
This is an excerpt from Jenny Harper’s latest release – People We Love. If you like it, please feel free to share your feedback here and with Jenny. You can also read her interview here.
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Chapter One
Catalogue number 15: Childâs shoe. 16th-century? âConcealment shoeâ. Found in rafters of agricultural workerâs cottage outside Hailesbank. Donors: Eric and Sheila Flint, Forgie. âConcealment shoesâ have been found concealed in wall cavities or among roof rafters of many old houses. They were thought to ward off evil.
When Jamie was alive, AlexaGordon wore hippy dresses in luminous colours and danced barefoot on the lawn at midnight.
When Jamie was alive, they ate drizzle cake and made scones heaped high with cream and jam.
When Jamie was alive, she had a future.
And then it all changed.
I donât know what you thought you were doing,she saidsilently to her brother for the hundredth time, getting into that car that night. You might have accepted the risk for yourself. But you had no right at all to ruin everyone elseâs lives.
She looked down at the bowl in front of her. Breakfast cereal stared back, sodden and limp. She pushed the dish away.
âYou must eat, Alexa dear,â her mother Martha said, capturing a stray grey lock that was hanging in front of her face and twisting it round her fingers.
âDonât fuss, Mum,â Lexie answered without thinking.
Martha bit her lip and hunched into herself as she pulled her tired-looking peach candlewick dressing gown closer round her thin frame.
Idiot, Lexie chided herself. Itâs the anniversary of Jamieâs death. Think before speaking, today of all days.
The problem was that her motherâs tendency to fuss had become an obsession with her wellbeing. It was understandable, but sometimes hard to bear. Lexie looked down at her plate. She had barely touched the cereal.
âItâs gone soggy,â she said, trying to be conciliatory. âIf I make toast, will you have some?â
Concern could run both ways.
She saw Marthaâs mouth twitch at the corners. Whatever else she might be, her mother wasnât stupid.
âA little,â Martha touched her hand lightly. âIf you have time.â
Lexie stood up and cleared her plate from the table. Living at Fernhill again was both strange and stiflingly familiar. She was thirty years old and once believed she could build a career as an artist. Now all she had to remember this by was a tattoo round her thumb and hair the colour of a flamingoâs wings, plus a tendency to see everything in terms of how it might be captured on canvas.
Thanks for nothing, JamieâÂ
âBrown bread okay?â
âFine. Thank you.â
She cut two slices and pushed them into the toaster. Outside the tall sash window, the garden was blanketed in an early morning mist. In the far corner, by the pergola, she could just see the blossom on the cherry tree, delicate and wraithlike.
âI do appreciate this, Alexa. Your being here, I mean.â
A blackbird took off from one of the branches and a small flurry of petals swirled softly towards the grass. Lexie pursed her lips. How could she fail to know this? Marthaâs thanks were expressed ten times a day, their utterance a delicate trap. She was all her parents had left and she had to be there for them. This meant, she told herself, that she didnot regret marching into Patrick Mulgrewâs gallery in Edinburgh a year ago and telling him she was withdrawing her exhibition.
Even though it meant the end of their relationship as well.
Her throat swelled with unshed tears and she had to summon all her willpower to push away the hurt she still felt at their separation. Thinking about Patrick wouldnât do any good. Instead, she retrieved the toast and rearranged her face into her customary jaunty smile before she turned round.
âI know you do. Come on, Mum. Letâs eat. Then I must get to work. I take it Dad left early?â
She didnât really need to ask. Where her mother was all dependence, Tom Gordon had turned into The Great Provider â strong, uncompromising and utterly resistant to any kind of conversation about his son.
Marthaâs eyes glazed over.
Some family weâve become, Lexie thought. Surely we werenât always like this?
âIâd better go, Mum. Dadâs called a special meeting.â
âPlease be tolerant, darling. I know heâs obsessive about the store, but itâs because he wants to show he loves us.â
âI am tolerant. Most of the time, anyway.â
She and her father were two of a kind in many ways. They certainly both threw themselves into work as a diversion.
