Chapter 3
‘Is everything all right?’
Briony turned around at the sound of Reggie’s voice. She looked at the violin in her hands. She was meant to be putting it back in the music shop window. She’d got as far as the window display, but her attention had been drawn to the little shop across Cobblers Yard, which was run by a man in his thirties called Joss.
‘You’re thinking about the appointment with Joss tomorrow, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’ It was lucky for her that Joss had decided to open his legal practice, which offered free legal advice, on a Saturday that week. She had her appointment with him on her mind, and a lot more besides. She carefully placed the violin, which she’d just dusted, back in the window display. Reggie had kept the shop open later than usual that Friday evening while Briony worked on the window display, cleaning all the instruments.
Besides the appointment with Joss, Briony was also thinking about her parents and the lie she’d spun that had brought her to the Suffolk Coast unbeknown to them. She thought back to a week earlier, when her mum had excitedly helped her pack for the research trip that she was meant to be going on. She had already known she was not joining. She wasn’t off to the Galapagos Islands, as they thought, but she couldn’t tell them that – especially her mum, for two reasons.
She had been so excited that she’d been offered a place on an eight-week research trip to the Galapagos Islands. Her boyfriend Freddie had been less excited. He’d just proposed to her, and was hoping for an answer, and to be able to set a date. She hadn’t been able to answer him. She’d needed time to think – about everything.
Whilst Freddie hadn’t really wanted her to go away, when he’d discovered that she’d changed her mind about the trip, he’d been equally stunned. He’d surprised her by encouraging her to join the trip and not change her mind.
The problem was that Freddie had no clue as to why she’d changed her mind. She’d told him a half-truth. She’d recently received a letter from her maternal grandmother, whom she’d never met in her life. Her mum and grandmother were estranged, and her mum wouldn’t talk about it. Briony hadn’t even known where her grandmother lived. But she’d discovered that her grandmother had recently sent her a letter.
Freddie had dropped her off for her journey down to Suffolk, still confused as to why she had changed her mind about the Galapagos Islands. She’d told him she was visiting her grandmother instead. He’d wondered why she’d needed to cancel her trip to go; she could have gone any time – unless her grandmother was at death’s door.
Briony didn’t know whether that was the case. Her main reason for going to see her grandmother straight away rather than holding on until after the research trip was actually that she had discovered that she was pregnant. She didn’t want to risk travelling to a remote area, and she wasn’t ready to tell Freddie just yet – or her parents.
Briony’s parents had had her young, and she just knew that her mum would be disappointed when she discovered her daughter was pregnant before she’d got married and before she’d even got her longed-for career in marine biology off the ground. Briony still had a master’s to do. And as for Freddie’s proposal – although Briony imagined that it was the dream of many girls to walk down the aisle, she wasn’t sure she was ready for that quite yet either.
She had confided in her best friend, Angel, that she was pregnant, and also that she’d found the letter from her grandmother. Briony’s mum was not in her good books, to say the least. The letter had been delayed in the post, and when it had arrived, her mum had intercepted it. Briony might not have even discovered that her grandmother had written to her if it hadn’t been for her well-timed arrival home one day. She’d overheard her parents arguing – and they never argued. She’d discovered that her mum had binned a letter addressed to her from her grandmother. She’d rescued her letter from the bin without her mum knowing.
The letter had turned out to be the perfect excuse to visit her grandmother instead; to get away and stay with a relative who had no idea about the other trip she should have been on for the next few weeks. She hadn’t confronted her mum, because the last thing she needed was for her mum to put a stop to her seeing her grandmother, or to find out the reason she had changed her plans so dramatically to travel instead to the Suffolk Coast. Besides her unexpected pregnancy, Briony did want to see her grandmother and to find out what had really gone on to cause her mum’s and grandmother’s estrangement.
Thinking of the past week, and her decision to abscond to Suffolk without her parents’ knowledge, Briony knew she still had an email to write. She’d promised her mum she’d stay in touch. So far, she hadn’t. She’d said that texting might not happen if there was no signal, and that internet might be sketchy. Of course she had no idea if either of those things were true – how could she? She’d never been to the Galapagos Islands.
Freddie had been in touch, and she’d told him everything was fine – which it wasn’t. Briony had not expected to turn up at The Beach House – an aptly named property sitting right on the beach in a Suffolk coastal village called Dunwich Heath – and discover that her grandmother, Blythe, wasn’t there.
A week had gone by, and Briony – who fortunately had a key to The Beach House that she’d found in an old shell box belonging to her mother – had been living in The Beach House on her own. Well, not quite on her own. For a start, there was Luna; a wolfdog hybrid who had been left by Blythe at a boarding kennels while she went into hospital for a knee operation.
