As a parent I could see that Tim and Helen just wanted the best for Lauren, and they had the money, so why not? They’d also helped with the deposit for the house; it was the only way Sam and Lauren could have afforded to buy a home. I’d asked Sam how much they’d given them, but he was deliberately vague.
‘They don’t want you to know,’ he’d said. ‘Helen doesn’t want you to feel weird about it.’
‘Do you feel weird about it?’ I’d asked, knowing Sam’s feelings were more important than mine regarding this.
He’d shrugged, which indicated to me that he did, and for that matter so did I.
I had no idea how much high-ranking police officers got paid or high-end estate agents, but judging by their lifestyle, Tim and Helen certainly did okay, and it wasn’t just their own kids, I knew for a fact that they’d supported Sadie through university, and even now helped her sometimes with her rent. I was grateful that their generosity was being extended to my child, but at the same time felt guilty I couldn’t contribute.
While Helen and Lauren continued to discuss where to put the sofas, I gravitated towards the double French doors, overlooking the garden and the moors beyond.
‘Great views, Mum?’ Sam said, wandering over to look out with me.
‘I bet you’re in heaven, aren’t you, love?’ I said, putting my arm around his waist. He was so much taller than me now, it was hard to imagine how I ever put my arm around his shoulders.
‘Yeah, I love it but never thought I’d be lucky enough to live out here.’
‘Is Lauren happy with it too?’ I asked quietly, in my not very subtle way of reminding him this wasn’t just about his happiness. Sam loved the national park, the wildlife, the history of this place of granite and dark clouds, but it wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and Lauren had already indicated she was lonely and a bit scared on her own. Sam could be quite single-minded about something if he wanted it badly enough, and I hoped he hadn’t pushed Lauren into moving out here.
‘She loves it,’ he said dismissively and, without looking at me, turned to go into the kitchen, where Tim was fixing the electric point and Lauren was now wondering where best to put the coffee machine.
When she found ‘the perfect spot’, Tim had to break it to her there were no plug points there, but to avoid heartbreak, he was soon offering to put a new plug point in just as Sadie arrived.
I was still gazing through the French doors when Helen joined me.
‘Gorgeous, isn’t it?’ she murmured.
‘Beautiful,’ I said with a sigh, happy that my son had a better start than I had.
‘There’s nothing for miles though, is there?’ she noted, walking out onto the grass. ‘I never imagined Lauren somewhere like this.’
‘No, but they both seem to love it,’ I replied.
‘Miles and miles of granite,’ she murmured, ignoring my attempt at optimism, and shivered, despite the warm day. ‘On wintry days, those big, grey clouds come rolling in, swallowing you up.’ She stared out at the landscape, which now seemed less appealing.
I wasn’t sure how to respond to this sudden melancholy, something I’d rarely, if ever, seen from Helen.
Then she turned to me and smiled. ‘I just hope they don’t live to regret moving out here, with only each other for company.’
I left it a few seconds, then said, ‘It’s only forty-five minutes away from us.’
‘Yeah, in good weather, but you know what it’s like here. In winter, you can get snowed in for weeks.’
I wondered again how Sam had convinced Lauren to agree to living here, because as much as I loved the area for a day trip, or a bracing walk, Helen was right. Dartmoor had a wild, rugged beauty; in spring and summer it was dressed in swathes of purple-hued heather dotted with baby lambs and wild ponies. But in winter, it was a different place: thick, rising mists, extreme cold and in this bleak, beautiful emptiness lurked the foreboding grey-bricked, 200-year-old Dartmoor prison.
Having lived in Devon all my life, I knew that even in midsummer, you could walk outside in radiant sunshine and an hour later be surrounded by thunder clouds and torrential rain. Nothing was quite as it seemed, and looking back, I realise I should have seen the conflicting landscape concealing hidden, jagged flaws, the unpredictable climate, a perfect view bathed in sunshine, the threat of thunder just moments away. Life in all its beauty and darkness.
I looked beyond at the endless land, no one for miles, and I don’t know why, but I felt the urge to turn around and glance behind me. Through the open door, I glimpsed the twisty white staircase, and suddenly felt very cold.
Chapter Three
The day after our visit to the cottage I received a call from James Ronson, a former teacher of Sam’s. He’d been a guest at the evening part of Sam and Lauren’s wedding, and though I’d only met him a few times over the years at parents’ evenings and school fetes, we chatted like old friends that evening at the wedding. ‘I don’t know anyone,’ he’d said. ‘I was invited in my formal capacity as former schoolteacher to the bride and groom,’ he’d added, jokingly, which explained why he wasn’t with his wife, a chatty blonde I remembered from some of the school events. Since leaving school, Lauren had kept in touch with James and had given talks to his sixth-formers about medicine as a career. Helen and Tim had been friends with James and his wife before they met me, and when the children were younger, would meet them for a drink. I remember Helen asking if I’d babysit for them, which I was happy to do, but it stung a little. My single status meant I wasn’t always welcome when friends socialised with other couples, as I wasn’t a member of that club. The friendship between the two couples seemed to fizzle out eventually, probably because the Ronsons didn’t have children, and still wanted to enjoy a more sophisticated child-free social life. I wondered why James was alone at the wedding, but noticed he still had a wedding ring on, so had assumed that his wife wasn’t able to attend. It didn’t come up in conversation, and I didn’t like to ask directly, so by the end of the night, I was none the wiser.
When, weeks later, my phone rang, I didn’t for a moment expect it to be James, not least because I couldn’t remember giving him my phone number.
‘Hey, I hope you don’t mind me calling, I got your number off Tim,’ he’d started.
‘Oh, it might have been nice if Tim had asked me if I minded him giving out my number to strange men,’ I’d joked, while actually feeling a little pissed off at Tim.
‘Oh, I begged him for it,’ he’d said with a laugh. ‘I know these days it’s cool to “slip into” someone’s DMs – I think that’s what the kids call it?’
I’d laughed. ‘Yeah, I mean a phone call is so old-fashioned.’
‘Or lame, as my sixth-formers would say.’
There was a silence, and as he’d rung me, I didn’t feel the need to fill it, so waited for him to speak.
‘I had a good time at the wedding,’ he’d suddenly said.
‘Me too.’ I could feel my heart beating. He was married, surely he wasn’t going to ask me out?
‘So, I was thinking, well – wondering, if you might like to meet for a coffee or a drink?’