Trisha Ashley - Creature Comforts

I shuddered. ‘I don’t even want to live in Oxford.’

‘It’s a very lovely place.’

‘I know, only it’s not my place.’ I tried to explain. ‘I know I wasn’t born in Lancashire, but despite what happened there, Halfhidden still feels like home and the one place where I truly belong. It … pulls me back.’

‘You were only about five when Debo and Baz Salcombe became an item and you all moved into Sweetwell Hall with him, so you probably don’t recall much before that.’

‘No, nothing at all. I think I remember Judy and I had our own suite in the Victorian wing of Sweetwell, where the housekeeper and her family live now, but mostly my memories are of after the affair finished, when we all moved to the Lodge.’

‘Debo does have the knack of staying best friends with her former lovers,’ Daisy said with a smile. ‘And it made sense to stay in the country, because by then she and Judy had got about eight or nine rescued dogs between them, way too many for town.’

‘Baz liked dogs, too,’ I said. ‘He never minded when Debo’s escaped and ran around the estate, or that she extended the kennels beyond the garden into the grounds.’

‘He was a very likeable, easy-going man,’ Daisy agreed, for she had got to know him on her frequent visits to the Lodge.

I sighed sadly. ‘He was, and the nearest to a father figure I’ve ever had. I missed him so much after he went to live abroad …’

Baz had been so broken by the loss of his only child that he’d shut up Sweetwell and gone to live permanently in his beachfront house in the Bahamas, leaving the housekeeper as caretaker and Dan Clew to look after the garden and keep an eye on the wooded grounds.

Baz had rarely visited after that and never at times that coincided with my visits, though he and Debo had always remained friends – and occasionally, I suspected, more than friends.

‘Kieran absolutely idolises his father,’ I said, following this train of thought. ‘So he’s going to be a bit upset about the accident, though I don’t know if Douglas will tell him I refused to take the blame for it.’

‘If he does, since Kieran knows about your history, he’ll hardly be surprised about that. And if he truly loves you, he’ll be more concerned with how it’s affected you.’

‘I’m not at all sure he really does love me, and in any case, when push came to shove, he seemed quite prepared to override what I wanted to please his parents.’

‘It certainly sounds to me as if you two at least need some breathing space apart,’ Daisy said. ‘Things will seem clearer then and you may even find that you do have a future together.’

‘Perhaps,’ I said doubtfully. ‘But if so, it definitely wouldn’t be in Oxford. And not only have I already used some of this legacy they seemed to have been counting on, I’ll probably have to bail Debo out with the rest.’

‘Oh, I don’t think it will come to that. Debo does stagger from financial crisis to crisis, but she always manages to raise the money she needs from somewhere,’ she said, surprised. ‘I mean, for a start she can get as much modelling work as she wants and she often pops down to stay with me for various assignments.’

Debo had been a famous model in the sixties and seventies, and even though she was now the wrong side of sixty, she was still much in demand. Tall, thin and elegant, with huge grey doe-eyes and cropped ash-blonde hair, she hadn’t changed much since her heyday. Judy always told me I looked like a miniature version of Debo, but with my father’s dark colouring and lack of height, though I think she was just being kind …

‘Debo hates leaving the dogs though, so if she’s been down a lot recently it shows how bad things have got – and this time there’s no Baz to come to the rescue,’ I pointed out. ‘She was devastated when he died so suddenly – not to mention the shock of finding out the whole estate had been left to some illegitimate son she’d never heard of!’

‘Actually, when she rang to tell me, the main shock seemed to be more that Baz must have had a fling with Fliss Gambol, an old enemy of hers from her early modelling days, even though it was before Debo took up with him,’ Daisy said. ‘Even worse, she’s always blamed Fliss for your mother’s death.’

‘Oh? In what way?’ I asked, puzzled. I knew from Debo that my mother had been sweet, but a bit of a wild child and died young from an accidental drug overdose. I was the result of a brief fling with a married American artist twice her age. Although he’d known about me, we’d had minimal contact until, to my surprise, he’d left me a little bit of money a few years ago. ‘Fliss Gambol was some sixties singer, wasn’t she?’

‘Yes, until drink and drugs got the better of her. Lisa, your mother, was very young when she came to live with Debo after your grandmother died and, unfortunately, she fell in with Fliss’s crowd and under her influence.’

‘That makes it a bit clearer,’ I said. ‘I can see now why Debo would be upset … and Fliss’s circle must have seemed very glamorous and irresistible to an impressionable young girl, so I understand better how she came to such a tragic end. Poor Lisa!’

I sighed. ‘This must have raked up some unhappy memories for Debo. Baz always promised he’d leave her the Lodge and the land round it where she’s extended the kennels, and instead this son of Fliss Gambol has scooped the lot!’

‘She does have the Lodge for life, though, and Baz may have thought if he left her any money she’d spend it on even more dogs,’ Daisy said astutely. ‘Or if he gave her the Lodge outright, she’d mortgage it.’

‘Perhaps,’ I admitted, because Debo did tend to pour every penny that came her way (except for what Judy could snatch away for housekeeping) on her Debo’s Desperate Dogs Refuge. ‘Anyway, I’ll have to see when I get home. With Baz’s son having all the land, she won’t be able to keep as many dogs.’

‘I can’t see her being happy about that,’ Daisy said. ‘And I don’t think she’ll want to take any of the money your father left you, either, however desperate things are.’

‘We’ll see,’ I said, sitting up straighter. ‘You know, I believe meeting Kieran was a wrong turn. I confused what I wanted with what I was supposed to be doing.’

Daisy smiled. ‘I think it all comes down to following your heart. But sometimes you also need to use your head.’

‘Both seem to be telling me to go back to Halfhidden and set up my mail-order company there. I want to go home at last, and not go away ever again,’ I finished.

Daisy regarded me thoughtfully. ‘Hmm … that might still be the shock talking and the cold feet about the wedding. But time will tell.’

‘It will – and there’s something else I’m going to do when I get home, that I should have done years ago: I’m going to meet the past head-on,’ I said with new resolution.

‘You mean, the accident?’

‘Yes, I want to fill in the blank bits and try to understand why I was driving that night. I mean, I remember clearly that I was working in the pub with Lulu and Cam and that I left to walk home early, because my old dog, Patch, was ill. And then in the car park I passed the red Range Rover and Harry invited me to the party at Sweetwell. I told him I couldn’t, though that bit’s fuzzy … and then I remember absolutely nothing until I came out of the induced coma in hospital weeks later.’

‘But you’ve been told what happened?’

‘Yes, mainly by Lulu and Cameron, because by the time I’d convalesced with you and got home again, no one ever mentioned it to me – it was like the elephant in the room. Even Judy and Debo didn’t want to talk about it.’