The Lovebirds

‘So, Tess said she was feeling a bit better.’ Abby sat up on her haunches and added milk from a jug that matched the rest of the crockery. It was unbelievable that her mother should be using a proper tea set. Abby could remember, all too well, a time when not only did the crockery not match, but it quite often ended up being hurled against a wall of their terrace in Bury St Edmunds. Could she really have changed so much?

‘Don’t alter the subject,’ Caroline said. ‘Are you telling me the truth, Abigail Elizabeth Field?’

‘About what?’

‘About the no man business. I know a faraway look when I see one, and just now you were somewhere else altogether.’

‘I was thinking about work, Mum. I need to pull out all the stops. January and February are the hardest months to attract visitors, and if the numbers start to decline now, I don’t know whether I’ll be able to pull them up again. I need to come up with something big, something that will increase our membership numbers and improve things for good. What would make you come to a nature reserve in the depths of winter, when the ground is crunchy and breathing makes your nose hurt?’

Her mum raised a single eyebrow. ‘When you put it like that, absolutely nothing. You need to market it better.’

Abby sighed. ‘I’m being realistic. That’s what it will be like. But we have some incredible wildlife at this time of year. Marsh harriers, peregrine falcons, deer, a huge flock of starlings that roost in the trees – they can be a spectacular sight before they come into land.’

‘So, talk about those things.’ Caroline waved an airy hand. ‘You’ll be fine.’

Her disinterest was maddening, and Abby clenched her hand into a fist at her side. ‘Fine won’t be good enough. With Wild Wonders sending all the attention to Reston Marsh around the corner, we’re becoming the forgotten nature reserve. And I’m sure there’s more to it than that, and that Meadowsweet – Penelope’s estate – is in more financial difficulty than she’s letting on. She’s even rented out Peacock Cottage.’

Her mother started. ‘That grand mansion that overlooks your village? I thought it was falling down.’

‘That’s Swallowtail House, Mum. That’s still empty. No, this is smaller; it must once have been the groundsman’s cottage or something. It’s still in perfect condition, at least outside. I’m sure it is inside too, considering who’s living in it now.’ She chewed her lip.

‘Oh? Who’s that then?’ Caroline sat forward, her hands clasped around her cup.

‘He’s a writer, from London. He’s … a bit challenging. He thinks that everything should be done for him, that whatever he wants, he should get. I’m sure he wouldn’t stay in the cottage if it wasn’t up to scratch, or at the very least he’d ask Penelope to give it a deep clean.’

‘And from what you’ve told me about her, she wouldn’t like being given instructions.’

‘No,’ Abby agreed. ‘She wouldn’t.’

Penelope Hardinge owned the Meadowsweet estate and had run the nature reserve singlehandedly ever since her husband, Al, had died seventeen years before. Now she was trying to keep it afloat, along with her full-time staff – Abby, Rosa in the gift shop, Stephan who ran the café, and a team of wardens – as well as several part-time staff and volunteers. But with Reston Marsh close by, run by a national charity and now with the added bonus of a popular wildlife television show hosting from there, Penelope and Meadowsweet were up against it.

Abby was an integral part of the recovery plan, and she was starting to feel the pressure. Not to mention that Jack Westcoat, the writer from London, was beginning to distract her in a way she found unforgivable. They had only met a few times, and not all of those had been particularly friendly, but she wasn’t doing him justice when she said he was challenging. Or maybe that part was true, but it didn’t give the whole picture. She was looking forward to going back to the reserve tomorrow, to walking close to the cottage and seeing if his Range Rover was outside, to firming up the coffee he’d suggested when they’d parted for Christmas. She hated herself for being so excited.

Silence settled over the room and Abby glanced at Caroline, who was staring at the fireplace, fingers pressed to her lips. For all her confidence, her cushy job as a PA for an executive in Ipswich and her full social calendar, Abby could see the cracks where old wounds hadn’t fully healed.

‘Are you happy, Mum?’ she asked, surprising herself.

‘What, darling?’

Abby hugged her knees to her chest. ‘You’re happy, right? With your life? After … Dad?’

Caroline’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. ‘It’s been a long time, Abigail – over half your lifetime. And I’m very happy. I have two beautiful, blossoming daughters, two grandchildren I adore – even if there’s no sign of more on the way. My weekends are booked up until early March. You don’t need to worry about me. It’s you I’m concerned about.’

‘You just said I was blossoming.’

‘And you are, I can see that. Your house, your job, your dog …’

Abby rolled her eyes. ‘How can you imply that my life is lacking because I don’t have a boyfriend, when you’re stubbornly single? Pots and kettles.’

‘Yes, but Abigail,’ her mother slipped down to join her on the carpet, ‘I’m not at the beginning of my life. I’ve been there, done it all – and not very well, as I think we’d both agree.’

Abby could only hold her gaze for a moment, before looking at the floor.

‘I’m so sorry, my darling. I’m sorry for what I – we – did to you and Tessa. I can’t reverse time and stop it all from happening; I wish I could. But I don’t want you to miss out on anything because of it. You have to take risks and see where they lead you. Don’t wrap yourself in cotton wool now because I failed to when you were young.’ She stroked Abby’s hair.

Abby swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘Mum, I know you did your best, that it was Dad, mainly, and that you were … protecting us. And I’m fine. I’m not closed off to anything, I just haven’t found the right person yet. I’m only young, there’s lots of time.’ She wondered if the platitudes would work and looked up to see that her mum’s eyes were glistening with unshed tears.

