Daydreamer

Lucy

It was the vibrations that really tipped me off. Oh, and the bloody great hole where the window once was.

“What on earth?” I muttered as I pulled my noise-cancelling headphones down to my neck.

“Hi,” a man said from the other side of the hole. He smiled at me like he hadn’t just stolen my window. “You alright there?”

“Er, I’m fine,” I said slowly. “But I appear to be missing a window.”

“Not for long,” said another man who popped up next to the first before retrieving a massive new window from the ground. “This’ll be installed in a jiffy.”

My mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. They were both working away on the windowsill, totally ignoring me.

“I don’t need a new window,” I said.

“Ah yes, he told us you might say that,” said man number one. This information didn’t seem to faze him at all.

“Listen, I’m sorry, but my brother’s overstepped here,” I told them both. “I really don’t need⁠—”

“Weren’t your brother, love,” man number two said. “I know Mike Mayweather. Worked a few jobs with him. Not him that hired us.”

My eyebrows went up. “Then who…?” I trailed off as I put the pieces together, remembering Felix’s frown as he wiped some condensation from the window that morning. “That high-handed prick,” I muttered as I pushed up to standing and walked over to the door of the shed, opening it the bare minimum so that Legolas wouldn’t be able to make it through and eat my maps. The pony did manage to headbutt me in the groin a couple of times before tossing up his head and trotting up in the direction of the main house kitchen. I followed behind muttering about arrogant, bossy, interfering buggers who need to get over their guilt already and pick on someone else to help excessively.

“Oh good,” Mum said brightly when I made it into the kitchen. “Felix said you’d be up soon. I’ve got your favourite soup in the Aga, love. And I made those bread rolls you like.”

“Mum, he’s taken my window!” Why was it now acceptable for Felix to stroll around our property stealing the infrastructure? “Whose side are you on?”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Mum’s overly cheery demeanour cracked then, and when I saw the flash of real worry behind her eyes, I felt ashamed. “There’re no sides. There’s just me wanting you to be okay.”

I sighed. “Mum, I’m fine. You don’t need to⁠—”

“You’re not fine,” she said, her voice cracking. “You’ve not been fine for weeks.”

“You know I get like this, Mum,” I tried to explain. “I get absorbed into the story. It’s normal.”

“You’ve never retreated like this before, Lucy. Well, unless you count after—” Mum broke off to clear her throat, then came over to me and laid her hands on my shoulders to steer me to the table. The dogs ran in from the garden at that point, and between them and my mum it felt like I was being herded into place at the kitchen table. “You’ve not even been seeing Emily. And you’ve lost so much weight.”

“Mum, I⁠—”

“I’m scared, sweetheart, okay?” Mum said, and I snapped my mouth shut. She sounded scared as well. Really scared. I frowned slightly as I sat in the chair and wrapped my arms around myself. I mean, I guess I had lost a bit of weight. As I felt my protruding ribs I grimaced slightly. Okay, more than a bit.

“I haven’t felt this scared since after your father died. I can’t go back there, Lucy. I felt so helpless. I’m not risking any of that happening again. I know Felix started this all off, but he was wrong. And what’s happening now isn’t just about that. You’re grieving for him just like you grieved for your father, but you can’t see that he’s right there waiting for you. We should have got you more counselling after your dad died, but we let you get lost in your stories.”

“I’m not lost now, Mum,” I muttered, but thinking back on the last few weeks I began to doubt myself. Now that I was confronted by the smell of Mum’s soup and fresh bread, I realised just how hungry I was. How had I been ignoring that? I hesitated a moment but then took a chair at the table. Mum’s sigh of relief gave me a pang of guilt as I took the first spoonful of soup. She really was worried. So, I concentrated on eating, at first to keep Mum happy but as the hunger abated, I realised that I could actually think a little more clearly with some food on board. I felt a bit more present. More able to cope. Which was good because the next moment Felix was strolling into the kitchen followed by Rueben, the local electrician.

“Yeah, I know it’s a bit nuts, but we have to use that shed,” Felix said. “It needs a 32-amp supply or I can’t fit out the heating system I want to put in there.”

Rueben sucked in a breath through his teeth. “You’d be better knocking that old thing down and building from the ground up, man.”

“That’s not an option,” Felix said with a firm shake of his head. He paused in his progress through the kitchen when he saw me sitting at the table. His eyes dropped to my near-empty bowl, then back up to mine, and he smiled. It was filled with relief and affection, and the sight of it made my belly whoosh.

“Listen Rueben,” he said, not taking his eyes off me. “If you could just sort the supply, I’d be grateful. Rewire the whole thing. Cost doesn’t factor.” Rueben shrugged, gave me a low wave and quick chin jerk before he disappeared out of the front door towards the shed.

“You okay?” Felix asked softly as he walked over towards me at the table. When he drew up next to me, I tilted my head back to look at him. A strand of my hair fell across my cheek and Felix’s hand lifted automatically towards it as if to push it back behind my ear. But I flinched away, and his hand dropped down before he took a small step back, his smile dimming slightly. He turned to put a hand on the Aga.

“Back up to temperature then,” he said to Mum. Ah, so that was why the kitchen was fully tropical. Felix. I should have known.

“Felix, I’m not sure what you’re playing at but you’re really not responsible for my temperature regulation. And the shed is fine.”

His eyebrows went up at that blatant lie and I gritted my teeth.

“I’m letting you off, okay,” I said, my voice dropping low in the hope that Mum, who was across the kitchen from us, wouldn’t be able to hear. “You don’t have to feel guilty anymore. And it’s not your fault that I’ve got sucked down a bit of a rabbit hole.”

“I’m not doing any of this out of guilt, Lucy,” he said, his smile dropping completely now and a frown forming between his brows.

I frowned back at him in confusion. “Then why on earth are you here?”

He looked away from me and his jaw clenched. “We’ll get into that later. When you’re better.”

I shook my head. “I don’t have time to get into anything. I’m in the middle of⁠—”

“I know you need your writing now,” he said. “I understand that. I’ll make sure the shed is watertight, warm and safe. You promise me you’ll eat regularly and sleep in the house then that’s fine. Once I’ve finished with the shed, you can carry on in your world. For now.”

I scoffed. “It sounds like you’re allowing me to carry on writing. You do realise that you’re not the boss of me anymore?”

“I was never the boss of you,” he replied softly. “Not really. If anything, it was the other way around. It still is.”

I huffed. I didn’t understand him at all. Well, he could just jog on with whatever he thought he needed to do. I had no intention of believing him about the guilt thing. There was no other explanation.

And what did he mean by for now?