âWill you be all right? What are you going to do today?â
Martha stood up. Her dressing gown hung off her body in loose, sad folds. Once sheâd been a legal secretary â smart, efficient and very organised. Grief was eating her up.
âIâm going,â she said, âto do some gardening. I think.â
Lexie found the shifts in her motherâs character profoundly unsettling. And now she had to prepare to be unsettled all over again, because her walk to work would take her past Patrick Mulgrewâs house.
Ten minutes later, Lexie stepped through the front door of Fernhill and pulled it closed. It was eight thirty in the morning and she tried to leave the ache of loss behind her in the gloomy spaces that had once been filled with laughter. She tugged her old tweed jacket closer, glad of its warmth. There was no point in being bitter. It was a waste of time to think about the things that might have been.
Despite the obvious truth of this, there was no way of avoiding Patrickâs house. It took seven minutes to cover the distance between Fernhill and The Gables. Seven minutes of separation. For a brief time she and Patrick had both found it amusing that he lived in Hailesbank near her parents while she lived in Edinburgh, near his gallery. They hadnât been together long enough to change that.
Three minutes. She reached the end of James Street and crossed onto Darnley Place. Patrickâs continued proximity was a fleabite that itched, she reminded herself, nothing more. She didnât care about him now: she could never have sustained a relationship with Patrick because they were too different. The way she saw it, she put family first and Patrick thought only about profit. Better to find that out sooner rather than at some point in the future, when they might have become knotted together, like roots round a boulder, so that separating would tear at the fabric of life.
Six minutes. Patrick owned a smart art gallery â or, to be more precise two, one in London and one in Edinburgh. People saw him as either discriminating and astute or snobbish and arrogant. Lexie lengthened her stride. She found it impossible to forget Patrick because everything that mattered to her was so tightly entwined with him: ambition, career, and passion. Was that why sheâd loved him so much? In the short time theyâd been together, heâd taken her heart, her body and her brain â the complete package â and made them all his.
Seven minutes. There it was now, a million poundsâ worth of sandstone and lawn, the epitome of everything the man stood for â style, statement and substance. Crow-stepped gables, baronial turrets and an old Scots pine standing sentinel by the gate.
Lexieglanced down at the tattoo round her thumb. âArtbollocksâ it read â an indelible statement of belief about art and honesty.
âWhy disfigure your beautiful hands like that?â Patrick had once asked, tracing the letters with his long fingers as theyâd lain limb to limb, half drugged by ardour.
âSo that I never forget,â sheâd answered fiercely, âabout pretentiousness.â
Heâd lifted her thumb to his lips and kissed each letter, one at a time. Eleven feathery kisses.
âYouâre very different,â heâd said, âbut I think I might just be in love with you.â
His car wasnât there, she noted, which was a relief. Theyâd learned politeness this last year, but kept their distance. Too many words had been spoken that couldnever be unsaid. Still â he didnât know it â but  fending off the hurt she felt about their break-up was like rolling back the tide: impossible.
By the time she arrived at the Thomson Memorial Park, the mist was beginning to lift and the park was already alive with its quota of elderly dog-walkers and mums with buggies. She glanced right â a habit she had developed â to catch a glimpse of the river as it flowed past the foot of Fisherâs Wynd. She found the water soothing and it worked its magic again this morning because at last she was able to put Patrick firmly out of her mind and focus on Jamie. This was his day, after all, and despite her anger about his death, heâd always be a part of her.
Stay with me, bro.
When she reachedKittleâs Lane she turned right, so that sheâd pass Cobbles. If Pavelwas in the shop already, sheâd wave to him.
Lexie adored Cobbles. She loved the jumble of antiques Pavel seemed able to conjure up from nowhere. Each object, however humble, had a story to tell. A stone hot water bottle shivered out a tale of freezing nights in icy beds; a moustache cup in fine porcelain whispered of male vanity; a carpet beater, twisted from rattan into a Celtic knot, hinted at the hard labour that housework once was. Most of all, Lexie loved the vintage clothes that peeked tantalisingly from cubbyholes or begged for attention from serried ranks of hangers on rails at the back of the shop. She was addicted to vintage.
