Louisa George - The Secret Art of Forgiveness - A feel good romance about coming home and moving on

It’d be fine. She’d sort it all out. Wave her magic wand or something.

Although, with him hobbling beside her, muttering about that missing dog again, her magic touch suddenly felt a little underqualified.

But, she had a plan. That was a start. Wasn’t it?

They’d just about reached the Duxbury Hall driveway when a dark car drove by and turned into Jacob Taylor’s driveway. The Judge raised his stick and waved.

‘What do you know about Jacob Taylor?’ she asked him, dropping the shopping bags and letting the blood flow back into her fingers as she craned her neck to peer into the back of the car. But she saw absolutely nothing but glass. ‘Who is he? What does he do?’

‘What does who do?’

‘Jacob Taylor?’ The scammer. Her heart began to thud. She’d need to keep an eye on him.

‘Who?’ The Judge couldn’t even remember two seconds ago.

‘Never mind.’ She hauled the bags up again and made towards The Hall. ‘I’ll work it all out for myself.’

Just like she always had.

***

‘Shoot! No. No! Not again! Why is this so bloody hard?’ Working things out for herself was proving more difficult than she’d thought it would be.

It was Wednesday morning and Emily was fixing a breakfast of pancakes, berries and natural yoghurt. At least, that had been the plan. What she hadn’t accounted for was the batter sticking to the bottom of the pan and burning, not once, not twice, but three times.

Pancakes had seemed like an excellent idea when she’d absentmindedly picked up the ingredients, her mind on so many other things, but now she was down to the last dribble of lumpy goo and her head was starting to throb. Mainly, she assumed, because she’d gone from mildly hungry to absolutely starving in the time it had taken her to use up all of the batter ingredients and fail each time. ‘Damn and double blast! Nigella, where are you when I need you?’

‘Oh, hello there.’ The Judge wandered in wearing the same clothes he’d had on for the last three days: a khaki shirt and baggy trousers. Something red had spilled all over his shirt between last night and this morning, and his hair was scruffy and wild. He looked like an extra from a zombie movie. ‘What are you cooking, er…?’

‘Emily.’ Remember? Squishing down the tang of frustration that he still couldn’t remember her name or who she was, she surveyed the damage made by the splodges of crusty batter mix across the Aga top, the slightly squashed berries and insipid-looking yoghurt.

If only her mum were here, she’d know what to do about the food, The Judge, everything. If only her mum had had the time to teach her to cook. If only her mum had had more time, full stop. If only . There were so many if onlys. Too many. God, she still missed her, especially here in this too-large place filled with memories. Em swallowed back the lumps in her throat. ‘How does burned goo on toast sound?’

‘Lovely. I’ll have two, please.’ The Judge took his usual place at the large table and waited, knife and fork primed. She imagined he’d done this all his life – been waited on, looked after, nurtured, either by wives or daughters or housekeepers or harried secretaries. And yet, he’d somehow been unable to pay that forward.

She wondered how that felt – always knowing there was someone to care for you, even if not to care about you. And she told herself to stop being maudlin. Her parents were gone and The Judge had never cared either for or about her, but she had Brett now, all those miles away, waiting anxiously for her return. Funny thing was, he hadn’t flitted into her thoughts much at all yesterday.

Admittedly, she’d been busy trying to write a proposal for an account while chasing down The Judge and answering emails in the pub. The afternoon she’d spent stripping all the beds in the twelve bedrooms, assessing damp damage, ceiling patency and generally trying to dry everything out. She had a list now of everything that needed doing – it was so long it gave her heebeegeebees just looking at it.

Guilt worried its way into her head. Why hadn’t she thought about Brett until now?

She pushed all that away, promising to contact him later, and concentrated on the more pressing matter of her grumbling stomach. ‘Actually, none of this looks lovely at all, Judge. It looks, frankly, like a hot, inedible mess. And that’s because it is. Let’s eat out. My shout. And while we’re at it, we’ll get you a haircut. You look like a hippy.’

‘Right you are.’ He scraped his chair back and fastened a loose-fitting beige cardigan over the stained shirt. Unfortunately, there was plenty of stain – what the hell was it? – still visible. ‘The pub?’

‘No. We’ll try the café today seeing as you had top pick the last two days. But don’t you think you should change your shirt? You look like you’ve murdered someone.’

‘Again?’ He laughed.

‘What? What? You haven’t?’ The Judge of old hadn’t joked – at least, not with her. Had he? She couldn’t remember things so clearly any more. She’d built up a whole story of her Little Duxbury life that had started and ended with everyone being horrid to her.

But what if that hadn’t been the case? What if she’d clouded some of her memories, piling feeling onto feeling until everything had just got so built up inside her that now she believed everyone had been horrible to her when that wasn’t the truth at all?

She looked at him again, smiling at his little joke. They were getting along quite well during the day. Which was a mini miracle all of its own. Night-times were still challenging, as he seemed to get grumpy as soon as it started to get dark. ‘You are joking? You haven’t actually murdered someone, have you?’

‘Of course not. I’d be in prison otherwise. Silly girl. What strange ideas you have.’

Takes one to know one. ‘So, the shirt?’

His eyes slowly moved from her face to where she was pointing. ‘Oh? What’s this? How did that happen?’

‘Clearly you missed your mouth. I’m assuming it’s food. Hoping…’

He sniffed some of the cloth. ‘I think it might be tomato sauce. Or soup.’

‘Not that out-of-date stuff I was going to throw away… at the back of the cupboard?’ She opened the microwave and found a puddle of red stuff in there, too. And yes, the plastic container was in the bin. ‘Midnight snack, was it?’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ He turned to go but his eyes darted to the cupboard above the fridge. ‘Oh. Now, do I…? Should I…? Have I forgotten something?’

‘Tablets! Of course. You superstar. I’d totally forgotten.’ Was Alzheimer’s catching? She reached up and retrieved the tablet box. ‘It’s Wednesday today. Hang on… What’s been going on here? There’s some missing.’

The Wednesday and Thursday boxes were empty. Her stomach lurched suddenly, like in the jolting lift at Baddermans as it started its quick descent. ‘Have you been helping yourself to them? I think you might have taken too many.’

He shrugged. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Why would I take any tablets? There’s nothing wrong with me.’

‘Hmmmm. When did you take them? Can you remember? More importantly, do you feel okay?’ Slightly panicking, she reached over and felt his wrist, searching for his pulse. She had no idea what it was supposed to be like. She’d just seen people do it on Grey’s Anatomy . Mind you, she’d seen a lot of medical procedures performed on Grey’s Anatomy and she wasn’t about to start trying any of them. Hip replacement? No problem – just lie down on the kitchen table.

All she could tell was that his pulse was a little fast compared to her own. But was that normal in an elderly man? ‘How do you feel? Weird? Faint?’ What other symptoms might he have? ‘A rash anywhere? Are you okay? Really? Do you feel okay?’