CHAPTER 38
Joanna
Dorset
Joanna folded her black cashmere sweater and added it to the clothes on the bed.
It would be cold in Prague. She glanced out of the bedroom window at the cool grey November sky and down at Harriet, who was wandering across the farmyard with a trug of vegetables in her arms. She had a very strange expression on her face – Joanna would have called it dreamy if it had been anyone but Harriet.
So, what had happened last night? she wondered.
It was cold here too. The wood-burning stove kept the cottage cosy, but draughts still seemed to seep through the splintered old sash windows and sneak in under warped wooden doors.
So much for character . . . How much longer could the place last without a major overhaul and money?
Or should Mother and Harriet consider selling up and downsizing?
Joanna watched her sister continuing to waft across the farmyard and chuckled to herself. Harriet had got in very late last night, which was certainly out of character, and she had been very cheerful over breakfast, which was even more so.
‘Are you quite all right, dear?’ Mother had asked her older daughter when Harriet enquired as to whether anyone would like more toast.
And, ‘Yes, thank you, Mother,’ Harriet had sweetly replied, which was more unlike her than ever.
‘So, where’s the pick-up truck?’ Joanna had asked her sister, having observed that something was missing from the farmyard.
‘Ah.’ Harriet smiled. ‘I had a drink or two so I had to leave it in the car park in Bridport.’
Joanna raised an eyebrow. Curiouser and curiouser.
Harriet got to her feet. ‘I’ll nip over now and ask Owen if he can give me a lift in to get it,’ she said.
Joanna and her mother watched her go.
‘She’s still got her slippers on,’ Mother said after a couple of minutes had passed.
Joanna chuckled. It was too late to go after her. It must have been some hot date. And she might have told Joanna about it too if she hadn’t still been annoyed about the builder and the conservatories and the fact that Joanna had foolishly introduced their mother to the world online.
Joanna unzipped her orange suitcase. She was getting rather adept at packing light – and living light, come to that.
Since coming to Dorset, she had bought a few clothes, but mostly found it surprisingly liberating that her Crouch End wardrobe had shrunk so drastically.
And when she went away, all she needed was one small case that she could lift easily and a foldaway bag that converted into a rucksack for her laptop, books, papers and maps.
Martin had sent her a cool message this morning that was short and to the point.
The house is on the market.
Fine, she had texted back to him.
In many ways it would be a relief to live in her own place again.
She was enjoying this time at home and she was getting on better with her sister certainly, but Harriet’s moods were still unreliable.
Just as Joanna climbed another ladder and imagined she was getting close, she did something foolish like teaching Mother to use the Internet, which annoyed Harriet and sent Joanna slithering down the big snake and back to square one.
She took some clean jeans from the drawer.
Her heart was leaning towards coming back to live in the West Country.
She’d enjoyed London while she was living there, but now it felt like part of her past, not part of her future.
And she was free. She could write the column from anywhere; write all her stuff from anywhere.
Joanna placed Emmy’s letter from Prague carefully into the case.
Although she had broached the subject of Emmy’s letters with Harriet and their mother, she still hadn’t told anyone about her distinct sense of following in Emmy’s footsteps.
Doubtless, they’d think it was bonkers. Neither had she told anyone about her new correspondent, Nicholas Tresillion.
Joanna sat down on the bed for a moment to reread his latest email, still open on her laptop.
Dear Joanna, he had written.
I know what you mean about ‘distance’ and ‘growing apart’. As for me, I’m afraid to say that I hardly noticed our growing apart – I must have been living life encased in some sort of fantasy bubble. Until it burst, that is.
Joanna was thoughtful. She could hear the sadness behind his words. Fantasy bubble . . . He was putting on a brave face, but he must have been devastated if he’d truly had no idea.
So, what did you decide about your marriage in Venice, may I ask?
She was surprised he hadn’t guessed.
I didn’t make any decisions, I’m afraid – the decision was thrust upon me. Other than that, yes, perhaps we are leading parallel lives!
‘Perhaps we are, though,’ she murmured. Anything seemed possible.