Half way down the lane, she spottedPavelSkonieczna sashaying out of the shop. He placed his sandwich board on the pavement and stepped back to admire it, his hands wafting up to his mouth with characteristic grace. Cobbles, read the elegant copperplate script, Antiques and Collectibles. Lexie smiled. Pavel(always dressed in vintage, always colourful) was the perfect advertisement for his own shop. Today he was smart in green tweed â his favourite suit â teamed with a mustard moleskin waistcoat and brown brogues.
She speeded up. âPavel! Hi!â
Shoulders straightened and tweed turned. âLexie. Darling. Youâre early today.â
Lexie grimaced. âI know. Dadâs called a staff meeting before we open.â
Pavel shook his head. âYou shouldnât be working in that place. Itâs not right for you.â
Spot on, Pavel. Like trying to shove a jelly through a sieve and expecting it to come out whole on the other side.
âI know. But what can I do?â
âStand up for yourself. You always used to. They use you.â
âItâs not that simple.â
She let her parents use her, because she had to. It was the only way she could think of to make things better. It was her way of helping herself as well.
âYouâre a good daughter.â
Lexie hesitated. Pavel confided recently that his partner Guy had died some years ago and heâd moved to Hailesbank to escape the sad memories. His only family now was a snake of a sister who had disowned him and, because he never talked about it, Lexie guessed how much it hurt him.
Pavel spared her the embarrassment of having to think about what to say.
âIs it about that marketing plan?â
âI expect so.â
Sheâd spent the last month working with Neil Taylor, the assistant manager at her fatherâs furniture store, on a plan designed to drag the old family business protesting and spluttering into the twenty-first century. Or rather, Neil had been working on it, in his careful, business-like way, and she had been attempting tomodernise the store by selecting more stylish stock and updating the layout. At least, thatâs how she sawher role.Her father was proving resistant to change.
âIâm a bit nervous, Pavel, to tell you the truth.â
âDo you think heâll veto it?â
Lexie shrugged and pulled her jacket across her chest. The sun might be dappling the river already, but it hadnât dropped in on Kittleâs Lane yet.
âYou know Dad.â
Compassion glowed in Pavelâs eyes and Lexie looked away. Sympathy was always the hardest part of friendship to accept.
âI must dash,â she said. âSorry.â
âGood luck, darling.â
âThanks!â
The store where Lexie was heading was at the east end of the high street. It was part of a run of shops built in the mid-nineteenth century when Hailesbankhad been at its most prosperous. Her great-grandfather had taken up the first lease, and the sign heâd proudly commissioned to run above the entire shopfrontwas still there.
Gordonâs Furniture Emporium (Est. 1892)
The elaborate letters were painted in pure gold leaf on a forest green background and the whole sign was covered in protective glass so that, a century and a half later, it still announced its presence with undimmed glory.
âThe trouble is,â Neil had observed when theyâd studied the frontage as part of their research, âthat sign is probably the last smart thing left in the whole place.â
Heâd put his finger on the problem. Was there really any need to look further to discover why Gordonâs was struggling for survival?
Lexie pushed open the heavy oak door and marched in. A man was standing by the overstuffed chesterfield, the tartan one she particularly disliked. He was around six feet tall and strongly built, with wide shoulders and narrow hips, and he was casually dressed in a rugby shirt and jeans. One of the new guys from the removal firm, probably. She hadnât seen him before.
Or had she? Although he was facing away from her, towards the back of the store, there was something disturbingly familiar about the figure.
âCan I help you?â she said, the nagging in the recesses of her brain making her voice sharper than usual. âWeâre not actually open yet.â
He whipped round.
âChrist! Whereâd you materialise from? I didnât hear you come in.â
Lexiewasnât breathing. Why wasnât she breathing? It should be simple, shouldnât it? She did it all the time. Sheâd done it all her life, for heavenâs sake.
âCameron?â
The man stepped forward.
