Things I Want My Daughters to Know_ A Novel - Elizabeth Noble [80]
“We’re going straight home, if that’s okay. I’ve been at the hospital all day. Dad’s at the Royal Cornwall, here in Truro. Home’s about twenty minutes in the other direction.”
“Fine. How is your dad?”
“Talking today. Complaining, actually. Says the food’s awful. Why do people always say that? He wants to come home.”
“Don’t blame him. I hate hospitals. I’ve only been in overnight once; I had appendicitis when I was fourteen. Couldn’t wait to get out.”
“I’ve never stayed. All my childhood accidents were of the outpatient variety.” She made a note to ask him about his childhood accidents. Check thoroughly for scars at some point, too….
“And how soon is that likely to be? Him coming home?”
“Another week or so at least, they say. They’ve got to treat the injuries as well as the heart thing. He’s had to have all these tests, find out what caused the problem.”
“How’s your mum? You said on the phone that she wasn’t coping all that well?”
“That’s the strangest thing. She’s this amazingly capable, strong woman, you know. She was a nurse when she met Dad. Did I tell you that? She never actually finished her training. But she was always really calm, you know. Three boys bring home a lot of bloody noses and broken limbs and black eyes. Nothing ever phased her. That’s not just how I see her—that’s how she is. Was. This has really knocked her for six. She literally…fell apart. When she rang me that morning, she could barely speak.”
“He’s her husband.”
“I know.”
“She must have been frightened.”
“We all were. I’m not ready, you know. Not ready to let him go.”
“I don’t suppose anyone ever is.”
“No.”
He took one hand off the steering wheel and squeezed her knee.
“Thank you so much for coming, Amanda.”
She was very glad that she had.
The Land Rover was not the most comfortable mode of transport. She felt every bump in the road. Add an unidentifiable smell, three dozen more people, some chickens, and she could have been back on the bus in Cambodia. Ed acted as tourist guide, pointing left and right at significant points—left down there was where he’d gone to junior school, right down here led to his brother’s house. At one point he gestured upward, to the high hills in front of them, where a huge white house sat majestically surveying the road and everything else. “That’s where the Duchess lives. You remember—my dad’s first wife.”
“It looks like a stately home!”
“It’s about as welcoming, too, from what I’ve heard. Must have loved it when they built this road a few years back, mustn’t she? Not far now—just a couple more minutes.”
“Isn’t it uncomfortable for them, living so close, when they don’t get on?”
“Not really. They move in totally different circles. The Duchess is in with the hunting set. Wankers.”
“I’m so glad you said that. I was beginning to get worried.”
“What, that my idea of a good time of a Saturday morning was dressing up like a twat and charging around the countryside, torturing foxes?”
“Yes, frankly. Let’s face it, you look the part!” Finding out that Ed was in the hunting fraternity would have been a deal breaker, she realized, and wasted the price of a (heinously expensive) single ticket from London.
“Don’t lump everyone who lives outside the M25 into the same category, you urbanite.” He was smiling.
“Sorry, sir. Point taken!”
SHE RECOLLECTED THAT ED HAD TOLD HER HIS PARENTS HAD downsized, leaving the bigger, family home of his childhood to his elder brother a few years ago. Which was worrying, since the house at the end of the driveway he pulled into a few minutes later looked pretty bloody big to her. It was ludicrously pretty, too: white, with big square windows. It was built into the side of the hill and overlooked a stunning estuary.
“Wow.”
“Great house, isn’t it? I prefer it to their old one. They’re so close to the water. You can actually get down there, to the banks—there are these steps, in the garden behind the house—that go all the way down. But up here, you get this incredible view.