The kennels were run by a vet – a young lady called Emily, who had been trying to get in contact with Blythe when she had failed to pick Luna up. Emily had phoned The Beach House, and Briony had answered the call.
It had been a fortnight since Blythe had dropped Luna off, but according to Emily’s friend, Nate – a doctor at Aldeburgh Cottage Hospital – nobody who’d had a knee op in the recent past had had any complications, and all had been discharged.
Unfortunately for Briony, that had not been helpful; she still had no clue where her grandmother was or why she had failed to pick up Luna. So Briony had visited The Four Paws Guest House and veterinary practice, where she’d met Emily. And somehow, Briony had returned to The Beach House with not one dog, but two, along with two kittens. That had not been the plan, but once there, she’d decided to continue fostering cats and kittens as her grandmother had been doing. Wilbur, the little dachshund sausage dog, who had been left at the pet hotel when his owner had gone to live in a care home, had stolen her heart in a matter of moments. She just hadn’t been able to leave the elderly dog behind. And although she was just meant to be fostering him, he had ‘foster fail’ written all over him. For someone who didn’t want any responsibilities, Briony now had four pets on her hands.
She’d left the kittens sleeping at The Beach House while she was at the music shop, but the two dogs had been accompanying her to her new job in Reggie’s music shop in Cobblers Yard. Luna was sitting over by Reggie’s stool, watching him mend some strings on a guitar at his desk at the back of the shop. Little Wilbur had found a cosy spot on a cushioned chair and was curled up, fast asleep. Briony smiled affectionately at the little sausage dog. Sometimes she thought he had more cat than dog qualities; he’d already found his favourite spot on one of the sofas back in The Beach House.
Wilbur was an old dog, so he slept a lot, which was understandable, but like cats he favoured a spot up high on a chair, sofa, or preferably someone’s lap. But Briony didn’t have time to sit all day and be that comforting lap for her dog now she had her little part-time job.
When she’d first visited Reggie, after finding out through Emily that he was a friend of her grandmother’s, Briony had been hoping he’d know her grandmother’s whereabouts. He didn’t. But he did have something else for her – this part-time job. It was a far cry from her aspirations to become a marine biologist, but she’d had music lessons for several years; her mum, a music teacher, had insisted that she learn to play some instruments. Even though she didn’t enjoy it, she could play the piano, violin and guitar. But what she had enjoyed, in the past, was singing. She had a lovely singing voice.
Briony had been planning to begin her master’s degree in the autumn term to further her career aspirations, but first the research trip had come up, and then she’d found out she was pregnant, and now she had found herself working in a music shop.
This isn’t forever, Briony reminded herself. But it could be, if I wanted it to be. She was thinking of the friends she’d made since arriving there just a week earlier – Reggie at the music shop, Emily, and Emily’s friend Clarissa, a reporter and aspiring investigative journalist, who worked for a local newspaper.
She would never have imagined she’d find herself on the beautiful Suffolk Coast that autumn rather than on an adventure in the Galapagos Islands. But this was no less of an adventure – travelling to find her grandmother, and hoping to discover why her mum and grandmother had been estranged all these years. And making new friends along the way. It had given her a glimpse into another life – perhaps a simpler life – that she would never have even envisaged if she hadn’t gone there. But what about her career, Freddie, and her life in Oxford?
Briony put all thoughts of her future to one side for now; she was thinking of her mum ripping up the letter she’d been sent by her grandmother. What had happened in the past that was so terrible that she’d never had an opportunity to even meet her maternal grandmother, let alone get to know her? Even now, as an adult, her mum had taken the decision about meeting Blythe out of Briony’s hands. Why? Anxiety gnawed away in the pit of her stomach at the thought that perhaps her mum had good reason for them not to meet. Maybe she should have asked her about it before making this trip.
She ought to know where I am right now, Briony thought. She stared out of the shop window and sighed. She stole a glance at her phone again, checking for any texts or missed calls from her best friend, Angel. They had not parted on good terms when she’d left for Suffolk. Briony now wished she had not told her best friend she was pregnant. Angel had disagreed with her decision not to tell Freddie. What if Angel told Freddie herself? What if she told Briony’s parents?
She couldn’t imagine that Angel would tell her mum and dad. If they discovered Angel knew that Briony was not in the Galapagos Islands, and hadn’t told them, while living under their roof, Angel might have to leave.
Her parents were very generous, kind-hearted people, but she couldn’t imagine that under those circumstances they’d want Angel to stay on living with them.