Helena so much from the kitchen doorway but at a different angle and there was no river at the bottom.
‘That is pretty much all I do these days: look at the view. And yes, I’ll miss it,’ said Fred.
‘You’re leaving here?’
‘Didn’t Jon tell you? I can’t manage here on my own and my daughter is going to have me with her. But she’s having the house made suitable and there are complications. Aren’t there always when there are builders involved?’ He said this with a twinkle but Helena realised he was a bit fed up.
‘I suppose when you start building work, problems you never knew were there are revealed,’ said Helena.
‘Yes, well,’ went on Fred, ‘they wanted me to stay in hospital until the work was done, said I couldn’t come out and live here as it wasn’t fit for an elderly and infirm person who’d just had a serious op. Well! I wasn’t staying in that place with all those ill people. They’d call me a bed-blagger – blocker – one of those things. I put in a call to Jon and he came straight up here.’
‘He’s very kind,’ said Helena. This was demonstrably true and she’d experienced it herself. But there were still an awful lot about him she couldn’t be anything like as sure of.
‘He’s a good lad. It wasn’t fair, what happened to him.’
‘What did happen to him?’ Although it felt a bit wrong to grill a sick old man for information this did seem too good an opportunity to miss.
Annoyingly, before Fred could tell her anything, Jago – Jonathan – came back into the room with a tray. He found another little table and put the tray on it. On the tray were three chipped mugs of tea and a packet of Rich Tea biscuits.
‘The biscuits are a little stale, I’m afraid,’ said Jago. ‘I haven’t been able to go shopping.’
‘I’ve got shortbread in my car,’ said Helena. ‘Sadly it’s down the hill and quite a way away. The road was closed, which was why I walked up.’
‘You walked up the hill to see me?’ said Fred, astonished.
‘Sorry to break it to you,’ said Jago, ‘but I think she may have walked up here to see me.’ He gave her a sideways glance and a little smile that reminded her of how he had been when they’d been together. Why was he so different now?
‘It’s quite far,’ said Helena, ‘or I’d run back down and fetch them. The running down part is fine but walking back up is a bit exhausting.’
‘Why don’t you go down in your pickup, Jon?’ suggested Fred. ‘Leave me and your young lady to talk.’
‘That’s a good idea!’ said Helena.
‘No it’s not, not even for shortbread, even though Helena’s mother does make amazing shortbread.’ Jago was firm. ‘Now, Fred, do you want tea? Or are you full of healthier fluids?’
‘Tea doesn’t taste the same any more,’ said Fred sadly. ‘But shortbread would.’ He looked pleadingly at Jago, who shook his head.
‘Maybe later Helena could sit with you while I go shopping and collect what she needs from her car. But she’s only just arrived and she can’t be in charge of you without the proper training.’
‘Really?’ asked Helena. ‘Did you have training, Ja— Jonathan?’
‘No, he didn’t,’ said Fred. ‘And he lied to the woman from social services and said he was my son. Poor woman was so overworked and desperate for my bed that when Jon said he’d take full responsibility she let him.’
‘And also Helena probably needs to get back. When were you thinking of leaving?’
Jago obviously wanted her gone. Helena’s heart sank. ‘As you know, I’ve only just arrived and, having come all this way, including walking up a very steep hill, I’d like an opportunity to get to know Fred a bit.’
‘Considering you didn’t know Fred existed until a few minutes ago I’m surprised at your enthusiasm for his company,’ said Jago.
‘But now she’s met me, she’s in no hurry to leave. Isn’t that right, Helena?’
Fred was obviously enjoying the argument and Helena hoped that there would be plenty going on for him to enjoy when he moved to his daughter’s. While the scenery was spectacular here it was very isolated.
‘That’s right! But why don’t we have our tea, and then Ja— Jonathan can start the training programme so he can go shopping.’ She sipped her tea. It was starting to go cold.
‘Bring your tea,’ said Jago, ‘and I’ll give you a tour of the house.’
‘Won’t take long!’ said Fred cheerfully.
Apart from the kitchen there was one room that was obviously Fred’s bedroom and another smaller room with a single bed in it.
‘Oh,’ said Helena, taking in that there was nowhere for her to stay. ‘Sleeping in shifts then!’
‘Actually, if you are here, that would be good. I don’t like to leave Fred unattended, even at night.’
‘So you stayed up all last night?’
‘I dozed in the chair for a bit.’
‘But you don’t want me here,’ she said, a statement not a question.
He didn’t answer for a long time and when he did his expression was bleak. ‘I want you here but I don’t want you to be here for the reason that you are.’
‘Which is? That was quite a complicated sentence.’
‘I don’t want you to have found out about my past. James must have told you, right?’
‘No, I saw your picture on his Facebook page. And to be fair, only I would have recognised it. You’re just really unlucky having a girlfriend like me.’
He didn’t answer for so long Helena thought he was never going to. ‘Not unlucky. Terribly, terribly lucky.’
‘I came to hear your side of the story.’
‘I will tell you, I promise. But not now. I must take advantage of you being here to get some urgent supplies.’
‘But Fred knows?’
‘Fred doesn’t know I reinvented myself. He’s part of the story.’
They heard a noise from the living room and Jago moved quickly to get there.
Fred was fine. ‘Sorry! I just knocked my glass of water off the table. Sorry to frighten you, love,’ he added, smiling at Helena.
‘If you can stop him causing chaos while I’m away for a couple of hours, I’ll go shopping,’ said Jago, when everything was cleared up.
‘How are you going to do that with the road closed?’
Jago grinned. ‘I’ll do what I did on my way up here: move the barriers, drive round the hole and then put the barriers back again. Simples!’
Seeing him smiling again was like the sun coming out. And then he was gone, with a shopping list and a promise to text Gilly to tell her Helena was safe.
‘So it’s just you and me then, Fred,’ said Helena, hoping Jago wouldn’t be too long but knowing the nearest town was miles away and he wouldn’t be back for a couple of hours.
‘That’s right. How are we going to pass the time?’
‘Well,’ said Helena, ‘I was hoping—’
‘Tell you what,’ said Fred, who didn’t seem to have heard her, ‘what I’d really like is for you to read to me.’
‘Oh, what? The newspaper?’ Helena hid her disappointment that she couldn’t spend the time grilling him.
‘Dick Francis!’ said Fred gleefully. ‘They’re all there on the shelf. Haven’t been able to read them for years! You’ve got a nice voice.’ He smiled. ‘See if you can find the first one. Dead Cert, I think it was.’
Helena consoled herself with the fact that she quite liked Dick Francis too.
‘I’ll get myself a glass of water before I begin.’
