The Green Hills of Home (8 page)

"He’s eight. We had a golden
retriever before him called Bronte; we got Oscar when she died."

"I let him into the garden
earlier, he seemed to want to go out."

"Thanks."

The meal was delicious. Proper
home-cooked food, such as Gwen had been craving ever since her mother became
too ill to cook and Gwen began surviving on pasta and baked potatoes.

The wine helped Gwen to feel more
relaxed and the soothing music in the background completed the setting
perfectly.

"I’m sorry if I was rude to
you earlier, I was upset by a phone call I’d received yesterday, it wasn’t fair
of me to take it out on you."

"Don’t worry about it,"
said John, a little gruffly.

"I should have warned you
what time I’d need to be going."

"Yes, you should."

They lapsed back into silence.
Gwen was almost sorry she’d said anything. The evening had been going so well
until then.

"Are you alright now?"
asked John quietly.

Gwen was too surprised to answer
immediately. John was the last person she’d expect to have cared about how she
was feeling, especially considering the way she’d left the house that
afternoon.

"I’m okay. It was rather
unexpected, it was something I thought I’d dealt with, but sadly it’s all come
apart. I was dreading telling my mother."

"How did she take it?"

"Really well. I didn’t tell
her."

"Why not?"

"I wimped out I’m afraid."

"Ah."

"I’d rather not talk about
it if it’s alright with you."

"Of course, let’s get back
to work."

"Sure" said Gwen
feeling relieved and she started her laptop up again.

Gwen went to switch her alarm on
before she climbed into bed that night. She briefly considered setting it even
earlier but swiftly told herself she was being daft. She wasn’t going to be
made to feel lazy and uncomfortable in her own home. Nine in the morning was a
perfectly reasonable time to begin work. She, rather defiantly, set her alarm
for 8am.

Halfway through the night Gwen
woke up and changed the alarm time to 7am. She wasn’t going to risk not having
time to change her outfit at least twice before going to walk Oscar.

"Is there any point to me
being here?" said John sharply the next morning as he watched Gwen
grabbing her keys and purse ready to leave for a four hour shift at the tea
room.

"It was your choice to come,"
replied Gwen crossly. "I’ll be back by half two at the latest."

She left quickly before he had a
chance to call her back for something.

Gwen spent the car journey
contemplating her frankly bizarre home circumstances. She was getting pretty
fed-up with John’s moods, despite their bonding the previous evening, he was
now grouching at her again. He’d been made completely aware of Gwen’s home
situation before he left London. She’d done her best to be accommodating; she’d
put him up in her home and done everything she could to re-organise her shifts
at work so she’d have as much time working with him as possible.

She appreciated that he had a job
to do, and that it was her book he was working so hard to complete, but she
felt he had to understand that she couldn’t be at his beck and call around the
clock and forget all her other responsibilities. From a practical point of view
her contract still hadn’t arrived from the publishers, and until it was all
signed, no advance would be arriving in her bank account; if she didn’t do at
least some shifts at the tearoom then she’d have no money to live on.

Gwen was also beginning to feel
that absolutely nothing about her or her life were good enough for John. She’d
even felt embarrassed serving him a ham sandwich at lunchtime the day before,
worried that the ham and bread wouldn’t be up to the standards he was used to
in London. She knew it was partly her own insecurity as John hadn’t been
directly rude about anything, except possibly Oscar, but it didn’t help that he
seemed to have a permanent scowl on his face, that appeared to deepen whenever
something annoyed him, which was pretty often. Any food or beverage which Gwen
served, particularly coffee, seemed to cause this reaction, as did everything
Oscar did and the house’s plumbing, which was proving to be a source of endless
fascination and annoyance in equal measure.

He was so intense all the time,
and extremely driven and focused! He wasn’t simply a workaholic: it almost felt
that he considered what he did had a higher purpose, that the company wasn’t so
much a job but something of veneration.

