Wishful Thinking (20 page)

“It’s
thatch
and I think it’s something like straw. You’ll have to ask Adam.”

“Is Adam the farmer with the badgers and otters?”

“There he is, look.” One of the doors opened and Adam stepped out, followed by an excitable, chocolate-coloured Labrador and a child of around Ben’s age. The dog was the first to reach them and Ben leapt out of the car to greet it with as much enthusiasm as the dog showed him.

“Welcome! I’m glad you found us,” Adam said beaming at them. “This is Gray, my nephew and that’s Saffy, who always has to be the first to welcome new visitors.”

Jess said a solemn hello to Gray and Saffy and then turned to Adam. “This place is breathtakingly beautiful. Are you sure it’s real?”

Adam laughed in delight at her praise. “It
is
very special. Come in and meet Greg and Kate who do the lion’s share of the work here.”

She followed him into the house appreciating every sight from the long entrance hall with its exposed beams and inglenook fireplaces at either end, through a cosy sitting room and into a vast kitchen and breakfast room. This was a pleasant room with a delightful mixture of old and new co-existing in perfect harmony: an Aga range against one wall looking just at home as the vast American-style fridge freezer against another and the limestone floor complimenting the granite-topped units. French doors led out onto a terrace and walled garden where the watery January sunlight glimmered feebly.

She guessed Adam’s brother to be slightly older than him, though Kate looked roughly the same age as her. Coffee was ready and waiting on the vast, oak refectory table and the little group spent a very pleasant hour chatting quietly, though with frequent interruptions from the children. Apart from Gray, there were also two younger children: a boy, Josh of four or five and an angelic, golden-haired toddler, Daisy, who wanted to climb up onto Jess’s knee the moment she sat down.

It was a while before Jess found herself alone with Adam during a tour of the house and grounds. She wondered how to broach the subject of his strange relationship with Amber and Christian and decided to simply leap in and hope for the best.

“Did Amber bother to tell you she was going to America, or did you just find out for yourself?”

He bent down to pull up some straggling dead weeds from a patch of beets in the vegetable plot. “Oh we talked about it – amongst other things. If you mean did I approve, the answer is no. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. Anyway, nothing I said made any difference, so rather than argue, I just left.”

“She does sound like very hard work,” Jess said mildly.

Adam snorted and hurled his handful of weeds off into the distance. “Oh she’s that all right. But it’s what she puts everyone else through that’s so painful.”

Jess nodded. She waited for him to go on but, as he didn’t, felt she should bring her questions onto a vaguely more professional level. “Why exactly did Wishful split up? Was it an amicable decision?”

He seemed surprised by the question, as if he hadn’t considered it before. “Yes, it
was
actually. Amber was bigger than the group really – we were in danger of becoming her backing group and that wasn’t part of our vision. She was absolutely right to go solo, but I doubt she would have taken the plunge if Christian hadn’t got that film offer and left first.”

“But he said that was an interlude. That he’d go back to the band when the time was right, or the song…”

Adam smiled but the smile didn’t quite reach his pale blue eyes. They retained their rather sad, faraway look. “We’ve all said that – said it so often, we almost believe it. You might even call it ‘wishful thinking’. But it won’t happen, because of Amber.”

Jess almost stamped her foot in an impatient gesture but instead caught herself and had to satisfy her frustration instead by grinding her heel into the hard earth. “What is it about this woman? Why does she wield so much power over you all?”

Adam took her arm and steered her away from the kitchen garden towards a gate in the old wall. Several acres of land stretched out before them, leading to forestry land in the distance. Jess heard animal noises, pigs, horses and chickens all busily making their voices heard in the weak January sunlight which sent its pale golden blessing down on them.

He dug his hands deep into his pockets and looked off into the distance. “Despite what you think, she’s not a bad person, you know. She’s had a very tough life and it just makes you feel humble next to her. And, of course, she pours it all into her singing. She’s massively talented - has about a billion more loyal fans than we do.”

“I’m not sure what that has to do with it,” Jess muttered darkly. “And her fans don’t have to live in her world!”

After a long, leisurely lunch, everyone went out of doors to tend to the varying needs of the animals. The pigs and chickens needed rounding up and feeding and eggs collected from the latter; the horses needed cleaning out, grooming and exercising, the goats came in for milking and numerous other chores were all swiftly allocated and efficiently carried out. There was little time for Jess to pursue the subject closest to her heart and she threw herself wholeheartedly into her chores.

Before dusk fell, Greg took Adam, Jess and the children to the pasture behind the farm to demonstrate the quad-copter and show them how to look for clues of the badgers’ activities. Ben was ecstatic as he examined the machine.

“We need to look for crawl-marks, broken bracken, tufts of hair in the fences – any signs of recent foraging,” Greg told them as they donned special goggles and scoured the nearby countryside.

“But will we actually see any badgers? Won’t they be hibernating?” Jess asked.

“They can’t afford to – they have to feed their young so they come out regularly to forage and they need water too, so we’ll look carefully down by the stream. They’re active most nights, so I imagine the clans have a lot of young ones underground, which is why I don’t want to get too close to the sett with the plane. Once we find their latest runs, we can rig up the hideout and bunk down and wait for them. Remember though, not a sound from anyone. Oh and you city-folk - make sure your phones are switched off now in case you forget later.”

