The Green Hills of Home (10 page)

 "My Mam’s family have farmed
here for years and years, but when my Gran and Grandpa got too old to manage
the land and the animals, they gave up all the fields and just kept the house
and gardens. My parents took over the lease when my grandparents died. Mam’s
lived here her whole life but now the landlord has decided to sell. The
auction’s next month."

"Is there anyway you could
buy it yourself?"

"No, I thought the money
from the advance on the book would be enough to convince the bank to give me a
mortgage, but they’re still not interested."

 "Is this the news you
needed to tell your mother?"

"Yes"

"And you haven’t told her
yet?"

"She thinks the mortgage
company is holding things up, she has no idea how hopeless the situation really
is."

"Oh."

"I will tell her, I just
keep hoping for a miracle I guess. I can’t bear the thought of not living here."

There was silence. Gwen took a
big sip of her wine. Now she’d told John about her money problems she wasn’t
sure it’d been the right thing to do. She didn’t really know him very well and
she didn’t want him to think she was telling him so he’d feel sorry for her.
But for some reason she found that, for the moment at least, she liked John and
wanted to confide in him. It was nice to have someone she could talk to
honestly about what was going on. She felt terrible that she hadn’t told her
mother how bad the situation was. Gwen knew that her mother would be devastated
when she discovered they had no hope of buying the house and she just kept
praying that something would happen to save the day. However, it was becoming
increasingly clear that there wasn’t going to be a miracle. Even realising her
dream of becoming an authoress couldn’t make up for losing her home and for the
hurt her mother would feel when she found out.

John returned to London the following afternoon, leaving Gwen with some corrections to be getting on with.
The parting had been very business-like, no one listening would have any idea
that the two had been close to becoming friends after their conversation the
previous evening. John left after lunch, telling Gwen he’d be in touch, and
that he expected the work he’d left her with to be completed and emailed to him
by Monday morning. He gave Oscar a quick pat on the head and was gone.

He drove straight home but only
stayed long enough to unpack his bags, have a quick shower and change. Going to
his office at Black Horse, he logged into the company’s intranet with his
secret account and began working his way through all the files he hadn’t been
able to remotely access from Wales.

After a while John was forced to
admit that he wasn’t able to concentrate as he should. His mind persisted in
returning to Gwen and didn’t seem the least bit interested in the lines of
figures which usually kept it so enthralled. Frustrated, he surprised himself
by calling an old university friend and taking him up on an invitation to a
reunion with his old rowing team which had been made a while ago.

Unusually, John hadn’t wanted to
be alone and an evening out with old friends proved to be an excellent idea,
and managed to stop him from fixating solely on Gwen for a couple of hours. It
wasn’t a late night by any means – everyone else had wives or girlfriends to be
getting back to. John enjoyed catching up and actually found himself agreeing
to meet up again in a month’s time; he realised afterwards that he was even
looking forward to it.

The next day, without anybody to
take his mind off things, John was lonely. He couldn’t deny the fact that he
missed Gwen and even Oscar. His flat was simultaneously too quiet with no one
there but himself, and too loud with the traffic noise from outside. The noise
had never bothered him before, yet now he found he was jumping every time a car
horn beeped or a siren went by. He’d also always relished the quiet that came with
living by himself; by choice he hadn’t shared a flat since his university days.
Worst of all he was bored. John was never bored. He prided himself on always
being so busy that he didn’t have time for boredom, but here he was, actually
considering watching Saturday morning television - the last time he’d done that
was roughly sometime in the late-eighties.

What did he usually do at the
weekends? Work of course. But John was rapidly coming to realise that there
really was more to life than just working, and he wanted more. The office could
wait till Monday.

He decided to go for a workout.
He’d done a fair bit of walking in Wales but that didn’t compare to the gym
sessions he tried to fit in at least three times a week. If losing his
relatively young father to a heart attack had taught him anything, it was the
importance of keeping healthy.

John spent as long as he possibly
could at the gym. He even used the steam room and swimming pool, neither of
which he usually bothered with. He went to the supermarket on the way home, and
did his best to revel in the size of the store and the amount of choice he had;
aisles and aisles of produce, almost anything he could think of to eat. Of
course, given the choice of just cooking alone and for himself, there wasn’t much
that John fancied, so he ended up just picking up a few basics like bread and
milk and a curry ready meal for that evening. He was tired from the gym and he
quickly became frustrated with wandering up and down endless rows trying to
find what he wanted, with no one around to help. When he finally made it to the
checkout, the girl was sullen and unfriendly and John left the store feeling an
unexpected ache for Tonnadulais.

By the time John returned to his
flat it was suppertime and he popped his curry in the oven and opened a bottle
of ice-cold beer. He was absolutely determined that he was not going to work on
a Saturday night. But his desk did need tidying. That wasn’t really work and it
wouldn’t take long, if he started now he’d be finished before the curry was
ready.

In desperation John watched some
Saturday night television while he ate his food and then the film that started
at nine. After that he went to bed.

On Sunday he gave in and worked.

By contrast Gwen began Saturday
trying to convince herself that it was lovely to have the house back to
herself. She could wear her pyjamas all day if she wanted and eat vast
quantities of tea, toast and biscuits. She started work without complaint, but
then she had a good incentive to:  not only would these corrections take her
one step closer to being published, but when they were done she’d have to email
them to John, giving her an excuse to find out how he was.

Poor Oscar looked miserable, he
lay by the door and sighed deeply every now and again wishing that his new
friend would come home.

John was in the office at the
usual time on Monday and immediately switched on his computer and began
scrolling through the emails. He was surprised there was nothing from Gwen;
he’d specifically told her that he needed to hear about the corrections to
chapter four by this morning.

