Free Scar Tissue by Judith Cutler Page B

not mine.
    Jan might have had the presence of mind to claim to be my lawyer and flash her card at Mascara, but her idea of an unobtrusive lunch was to lay a trestle table in front of the mobile home complete with table cloth, carafe of wine and a selection of greenish recycled wine glasses. We were all to sit down together, employers and employees in one happy family.
    Any other day, I’d have loved them for their openheartedness: today their naïvety almost made me swear. Fortunately Todd gave a discreet cough.
    ‘Are you sure people swarming up ladders should touch any more alcohol?’ he enquired, putting his arm round her. ‘I think you should consult Paula.’ As Jan toddled off, he turned to me, raising an eyebrow. There were a couple of white hairs sprouting eccentrically from each. I’d have trimmed or plucked them for him if I’d been Jan – they made him look much older than the rest of him suggested.
    ‘It’s very kind of you,’ I said. ‘More than kind. Like you’ve been all along. I don’t deserve –’ Hell, why did kindness always prick my eyes? His too, by the speed with which he popped on his sunglasses. ‘But the less attention we attract the better. I’d have thought Paula would want them to stick to their usual routine: we always gather round a radio and eat our sarnies listening to the one o’clock news. Yes, honestly! It helps Meg’s kids’ homework.’
    He took a moment to work that out, but at last he grinned and nodded. ‘So it would be better if anyone passing just saw the three of them, gloomily speculating, no doubt, on where you’d gone.’
    ‘Quite. And you and Jan should do whatever you usually do for lunch. You wouldn’t normally eat with the lower orders, would you?’
    He winced. ‘I told you, I’d have been very much below stairs when this place was at its best.’
    ‘But you’re not now, Todd. And however much you’d like to muck in with us, and us with you, of course, to an outsider it’d look dead odd.’
    ‘And the last thing we want is to do anything that’d attract anyone’s attention: right?’
    ‘Right.’
    ‘OK. That’s all of us accounted for,’ he said. ‘But what about you? You need to eat.’
    ‘I’ll do what I usually do if I’m working on my own: get a book and read while I eat. Only trouble is,’ I added, as Jan returned, shaking her head with disappointment, ‘I don’t have any books and I don’t have any food.’ Hell! Little Nell on a bad day! God knows why I said that. Technically itmight have been true. But Jan had my bags with books in them, and the rucksack and holdall would be around somewhere. As for food, they’d expected to feed six, not just the two of them. It wasn’t like me to indulge in self-pity. But I couldn’t switch it off. ‘So I might as well get my overalls on and start work on part of the house where no one’ll see me.’ Bugger it, I really was going for broke, wasn’t I?
    ‘Not until you’ve eaten,’ Jan declared, confirming that the others were already gathered round the radio. ‘And I’ve got not just the books you gave me earlier but some of my own. Plus, I should imagine, some in that bag that weighed a ton! So come and choose something while I put a plate of food together for you.’ She held open the door of their temporary palace, putting a motherly arm round me.
    Now I could have guilted for Europe – might even have made it to be captain of the team.
    Wide-eyed, I looked about me. I suppressed a grin: they were too kind to deserve it. But while they might have moved in here to guard me no one could accuse them of stinting themselves. Come on: in their place I wouldn’t have either. According to the bill lying open on the pristine kitchen work surface, they’d been staying at Eastwell Manor. Had they meant to stay there as long as it took us to restore the house? I’ve never even speculated on how much it would cost to eat there, let alone stay, but several people we’ve worked for