The Imposter, Anna Wharton [romantic story to read TXT] 📗

up to her room: the clattering of crockery, the scraping of a chair leg. There’s a safety in domestic sounds like these. The humdrum that other people take for granted.

She listens out for Patrick’s voice, but instead it’s the low buzz of the sewing machine that seeps up through the floorboards. She gets up, putting on the dressing gown and slippers she bought especially for Elm House.

Downstairs, Maureen is sitting at the kitchen table humming and sewing. She breaks her stitching to say good morning.

‘Would you like me to get you some breakfast, love?’ she asks, abandoning the floral material bunched in her hands.

‘No, no, it’s fine, thanks,’ Chloe says. ‘I’ll get it.’

Though she likes Maureen to ask.

The gentle whizz tap tap of the machine resumes as she shakes cereal into her bowl. In the sink are two mugs and two plates still covered in toast crumbs. Next to them is an eggcup with Angela written on it, and a picture of a fairy. Chloe has never seen it before.

‘Is Patrick working today?’

‘Yes,’ Maureen says, her eyes trained on the stitches. ‘On the early shift this morning.’

Chloe nods as she pours milk on her cereal and sits down on a chair opposite Maureen, her eyes still trained on the egg-cup.

‘I thought you might fancy eggs for a change?’ Maureen says.

Had she noticed Chloe staring at it? She quickly looks down at her cereal.

Life had got back to normal in the last couple of days. Whatever Maureen and Patrick had rowed about had soon blown over and Patrick had never said anything about finding her in the front room, though the door had remained shut ever since.

Maureen looks up to see Chloe clutching her bowl to her chest. ‘Set your bowl down, I can finish this after you’ve had your breakfast,’ she says.

‘It’s no problem,’ Chloe says. ‘What are you making? It’s nice material.’

Maureen smiles, pulling it out from the machine and biting off a loose thread. She flaps the fabric, the same orange pattern she’s been working with on and off for the last week or so. She smooths out the cotton and Chloe can see that it’s actually covered in mustard-yellow sunflowers.

‘I’m glad you like it,’ Maureen says, ‘because it’s for you.’

‘For me?’ Chloe drops her spoon into the bowl and puts it down on the table.

‘Yes.’ She holds it up then and Chloe sees that it’s a sleeveless top with a white collar and three buttons in a V at the neck. The style you might describe as retro, but she is used to Maureen’s taste, a little more old-fashioned. Maureen passes the top over to her.

‘There are just the last few bits to do,’ she says, ‘but it won’t take me a minute after you finish your breakfast.’

Chloe takes the top and holds it up against her chest, glancing down at it over her dressing gown. She runs her finger along the seam at the bottom; every last stitch is perfect.

‘You really made this for me?’ she says.

Maureen nods. ‘Oh, it’s just a little something. I had some material left over and . . . well, the pattern is a bit young for me now and, what with the warmer weather coming . . .’

Chloe remembers the notes she had made on the symptoms Maureen’s drugs help to ease. She feels for her all over again.

‘Nobody has ever made anything for me before,’ Chloe says.

‘Really?’

Chloe nods.

‘Not even your nan?’

Chloe shakes her head.

‘Well, there you go,’ Maureen says, smiling.

‘Thank you, I love it.’

She gets up from her seat and wraps Maureen in a hug. Maureen pats her arm gently. She steps back then, surprised by herself, by how naturally they had fitted together – she hadn’t expected that. She looks down at the material in her hands.

‘I’m so pleased you like it,’ Maureen says as she gets up and finds some pots and pans to put away.

Chloe wants to show how much it means to her. ‘Shall I try it on now?’

‘Later,’ Maureen says. ‘Have your breakfast first. You can wear it tonight, let Patrick see you in it.’ She takes it back gently. ‘Anyway, I’ve got those last few bits to do.’

Chloe sits back down at the table. She picks up her bowl again and eats slowly while she watches Maureen’s hands work fast, carefully, twisting the material this way and that under the needle. She lines up each sunflower until it is exactly so, taking great care over every stitch because she’s making it for Chloe and she wants it to be just right.

‘I can’t believe you’ve done this for me,’ Chloe says again.

Maureen smiles. ‘The pleasure is all mine.’

After breakfast Chloe makes an excuse to walk up to the village shop on her own. Elm House sits in a black spot with patchy phone signal and she needs to make a call.

‘I’m going to get a magazine,’ she shouts up to Maureen who is in the bathroom. ‘Do you need anything from the shop?’

She shouts a muffled ‘no’ from under the shower.

Chloe holds her phone inside her pocket as she walks, the willow at the top of the lane appearing in no time. She steps through the fronds as she has so many times now. Often it feels as if they mark a curtain between two worlds. She takes the phone out of her pocket and dials Park House. She’s relieved when the answerphone picks up. She knows the routine well enough by now, when the overstretched and under-funded care staff are too busy to serve breakfast and answer the phone.

‘Welcome to Park House,’ the automated voice starts.

Chloe leaves a cheery yet brief message. She’s missed a couple of calls from Park House recently but in every voicemail they’d said how they were sorry to call her during work, which had made Chloe feel better about not being able to get back to them straight away. They know she’s busy. She looks back at the house, though of course it’s not visible from here. In a way she is still working –