She was grateful to be escaping
to the tearooms for a few hours and yet was surprised when she spent the
majority of her time away from John wondering what he was doing and whether he
was thinking about her.

John again found it very hard to
keep his temper with Gwen the following afternoon - she was infuriating and
completely unreasonable, and he was mad with himself for noticing how very
beautiful she looked when she was being obstinate.

His mood wasn’t helped by his
feeling that he was completely out of the loop with events in the London offices, he felt he didn’t have the control he needed. He really shouldn’t be here:
the only place more remote would be the Outer Hebrides for goodness sake.
However, despite the farmhouse’s many shortcomings, he had to admit that
something about the place and its location touched a note in him.

But that woman! He just didn’t
know how she managed to get under his skin so much.

The trouble had started when Gwen
interrupted halfway through his explanation of why she should move a particular
paragraph to the end of the chapter they were working on. She’d apologised but
explained she’d be late to see her mother if she didn’t leave soon.

"We have to get this chapter
done," he’d insisted.

"I have to see my mother."

"Missing one visiting time
wouldn’t be the end of the world!"

"It would be to me."

"The Earth does not revolve
around you Gwen."

"I never said it did,"
she’d replied angrily.

"I’m doing this to help you,"
he’d said, feeling exasperated.

"No you’re not!" Gwen
had said, full of righteous indignation. "You’re doing it to make money
for your company."

Before he’d had a chance to
reply, Gwen had continued, getting into her swing: "Your Company were made
aware that I need to visit my mother. I never hid that. I’ve been working all
day, and, if we need to, I will continue working when I get back, but now I’m
going." And with that she’d had marched out of the room.

 Upstairs, closing the door to
her bedroom, Gwen checked herself in the mirror. She was shaking slightly and
her cheeks were flushed. She couldn’t believe that she had just spoken to her
editor like that. This was a very important man who she was going to have to
work with for months, if not years, had she been too hasty? Too rude? Suddenly
she wondered whether she ought to return and apologise, try to repair some of
the damage she’d done right away. She was close to heading back into the
kitchen; she got as far as the hallway when she forced herself to stop. What
was she doing? She knew, beyond any doubt, that she was in the right. It was
John who’d been rude and unreasonable, and she should not be feeling like she
ought to be the one saying sorry. With renewed resolution Gwen checked her hair
and make-up, grabbed a jumper, and headed out of the front door, only pausing
briefly to say goodbye to Oscar.

As soon as Gwen was out of the
door John crossly began to check, as best he could, the goings on in Black
Horse. As far as was possible to tell, all was running smoothly, but John knew
he’d feel far more on top of things if he were in London. He had so much to
plan and deal with, and attempting to control a temperamental prima donna was
frankly annoying and a waste of his precious time. He really needed to wind
matters up in Wales as quickly as possible so he could get back to the pulse of
things.

John was still grumpily banging
away on his computer half an hour later when he heard a little whine and looked
down to see Oscar looking up at him pitifully, lead in his mouth. Even in his
aggravated state, John couldn’t resist such an entreaty. The laptop was closed
down and he pulled on a pair of Gwen’s father’s old walking boots - there was
no way his Gucci loafers would survive the mud - and headed out, a very
grateful Oscar by his side.

Gwen wasn’t sure what to expect
when she returned from the hospital, but remembering how pleased her Mam had
been to see her renewed Gwen’s conviction that she’d been right to insist upon
visiting that evening.

As she drove home she reiterated
to herself that whatever John said she was going to stand by her decision to
visit her mother. But what if he declared he’d no longer work with her? Would
the publishers drop her completely? Once the thought was in her mind it refused
to shift.

She had no plan to save the
house, but if she could find a way, and there simply had to be a way, then she
was going to need money, and the only viable route she had to make any decent
money was through her writing. And despite the odds, she had a contract, or at
least had had a contract. Oh god, had she really just messed it all up?

