Chapter 4
FOUR
After June leaves I sit at my little kitchen table with a glass of wine, browsing travel sites. Even though I am definitely, one hundred percent not going to do it, it will pass some time to look.
Predictably, I get sucked into the black hole of the internet, caught up in the logistics. I’m a details person – it’s one of the reasons I like my job. I love the challenge of making all the small parts fit so the big part can happen. I love making lists, and planning a fantasy trip is diverting.
I base my research on perfectly logical reasons – movie and TV locations. I discover that Bridget Jones’s family home was in a place called the Cotswolds, and that in The Holiday , Cameron Diaz relocated to the county of Surrey. Bridgerton was filmed in Bath, and London has Notting Hill and Love, Actually . Two of my favourites.
I give myself a good talking to at that point: I am not going to move to England and fall in love with Hugh Grant. He’s, like, in his sixties and married, apart from anything else. I start to look at some places in Ireland instead, but soon realise that I barely know enough about Nanna Nora’s background to choose somewhere accurately – all I know is she was born in the Cork area, so I check out places there.
As I sit there, finishing off the warmed-up soup, I realise something amazing. Since I sat down to do this, I haven’t thought about Ted or my floundering career at all – not even once.
I’ve been so lost in the land of shires and villages that my whole mind has been laser-focused, no room left for sadness or grief. Maybe , I think, June has a point .
I scoot onto some rental sites, looking for somewhere cosy and pretty and safe. Somewhere I can be me, but a better version of me. Somewhere I can recreate myself, and not play the role of the girl-who-was-dumped.
I desperately need to not be her anymore, or I’m going to end up alone and surrounded by cats, watching my damn wedding video through my cataracts when I’m ninety. I’ll be New York’s answer to the doomed bride Miss Havisham from Great Expectations , covered in cobwebs while Ted ages gracefully and goes on a world cruise with his grandchildren.
My life in its current shape isn’t working anymore; I have to accept that. And no matter how frightening I might find the thought of travelling alone, it could be a way to change that shape – to make a whole new one.
Plus, if I go, I will be tragically unavailable to spend Christmas with Suzie and my mom. I could avoid their questions about whether I’ve ‘met anyone nice’, their hints about dating apps, and their advice that I need to be less fussy at my age.
This all might be coming from a place of love, but if I keep seeing myself through their filter, as desperate and potentially unlovable, then I’m just one step closer to morphing into Miss Havisham.
I scroll through endless pages of perfect cottages that are already booked, or available homes that come with a tennis court. I have about a million different screens open, hopping from one website to another, knowing I should be making notes but wanting to go with the flow. Cork, it seems, is a pretty popular place – the whole world must want to go there for Christmas.
I’m beginning to despair when I finally see it – and it is so perfect I drop my spoon in my soup. The cutest little cottage my eyes have ever seen has appeared on my screen.
The cottage is built from golden stone that looks like liquid sunlight, topped by a quaint thatched roof. The pictures were obviously taken in summer, and glorious boughs of wisteria drape the front door in a cloud of lilac. The small yard is a riot of colour – roses, hyacinths, a swathe of perfect pink peonies. I picture myself sitting out there with a coffee or a glass of wine, reading a book or maybe writing in a journal. Okay, so it’s winter, and it won’t look the same – but the image takes root.
There aren’t many pictures of the inside, but the ones that are look gorgeous – all kitsch charm and low ceilings with beams, the kind of place you’d imagine Beatrix Potter sketching her rabbits and ducks.
It’s in the ‘Wiltshire Cotswolds’, and even saying those words out loud feels good. I hardly know anything about them, but even the words seem to taste of scones and clotted cream and fresh summer strawberries.
The village itself, I read, is called Campton St George, and is part of the historic Bancroft Estate. Bancroft Manor was apparently in the Domesday Book, which google tells me was a property survey compiled in the 11 th century – so, not just old, but really, really super-old. Even the name is perfect – Whimsy Cottage. It’s like it was designed for a slightly tipsy, emotionally distraught American woman looking for a life make-over.
As I finish my super-fast history lesson, though, I learn something else – something pretty basic. The Domesday Book was a survey of England , not Ireland. I do a double take, and scoot back to the rental website. I check and check again, and then utter a muttered ‘darn it’.
Whimsy Cottage is perfect – but it’s also not even in Ireland, never mind County Cork. I probably should have realised, and feel the tug of doubt as I tell myself how stupid I am. But then I pause, stop mentally beating myself up – not many people are intimately familiar with the geography of rural England. I’ve made a mistake, and I’m allowed to make mistakes without throwing myself into a pit of self-loathing.
Whimsy Cottage is still smiling up at me, telling me that everything will be okay. Something about that place just calls to me, wherever it is. And maybe it being in England isn’t a deal breaker anyway – after all, Nanna Nora didn’t seem to ever feel homesick for Ireland. And I did always love those Jane Austen movies with the manor houses and the fancy dresses… maybe England would be fine. Maybe I should trust my gut.
I’m still not totally sure, and I haven’t trusted my gut much in recent years, so I decide to consult the wisest woman in the world – Nanna Nora herself. In the run-up to her 100 th , we’d filmed little interviews with her to screen at the party. The party never happened, but the clips are now even more precious.
We’d covered predictable subjects like the secret to long life, a happy marriage, that kind of thing – but the one I’m looking for is when I asked if she was scared when she moved to the States on her own as a young woman.
I see her on the screen, sitting in her recliner armchair, silver grey curls framing her amused face.
‘Of course I was!’ she says. ‘I was terrified! But all the good things in life are terrifying, Cassie, and sometimes you have to just jump right in. Sometimes you have to take your deep breaths, and make a leap of faith. You can’t live your whole life being scared, now, can you? That’s not living at all.’
‘But didn’t you miss your home in Ireland? And your family?’
‘I made my own family, and my own home, darlin’. You can make those wherever you are – the geography doesn’t matter. It’s what’s inside that counts.’
I reach out and touch the image, blink away tears, and feel like she’s there with me. Telling me to take that leap of faith. Telling me to trust my gut. Whimsy Cottage it is.
Now my mind is made up, I feel super excited. I can’t believe this perfect cottage isn’t booked – that it’s available for a whole month. Maybe there’s been a last-minute cancellation. Whatever it is, it feels like it’s meant to be – and I only have the slightest hesitation as I click on ‘Reserve Now’.
I say a quick prayer of thanks to Nanna Nora as I fill in my credit card details, and wonder if she actually is up there watching – telling me to go for it, or calling me a fecking eejit , who knows? I don’t think she’d mind me decamping to England; she never spoke much about the country of her birth, despite talking like she’d swallowed the Blarney Stone. She always said her life really began when she moved to the States in the 1950s, and got a job in a hat shop. Soon after, she met my long-gone grandfather O’Hara, and the rest was family history.
If she is watching, then she’s probably having a good giggle as I sit and stare at the confirmation on my screen. She’ll have tears of laughter rolling down her cheeks at the shocked look on my face.
I’ve done it. I’ve really done it. I’m going to England for Christmas, all by myself.
I grab my coat, slip on my sneakers, and head out for my evening walk around the neighbourhood. I do it every night, in an attempt to help me sleep.
As I stroll the city streets, soaking in its familiar sights and sounds and saying goodbye to them, I decide to video call June and tell her what I’ve done.
She sings the Rocky theme tune and punches the air, before going very still. She bursts into tears, and says: ‘I’m so happy for you – but I’ve just realised this means I won’t see you for a whole month! That’s the longest we’ve been apart since we were five!’