It turned out to be a magical evening for Jess and Ben and one that almost succeeded in taking Jess’s mind off Christian and Amber for the first time in over a week. It felt good to be out in the beautiful countryside engaged in such different pursuits with her son. She hadn’t seen Ben happier than this, even at Christian’s house and she was grateful to Adam for inviting them. She was slowly, though painfully, coming to terms with the fact that she had read far more into her relationship with Christian than he had ever intended and that in another week she would be back at work and her normal routine re-established. It had been a nice dream while it lasted and had also led to this experience, for which she was grateful. It had to compensate adequately for Ben’s disappointment.

****

The morning had moved on apace by the time Christian cleared the red tape at Heathrow and found himself a taxi to Jess’s place. His plan of surprising her now ruined, he tried her numbers yet again, knowing with a numbing sense of resignation that he was wasting his time. He wondered why he was even going to her flat, but could think of no better plan at the moment. He felt wrecked. Flying always exhausted him and this particular flight, departing after a six hour delay had been particularly gruelling. Try as he might, he had been unable to sleep during any part of the tedious journey and his eyes now felt as if they were rimmed with grit. He badly needed a shower and a nap.

He knew Jess wouldn’t be there, so wondered why he continued to hammer at her door after some obliging resident had let him into the building.

“I think she’s gone away for the weekend,” Jess’s neighbour – the one who seemed to be forever on the alert to offer her help – told him. “I saw her putting bags into the car.”

“I suppose you’ve no idea where she might have gone?” Christian asked wearily.

The woman shrugged. “No idea. Have you tried calling her?”

He didn’t bother to answer her fatuous question, but instead asked, “Could you possibly let me have some paper to leave a note for her?”

“Oh I’ll give her a message, if you like,” the young woman offered with alacrity.

“Thanks. That would be great, but I’d like to leave a note as well.”

He accepted her offer of coffee while he waited for George to arrive and obliged her by signing a couple of CD covers and a programme she had saved from a Wishful concert she had attended a few years previously. He pushed a note through Jess’s letterbox before leaving. It asked her to call him the moment she got back and he left a string of numbers from which she could choose. He also left a number with the friendly neighbour and asked her to call him the moment Jess showed up.

Being closer to Mayfair than Weybridge, he had George drive him there so he could shower and rest while he waited for Jess’s call, or decided what to do next. After a couple of hours’ sleep, he joined George in the kitchen for tea.

“You know, it’s just a thought, but that nurse, Jacqui, might possibly know where Jess is,” George suggested.

Christian looked at him in puzzlement, before remembering who Jacqui was. He snatched up his phone.

“She’s not at the house any more. She left on Thursday – said it wasn’t right to sit around running up bills when she wasn’t needed anymore,” George explained.

“I’ll call the agency – I’m sure I put the number in my phone.”

“I doubt you’ll find anyone worth speaking to on a Saturday afternoon,” the driver said, but there was a hint of mischief in his voice. It seemed George, in his infinite wisdom, had taken Jacqui’s personal number before she left. He now held this out to Christian.

She answered at once and Christian quickly explained who he was and what he needed of her.

“Well you know,” Jacqui said in her sonorous, Caribbean lilt. “Jess has been one very upset young lady this past week. If she don’t want to talk to you, I can’t say I blame her, poor girl.”

“I need to talk to her, Jacqui. I can assure you, things are not nearly as bad as they might look. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“But you haven’t exactly been very honest with her. For someone who’s done nothing wrong, your timing is impeccable!”

“Timing? What do you mean?” He was almost afraid to ask.

“Oh you know, the minute you disappear, first comes the magazine and then Lady Amber drops her little bombshell and finally that photo splashed across the papers. It sure doesn’t look like nothing wrong to me. I don’t know how much more you think a girl can take.”

“Where is she, Jacqui? Please tell me!”

“I’m not sure she’d want me to tell you – even if I
did
know. But I
don’t
and that’s the truth, Mr Goodchild. Sorry.”

Christian released a deep sigh. “I see. Well, I’m sorry to have troubled you, Jacqui. Thanks for everything. I’ll still pay you for the full fortnight, of course.”

Jacqui released a throaty chuckle. “I expect my agency will make sure you do – though I have tried to reason with them about it on your behalf. I’m not a greedy person. Look, about Jess…”

“Yes?
Do
you know where she is?”

They had seen three badgers, possibly four, coming out to look for food and Jess and Ben just watched spellbound throughout the creatures’ nocturnal foraging. It was pitch dark as the group made its way back to the farmhouse, carrying lanterns and chatting animatedly. The night air was cold and their breath streamed out before them as they talked and laughed. They were all bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked as they entered the warm farmhouse kitchen.

Christian sat at the vast table, drinking coffee with Kate, who had returned to the house early because of Daisy who now sat in her high chair happily gnawing on a hard biscuit. Adam stopped dead on the threshold with Jess beside him. Both stared at Christian in surprise.

“Chris! What are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to be on the other side of the pond, slinking out of hotels with our mutual friend.”

Christian scowled. “I flew back this morning, or last night, depending on which time zone you want.” He looked curiously from Jess to Adam, clearly unsure what to think.