Free Scar Tissue by Judith Cutler

becoming a series of hugs, before she topped up my glass. ‘If he checks up, he’ll learn that you looked like death warmed up when you were buying your ticket. Yes, the guy on the desk remembered you –’
    ‘How –?’
    ‘I went to buy a ticket for myself – one of these annual saver jobs – and asked if he knew what was wrong with this girl I’d seen crying. He didn’t know of course, but said you were so upset he thought someone must have died.’ She squeezed my hand. ‘Then there was that woman in the Lemon Tree –’
    ‘And the ticket collector and refreshment guy might remember me too. But they may have missed me later,’ I added dubiously.
    ‘Come and see where you’ll be staying,’ Jan said, taking me by the shoulders and drawing me into the cool of the old kitchen. ‘Caffy, I hated being so nasty to you, but I didn’t know how well you could act and I really wanted everyone to see an unhappy young woman.’
    ‘Sounds as if I was more like a dying duck in a thunderstorm ,’ I said. But I wouldn’t have wanted to go through that bleak half hour again. Being miserable on my own was one thing. I was quite used to it. But being miserable because someone I had thought liked me as much as I liked her had rejected me, was another. Liked? Jan had never been quite as warm as Todd, but if I’d ever had a choice about replacing my mother, she’d have been my number one candidate. And numbers two, three, four and five. I didn’t mind sternness in women, not if I respected them. Without being gushy, she’d been warmer than Paula, who was the next best candidate for surrogate mum.
    ‘You were entitled to be as miserable as a wet Monday.’ Todd had followed us in. The rest of Paula’s Pots got on with doing what they did best: applying paint.
    ‘We didn’t know where was safest for you,’ Todd said. ‘And then we saw this.’ He put an arm round my shoulder to turn me round, then pointed. Not that he needed to – the huge mobile home spoke very well for itself. How on earth had they organised it so quickly? I could only suppose that their money had talked loud and clear.
    ‘You mean I sleep in –’ I could scarcely keep the awe from my voice: it was about three times the size of my flat and –
    ‘No. That’s where we sleep.’ He tried to hug away my damned fool disappointment. How dared I expect anything like that? ‘Sorry: I didn’t mean to raise your hopes. We actually bought it with the intention of installing you in it and staying on in our hotel. But Jan said you’d be too vulnerable. And I’m afraid she’s right.’
    I nodded, trying not to look as crestfallen as I still felt. Maybe I was just tired: I usually had my hopes under better control than this. Maybe it was a case of them giving me a yard and my wanting a mile. I wasn’t pleased with myself.
    ‘So we’re going to sleep there and you, Caffy, are going to sleep – well, somewhere else. Not the Ritz, I’m afraid, nothing like it – though you will be mistress of Fullers. I hope you’re not claustrophobic?’ Still talking, he led the way upstairs. His hand trailed on the banister rail – he turned and smiled when he saw mine doing the same.
    He took me through the servants’ quarters under the eaves, pushing into a big walk-in cupboard. As he demonstrated , it locked inside and out. There was just enough room for a sleeping bag.
    ‘The trouble is, there’s no window, so you’d bake if you had to stay here long. But we thought you could sleep up here in the ordinary bedroom area and retreat if you got nervous.’
    Jan had been right. It was altogether safer than the caravan. So I meant it when I said, ‘This is perfect. Just perfect. Look, if we push a couple of trestles and some dustsheets over by the door I could just scramble over them and maybe no one would notice it was there.’
    He smiled and patted my shoulder, as if to tell me I was trying too hard and I didn’t need to bother. I bet he’d havebeen