What about your family, Joanna?
She smiled. How long did he have?
You and I have entered quite an intense correspondence!
(I always wanted a pen pal, by the way).
And without the small talk beforehand where we usually find out the details of other people’s lives.
That golden ribbon has a lot to answer for .
. . We’ve bypassed the surface stuff. Not that I’m complaining – I never was one for surface stuff.
‘Me neither,’ she murmured.
Do we both have failed marriages behind us? I suspect so.
Ah, so he had realised.
I have a daughter, Celie, whose presence reminds me of the good that came out of it. And I just heard that I’m going to be a grandfather – at forty-three.
Heavens, he must have married young, and his daughter couldn’t be much more than a teenager either, thought Joanna.
And to end on another positive note, don’t you think that although it can turn out to be frail and fallible, love is also a wonderful thing?
Did she? That was a good question.
I’m looking forward to hearing about Lisbon. I’m going there myself soon, would you believe?
Joanna narrowed her eyes at this. Another coincidence? It seemed so.
So, if it’s OK by you, I’ll look out for that bridge walk of yours while I’m there . . .
He was going to Lisbon. She shivered – and not because of the draught from the window this time. He’d made it sound plausible enough and it was obvious that he travelled around Europe a fair bit. Even so . . .
She added a pair of soft travel slippers to the case – she liked to be comfortable when she was writing, and she had visions of herself padding round the hotel room drinking something hot, spicy and alcoholic, whilst thinking creative thoughts.
Why shouldn’t Nicholas Tresillion go to Lisbon?
Plenty of people went there all the time.
That was why Toby had been so keen on her covering it in the first place.
She chose another sweater from the small selection she’d brought with her from Crouch End – a cream cowl neck this time, to go with her chocolate-brown jeans.
She’d be in Prague for several days, which should give her plenty of time to sort out the walk and see some more of the city too.
Architecturally, it was supposed to be interesting (though she was aware it had also become a venue for hen and stag weekends) so she might as well take full advantage of the trip.
Nicholas Tresillion certainly didn’t come across as a pest. Just a nice sort of man.
He seemed genuine, intelligent, sensitive.
Although all this was surely too good to be true .
. . He’d been through some similar experiences to herself – though he wasn’t the only one.
And that wasn’t all. She smoothed the cowl neck with the palm of her hand, thought once again of what they had both seen in Venice. But what could you tell from an email?
Socks. She stuffed them into the heels of her shoes.
Only one pair of boots – the comfortable ones – and she’d be wearing those to the airport.
She squeezed her underthings into the corners of the case.
Nicholas Tresillion’s emails had made her think.
He had already mentioned what he’d lost – his role in his family, a big part of himself.
And he had said that he had rediscovered who he was, after living in that fantasy bubble.
Joanna too was experiencing a sense of rediscovery. She looked down at the case on the bed. She was rediscovering her freedom, how much satisfaction she could get from being in control of her own life.
What would Nicholas Tresillion see in Lisbon?
Joanna wanted to find out. She opened her laptop.
Dear Nicholas, she wrote.
It’s funny you should say that about love. When I was in Lisbon I was thinking about it a lot . . .
She finished the email and pressed ‘send’. She would know soon enough.
There wasn’t much space left in her case.
She had found a hotel online that was – amazingly – on the pier of the Charles Bridge itself, and she’d asked for a room with a view.
She didn’t want a long trek into the city centre before she even started researching and planning the walk.
She wanted to be there, in the heart of it all, soaking up the mediaeval atmosphere.
And she was fizzing with the anticipation of seeing Emmy’s third bridge.
Joanna zipped up the case, straightened, and looked across at the painting of Accademia on her bedroom wall.
From Venice with love, she thought. Where was Emmy’s painting of the Charles Bridge?
How she would love to know. Damn it. She sat on the bed, suddenly swamped with frustration.
How she would love to know so many things about this ancestor of hers who was proving so elusive.
Joanna simply didn’t have enough information to go on.
And if she couldn’t find out who Emmy was, then how could Joanna find out why she had become so important to her?