Lavender Lane Read online

  The crowd were silent for a second, then the screams started.

  Bob, holding Amy and Cicely helplessly against him, watched in horror as the marshals poured on to the track and raced towards Mitchell’s car.

  He was praying as the other cars slewed to a halt all across the track.

  ‘We must get to him.’ Amy was trying to tug herself away. ‘Bob! Let me go!’

  ‘You can’t do anything!’ Bob said fiercely, feeling sick as an ambulance siren wailed through the mayhem. ‘Look, the marshals are almost there now – oh!’ The pink and lilac car had hardly quivered to a halt when Jacey Brennan, tugging off her helmet, her long blonde hair whipped by the wind, and tears pouring down her face, fought her way through the track marshals and hurled herself on Mitchell’s car.

  ‘Is he hurt?’ Amy grabbed at the arm of the nearest person. ‘How is he?’ It seemed as though she was swimming against a tide of people as everyone crowded on to the track. ‘Please let me through! He’s my son!’

  ‘Amy, don’t.’ Bob tugged at her arm. ‘Look, over here. They’re bringing him across here to the ambulance.’

  ‘There!’ Cicely said, relief swamping her voice. ‘He’s walking. No bones broken, then. Oh, Amy, don’t cry …’

  In the mayhem, the Phillipses elbowed their way through to the ambulance. Mitch, supported by a paramedic, and even more closely by Jacey Brennan, was shaking his head.

  ‘I’m fine.’ He grinned sheepishly at his parents. ‘Honestly.’ He tapped the helmet that Jacey was carrying. ‘That stopped any sense being knocked into me. I’ll probably be a bit stiff in the morning – and the car’s a write-off …’

  ‘Blast the car!’ Bob growled, fear making him angry. ‘You’ve just scared your mother and grandmother half to death.’

  ‘Are you all right?’ Amy squeezed herself past Jacey. ‘Honestly?’

  ‘Honestly.’ Mitchell smiled gently. ‘Sorry if I frightened you.’

  ‘You didn’t.’ Cicely grinned at her grandson. ‘We’re just annoyed that you didn’t win. You had that race sewn up.’

  ‘Mother!’ Bob protested, but Mitchell laughed.

  ‘I feel like that, too. Still, there’s always next time,’ he promised breezily, and Amy closed her eyes with dread.

  ‘I think we should just get you along to the hospital for a check-up,’ the paramedic said. ‘The track doctor will have a quick look at you, but you might need an X-ray.’

  ‘We’ll come with you,’ Amy said quickly. ‘Then we can drive you home.’

  ‘There’s no need for that, Mrs Phillips,’ Jacey Brennan said softly, taking her eyes from Mitchell for the first time. ‘I can do that. There’s no need for everyone to go.’

  ‘He’s my son.’ Amy’s voice rang out sharply. ‘If anyone goes with him it’ll be us – his family.’

  ‘Mum.’ Mitchell touched Amy’s shoulder. ‘I’m perfectly all right, and I’m overage. They won’t need your permission for anything. I doubt if I’ll even need a visit to hospital – but if I do, I think it’d be better if Jacey came with me. I’ve made a complete mess of our afternoon as it is.’

  Cicely put her arm round Amy’s shoulders.

  ‘I think what he’s trying to tell us is that the last thing he wants is the Phillips entourage creating a fuss in the casualty department as though he were a five-year-old who’d just fallen off his swing!’

  Amy glared at her mother-in-law, but Cicely ignored that.

  ‘And more to the point,’ she went on, ‘why should he want a host of old fogeys clamouring around him when this young lady is more than capable of seeing that he gets home safely?’ She smiled at Jacey. ‘You go with him, my dear, if necessary, and then bring him home.’

  Cicely always went too far. Annoyed, Amy looked to Bob for support, but seeing that none was forthcoming, she shrugged.

  ‘Perhaps you’re right. But you come straight home from the hospital, Mitchell. No gallivanting – even if they do say you’re OK.’

  ‘No, Mum.’ Mitchell’s eyes twinkled. ‘There is one thing you could do for me, though.’

  ‘Yes?’ Amy’s fear had subsided, but her anger hadn’t. ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘Could you just see if the car can be salvaged, and then ask Luke to put the remains on a trailer and get it back to Lavender Lane for me? I can work on it in the morning.’

