Remembering Rose (Mapleby Memories Book 1) Page 18

  I was still thinking how best to answer him when a big black range rover stopped on the verge beside us and the driver wound down the window. “Is that Orchard House?” he asked, pointing next door. When Robbie said it was, he stuck his hand through the window. “Jerry Trayner,” he said.

  Just at that moment Liam and Connor reappeared around the side of the house and came careering down the path to where I was standing at the gate. “Rachel, Rachel, come and see what we’ve found,” they yelled at the very top of their voices. “It’s an ant nest and when we poked it with a stick all the ants got mad and ran about the grass.”

  “One bit me,” said Connor, “but I squished it.”

  I closed my eyes very briefly. When I opened them again the children had multiplied. Now there were four small boys hopping up and down on the path, all wanting to look at the ants and have a turn with the stirring stick. Jerry Trayner laughed.

  “Apologies,” he said in an attractive American drawl. “They’ve been cooped up in airplanes and hotels since Wednesday, so energy levels are a bit high. Sam and Bailey, come and introduce yourselves.”

  The boys, who were a little older than Liam and Connor, but not much, stopped leaping around and came over to where I was standing. The oldest one held out his hand. “Hi. My name is Samuel Trayner and I’m very pleased to meet you, Ma’am.”

  We shook on it and I marveled as much at his beautiful manners and his cute accent as I did at how such a small hand could produce such a firm handshake. Then I turned to his brother. “That means you must be Bailey Trayner. Well, I’m Rachel Ryan and I live here, right next door to your new house, so if you’d like to come and play with Connor and Liam, you are very welcome.”

  “That’s so kind but we mustn’t let them bother you,” a small, blonde woman had climbed down from the car while I’d been talking and now she was standing beside me looking flustered.

  I smiled at her. “The matter has been taken out of both our hands, so let’s just enjoy the peace while it lasts.”

  She returned my smile as she watched her sons disappear around the back of the cottage. All four children were chattering nineteen to the dozen, as if they’d known one another for years. “You can say that again. Travelling to England and then spending two nights in London followed by a long car journey has just about finished all of us. If I have to listen to the buzz of another electronic game this side of Christmas, I swear I’ll go mad.”

  “Well, that settles it. You go and look at your new house, and when you’ve finished you can come and have coffee and cake while you regroup.”

  She grasped my hand. “That sounds great Rachel. I’m Marcie by the way. And who is this little angel?” She brushed her fingers across Leah’s plump legs.

  “This is Leah and we both like your new house,” I told her.

  “Well hello, Leah. How come your Mom can cope with you as well your brothers, when I get worn out with two?”

  I laughed. “The boys aren’t mine. I’m just minding them for their mother.”

  “Well thank goodness! For a moment I thought I was moving next door to wonder woman, what with coffee and cake being on offer as well.”

  “Hurry up, Marcie.” Jerry Trayner had engaged Robbie in serious conversation while I was talking to his wife, but now he was getting impatient. Marcie rolled her eyes as she went to join him, a mutinous act which left me grinning as I watched them pick their way through the building equipment and go into the house.

  * * *

  By the time they arrived for coffee I had spread raspberry jam between the two layers of the sponge cake I had originally made for Millie, and sprinkled the top with sugar. Marcie clapped her hands when she saw it.

  “Look Jerry, a real English Victoria sponge cake. No frosting or cream, just preserves and sugar. Please say you make scones and cucumber sandwiches, too?”

  I laughed that anyone could think I was some sort of culinary expert. “No I don’t, and there’s nothing special about the cake. I just make it the way my mother showed me”

  “And I guess her mother showed her.” She plumped herself down in a chair, her eyes shining with enthusiasm.

  “You’ll have to forgive Marcie,” Jerry apologized as he joined her at the table. “She writes cookbooks.”

  I pushed the cake towards Marcie. “In that case you had better cut it. I don’t want to expose my crooked slicing technique to an expert.”

