Barking Up the Right Tree

Chapter 4

10

The next morning, Alice was returning home with her shopping as I was taking Poppy out for her early walk before I went to work. Passing my neighbour on the pavement reminded me of Toby’s warning. Hoping Toby would hear that I was not one to engage in malicious gossip, I stopped and offered to listen to some of her daughter’s letters, ignoring Poppy’s frantic barking. On reflection, I was forced to acknowledge that there was no reason to suspect anything sinister about her, and I bitterly regretted having shared my idle speculation with Toby. Befriending Alice, weird though she was, would hopefully restore my reputation with him.

Fortunately Alice was ignorant of what had taken place between me and Toby. I didn’t really relish the prospect of spending time with her, but having offered to listen to her letters, I couldn’t change my mind without risking offending her. It had been difficult enough to speak to her in the first place and having succeeded in pinning her down, I had to see it through. So I agreed to visit her that evening.

Tethered in my back garden, Poppy contented herself with snuffling around for worms and l*****g moss and I went to knock on Alice’s door.

A box of letters was waiting for us on the coffee table in her front room. Alice offered me tea or coffee, but I explained that I wouldn’t be able to stay long as Poppy was alone at home. Sitting on the sofa with her box of letters in front of her, Alice cleared her throat and began to read.

‘This is Sophie’s most recent letter,’ she said, by way of introduction.

I was relieved to discover the letter was very short.

‘Hi Mum

I hope this finds you well. I’m missing you and looking forward to seeing you again, but I’m having a really great time so you don’t need to worry about me.

It’s very hot here and I’ll be pleased to leave and move on, but it’s a very interesting place and I’m fine, so you don’t need to worry. I’ve met some great people and am travelling with a really friendly group of girls. We’re all on our way East, heading towards Japan, so I’m travelling with them for the time being. Everything I’ve heard about Japan sounds awesome, and I’m so lucky to be going to see it for myself.

The other girls aren’t English, they’re Australian. We might not be travelling together for much longer as at some point we’ll be going our separate ways, but I’m hoping we’ll keep in touch. I’ve made so many wonderful friends since I started travelling, far more than I ever had back in Ashton Mead. The Australian girls are good company for now and more fun than many of the English people I’ve met, so I’ve decided to stick with them for as long as I can.

We’ve seen some beautiful temples and pagodas and things, and are now just chilling out on the beach for a day before setting off again.

You’d love it here. We must come here together for a holiday one day!

Take care of yourself, and I’ll see you soon.

I love you, Mum.

Sophie.’

Alice replaced the letter carefully in the box, and looked at me expectantly. Muttering that it was fascinating, I asked whether Sophie had sent any pictures and Alice shook her head.

‘I’m not very good with technology, and in any case some of the places she visits don’t have good reception, or we’d be Skyping or chatting on Zoom every day,’ she said. ‘But she’s going to bring thousands of photos with her on her phone, when she comes home.’

‘When are you expecting her back?’

Alice laughed as though I had said something amusing. ‘Oh, you know how it is,’ she replied.

Actually I didn’t know what she meant, but I didn’t like to say so. When she offered to read another letter, I agreed, just to be polite. She seemed really pleased, and I was glad to bring some small comfort to her in her lonely life.

‘Hi Mum

It’s me again. I hope I’m not boring you with all these letters, but I miss you a lot.

We finally set off yesterday and there was a lot of fuss about where we were going, and how we were going to get there, but we made it over the border in the end without any trouble, just a lot of hanging around waiting in long queues.’

‘What border was that?’ I asked, wondering where Sophie was. Nothing in her letters had indicated her location, only that she was hoping to travel to Japan. Alice put her finger to her lips to tell me to be quiet, and continued reading.

‘It’s unbelievably hot here. You wouldn’t believe how tanned I am. We all are. I’m glad you bought me a sunhat before I left. You remember the one I mean, don’t you? It’s the white sunhat with pink and yellow flowers round the brim. Everyone admires it and asks where I got it and I just say it was a present from my mum.

The point is that in this heat it’s essential to keep your head covered. Thank you so much for getting it. When it’s really hot I soak my hat in cold water, and it keeps my head cool. That’s a tip I picked up from one of the Australians and it’s a really good idea.

I suppose the weather is quite cool at the moment in the village, and just thinking that makes me feel homesick!

I miss you and will write again soon.

Love from

Sophie.’

Alice read aloud in a singsong voice that was quite soporific, and after a while Sophie’s letters became not merely dull but repetitive. She never seemed to have anything interesting to say, even though she was travelling to far-flung and exotic locations. Perhaps if I had met her, they would have seemed more interesting, but the travels of a stranger were hardly gripping and after listening to Alice droning on for nearly half an hour, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear much more about Sophie’s travels.

After a while, something about the letters began to strike me as a bit odd. Saying almost nothing about her surroundings, and the places she visited, Sophie concentrated on tedious details about her everyday life. I said as much to Hannah when we were at work the following day.

‘I mean, it’s difficult to explain, but they really do seem quite strange because she hardly says anything about where she is, but just writes about herself. And who writes to their mother to say they’re missing her?’

As I spoke I remembered that I hadn’t called my mother for a couple of weeks and had yet to invite her to Ashton Mead to see my new home. Toby visited his mother whenever he could, but only because she was in a wheelchair and he was afraid she might be struggling. Hannah saw her mother every day, but that was different, because they lived together. Even if they didn’t deliberately set out to spend time in each other’s company during the day, they were bound to keep bumping into one another while Jane was out walking her dog, or if they were both in Maud’s shop or the pub. Jane even came into the tea shop from time to time with a friend.

