Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
F or the next few days, I keep myself to myself.
I genuinely do have a lot of work to catch up on, and I’m starting to realise that living out of cardboard boxes is not a sustainable long-term lifestyle choice.
I force myself to unpack the last of them, and that allows me to take stock of what I’m missing.
Mainly, I think, I’d like to get a few more bits and bobs– some pictures for the walls maybe, or some house plants.
I might even decorate, get some colour into the place.
I feel like I could love this little house, so I might as well put some effort in.
My suspicions that I’d accidentally left my yoga mat in London turn out to be right.
It’s not been a huge issue, because I’ve been so busy since I got here that I’ve barely had time to even say the words downward dog never mind get into one.
I order a new mat anyway. It’s good for me, and I enjoy it.
At some point my brain will feel like it’s going to implode, and I’ll need to start fixing it by twisting my body into weird positions.
I’m not sure of the science behind it all, but it definitely works for me.
Plus, I’m almost fifty– anything that stops my joints seizing up has got to be a win.
I clear the little patio garden of the leaves that are now starting to fall, and I add ‘bird feeder’ to my mental list of things I should get.
I have no idea where to find all of these random items, but I remember Laura saying that Max renovates houses and is a whizz at interior design.
Apparently, she’s done all of Cherie’s holiday cottages out at the Rockery.
I’m sure she’ll have some suggestions– maybe a local antique shop, or a market.
Before I left her flat a few nights ago, Cherie wrote down everybody’s names, phone numbers and addresses on a sheet of paper for me.
It was delightfully old-school and analogue, and I have the list pinned up on the cork board in the kitchen.
Today, I decide, I will venture out. I’ve spent the last forty-eight hours doing edits on my latest book, which is always an intense time.
I really do need to get into the real world again now, or I know from experience that I will be tempted to never leave the house again.
I could get my groceries delivered and exercise in my courtyard, and shun all of humanity for the rest of my life.
I’d be found here in a hundred years, covered in cobwebs, my dead, bony fingers still resting on my keyboard. The End.
I shudder at the image, because there is a grain of truth in it– I could easily turn into a hermit.
It’s yet another reason why I didn’t buy a bigger property, somewhere more secluded.
If I start going down that path I might never stop.
My work and my personality are isolating enough without encouraging it.
I pick up the landline, a garish shade of red, and dial Max’s number. She answers straight away, and sounds a bit breathless. ‘Are you okay?’ I ask. ‘And, uh, this is Sarah by the way. Sarah who you met at the café. I hope you don’t mind me calling.’
I suddenly feel like an idiot. Why am I bothering this person I hardly know when I could just use the internet to find things out?
Isn’t that what a modern woman does these days?
Or is part of me secretly yearning to reach out a little, to see what happens if I take maybe not a leap of faith, but a baby step of faith?
I saw what these women share, the easy way they communicate and support each other.
The way they’re all so different, but when they’re together, all seem the same.
I saw it, and perhaps here, in my fresh start place, I would like to see how that feels.
I have never been blessed with a wide social circle, and the woman I’ve been closest to has been my sister– and it’s fair to say our relationship isn’t always silky smooth.
‘Sarah! So nice to hear from you! And yes, I’m fine. I was just, um…’
She pauses, and I blush. I’m glad she can’t see me. I have the awful feeling that I maybe just interrupted her having sex.
‘Well, I know it’s hard to visualise,’ she continues, ‘but I’ve just been chased around a field by a pair of naughty donkeys! I thought they’d look cute with witch’s hats on, you know, with holes cut out for their ears? They disagreed. Violently.’
‘Oh! Right. Well, that’s good. I thought maybe you were… uh…’
‘Mid-bonk? Sadly not, Gabriel’s away looking at a house we’re thinking of buying in Somerset. First Dorset, now Somerset– next it’ll be Paris and Milan! How can I help you anyway?’
‘Well, I’ve finally finished unpacking, and I’ve decided I’m probably going to decorate, and maybe buy some… well, I suppose the polite term would be bric-a-brac.’
‘Oh, goodie!’ she exclaims, and I picture her clapping her hands.
‘Nothing says “home” quite like a bunch of carefully curated tat! You’ve come to the right woman.