  She laughed and obliged while I poured coffee and offered cream and sugar, and then Robbie called the boys who, after a cursory washing of hands, sat outside on the grass eating cake and drinking squash.

  We talked about the cottage while we drank our coffee, or rather the Trayners talked and Robbie and I listened, me enviously as they explained what else they wanted doing, and Robbie seriously because it was his job. When they’d finished discussing hot tubs and walk-in wardrobes and a whole lot of other things beside, and when we had finished the last crumb between us, Marcie started talking about the cake again.

  “It was great,” she said. “Is it a family recipe?”

  I nodded. “It’s probably been in the family for generations because I can even remember my grandmother making it and she probably learned from her own mother.”

  “Nothing written down though?”

  I started to shake my head, then I remembered something I had skimmed past in one of Rose’s diaries. It had been a recipe for a special cake she had decided to make for her mother’s birthday. “I might be able to find something,” I said slowly. “I’ll let you know when I next see you.”

  That was when I suddenly remembered everything I knew about the Trayners. Until then I had been so beguiled by Marcie and the little boys that it had gone clean out of my head. Now I turned to Jerry Trayner and said what I should have said when I first met him.

  “Actually I think you and I might be distantly related.”

  He stared at me doubtfully. “Ryan you said, Rachel Ryan. No, it’s not a name on our family tree.”

  “That’s because she’s married, dummy,” his wife told him. Then she turned to me. “What was your name before it was Ryan, honey?”

  “Pavelak,” I said. “But it’s not that one either. My Great-Great-Aunt May was Sarah Trayner’s mother.”

  “You’re kidding,” Jerry actually went a bit pale. “I wasn’t expecting a cousin half a dozen times removed to be my new next door neighbor.”

  I was a bit taken aback as well because although I knew there had to be some sort of family link, I hadn’t expected it to be that direct. Once we had recovered from our mutual surprise he told me Sarah Trayner was his great-grandmother and that after she and her husband died, their youngest son moved to America.

  “He was my grandfather and when he married he settled in a small town in Oregon and abandoned his English roots. Now we’re going to be living in England, I’m trying to find them again. I know there are a whole bunch of Trayners in London,” he said. “And a few more in the English midlands, but to find someone who still lives where it all started, well, that’s really something.”

  I laughed then, loving his enthusiasm and the way both he and Marcie were so friendly and relaxed. “You might regret saying that because there are a whole lot of us in Mapleby.”

  By the time I’d finished explaining the numbers and complications of the Pavelak clan, it was lunchtime.

  “Let’s all go eat,” Jerry said, putting his head outside the kitchen door and whistling for the boys.

  They came at a run, Liam and Connor happy to follow the older boys’ lead. Leah was awake too, and cheerful after her mid morning nap. I protested of course, but he insisted, dismissing my worries about taking too many children into the local pub with the unconcern of a parent who knows his children will behave at the table. I didn’t have the same sort of confidence about Millie’s boys because I didn’t know them well enough, and I knew Leah would deliberately dribble her food out of her mouth if she didn’t like it, but I decided to go with the flow a
nyway, and soon we were all strapped into the range rover while Robbie followed on behind in his van.

  I had thought he might refuse at first but when our eyes met he gave a little nod and I knew he was telling me that if Ella was at the pub and they bumped into one another, then he would deal with it. I gave him my most sympathetic smile. Then I went to change Leah’s nappy while he helped Jerry load the children into the car.

  * * *

  Ella was the first person we saw, of course. She was standing behind the bar helping Tom serve a sudden influx of lunchtime customers. They both looked up when the door opened and for a moment we were at the receiving end of a pair of professional welcoming smiles, then Tom’s widened into the sort of grin that said all his Christmases had come at once. He shouted to be heard above the clatter of knives and forks and the buzzy conversation of his customers.

  “Look who the wind has blown in Rachel.”