Had she been too hasty in defying
her editor? She knew her mother would understand if she’d missed one visit, and
she could have still called to speak to her and checked she was all right. A
feeling of dread sank to the bottom of Gwen’s stomach as she frantically tried
to decide what she could do to make amends and stop John from doing something that
could devastate her and her mother’s lives.

After parking the car Gwen
hesitated a little as she opened her front door so as to steady her resolve and
prepare herself for what lay beyond. Despite confirming the presence of John’s
car, Gwen somehow half expected he’d already left.

Delicious smells hit Gwen’s
nostrils the second she walked in. Well, at least John was still here. The next
test would be whether he’d cooked for her as well as himself.

Gwen couldn’t believe the sight
that greeted her on entering the kitchen: the table was laid beautifully with
pristine napkins that Gwen recalled her mother using at Christmas; a very good
bottle of red wine was already open and breathing; and at the place she usually
sat there was a beautiful bouquet of yellow roses, wrapped in gorgeous crisp
brown paper and tied with twine.

"Those are for you"
said John indicating the flowers.

"They’re beautiful."

"They’re part of the apology
I owe you."

"Oh?"

"I shouldn’t have spoken to
you the way I did. You were absolutely right: you’ve always been completely
upfront about when you’re able to work with me. It’s not fair to expect you to
work the ridiculous hours I do. I’m just under a lot of stress at the moment
and I took it out on you, I’m sorry."

"Thank you. To be honest I’m
not sure it was completely your fault. I over-reacted. It wouldn’t have killed
me to have missed visiting for one day."

"No, it wouldn’t, but one of
the things I respect most about you is the way you support your mother, it’s
very commendable" said John a little stiffly.

"You respect me?"
repeated a stunned Gwen.

"Yes, I do. You’re selfless
and you have a real sense of duty. Too many people underestimate the value of
family loyalty; there’s little that’s more important.

Even if not everyone can have the
easy relationship you’ve had with your parents."

John looked awkward, then
muttered, "Supper’s nearly ready," as he turned back to the stove.

He really is an expert subject
changer Gwen mused to herself, full of curiosity as to where John’s thoughts
had come from, and wondering the story behind John and his parents.

"I need to go into town this
morning to pick up food," said Gwen, passing John a cup of coffee before
they started work.

"Can’t you get some
delivered?" said John grumpily, pulling a face as he tasted the coffee.

"No one delivers to here."

"Right."

"I’ll be as quick as I can."

Gwen was worried John would think
she was shirking off if she disappeared for too long; he always seemed to be
working, or thinking about work - probably because he was so desperate to get
back to London and decent coffee. She could understand: she was always glad to
return home when she’d been away and it must be uncomfortable staying in a
stranger’s house. Despite, or maybe because of, his devilish good looks, she’d
be glad when he was gone, she couldn’t relax with him in the house and still
felt slightly guilty for walking Oscar in case John thought he was getting in
the way of work.

"Mind if I come with you?"
asked John unexpectantly, getting up and stretching.

"Uh…" said Gwen, as she
desperately tried to think of a reason as to why he couldn’t come. She’d been
looking forward to a couple of hours without John around and had hoped it would
clear her head a little. She wasn’t quick enough with her excuse, and before she
knew it John was in the hall waiting for her.

Opening the doors to her car,
Gwen was about to climb in when she saw the look of horror cross John’s face as
he spotted the mess on the front passenger seat. Since her mother had gone into
hospital this had become Oscar’s place and there was a large amount of dog
hair, biscuits and toys strewn over the seat and foot well.

She sighed: yet another place
she’d missed during her great clean.

"Would you rather we took
your car?" she asked.

"Am I that obvious?"

"Yes. Come on then,"
said Gwen as she relocked her doors.

John drove quickly and
confidently; Gwen was in no doubt that he was completely in charge of his
vehicle. The day was chilly and grey. The windscreen wipers worked lazily to
clear the constant drizzle from the glass. As loyal as she felt to her beloved
Welsh valleys, this sadly really was the typical weather for the region.