Just One Last Night

‘Business is good by the sound of it.’

She swallowed hard. ‘Yes, yes, it is.’

‘One thing I must make clear, and this isn’t to be shared with my mother. I intend to pay for the work, my Christmas present to her, but as she’s somewhat proud at the best of times I shan’t mention it until the job is finished. With that in mind, there will be no need to worry about getting anything but the best in materials and so on, but you might like to quote her a substantially lower price than is realistic. Once you’ve priced the job and given me an estimate, you have my word I will pay in full whenever you wish. Understood?’

She took a moment to consider his words. She had intended to do the work at the very lowest margin she could manage, but if Forde was paying it would mean she could price it the same way she would do for anyone else. And she could understand why Forde was keeping it a secret until it was a fait accompli. Isabelle was extraordinarily proud of her successful son but had always refused to accept a penny from him, declaring Forde’s father’s death had left her mortgage free and with a nest egg in the form of a life assurance her husband had taken out some years before he’d died. Having had Forde late in life at the age of forty-three, Isabelle also had a very good pension from the civil service where she’d been employed all her working life before leaving to become a full-time mother when Forde was born.

Melanie cleared her throat. ‘I understand. It might be helpful to me if payment for the bulk of the materials I use could be given as the job progres

ses. Cash flow and so on.’

‘Fine. When can you talk to her?’

‘Tomorrow evening?’ Better to get it over with.

‘Good. I’ll ring her tonight and tell her I’ve suggested you for the work and you’re agreeable, depending on the job when you assess it, and you’ll be in contact tomorrow. OK? Anything else?’ he added crisply.

It was totally unfair, not to mention perverse, but his businesslike tone was making her want to scream. Last night they’d indulged in wild, abandoned sex and she’d slept in his arms, and he was talking as though he were discussing a contract with some colleague or other. Keeping her voice as devoid of emotion as his, Melanie said, ‘I don’t think so at this stage.’

‘Goodnight, then.’ And the phone went dead.

Melanie stared blankly across the room. ‘You pig.’ But at least she didn’t feel like crying any more. Throwing something, yes, but not crying.

Isabelle picked up the phone on the second ring the next evening, and was as gentle and courteous as she’d always been. So it was, promptly at two o’clock the following Sunday afternoon, normally her housework and catch-up day, Melanie presented herself at Forde’s mother’s fine Victorian house situated some ten miles or so from the home she and Forde had shared.

She was so nervous she was trembling as she rang the bell, but it was a uniformed nurse who opened the door rather than Isabelle. The woman showed her into Isabelle’s comfortable sitting room where a wood fire crackled in the grate despite the warm weather, for all the world as though she were a stranger rather than her patient’s daughter-in-law, which led Melanie to believe the nurse wasn’t aware she was Forde’s wife.

Isabelle confirmed this the moment the nurse had shut the door, leaving them alone. ‘Hello, my dear.’ Forde’s mother was sitting on a sofa pulled close to the fire and she lifted up her face for Melanie to kiss her cheek as she’d always done in the past, before patting the seat beside her. ‘Sit down. I didn’t tell Nurse Bannister who you were. She’s a nosy soul and always poking her nose into this and that. Thank heaven she’ll be leaving at the end of next week and not a day too soon. I can’t wait to have my house back to myself.’

‘Hello, Isabelle.’ Melanie’s voice was shaky. She’d half expected Forde’s mother to look ill and pale, for things to be different somehow, but instead both Isabelle and this room were exactly the same. She had left Forde, then left the city and made a new life for herself, but it was as though the last seven months had never happened and she had been here the day before. The same floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined with books graced two walls of the somewhat old-fashioned room, the same heavily patterned wool carpet covering the floor and thick embossed drapes at the window… She took a deep breath. ‘How are you? Forde told me you’ve been in hospital recently.’ She’d decided to mention his name straight away rather than having him hanging over the proceedings like a spectre at the feast.

Isabelle smiled. ‘I was foolish enough to break a hip and then my heart played up a little, but what can you expect at my age? I’m no spring chicken. More to the point, how are you, dear?’

‘Very well, thank you.’ Telling herself she had to say what she’d rehearsed for days, Melanie took the plunge. ‘Isabelle, when I returned your letter it wasn’t because I didn’t want to keep in touch, not really, but because I—I couldn’t.’

A pair of silvery-blue eyes very like Forde’s smiled at her. ‘I know that, dear. It had to be a clean sweep for you to be able to go on. We were too fond of each other for it to be any different.’

She wanted to cry. She wanted to lay her head on Isabelle’s lap and cry and cry, as she had done the first time she’d seen Forde’s mother after losing Matthew. Isabelle had cried with her then, telling her she would never forget Matthew but there would be other babies to take away the edge of her grief and loss. Frightened by the way she was feeling, Melanie retreated. ‘You want the garden replanning, I understand.’

Isabelle accepted the change of conversation with her normal grace. ‘Want is perhaps not the right word. Need is better. I have to confess it’s become a little too much lately.’

‘And you don’t want a gardener in to see to things?’

‘Occasionally, but not every day. As you know I’ve put in several hours most days for years—it’s my pleasure. I can still do a little but not all that’s required.’

‘So if we got it under control, my assistant coming in perhaps once a month for a couple of days wouldn’t distress you too much?’ Melanie asked gently, feeling for Forde’s mother. The grounds were beautiful and they’d been Isabelle’s pride and joy. ‘You’ll like James,’ she added. ‘I promise.’

‘I’m sure I will. Now, Nurse Bannister is bringing us a cup of tea and then I thought we might see the garden together?’

Melanie nodded. In truth she wanted to get out of this room. She had noticed at once that Isabelle had kept their wedding picture in its elaborate gold frame exactly where it had always been, and she’d avoided looking at it since. The tall, dark, smiling man and his radiant bride could have been different people, so far removed did she feel from the girl in the photograph.

It was clear Nurse Bannister had made the connection when she returned with the tray of tea a few moments later, her gimlet-hard eyes searching Melanie’s face avidly. With no trouble Melanie decided she could quite understand Isabelle’s desire to be rid of the companion Forde—for all the right reasons, of course—had thrust upon his mother.

By the time she left Hillview three hours later Melanie felt she had a good idea of what Isabelle would like, and more importantly not like, in the new garden. They’d agreed to leave well alone where they could and all the mature trees would remain, but Melanie had encouraged Isabelle to treat the acre of ground as a series of compartments flowing into and round each other to create a whole. Easy maintenance being the prime concern, Melanie had suggested vigorous ground cover in places, evergreen, naturally dense plants planted to form a thatch of vegetation that would give weeds little opportunity to develop. A water feature in the form of a large sunken pool surrounded by a pebble ‘beach’ to keep down weeds and an area for sitting in one part of the garden, in another a landscaped rockery with helian-themums, verbascums and sisyrinchiums to give vibrant colour, a bed of gravel aiding drainage and avoiding waterlogging.

Isabelle had listened to all her suggestions, welcoming the idea of winding paths leading to arbours and two or three patio areas, along with several chamomile lawns. This aromatic perennial would provide a contrast of texture to other areas of the garden, and when bruised by light treading the leaves would release a pleasant apple-like scent. The main advantage over a grass lawn for Isabelle was that the chamomile only would need very occasional trimming, which James could see to.

An area of decking surrounded by scented shrubs; a sunny, gentle slope adapted to suit sun-loving plants chosen for their rich flowering and compact shape on a bed of tiny, different-coloured pebbles; dramatic island beds of large shrubs surrounded by lavender or ornamental grasses—Melanie had come up with them all, and Isabelle had been remarkably open to the changes.