  I smiled and waved as I shepherded my portion of our party towards an empty table. Ella started to wave back but her arm froze in midair, as did her smile. Behind me Robbie muttered something under his breath and I knew his courage had deserted him and he was about to bail out.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” I said, grabbing his arm. Then, in my brightest voice I proceeded to organize the table, ushering him in between Liam and Connor so there was no chance of escape. He glowered at me but I just gave him a sweet smile before I turned to Marcie.

  “I need the biggest favor. That girl behind the bar is one of my oldest friends and I haven’t seen her in months because she lives and works away. Would you mind very much if I abandon you for five minutes while you find out what the children want to eat? I just need to say hello and show her Leah because she hasn’t seen her since she was tiny.”

  “You go ahead, honey. Just say what you want and I’ll do the rest.”

  “Oh…um…I’ll have a lemonade and um…fish and chips.” It was the only thing I could remember that was always on the menu.

  I left her discussing food with the children and an almost silent Robbie and hurried across to the bar. Ella was waiting for me and her greeting was anything but friendly.

  “What are you up to?” she said, her voice tight with anger. Tom was busy with a customer so she didn’t have to worry about upsetting him.

  “Me up to something? I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I feigned innocence with very little hope of success because Ella and I had known one another for far too long for her to be taken in. I was right.

  “Robbie Parker,” she hissed. “Did he put you up to this because you can go and tell him from me, right now, that it’s not going to work. Oh and by the way, there’s nothing wrong with my Dad so the next time you bring me down here get your facts right first.”

  If she hadn’t said that I might not have lost my temper, but her apparent disregard for Tom’s health did it for me, and she knew she’d gone a step too far when I answered. “So you think he’s fine, do you? Well, that makes your life very easy doesn’t it? You can carry on gadding about the world and mixing with your millionaire celebrities because your Dad’s okay. I expect he’s already told you he doesn’t want you to feel responsible for him anyway, hasn’t he?” It was a guess but I could see it hit home.

  “Well maybe it hasn’t occurred to you in the five minutes you’ve been here that he’s good at hiding things. If you watch him instead of thinking about yourself all the time, you’ll notice how he struggles to pick up the bottles and glasses and how, when he thinks nobody is looking, he massages his fingers and thumbs. And maybe you haven’t noticed it yet, but there’s a stool behind the bar which never used to be there, and if you watch him you’ll find he uses it whenever he can to take the weight off his feet.”

  I peered over the bar, in full flow now although I kept my voice low. “And those shoes he’s wearing, he’s put them on in your honor today, which means his feet will hurt like hell when he’s in bed tonight. Usually he wears slippers, you see. Smart ones, slippers that look like shoes at a quick glance, but they don’t kid any of the customers who have known him since he was Mapleby’s brightest star, the man the whole village gathered to watch whenever he played rugby.”

  I could see I’d shocked her and it should have given me some satisfaction. It didn’t, though, because I knew I should have made her visit Mapleby sooner, before Tom was almost overtaken by misery. The trouble was I had been too wrapped up in myself and my own problems. Ridiculous as they were, they hadn’t left any room for other people, even Daniel, and I felt ashamed all over again.

  Before I could say another word, however, Tom joined us, his smile so wide it threatened to split his face in half. Fortunately, Jerry arrived with the order for our table at the same time, and by the time he had placed it, and I had made introductions all round, it was time for me to return to our table.

  “We’ll catch up later,” I told Ella, giving her a smile that was full of meaning.

  She nodded for the benefit of her father and Jerry but even though I knew I’d shocked her I also knew she wasn’t about to forgive my subterfuge about Robbie. When we did find the time to talk I was going to be in a whole lot of trouble.

  When I returned to the table I gave Leah to Marcie while I went to find a highchair, and by the time I found one, our drinks had arrived. With Leah securely strapped in and far too interested in what was going on around her to cause any immediate trouble, I sank into my own chair with a sigh and took a long drink from my glass of lemonade.

