Chapter 26
Two years ago
Pops of colour littered the barn as Granny’s favourite songs filled her wake.
She had all of this planned out – down to the little cocktail sausages and mini scotch eggs that she’d never be able to have a buffet without.
She had planned it long before she got sick; I suppose it was her way of having a bit of control over the inevitable.
But really, I think she planned it all so Grandad wouldn’t have to.
He’d hardly slept for weeks, so not having the pressure of making these difficult decisions had been a godsend.
Plus, I reckon she wouldn’t have trusted anyone else.
No one would have filled this place with as much joy as she could, and though everyone was yearning to be sad, and to mourn, her playlist ensured that everyone must stay on the dancefloor.
Jacob and I danced together, swaying to the songs Granny used to hum around the farm without knowing the lyrics.
I let him hold me, the heat of his touch kept me upright, kept the tears at bay for another moment.
His own eyes were still bloodshot from the church.
He loved my Granny as much as his own, and I know she loved him too.
‘Your dress really did come out perfect,’ Jacob said lowly as I spun around and my skirt fanned out against him.
‘Where did you get the tie from?’ I hooked the silky material in my finger and felt the length of it. Jacob smiled.
‘My dad has about six blue ties, but none of them were the right colour. I had to get Will to drive me over to Lizzie’s place so I could steal one off of my uncle.
It’s not exactly the same, but it was as close as I could get.
’ The sight of that little blue strip of fabric had kept my head above water all day.
Even as we danced, I couldn’t be too sad so long as it was in my eyeline.
‘It’s perfect.’ We fell back into the rhythm of the song and danced until our feet hurt and we had to retreat to the chairs for a rest. Callum, Lizzie and the other Thorogood brothers weaved in and out, sometimes keeping us silent company, other times reminiscing about Granny – her biscuits, the way she muttered when we dragged mud around the house, or our favourites among her creations.
When all of the guests had retired, and the buffet was tidied away, Jacob and I lingered for a little while longer, savouring the last moments until our goodbyes were done, clinging onto this day as though after this, we had to accept that she was really gone.
All of the Thorogoods walked back with us to Grandad’s house, with cards, flowers and food tucked under their arms, proving yet again that they really are more like family than just neighbours.
When Dave had washed all of the dishes left from the night before, and Sian had run around with the hoover, they said their goodbyes and the six of them crossed the farm again to head home.
With Mum exhausted, and Callum in no mood to be sociable, Grandad and I sat alone together at the kitchen table.
Not a word passed between us, but it was clear we both needed the company.
‘There’s a box in the top of the wardrobe,’ Grandad finally spoke after a while. ‘I’m not sure exactly what’s in there – I haven’t been able to bring myself to look – but I thought maybe you would.’ He kept his eyes fixed on the wood grain of the table, tracing the swirls with his finger.
‘Thank you.’ My voice was almost a whisper and he nodded.
‘I wish it was me, that went first.’ He shook his head. ‘Your granny would’ve been able to cope better on her own. It was always her that knew what to do. For fifty-five years she kept me going, and now I don’t know how to live without her.’
Tears fell freely down my face as his voice cracked.
What could I say? There are no words in the English language that can comfort a man who has just lost his whole world.
For half a century, he’d spent every day with the woman he loves.
After that long, they were no longer two individuals, but two halves of one whole.
Grandad hadn’t just lost his wife; he had lost himself too.
How are you meant to start over again in your seventies?
Knowing there was nothing I could say, I embraced him instead.
Grandad has never been the hugging type, but he didn’t protest as I held him against Granny’s dress and let him soak it with his tears.
We stayed like this for a while, until he had no tears left to cry, and he excused himself to bed for an early night.
When I followed behind a few minutes later, I found the box outside his door.
It was an old Clarks shoe box taped on the corners and overflowing.
Unable to leave it undisturbed, I tiptoed across the landing to pick it up.
I couldn’t take it to my room; there was only one place that felt right to open it in.
I scurried across the garden in the dark of the night to climb the treehouse.