John stomped, paced, grumped and
generally acted like a bear with a sore head until noon. Finally he heard Big
Ben chime twelve and he picked up the phone and dialled Gwen’s number. There
was no need for him to look it up; he knew it off by heart having glanced back
and forth at it for the last few hours. The phone rang for some time before it
was answered by a female voice. A female voice that John didn’t recognise.

"Hello?" said the
woman.

"Hello, is Gwen there
please? This is her editor, John Thatcher."

"Oh, I’m sorry but she’s not
here, I’m her friend Sarah. Gwen’s at the hospital, her Mam had another stroke."

"Is Edith alright?"
asked John anxiously, forgetting to put up his usual shield.

"Yes, she’s going to be
fine, but it was pretty touch and go for a little while," replied Sarah.

"And how’s Gwen?"

"Tired and worried, but OK."

"And she’s staying at the
hospital?"

"Yes, they’ve got some rooms
there for families to sleep in."

"What about Oscar?"
wondered John.

"I’ve been looking after him."

John talked to Sarah for a little
longer and when the conversation finished he returned to pacing his office
deciding what to do. He knew he wouldn’t be able to relax or concentrate on
business until he’d seen for himself that Gwen was alright.

John was in no mood to enter into
a long argument with Paul: he needed to get back to Wales as quickly as
possible, and all his extra mental energy was being spent trying not to analyse
exactly why he was so desperate to get to and comfort Gwen.

He figured the best way to get
what he wanted was to surprise Paul so he didn’t have a chance to be difficult
about John returning to Wales when he’d only just got back.

He knocked briskly on Paul’s
office door and walked straight in, to find Paul in a rather compromising
position with his assistant, Julia. The pair pulled apart immediately, Julia’s
face was beetroot as she tried to avoid John’s gaze.

"I need to speak to you,"
announced John.

Paul managed to compose himself
quickly and dismissed Julia before turning to face John and hear what he had to
say.

"Something’s come up with
Gwen Jones’ manuscript. I need to go and see her for a few days."

"Not big problems I trust?"
asked Paul suspiciously.

"No, not at all,"
answered John.

"Can’t it just be dealt with
over email?"

John resisted the urge to retort
that if it could be dealt with via email then he would be dealing with it via
email and merely replied "No, I’m afraid not, I’ll get back as quickly as
I can. Was Julia okay, she seemed a little flushed?" asked John,
seamlessly changing the subject.

Paul appeared flustered and
pulled at his shirt collar nervously "I’m sure she’s fine, just a little
warm in here perhaps."

"Yes, I’m sure that’s all it
was" said John, his eyebrow arching sardonically. "I’ll let you know
when I’ll be back; I’ll be leaving straight away."

"Er, right, fine," said
Paul, hurriedly busying himself at his desk.

John parked his car and walked
swiftly through the automatic doors to the hospital reception. He stopped at
the information desk to check where Edith had been moved. It was the first time
for hours that he’d paused to consider what he was doing and the thought did
occur to him that maybe Gwen would find it a little peculiar that he’d rushed
all the way back to Wales and might not want to see him at this stressful time.
But there was no point in turning back now.

John picked some flowers from the
hospital shop and called the lift. The doors opened and he found himself
face-to-face with a very teary-eyed, tired looking Gwen.

Gwen was so absorbed in thoughts
of her mother that it took her a moment to realise that John was standing in
front of her. She was too shocked to do or say anything apart from murmur: "What
are you doing here?"

"You didn’t send me the
corrections so…"

Gwen interrupted John, "You
came to find me at a hospital where my mother is critically ill because I
didn’t email you on time?" she asked incredulously.

"I called your house and
Sarah told me what happened," explained John.

"Couldn’t you have left an
answer phone message for me? I have the corrections done; I just didn’t have a
chance to send them to you before the hospital called."

John looked as if he was about to
say something but Gwen carried on, she had fire in her eyes and was on a roll,
there was no way that she was going to give John the chance to lay into her
about not sending him the work she’d promised.

"My email was a few hours
late so you feel justified in travelling all the way here to reprimand me
whilst I’m visiting my mother in the hospital! Is that really how your company
do business, because I call it harassment!"

Gwen stormed off before John had
a chance to give his version of why he was there or even hand her the flowers
he’d got for her mother. He stood open-mouthed and hurt. But despite his rising
anger he couldn’t help thinking "She’s fantastic when she’s cross."

Gwen drove home quickly; she was
absolutely furious. How dare he think he had the right to turn up at the
hospital. But it wasn’t just John she was angry with, she was mad with herself
- for a brief moment, when she first saw him standing outside the lift, she’d
been so pleased to see him she’d felt her heart rise up in her chest and her
load seemed a little lighter. Until she’d worked out why he’d come that was.
She found it bizarre to think how much she’d love for that grumpy, difficult
man to be there because he was worried about her. Thank goodness she’d been on
her way out of the hospital and she hadn’t had to face him reprimanding her in
front of her mother.

What really hurt was that he
obviously had no respect for her or any trust in her work ethic, despite
working so closely with her. He should have known there’d be a valid reason why
the corrections hadn’t been sent to him and he hadn’t even waited until the end
of the day before coming to chastise her.

By the time Gwen arrived home her
initial anger had subsided and she just felt sad and numb, weighed down by her
worries. She tried to focus on the positive things the doctor had said about
her mother’s recovery, and not on the fact that it was unlikely that her mother
would ever return to live with her. She’d now need a level of care that Gwen
would just be unable to provide on her own.

The house looked very cold and
lonely as a heartbroken Gwen climbed out of her car. She missed having someone
waiting for her when she got home, she still wasn’t used to coming back and
finding the place empty since John had returned to London. At least Oscar had
been dropped off by Sarah and was obviously pleased to see her.