  “Good huh?” Jerry said, taking a sip from his own glass.

  I nodded and then, at his request, filled him in on the history of Riverside House since his family sold it to the council. When I added the fact that my ninety-four-year-old grandmother was living there he was more than excited.

  “We must go visit. Do you hear that Marcie, Rachel’s grandmother is still alive at ninety-four and living in the old family home?”

  Robbie and I shook our heads in unison. “It was pulled down years ago to make room for a modern nursing home,” we told him. “There’s nothing left for you to see.”

  “Except your grandmother,” Marcie said. “Would she mind if we visited her?”

  “I know she’d love to see you if she’s having a good day. Unfortunately she suffers from vascular dementia so her memory is unreliable, and sometimes she just sleeps through an entire visit.”

  “I guess we’ll risk that,” Jerry said. Then he gave me a puzzled look. “If the old house was pulled down years ago and most of the garden turned into a parking lot, how come you know so much about how it looked? Are there photos because your description of the lawns sloping down to the river, and the huge stone planters full of flowers make it sound as if you’ve actually seen it?”

  Robbie saved me. “Rachel found her great-great-grandmother’s diaries from way back and she’s been reading them in an attempt to piece together her family history.”

  “Which is why you knew we were distant cousins,” Jerry’s eyes were shining with excitement. “May I look at those diaries, Rachel? They sound like great material for a book.”

  Marcie interrupted him with a burst of laughter. “I said you wouldn’t last a morning without letting it slip.”

  She turned to me. “Jerry writes historical novels in his spare time. He’s pretty successful although he pretends to be modest about it. You might have heard of him. He writes as R. J. Archibald.”

  Jerry gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Always choose a name at the front of the alphabet. It gets noticed first.”

  I stared at him. “I can’t believe it. R. J. Archibald is one of my Mother’s favourite writers.”

  “Not yours. though?” He grinned at me.

  “Not yet but there’s always time,” I said, and laughed even while I wondered how I could keep him away from Rose’s diaries. What with Marcie wanting me to find the recipe I’d seen in one of the notebooks, Robbie’s mother wanting to see them, and Jerry wanting to read all of them, it was going to be di
fficult to keep Rose’s secret unless I did something drastic, like burning them.

  While I was still worrying about it the meals arrived and took my concentration for the next few minutes as children demanded ketchup and I searched for a rusk to keep Leah busy while we ate. After that the conversation turned to the more mundane but Robbie didn’t relax and nor did I. Although he said all the right things and smiled in the right places, his eyes keep flicking towards the bar. He didn’t smile at me either and I knew that was because I’d trapped him in between Millie’s two little boys. Unable to slide out of the bench he was sitting on without disrupting the whole table, he could neither escape nor confront Ella. I gave an inward sigh. Before the day was over I was going to be in a lot of trouble with two very angry people, and I still had to decide what to do about Rose’s diaries.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Of course I was reckoning without Rose’s help, so when I glanced towards the bar to see if Ella was still there, I nearly choked on my food because Rose was sitting in a chair beside the fireplace. In cold weather Tom made sure there was always a crackling fire burning but now the weather was warmer there was just a display of flowers set right in the middle of the empty hearth.

  Marcie handed me a glass of water. “Are you okay, honey?”

  “I’m fine,” I lied. “A piece of fish went down the wrong way.”

  It was at that point that Tom came over to check we were all enjoying the food. We assured him we were and then Jerry asked him a few questions about the history of the pub. Tom’s answers nearly had me choking again.

  “More than half of it is an extension,” he said, waving his arm towards the other end of the pub and the room beyond. “It was built before my time but I’ve seen the plans and whoever did it was very careful to preserve an authentic look.”

  Jerry nodded. “What with the name and all those old tools and dainty Victorian shoes on display, I’m guessing the original part of the building was a cobbler’s workshop.”