  ‘No problem,’ Bob agreed at once, wanting to defuse the situation, and then he stood back as a man approached. ‘This looks like the doctor.’

  The doctor, already briefed by the first-aid team, seemed to Amy to be completely unconcerned.

  ‘Right, then, let’s just check you over. Up into the back of the ambulance with you.’ He turned to Bob, Amy, and Cicely. ‘I don’t think you need to hang around. He looks revoltingly healthy to me. And you, my dear –’ he beamed at Jacey ‘– you’d better come up and hold his hand.’

  To Amy’s fury, the ambulance doors closed firmly, but not before she had seen Jacey Brennan melt into her son’s arms.

  Bob knew Amy was angry but there wasn’t a lot he could do about it.

  ‘I’ll go and speak to Luke about getting the wreck back home. You and Mum can wait for me in the car.’

  Cicely took Amy’s elbow and together they forced their way through the milling mass of people. With the last race ending so abruptly, the crowds were drifting away.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ Amy smouldered. ‘That girl! She’s only known him five minutes – how dare she worm her way in like that!’

  ‘Amy, dear!’ Cicely was laughing as they reached the car. ‘Put yourself in their place. Suppose that was Bob and you years ago and I’d wanted to fuss around. Wouldn’t you have thought that it was your place to be with him? It’s the order of things, my dear.’

  ‘Yes, well, maybe …’ Amy unlocked the car, and the two women dropped gratefully into its warmth. She was always disgruntled by Cicely’s ability to see everyone’s point of view – it made her seem such a grouse.

  ‘But that was different,’ she went on. ‘Bob and I were in love, we knew we would spend the rest of our lives together. If anything had happened to him I would have gone crazy. Of course I would have wanted to be with him in those circumstances. But Mitchell and this Jacey Brennan – well, that’s different.’

  ‘Is it?’ Cicely said carefully. ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Of course!’ Amy settled herself behind the steering-wheel. ‘Mitch has had so many girlfriends – he never keeps them long enough for me to get to know their surnames most of the time. Why should Jacey Brennan be any different?’ She turned and stared at her mother-in-law in the back seat. ‘Surely you don’t think –?’

  ‘Why not?’ Cicely asked gently.

  ‘Because …’ Amy shook her head. ‘Because I don’t like her!’

  ‘And if I hadn’t liked you, my dear, Bob would still have married you.’ Cicely smiled. ‘Luckily I thought you were wonderful – the daughter I never had. But what you think won’t come into it. If Mitchell decides Jacey Brennan is the one for him, I’m afraid you’ll just have to accept it.’

  Luckily, Bob arrived at that moment, but Amy’s heart was heavy.

  Unhappy with Megan’s drifting relationship with Peter King, and concerned about the increasing friction she sensed in Matt and Sally’s marriage, she simply couldn’t face Mitch falling for someone she felt was so unsuitable.

  ‘Luke’s taking the remains of the car home,’ Bob said as he eased himself into the passenger seat. ‘Everyone seems to think they’ll run Mitch up to the A and E as a matter of course, but he’ll be fine. So there’s no need for the gloomy face.’

  Amy sketched a small smile as she manoeuvred the car towards the exit.

  Cicely leaned forward between them.

  ‘She’s not fretting about Mitchell’s injuries, Bob. She’s worried about his heart.’

  He frowned. ‘His heart? But he’s as strong as an ox – and twice as foolhardy! Goodness, Amy, there’s nothing wrong wi
th his heart.’

  ‘There is when he’s thinking of giving it to Jacey Brennan.’ Cicely’s voice was mischievous.

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Bob settled back into his seat. ‘Well, I don’t think we should make any judgment yet, do you? She’s obviously very fond of Mitch, and …’

  Taking one look at Amy’s stony expression, he decided to say no more, and the rest of the short journey back to Lavender Lane was conducted in silence.

  ‘Oh, no!’ Amy groaned, as she turned into the driveway. ‘That’s all I need today!’

  Bob followed her eyes and his heart sank.

  ‘Oh, it’s Paul and Judith’s car!’ Cicely said, leaning forward to peer through the windscreen. ‘I was going to ask you to take me home, Bob, but I think I’ve changed my mind. I want to give that pair a good talking-to!’

  ‘No!’ Bob and Amy cried in unison, then looked at each other, laughing.