In fact, I was thinking of heading out to an antiques fair down the coast today, if you want to join me? I could pick you up in an hour or so?’
I remember that Max and Gabriel live in an old farmhouse outside town, and wonder out loud if I could cycle there. It’s a gorgeous clear day and I’ve been cooped up inside for way too long. I haven’t used my bike once since I arrived.
‘Er, you could if you wanted to,’ Max replies, sounding frankly appalled at the idea. ‘But it is a few miles, and it is a bit windy, and it is a bit hilly… Are you sure?’
I tell her I am, and jot down her directions.
They’re very ‘countryside’– turn left at the cattle grid, take a left at the water trough, straight across at the scarecrow, that kind of thing, but it seems straightforward enough.
I’m on my way within thirty minutes, after a quick wash and brush up, feeling exhilarated as I fly down the country lanes.
The October air is cool against my cheeks, but the physical effort soon warms me up, and I’m decidedly pink by the time I finally arrive at the house.
Which, by the way, and sorry to be childish, is called Pumpwell Farm.
I can’t quite keep the smirk off my face as I see the sign, and Max rolls her eyes in understanding. ‘I know,’ she says. ‘I was the same. Right. Do you want to meet the donkeys? My dog, Gary, is away with Gabriel, or you’d be able to meet him too.’
I love the way she talks about the animals as though they are people who I absolutely need to be introduced to. I say yes to the donkeys, who I’m told are called Belle and Beast. Belle is horrendously ugly and screeches at me, waving her huge yellowing teeth in my face.
‘Ah, she likes you!’ Max says, and I have to give her a sideways look to check she’s not joking.
‘No, seriously– she hasn’t tried to bite you, that means she likes you.
She’s mellowed out a lot since we adopted Beast. She was a temperamental old moo when she was living alone.
Anyway. Are you ready for an adventure in the heady world of antiques? ’
‘An adventure? Will it be like an episode of Lovejoy? Will there be a roguishly handsome art dealer charming us over a pint of scrumpy?’
‘Well, that’s not happened to me so far, but who knows? I can see why you do the job you do, with an imagination like that. Every day must be a bit of an adventure in your head!’
I leave the bike by the front door of the farmhouse, as Max assures me there will be no passing bicycle thieves on the prowl, and we climb into her car.
‘Not really,’ I reply, doing up my seat belt. I’m uncharacteristically excited about this trip, though– I really need to get out more. ‘My life is very dull.’
‘Ah, but surely your internal life is rich? I bet you tell yourself stories all the time!’
‘I do,’ I concede, as she drives us through picturesque lanes dripping with evergreen hedgerows and swirling autumn leaves, ‘but they’re not always nice stories. It’s not all rainbows and unicorns and roguishly handsome art dealers. I’m more of a “worst case scenario” kind of girl.’
‘I get that,’ she says, tucking a strand of her long dark hair behind her ear. ‘And life often has a way of proving you right, doesn’t it? When I moved here, I was a mess. My husband had had an affair, and when he left me for the other woman, he took all my self-confidence with him.’
‘I’m so sorry Max. I’ve… I’ve been there, too. It really hurts. And it definitely doesn’t boost your belief in happy endings.’
‘Look up!’ she says suddenly, pointing ahead of us. ‘It’s a sparrowhawk! They’re so pretty… but some little creature down here is about to have a terrible day…’
I watch the bird hovering on the wind currents, and I smile at its effortless grace. There are more wild creatures than you’d think in London, but seeing them here is somehow even more natural. In London, a sparrowhawk might be diving for a discarded sausage roll.
‘Anyway,’ she continues, ‘I get that, too. I never expected to find a happy ending. Maybe I thought I didn’t even deserve one, that I must be a crap wife and a crap mum and a crap human, or why else would he have done that to me?’
‘I’m not sure, but possibly because he was a bit of a twat?’
‘Indeed, eloquently put– I can see you’re a wordsmith!
He was a bit of a twat, but we’re okay now.
Much easier to be laid back about it all now I have Gabriel and I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life.
I genuinely didn’t think it was even possible to be this happy, not without some class-A party drugs in your system.
When I’m with him, I feel like I’m on ecstasy all the time! ’