Blue Skies Over Wildflower Lock (The Wildflower Lock)

Chapter 13

As excited as Daisy was to start the journey, it didn’t take long to fall into a sense of normalcy. Well, as normal as driving a narrowboat with Yvonne could be.

‘I was in my late thirties when I moved to Wildflower Lock,’ Yvonne told her. ‘But before that, I lived all over the place. I was what you might call a nomad. Left home at seventeen, determined to see the world.’

‘You did?’ Daisy asked. They were moving along nicely, hoping to reach Heybridge in time for high tide.

‘Oh, yes. Well, a fair bit of it. There are so many places I’d still love to see. I never got to South America. Sometimes, I think maybe I could do the trip now. Not travelling like I used to, but maybe join one of those tours. You know, with busloads of people and a tour guide who drives you to all the popular places and charges you three times as much to go to a local restaurant?’

‘So why don’t you?’ Daisy asked.

‘Oh, I don’t know. It seems like a lot of hard work. Not the travelling so much as the people. I don’t know if I’ve got it in me any more, all that conversation with people you’ve probably nothing in common with.’

Daisy struggled to believe this was true. After all, Yvonne had had no trouble introducing herself into Daisy’s life. But then maybe that was because she wasn’t a stranger. Not completely.

As she pondered the point, Daisy remembered how Yvonne hadn’t actually been the most welcoming when she’d moved in, slamming a noise complaint on the September Rose the first time Daisy and the girls spent the night there. Maybe she was right; strangers weren’t her strong point.

‘So, less about where you haven’t travelled,’ Daisy said. ‘Tell me about where you have. Where did you love the most?’ She was keen to learn more about her travelling companion, along with different places in the world.

‘Well, motorcycling around Vietnam has to be one favourite,’ Yvonne reminisced.

‘You motorcycled around Vietnam?’ Daisy exclaimed.

Yvonne looked at her with a twinkle in her eye. ‘Like I said, I was young and wild and wanted to see it all. That was fun. I was terrified, mind you. Some of those roads, and those drivers… But you don’t forget things like that in a hurry.’

‘Who did you go with?’ Daisy asked. Several times, when they had enjoyed coffee and cake back at Wildflower Lock, Yvonne had let slip about a husband, but then each time, she swiftly moved the conversation on before it could settle. Now that Daisy was going to be living with Yvonne for what was likely to be a lengthy period, she felt like she really ought to know more details about her shipmate.

Surprisingly, Yvonne looked at her with a sense of confusion.

Her face paled, her eyes drifting beyond the water, before she came back and looked at Daisy.

‘Of course, you wouldn’t know about Harry, would you? Funny thing is, I still think about him – all the time – but when I lost him, it became easier not to talk about him. It didn’t matter that he was always in my thoughts. I didn’t talk about him. I don’t even think young Theo knows, nor some others on the canal. I guess I’ve just found easier it not to mention him at all.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.’

A surge of guilt flooded through Daisy as she regretted bringing up Yvonne’s past. After all, they were less than a morning into their journey together. The last thing she needed was for Yvonne to change her mind before they’d even reached the first estuary. And it wasn’t like she didn’t understand; Daisy wasn’t keen on talking about her past relationship either, and that had been a normal breakup. By the way Yvonne was talking, this had been something different.

Still, Yvonne waved away Daisy’s apology and pushed a smile onto her face.

‘No, don’t be silly. I should talk about him. He’d be embarrassed by how mournful I’ve become. Let me tell you, I met my Harry in an ashram in Kerala.’

‘Kerala? As in India?’

That twinkle returned to Yvonne’s eyes. ‘I did tell you we travelled, didn’t I? Well, I’d been travelling about for a bit by then. Been to lots of places, around Europe mostly. India was my first big trip. The one that had my parents really worried.’ Yvonne grinned, and Daisy couldn’t help but smile at the thought of this older woman’s parents. It didn’t matter what generation you were from; it seemed parents would always worry about their children. ‘Well, he was there on my first day, and that was it. I was hooked.’

The way Yvonne said that made it sound as if there was nothing more to tell about the situation, and yet Daisy wanted to know more. She needed more than that tiny insight.

‘So what happened? Did you marry him? Where was he from? Did you have children? I assume you travelled with him? Did he live with you on the canal, too?’

Daisy realised she’d probably overdone it with the number of rapid-fire questions. Yet Yvonne’s face lit up with a glow Daisy had never seen before. As much as Yvonne had resisted discussing her past relationship, it was clear this Harry was still very much in her heart.

‘Oh, we travelled. We did some wonderful travelling. Thailand, Cambodia, Laos. He was the one I motorcycled around Vietnam with. He was Dutch, actually. Beautiful and tall and blonde. Spoke four languages, would you believe, and his English was better than mine! We had such fun. Oh yes, we had a great deal of fun. And then we came back here.’

Her voice wavered, and a quietness settled around them. A quietness filled only with the constant whirring of the boat’s engine.

‘He didn’t like life in England?’ Daisy asked hesitantly.

There was something in the way Yvonne had spoken that led her to draw this conclusion.

Yvonne shook her head.

‘No, he loved it. Settled in here like a duck to water. Mind you, he settled anywhere. He was a bit older than me. Well, twelve years, actually. You can imagine my parents weren’t too keen on that for their nineteen-year-old daughter. But even they succumbed once they met him. He’d lived in America – New York, no less – and spent time in New Zealand too. And everywhere he went, everyone fell in love with him.’

‘It sounds like he was a wonderful man,’ Daisy said, the use of the past tense making her feel awkward.

‘He was. Oh, he was.’

Yvonne’s eyes drifted away again, but Daisy didn’t ask any more questions. Instead, she just waited. If Yvonne didn’t want to share more about her past life, that was fine. They had an entire journey together.

‘Right, enough chatter. We’re coming up to a bridge.’ Yvonne spoke with a renewed focus, implying that the time for reminiscing was gone. They needed to get to work.