  ‘At least we still agree on some things,’ Bob teased, hugging her to him, relieved to see her smiling again. ‘Even if it is only that Mother should occasionally keep her mouth firmly closed!’

  ‘Actually –’ Cicely observed as she scrambled from the car, ‘– Paul and Judith look as though they’re visiting your first-born. And you might be glad of one of my well-timed remarks one of these days!’

  ‘Yes, we might at that.’ Amy grinned at her, then shivered as the icy wind blasted across the drive. ‘Still, if we’re not going to have to suffer the terrible twosome, I think it calls for a celebratory cuppa, don’t you?’

  They hurried up the steps, anticipating the cosy surge from the central heating as Bob unlocked the front door.

  Bringing up the rear, Cicely groaned.

  ‘Cancel the celebration,’ she muttered. ‘You’ve been spotted. They’re on their way over …’

  Chapter Three

  ‘Why Won’t You Listen to Me?’

  Jim and Stella Foster sat in their grandson Matt’s small sitting room and looked at each other in concern.

  ‘Judith isn’t going to give up, is she?’ Stella bit her lip. ‘Maybe we should have considered letting them into the business when you retired …’

  ‘No.’ Her husband shook his head. ‘I knew what I was doing then, and I do now. I don’t want to fall out with Judith – heaven knows, she’s our daughter – but these hare-brained ideas aren’t hers, Stella. They’re Paul’s, and he’s only interested in making money. He doesn’t have any feeling for the garage or Lavender Cabs.

  ‘No, Bob and Amy have been with us right from the start. They mucked in and went without when Paul and Judith were swanning round the world with the army and wouldn’t have given a thank you for our business on a plate. It’s too late now for them to want to become involved.’

  ‘Poor Amy!’ Stella shuddered. ‘I’m sure all she wanted to do was get indoors and defrost her toes with a cup of tea in front of the fire. She doesn’t want Judith nagging about how the garage could benefit from the injection of Paul’s golden handshake.’

  Jim stood up and walked to the window. It was growing dark, and the wind was chasing black clouds across a slate- grey sky.

  He didn’t feel he’d been unfair to his younger daughter, but he was very aware that outsiders might see it differently. He knew better than anyone the love and effort that Amy and Bob had put into his business at a time when Judith and Paul had found Appleford and Lavender Cabs almost an embarrassment.

  ‘I suppose Judith tried to blackmail you by talking about the kids?’ Jim turned and looked at his wife. ‘Paul did with me. He said it was hardly fair that three of our grandchildren should be involved in the business while Dean and Debbie went without.’

  ‘I got much the same,’ Stella admitted. ‘I said it was rubbish. We’ve always treated Debbie and Dean the same as Matt, Megan, and Mitchell. We may not have seen them so often, or been involved in their lives because they’ve spent so long abroad, but they’ve never been loved less.’ She sighed wearily. ‘This is becoming a complete nightmare.’

  ‘Never mind.’ Jim plonked down on the sofa again. ‘We’ve got the whole evening babysitting our great-granddaughter to look forward to – and if I’m not mistaken, I think I saw Cicely with Bob and Amy. She’ll be able to cut Paul down to size!’

  ‘You’re a wicked old so-and-so!’ Stella laughed. ‘I wouldn’t wish Bob’s mum on my worst enemy when she’s in the mood to speak her mind!’

  ‘What are you two giggling about?’ Matt wandered through from the bedroom, fastening his tie. ‘Have I missed out on a joke?’

  ‘No.’ Stella was still smiling. ‘Just the thought of Cicely giving her own special brand of homespun advice to your Uncle Paul and Aunt Judith!’

  Matt didn’t smile. His aunt and uncle’s visit couldn’t have come at a worse time. Sally was in such a good mood now, and so looking forward to their evening out; he didn’t want Paul or Judith letting the cat out of the bag. No point in raising her hopes yet …

  And he certainly didn’t want to talk about his plans in front of Gran and Granddad Foster. It had taken all his powers of ingenuity to keep avoiding the very subject Paul and Judith so desperately wanted to discuss.

  ‘Oh, they’ll all be so full of Mitchell’s race that Paul and Judith won’t be able to get a word in!’ he said lightly, hoping it was true. ‘Then Megan will be in with a replay of Peter’s rugby match. I’m sure they won’t even get round to discussing their inheritance – or lack of it.’

