8. Ellie
8
ELLIE
T he taxi dropped Ellie off at her gran’s cottage. She went inside and parked the suitcases in the hallway at the bottom of the wooden staircase. During the long train journey back to Cornwall, that had involved several changes and some delays, she’d felt all right. When she got to the café, however, something had changed, and she’d suddenly felt overwhelmed by exhaustion. A bit like someone had removed her batteries so she was running on empty. It was almost as if seeing her gran had been such an enormous relief that the adrenaline propelling her forwards for the past few weeks had left her body immediately, which meant she had nothing left to keep her going.
She went through a doorway on her right and looked around the pretty lounge. The room was the same as she remembered, with two fat blue sofas covered in crochet patchwork blankets and a small coffee table covered by circular wooden coasters that a friend of her gran’s had brought back from Canada. On the low table were five books that her gran was probably reading — she never read one book at a time, always at least three, several notebooks, and a chipped mug filled with a variety of pens. The mug was missing the handle and there was a chip on the rim, but it made Ellie smile because she knew why her gran had kept it. Flowers and the words “If grandmothers were flowers, you’d be the one I’d pick” decorated the side of the mug. Ellie had bought the mug for her gran when she was on a school trip to Helston. She had picked it up in a gift shop and wrapped it up carefully in a tea towel that she’d also bought, then tucked it into her rucksack. She had spent all day — as they wandered around the town, visited local places of interest, and then travelled back on the bus — taking care of the mug like it was a fragile egg. It had been imperative for her to ensure that the mug was not broken and she had succeeded in getting it home safely. When she had given the mug to her gran, the response had made her so proud and happy. Seeing her gran’s face light up made her hard work that day in looking after the mug totally worth it. Her gran had kept the mug all these years and used it daily, until one morning, while washing it in the sink, it had bumped against a plate and the handle had come off. This had saddened them both at the time, but then her gran had said she would keep the mug and use it for a different purpose, and so she had done. It had become a pen pot and therefore received a new lease of life. Her gran had a habit of doing the same with other things and if she could up-cycle something instead of buying new, she would do so in a heartbeat.
Ellie wandered around the room, admiring the full bookshelves, the family photographs, the candlesticks on the mantelpiece above the open fireplace, and even the basket of logs on the hearth. The room smelt of rosemary and lavender, of wood smoke and lemon furniture polish, all scents that she associated with her gran’s home. All scents she associated with home, because her home had always been with Pearl. Being back here made her realise how much she had missed it and how important this cottage was to her and to who she was. Apart from a few flying visits, she hadn’t been back here for any significant amount of time in about three years, possibly four. Now she was here, she couldn’t understand why.
Why had she let life become so busy that she hadn’t come home?
Why had she allowed Barnaby to convince her that going home to Cornwell for holidays wasn’t a good idea?
Why had she not come home to see her gran and to show that she cared enough to make the effort?
She suspected that she knew why, and it did not sit comfortably with her. She had not come back because she had worried it would enable her to think clearly and to see clearly, and by doing so, her life and how unsatisfactory it had become would be evident. If this clarity had confronted her, then it would have been harder for her to go back to London, to continue attending auditions, and to keep hoping Ramona would find it in her heart to like Ellie. It would have become impossible to continue living with Barnaby and pretending, because that was what it had become, to love him still. But now she was home, and she could finally accept that she had been living a lie for quite some time. What she needed to do was to accept that things had not been right and to try to move on with her life by deciding what came next.
But first, she would eat the delicious-looking sandwich that her gran had given her, drink the tea, and take a nap, because she was bone weary.
Despite everything that had happened recently and how difficult she had found it, she really was glad to be home.