donât remember Ma talking about her.â
âHe met her a couple of years ago. Something legal she went to him for, because of the family connection. I think that might have been when her husband died â did I mention she was a widow? He and Rock remembered her being around when they were little â they called her Aunty Kitty â but Ma sort of lost touch with her over the years. You know the way it goes. I mean, we never see any of our cousins, do we?â
âTrue. So how did Ma know this cousin wanted help?â
âIt was Michael suggested it. Heâd heard from a friend of a friend that Mrs Everest was thinking of selling some of the contents of Holtby House and needed someone to help with the inventory and so on. I rang Ma and put the fear of God into her. Ma rang Mrs E, Mrs E rang Michael, Michael rang me, I rang Ma again, Ma rang Mrs E again, and now all weâve got to do is to confirm youâre going, and when youâll arrive. It was as simple as that.â
âWait, wait. Youâre going too fast. I need to think about it,â Jenna protested.
âWhatâs to think about?â Oliver said. âLook, itâs live in, lovely house, gorgeous countryside, a little light clerical work and bags of time off to wander about the lanes and so on. Youâll get your keep, plus pocket money, fifty a week, cash. OK, itâs not a fortune, but frankly, thereâll be nothing to spend it on so you can stick it straight in the bank. And Michaelâs got her to agree to a minimum of one month. So if you find there isnât much of a job there, you can spin it out and enjoy yourself. And if it turns out that she needs someone permanent, Michael says heâd be glad if youâd help her recruit your successor, because he doesnât want the old girl to get ripped off, or end up with some complete bastard living in her house.â
âHe likes her, then?â Sybil said. âHe wouldnât be worried if he didnât think she was nice.â
âHe says sheâs quite a character. He thinks Jenna would get on well with her. Come on now, Jen, what do you say? Isnât it the perfect solution? A real holiday in the country, with a little light work to keep you from getting bored.â
âAnd as long as no one tells me where Holtby is,â Sybil added happily, âIâll be able to tell Patrick Iâve no idea where you are.â
Patrick! Jenna had forgotten about him for a blissful moment. Memories came crowding back in. She needed to get away. It was too easy to think about him here in London.
âIn any case, even if you donât like it, itâs only a month,â Oliver said. âYou can put up with that. But youâll probably have a whale of a time.â
âIâll do it,â Jenna said. âThanks, Oliver. Where is this place, anyway?â
âLa la la,â Sybil said loudly, putting her hands over her ears. âI canât hear you. Iâm going to put the children to bed. Wait till Iâve gone to tell her.â
Jenna had mixed feelings about the countryside. When she was little, before her father died, they had had a country cottage for weekends and holidays in the depths of rural Buckinghamshire. She remembered wet weekends, when the cottage had a strange, mushroomy smell about it, and the bed sheets felt sticky with damp. The rain teemed down endlessly from a sky like the underside of a submarine â grey, dark and featureless. It dripped monotonously from gutters and branches and the eyelashes of morose cows in sodden fields. There was nothing to do, the sulky wood fire did little to mitigate the clammy cold, and even the cardboard of the indoor games went soft. Enforced walks were torture, for the mud stuck to your wellies in great joke clumps, weighing down your baby legs until you could hardly get along. You couldnât even sit down and throw a paddy because the grass was
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