  ‘Do you think I was wrong, then?’ Jim looked quickly at his grandson, catching something in Matt’s voice. ‘Do you think I should have split the business between them and your parents?’

  ‘No – no, of course not,’ Matt said hastily. ‘I didn’t mean that. It was entirely up to you, and anyway, it’s been Mum and Dad’s life for ever. Er – I’d better go and see if Sally’s anywhere near ready, otherwise we won’t make the restaurant in time.’

  Once he’d gone, Stella glanced at her husband.

  ‘Why did you ask him that? You don’t think –?’

  He shrugged. ‘I just had a feeling that there’s more going on between young Matt and our Judith than meets the eye. I wouldn’t like to think they’re up to something – not something that would affect the business.’

  ‘Not Matt.’ Stella shook her head. ‘Our grandson has Lavender Cabs running through him like his life’s blood. He’d be as miffed as the rest of us if Paul got his way and sold the garage off to one of these modern setups.’

  ‘Which is why, as long as I’m still alive,’ Jim said firmly, ‘neither Judith nor Paul will get their hands on the business.’

  Just then Matt and Sally came into the room, Sally carrying Kim, gurgling happily in her arms.

  ‘You look lovely, my dear,’ Stella said, standing up to take her great-granddaughter into her arms. ‘Are you going somewhere nice?’

  ‘The new Italian in Oxford,’ Matt put in. ‘But we could only get an early table –’

  ‘– so we thought we’d make the most of it and get in to the late showing at the cinema afterwards – if that’s all right,’ Sally finished, looking anxiously at Stella and Jim. She was so looking forward to an evening out. She didn’t want them to say they couldn’t babysit after nine o’clock or something awful. ‘You didn’t want us home early, did you?’

  ‘Definitely not.’ Jim was tickling Kim’s toes. ‘You stay out as long as possible – we don’t get to spend much time with this little lady.’

  Feeling young and free again, Sally linked her fingers through Matt’s as they hurried out into the dark, cold evening.

  ‘Paul and Judith are still in with your mum and dad,’ she said as Matt opened the car door for her. ‘Did they say much to you while I was in the bath?’

  ‘Not a lot. The usual stuff. They still want a share of the business.’

  ‘There’s not a chance of that,’ Sally said, snuggling happily into her seat as the car purred off in the direction of Oxford. ‘Is there?’

  ‘Probably n
ot.’ Matt was concentrating on the traffic. ‘Lavender Cabs is firmly entrenched in the past. Paul’s subversive plans will frighten them all to death.’

  Sally peered through the darkness, trying to see his face. There was something in his tone she didn’t quite understand.

  However, Lavender Cabs and the Phillips family was not what she wanted to talk about tonight so she decided to let it drop.

  It wasn’t until they were seated at their table, with the starters in front of them, that she took a deep breath and broached the subject that was uppermost in her mind.

  ‘Matt – about my aromatherapy …’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘I’ve worked out a business plan. I want to see the bank manager – Mr Bamford, Peter King’s boss. I want to know if it’s viable.’

  ‘We haven’t got the money to back it,’ he protested.

  ‘I could get a business loan. There’s that little shop in the High Street that’s been empty for ages. I could combine the oils with herbal remedies and health foods and that sort of thing …’

  Matt leaned across the table, gazing intently at her.

  ‘Sally, we simply don’t have the money! Look, can’t you carry on doing house-to-house and party stuff for a little bit longer?’

  ‘No.’ Sally smiled. ‘Anyway, we do have some money, don’t we?’

  ‘Not enough. And what happens if you have another baby?’

  ‘I won’t,’ she said firmly, and he scowled.

  ‘You mean you don’t want to. You mean that this aromatherapy thing is more important than giving Kimberley a brother or sister?’

  ‘Actually, yes, at the moment,’ she told him, and sighed. ‘Matt – don’t let’s fight over this. You’re doing what you want with your life – please let me do the same. At least you’re happy with Lavender Cabs …’

  He reached over and squeezed her hand.

  ‘I want you to be happy, Sally. I know how important all this is to you. It’s just that we don’t own our own home, I’m not paid a vast amount, we’ve got virtually no savings – all in all, I don’t think Mr Bamford – or any other bank manager – will welcome you with open arms.’