of the wild flowers making her want to weep.
What are you doing, Mum? We missed the chance for our big mother–daughter moment nineteen years ago?
‘I’m fine,’ she said.
Dee simply smiled. ‘OK, but you should eat.’ She took the plate of food off the tray. The delicious aroma of roasted garlic had Ellie’s stomach protesting even more. ‘And then get some rest.’
Ellie dumped the towel on the bed. ‘That looks delicious, but I need to go check on Josh first.’ And make sure Art’s daughter wasn’t busy encouraging her son into any other near-death experiences.
‘Josh is fine.’ Dee placed cutlery beside Ellie’s plate and a folded napkin. ‘He’s downstairs having supper — fielding lots of questions from Toto about his favourite TV shows. I can make sure he gets showered and into bed, if you want? I’ve done up the room next to mine for him,’ she continued, pouring a glass of the lemonade.
The tentative request made Ellie feel like a toad. ‘OK. I’m sure he’s loving all the attention.’ Even if she wasn’t.
‘That’s all settled then.’ Her mother smiled at the modest concession as if Ellie had just announced Rod Stewart was coming by to serenade her. ‘Now sit down and eat. Have a shower if you want.’
‘Thanks, Mum.’ Ellie took a gulp of lemonade to ease the new blockage in her throat.
‘Josh said he’s finished school for the summer, does that mean you can stay?’
Ellie still wasn’t convinced that was a great idea, but thinking of all the effort Dee had put into redecorating their bedrooms, she couldn’t quite bring herself to say no, outright.
‘I haven’t booked the return flights yet, so why don’t we see how it goes.’ She was in no hurry to return to New York, but having an exit strategy made sense.
‘That sounds like a plan,’ Dee said, seeming happy with the concession. ‘Leave the tray outside when you’re finished and I’ll pick it up later. I have to run our stall at the Artisan Market in Salisbury tomorrow, so if I’m not here when you wake up just help yourself to breakfast. Maddy and Jacob will be about if you need anything. And Art, obviously.’
Obviously.
‘But what about everyone else, don’t they live on the commune too?’ Ellie said.
‘They live in their own homes, which are dotted around the seventy acres we have here. Strictly speaking, we stopped being a commune a long time ago. We became a co-housing project about five years back.’
‘What’s the difference?’ Ellie asked. Was this the first rebranding project she’d ever encountered that actually meant something had changed for the better?
‘Each family or individual leases a plot of land from us to build their home on. But instead of paying for the leases they help out on the farm – and we all share the surplus. Rob runs the dairy herd, Mike manages the produce side of things and Art contributes his skills, too.’
What skills would those be? How to look hot in overalls?
‘Who’s “we”?’ Forget about Art and his overalls.
‘Pam left the farm to me in her will,’ Dee said. ‘But I gave a half-share to Art, when he agreed to manage things. I’m not good with paperwork.’
And Art was? Hadn’t Laura always boasted her son was too cool for school?
And now Art owned half the farm. This probably wasn’t good. Especially if… ‘Does Art have his own place too?’ she asked, hopefully.
‘No, his room is two doors down.’
Fantastic! The one person she least wanted to be bumping into in the dead of night lived down the hall.
‘He works full time on the farm,’ Dee continued. ‘And so do Mike and Rob, but everyone else has a day job, mostly in Gratesbury, or further afield. Annie and Tess, Rob and Mike’s wives, were both in Gratesbury today, which is why you didn’t meet them earlier.’
So there was no one staying in the farmhouse to run interference between her and Art except Dee and the children and the canoodling couple she’d met earlier. Super fantastic.
‘But isn’t the whole purpose of the exercise to escape the real world?’ Ellie said.
‘Not any more.’ Dee looked pensive. ‘Nowadays we run it like a proper business. The original plan was to have everyone who lived here working here, but it was never viable, so we had to compromise.’ Her mother headed to the door. ‘By the way, Josh asked if he could come to Salisbury with me and Toto tomorrow to help on the stall if he wakes up in time. Would that be OK?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she said, then had a thought. ‘Could I come and help out on the stall too?’ It would be a way of paying her mother back for all her hard work in getting the rooms ready.
‘You don’t need to do that,’ Dee said. ‘You’re a guest here.’
‘I know, but I’d like to.’ Having her mother pamper her to within an inch of her life already felt awkward. And keeping busy was also a great way of avoiding the stuff she didn’t want to think about, like Dan and the divorce and her failed business… Not to mention Art Dalton and his unsettling effect on her.
‘Then, I’d love to have you there,’ her mother said. ‘If you’re sure?’
Ellie nodded. ‘Absolutely sure.’
After her mother had left the room, Ellie sat at the dresser to tuck into the plate of roasted vegetables and feta and aubergine lasagne. The salty cheese melted on her tongue.
Despite her face-plant in the woods, and the awkwardness with her mother, and Art, the nightmare she’d been fretting about on the journey here hadn’t completely materialised. Because Willow Tree Organic Farm and Co-Operative Housing Project was the polar opposite of the Rainbow Commune – give or take the odd death-trap treehouse.
She tore off a chunk of the home-made seedy bread roll beside her plate, and slathered on a layer of what looked like home-churned butter. She took a large bite and chewed, savouring the creamy taste, while trying not to savour the memory of Art’s tattooed biceps rounding out the sleeve of his oil-stained overalls and that enticing shadow of chest hair.
So what if Art had unsettled her. And she’d made a bit of a tit of herself by collapsing in the woods.
It was just an inevitable by-product of all the stress she’d been bingeing on for weeks.
Once she’d had a couple of days to get her bearings, and establish a comfortable distance with her mother, she’d be totally immune to Art again, and his half-arsed compliments and his sexy scent.
Whatever happened, Princess Drama would not be popping out to take another bow.
The following morning, Dee drifted towards consciousness, her body floating in that tempting half-space between sleep and waking when she couldn’t feel all the aches and niggling pains of being a woman approaching sixty. She held on tight to her dream state, feeling Pammy’s arms around her midriff, snuggled up against her back, the way they’d woken every morning for years in the big tester bed Art had made for them. She clung on to Pammy’s scent, the seductive combination of lemon verbena and tea tree oil. But then consciousness crowded in on her, and the small dresser beside the bed came into focus.
Pammy’s keys, her purse and the hairbands she took out just before going to bed each evening were still gone, replaced by the novel Dee had been reading the night before to take her mind off all the thoughts that kept circling in her brain about Ellie’s return.
The