âYou havenât changed a bit. Not even the hair, I ssee.â
Six years was a long time, yet it disappeared in an instant. Lexieâs lungs inflated with sweet oxygen before a sense of devastation caught the back of her knees. She was drowning in desire again, just as she always used to be. Shocked by her reaction, she forced herself to look amused â one humiliation by Cameron Forrester was enough for a lifetime.
âWell, well, the wanderer returns. Have your folks killed the fatted calf?â
âNah. Mum wonât buy meat at the supermarket and the butcherâs closed since I was last here. She made apple crumble for me. Iâve missed crumble.â
His grin was just as Alexa remembered it: irrepressible. The smile faded as he scanned her face. Heâd changed. Once, he would just have flashed a wink and cracked a joke; now there was something more observant â or was it more calculating? â in the way he was studying her.
âCrumble, huh?â
The words emerged as a croak and she cleared her throat.
Cameron Forrester had been a member of the Hailesbank Hawks until injury had put him out of rugby for good. He still bore the scars: a broken nose that gave his face a lived-in look, and a scar under his chin from where a studded boot sliced it open in a hard-fought league game. âBadges of honourâ, he used to say, when Lexie teased him about the nose or ran her fingers along the white seam of the scar.
âYouâre looking terrific.â
He took another step closer. Instinct made her edge away. How was it possible that he looked so like the Cameron sheâd fallen in love with all those years ago?
âAm I?â
Her reserve seemed to fluster him.
âIâve been away,â he said needlessly. âRunning activities for children on a cruise ship. Children! Me! Can you imagine?â
âNot really, no.â
Questions scratched at her mind like horsehair. Does he know about Jamie? Does he know Iâm back living in Hailesbank? Is that why heâs come?
âSo how are you, Lexie?â
He edged towards her for the third time. She clutched at a high-backed recliner, upholstered in gunmetal and steel blue chenille. The cloth felt coarse and unfriendly under her fingers, but this time she managed to stand her ground.
âWhy did you leave, Cameron?â
Why didnât you write?
âI heard about Jamie,â he said. âIâm so sorry.â
âThank you.â
The stock response slipped out before she could stop it. It was what she always said whenever anyone offered condolences. Damn him! Using Jamie as a personal shield was unforgivable.
âWhat a bloody waste,â he blurted out.
People didnât usually say things like that. They tiptoed round the subject, they never trampled right through the heart of it.
âOops,â he said, seeing her expression, âSorry. Me and my mouth. But honestly, itâs true, isnât it? Jamie had so much going for him.â
âCan we leave this?â
âShit. Iâm not good atââ
Lexieswung away. She spotted a sagging cushion on a nearby sofa and grabbed it, bashing the middle to plump it up. What are you good at, Cameron? Apart from breaking hearts.
âDid you want something? Iâve got work to do.â
âJust to say hi. And see if youâd meet me for a drink after youâre finished here.â
âMeetyou?â
âWell,â he muttered, dropping his head in a semblance of repentance so that all she could see was a mass of thick, sandy hair. She didnât need to stroke it to remember how it felt.
âI owe you an explanation.â
âI really donât want to hear it.â
Liar! She really didwant to hear it, but six years of hurt got in the way of admitting this.
âNo. Fair enough.â
The grin was back, but wry â another new trait. Cameron had never been one for navel-gazing. He was a physical contact man. A cheerful, generous, blunder-in-feet-first-but-in-a-well-meaning-kind-of-way man. The absolute antithesis, now that she thought about it, of Patrick Mulgrew.
âTake your point.â
He ran his hand through his thatch so that it stood momentarily on end before tumbling, in the old way, down across his eyes again. When he turned to go, she was conscious of disappointment. At the door the grin reappeared, spiced this time with mischief.
âItâs okay, I can see you need time to get used to me being back. It doesnât have to be today, we can meet up tomorrow. Iâll call you.â
Infuriated by his presumption, her spirit returned and she hurled the cushion at him.
âDonât bother! I wonât change myââ
But it fell, softly, a yard short and the heavy oak door swung on empty air.
Six years of silence and now he was back. Where did this leave her, for heavenâs sake?
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