As soon as I slid the batteries into the camping lantern and bathed the treehouse in light, Jacob appeared like a moth at the window.
‘Were you sitting up waiting for me?’ I asked. He was still in his suit, tie loosened and shirt untucked.
‘I knew you’d not be able to sleep and end up out here eventually. You’re earlier than I predicted, though.’
‘Creep.’ I shook my head and tried to hide my smile in the shadowy edge of the treehouse.
‘What you got there?’ Unbothered by my comment, he gestured to the box and shuffled into his normal position beside me.
Instead of telling him, I opened the lid. Out of it spilled piles of letters stacked together with photographs. Jacob scooped a few of them up and sifted through them with the same look of intrigue that I felt.
‘Look at this!’ He turned a sepia photo towards me. It was of Granny and another woman when they were young. Grandad stood off to the side, his arms folded, looking suitably grumpy.
‘That must be his sister.’ I chuckled. ‘The photo must have been taken before he’d confessed to his feelings, back when they hated each other.’
‘They hated each other?’ Jacob asked as though he couldn’t ever imagine that being true.
‘Apparently. According to Granny.’ I shrugged and picked out my own photo of the two of them kissing on their wedding day, Granny almost completely obscured under her layers and layers of lace. ‘Although, looking at this, it’s clear that didn’t last long.’
There were love letters that dated right back to the sixties, filled with my Grandad’s scrawled handwriting, kept perfectly neat, without so much as a wrinkle or a tear. These were her prized possessions, that much was clear.
‘Imagine being loved this much,’ I commented, tears of joy clouding my vision for a moment as I went back and forth between letters, photographs, old cinema tickets, and scraps of fabric that will have meant more to Granny than they look here.
‘They really have lived a perfect life.’ Jacob’s voice was soft, as though he was somewhere far away and this was all a dream.
After laughs and tears, I took a break from Granny’s memories for a while to watch the stars from the window. They scattered across the night sky in their silvery clusters. Though there are millions, each one was just as sublime as the last.
‘It’s getting late,’ I remarked absently, noticing the chill of midnight seeping through the gaps in the treehouse. ‘I should head back. Try to get some sleep.’
Jacob looked up from the box of photos. The one in his hand, one of Granny and Grandad’s wedding day where her skirts jutted out so wide that grandad’s short arms had to stretch out just to hold her hand, made him smile as he showed it to me.
‘Just five more minutes?’ he asked, his eyes pleading.
‘It’s cold.’ Though I shivered, I didn’t want to leave, but the longer I stayed, the harder it would be.
‘Come here.’ He opened his arms for me to crawl into. He pulled his suit jacket off and wrapped it round my shoulders as I came closer, then pulled me into him. He was warmblooded to the core, and even in the harshest of cold snaps, he always seemed to throb with heat.
I couldn’t refuse. I tucked myself beside him as he pressed his body to mine.
The cold was long forgotten as soon as his body pressed to mine and I flushed with warmth.
My heart thronged with an erratic beat in my chest. As he looked down on me, his dark eyes looked almost black in the low light of the camping lantern.
‘Thank you, Jacob.’
‘What for?’ He scanned my face as though I was his night sky, and every last bit of me had to be savoured as there was no one part more worthy of his attention.
‘For today,’ I said simply. ‘For every day. I think you’re more of me than I am. Having you by my side makes me feel whole.’
That smile. The one filled with crooked teeth, and blushed lips.
The one he reserved only for me. That smile put the very moon to shame as he beamed at me.
When he slid a hand across my cheek and it settled in my hair, our shaking breaths aligned, until we trembled against one another.
The other hand found its way to my waist, his usually warm touch sending shivers around my body until I pulsated beneath him.
When he pressed his lips to mine, I was home. They were the only part of his body that felt cool, but their touch set me alight from the inside.
His mouth, his touch, the fire throbbing through me made me realise that until this moment, I had never been complete. I had never known what it is to be whole, until Jacob Thorogood had kissed me.