This was not how she had planned to spend New Year’s Day. She was surprised by her mum’s openness – usually she was the opposite, doing everything she could to gloss over their less than idyllic childhood.

‘You OK, Mum?’

‘Of course I am.’ She wiped her fingers under her eyes elaborately, as if she was drawing curls in the air. ‘Now, shall we open that bottle of fizz I’ve been saving?’

‘I’m driving,’ Abby said.

‘One glass won’t hurt. And if you stay for dinner, then even better.’ She stood and picked up the tea tray, the china clattering as she went into the kitchen. Abby pulled her notebook out of her bag and made a note to buy her mum some bird feeders.

The following morning, her mum’s words – her unexpected apology – was playing on Abby’s mind. She still found it hard to reconcile the elegant, composed woman with the mum she’d had when she was a child, always on the verge of flying into a rage. She had come to see that her dad had been the catalyst, and that her mum had only been trying to stand up for herself, to protect her and Tessa, picking fight rather than flight. Despite that, Abby couldn’t seem to bridge the gap between her and her mother, still unable to see past those memories, her parents feeding off each other’s anger, and the fear and loneliness she had felt as a result. She tried not to think of those last, horrendous arguments, the comparison between them and her mother stroking her hair the day before.

Abby dressed in her winter work outfit of leggings under waterproof trousers, and a Meadowsweet fleece over a black, long-sleeved T-shirt, pulled her hair into a tight ponytail and put on some blusher and mascara. She added a slick of pink lip gloss, and then ran downstairs, wrapping her arms around Raffle as he greeted her and pointedly looked at his food bowl.

‘Nice long walk before work?’ she asked as she fed him, knowing that of course he wanted that, even though it was January and still dark outside.

The cold hit her like a wall, and she zipped her thick jacket up over her fleece and pulled her woolly hat low over her ears. They strolled through the village, Abby’s new torch compensating for the weak glow of the streetlights on the main road. ‘Want to walk round Swallowtail House?’ she asked, and Raffle looked up at her, his tongue hanging out slightly. ‘Of course you do.’

They made their way around the high, redbrick wall, and Abby paused as usual at the gate, shining her torch towards the grand house. She could hear the bark of a deer, the distant call of a tawny owl, the first fluttering of birds as they sensed dawn on the horizon. The bushes behind the house were too dense to walk through, so she took Raffle as far as she could, then turned back, wondering why she had put make-up on when she wasn’t even going into work yet.

‘What am I doing, Raffle? I haven’t seen him for weeks, and I expect he spent his time in London going to posh, glamorous parties and drinking Moët. He probably met a stunning brunette with long legs and a chalet in the south of France, who’s created her own line of intuitive make-up – or something equally mind-bending – and who kissed away all his worries, and they’re going to be blissfully happy and make the world’s most beautiful babies together. I’m sure he’s forgotten that he even asked me out for coffee.’

Raffle whined gently.

‘I know,’ Abby said. ‘I don’t really care. And if I did, it wouldn’t matter. We were standing under mistletoe and he was being a traditionalist. He strikes me as very traditional, doesn’t he you?’ Raffle panted his agreement. ‘Besides, I said he had a squashed frog car, so really, it was over before it even got started. And anyway, these feelings … they’re not real, are they?’ Raffle barked once, loudly, and Abby gave him a treat. ‘You’re a good listener, puppy, you know that?’ Her husky licked her hand in response.

She dropped Raffle at home, had breakfast and left the house for the second time that morning. By the time she got close to Peacock Cottage, she felt like a child on her first day back at school, unsure what would happen or where she’d fit in. Obviously, it wouldn’t be like that in the visitor centre; Rosa would be in the shop, Stephan would be cooking up a storm in the kitchen and Penelope would be in her office, keeping a wary eye on everything.

Abby had firmed up her list of events during her few days off and was hoping to rope Rosa into some technology testing days, where they could take the equipment to the hides and boost visitor numbers at the same time as sales of binoculars and telescopes. She had also planned several guided walks – some focusing on the birds of prey, others on signs of spring. She wanted to show her guests that even in the depths of winter, nature gave you reasons to be joyful – there would be snowdrops and wintersweet, scented and beautiful, and lots of buds that appeared earlier than people realized.

She also had an idea for a larger event in February, which to so many people was the worst time of year, when the winter seemed never-ending. She knew Penelope was expecting something groundbreaking. This one, she hoped, would attract more attention than most, and at least go some way towards putting Meadowsweet back on the map.

No, the worries about the nature reserve’s survival Abby could take in her stride – those, at least, she could do something about. The new term nerves were all centred around Jack.

She approached Peacock Cottage from the back and walked round the house until its quaint front aspect was visible, the blue front door and the hanging basket, the heather blooms long since gone. The Range Rover was parked outside and Abby’s heart jumped. He had come back. He hadn’t been whisked away to somewhere exotic by a glamorous entrepreneur after all.

She was the first one at the visitor centre, so she pulled out her keys and unlocked everything, switching on the lights in the large, airy space.

The Christmas decorations still hung throughout, shimmering in the weak January sun. Abby believed that once Christmas and New Year were done, any decorations should come down straight away, even more so in a public place. She hauled the stepladder out of the storeroom and set to work, carefully unwinding the tinsel, and plucking Octavia’s beautiful handcrafted birds from shelves.

‘Abby, Happy New Year!’ Stephan took off his coat and cycle helmet. ‘Good break?’