Perhaps I was the odd one, seeing very little of my mother. Feeling guilty, I resolved to invite her to visit me soon, and to call her more often. We hadn’t seen each other for months and now that I had finished sorting through Great Aunt Lorna’s boxes, and the house was looking fairly presentable, there was no longer any reason not to invite her to stay.

‘I’ve got a spare room,’ I added, when I phoned her that evening. ‘It’s all ready for you. Come for the weekend. It’ll be lovely.’ I hesitated. ‘There’s just one thing I ought to mention. I’m not on my own here.’

‘So Ben’s come to his senses at last, has he?’ she blurted out, ever the diplomat. ‘Well, I can’t pretend I’m not glad to hear it, even if he has messed you around. He needs firm handling, and you shouldn’t be such a shrinking violet when it comes to keeping him in order. Men like to be controlled, you know. It makes them feel safe.’

‘No, it’s not Ben,’ I interrupted her ludicrous relationship advice. ‘The thing is, there was a condition to my inheritance. Your aunt Lorna had a puppy, and I had to agree to look after the puppy if I wanted to keep the house.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ my mother replied. ‘No one can force you to keep a dog. Anyway, aunty Lorna’s not going to know, is she?’

‘No, but –’

‘But what?’

‘It was in the will that I have to look after her.’

‘Is this a problem dog?’

‘No, she’s lovely.’

‘There you are then. You can easily find a nice home for it. Puppies are very popular, you know.’

‘No, no, you don’t understand,’ I protested. ‘And please don’t refer to my dog as “it”. Poppy’s a female dog and I like her and I’m keeping her. It’s not just that Great Aunt Lorna wanted me to take care of her, I want to. She’s my dog now.’

‘So you’re going to keep this animal?’

‘Yes, I am.’ I was surprised at how fierce my response was.

This was the first time my decision regarding Poppy had been questioned, and the discussion clarified my feelings. My mother carried on chatting, and we arranged for her to visit Ashton Mead the next Saturday. I took the weekend off work and she phoned me when she boarded the bus from Swindon. Poppy and I walked down to meet her at the bus stop. I was surprised how excited I felt about seeing my mother again after nearly four months, and as for my mother, she couldn’t stop grinning. Her blue eyes seemed to glow, and her blonde curls were so neat, she could have just stepped out of a hair salon. I was touched to think she had taken so much care to look her best just for me. A heavy shower had fallen early that morning, but by the time my mother arrived, the sun was shining and the village looked beautiful in the clean sharp light after the rain.

We had a pleasant walk home through the village, with my mother admiring everything she saw, from the picturesque river with its quaint bridge, to the soft yellow brick buildings and majestic trees. She gasped when she saw Rosecroft. Admittedly the house looked beautiful, its yellow stonework appearing to glow softly in the early afternoon sunlight.

‘It’s lovely,’ my mother cried out as soon as she saw it. ‘Whoever would have thought Lorna had such an enchanting house?’

I felt ready to burst with pride, gazing at Rosecroft. Wisteria was in bloom, growing up two narrow trellises on either side of the white front door, and curling over the top to frame it in sprays of delicate purple flowers. Brilliantly coloured pansies bordered the cracked and crooked path, and patches of grass on either side of the path were dotted with daisies and glossy buttercups.

With proprietorial pride I showed my mother around the house, and was gratified by her expressions of delight. She actually clapped her hands when she saw the kitchen, and I was really pleased I had devoted so much time and effort to making it look presentable. After our tour of Rosecroft, I took her to The Plough for supper. Cliff greeted her like an old friend and we sat in the garden on a pleasant summer evening, with Poppy lying peacefully under the table. I tried not to wish I was sitting there with Toby.

‘To be honest, I was starting to worry about you,’ my mother confessed, as she was finishing her third gin and tonic. She grinned tipsily.

Instantly defensive, I asked her what she was talking about, although I knew exactly what she meant.

‘A woman needs some security,’ she said, correcting herself quickly to say, ‘a person needs some security. With Rosecroft you will never be destitute, even if you never find a partner and end up having to depend on yourself for the rest of your life.’

Before I could retort that I had never been dependent on a partner, nor would that prospect ever appeal to me, Tess brought our food, and my flash of anger passed. Back at Rosecroft, we sat over a mug of cocoa, and my mother continued with her account of the gossip from around the family. We spent a comfortable evening chatting about nothing in particular. Sitting with Poppy snuggled up beside me on the settee, I was only half-listening to my mother prattling, when something she said caught my attention.

‘Apparently he’s absolutely bonkers about stamp collecting, which seems like a harmless enough pastime for a young boy. He could be doing far worse things than collecting stamps, if you ask me. Far worse. Teenagers these days are out of control and being cooped up at home for so long didn’t do most of them any good.’

I sat forward, and Poppy stirred without opening her eyes.

‘Who’s collecting stamps?’ I interrupted my mother.

‘Joel. I just told you. Don’t you listen to anything I say?’

I hadn’t seen my sister’s son for nearly two years, since before the first lockdown. The last time we met he had been ten. I had no idea he collected stamps and guessed this was a new hobby.

‘My next door neighbour receives letters from all over the world,’ I said. ‘Her daughter’s away, travelling. I don’t know where she is right now, but somewhere in the Far East, I think. If I ask my neighbour, she’ll probably be able to give me lots of stamps for Joel.’

My mother beamed. ‘That would be wonderful. I’m sure Joel will be thrilled, and Susie would really appreciate it.’

‘How is Susie?’ I asked. ‘I haven’t heard from her in ages.’

‘She said exactly the same thing,’ my mother replied sharply. ‘She said you never call her.’

I wasn’t convinced my sister had actually said that, but I let it pass. My mother could hardly be blamed for wanting me and Susie to speak to each other more regularly. I resolved to call Susie after my mother’s visit and catch up with her news.