Chapter 4
4
I knew that Mum’s wardrobe was in pristine order because I’d opened it once before to find her one dress to pass to the funeral directors. The only clothes that remained hanging up in here were five perfectly ironed work T-shirts, two pairs of black trousers, two navy, three grey T-shirts and a shapeless grey trouser suit. Her jumpers, cardigans and other clothes would be in the chest of drawers. In the bottom of the wardrobe were an empty handbag, a blanket and a pillow still in its packaging. On a high shelf were a pair of brown sandals and black brogues. I fetched the chair from the corner of the room and stood on it so I could find what else was up there. A hairdryer, small suitcase and a bright-green hat that I’d never seen before. Then, behind that, I found a cardboard storage box, about the size of a shoebox but much sturdier.
I slid it off the shelf and placed it on the bed, which I’d made up with Mum’s clean bedding at some point, for no reason other than I didn’t know what else to do with her sheet and duvet cover.
Setting the lid to one side, inside I found a large spiral shell. Next to this rested a dried posy. The flowers appeared to be on the brink of crumbling as I rested them carefully on the lid, but looked like a mixture of forget-me-nots, daisies and one tiny sunflower. Beneath this was a tidy stack of envelopes, tied with a blue ribbon. When I removed those, I found a photograph in a plain wooden frame.
It was Mum.
With a man.
I’d have guessed their ages at late thirties, maybe early forties. They were standing outside an Italian restaurant. Mum was laughing, which was surprising enough, gazing into the man’s eyes, but what shocked me to the core was the wedding dress.
Who knew how long I sat there, staring at the photo, comparing the bouquet in the picture with the flowers I’d carefully lifted out of the box? I turned on the bedside light, in case the extra illumination would prove that, no, this wasn’t my man-scorning mother. Maybe it was my birth mum, or my auntie. It couldn’t be my grandmother (biological great-auntie) as the dress was pure 1980s floof.
But there was an unmistakable brown birthmark on her forearm.
I briefly wondered whether this was a costume. But the look on both their faces was as genuine as it got. Besides, Mum would never have kept a posy from a fancy-dress party, decades ago.
That brought me back to the envelopes. The first one was handwritten to Nell Brown, with no address.
The obvious way to learn more would be to open the envelope. But my mother had been so private when it came to her past. I’d assumed this was down to both her lack of sentimentality and her deep disdain for her family. It had never crossed my mind that she could have been hiding a whole other life.
A sudden thought hit me. Had she lied about everything? About me? If Mum had been married, then maybe this mysterious, conveniently deceased cousin was a lie, too. Could Mum be my biological mother? Was this man, her husband, my father?
Although Mum hadn’t actually lied about this. I couldn’t recall her telling me that she’d never married, never been in love. I’d concluded that for myself. And I’d seen my birth certificate enough times. The named mother was Kennedy Swan, the father unknown.
So, if this had nothing to do with me, did I have the right to pry into it? These were personal letters. Love letters, potentially. After the events of the day, my brain was in no fit state to decide something like that. I pictured what she’d have to say about it, and let her decide for me. Returning the contents of the box, I put it back on the shelf and went to bed.
After a brief battle with the urge to bury my head under the duvet and pretend pasties had never been invented, I got up only a few minutes late on Monday. Blaming my grouchy mood on the hours I’d spent churning over the revelations inside Mum’s box instead of sleeping, I did my best to plough on as usual.
Gregory firmly plonked a large envelope on the counter when he came for his breakfast. ‘I’m presuming there’s something wrong with your emails, because I can’t think of any other reason why you’ve still not signed the lease. Here’s a paper copy. Read it when you have your soup and call me if you’ve any questions.’
‘Mum may have known this inside out, but I’m in charge now. A responsible business owner would take the time to study it properly,’ I said.
‘If you’ve not had time to read a twenty-page document in two months, then you need to seriously question your life choices,’ Gregory said, laughing at his own joke. ‘A responsible business owner would make the time and get it done.’
Blessing came over to the kiosk before her shift started at two o’clock, leaning up against the hatch to take a good look at me once I’d filled her travel mug with coffee and handed her a pasty.
‘Mascara and dusky-rose lipstick. Subtle, yet effective. I bet no one’s said you look crap today.’
I swapped my Parsley’s Pasties smile for a real one.
‘Thanks for coming over last night.’
‘Getting to nosey about the mysterious Brown house while showing off my make-up prowess? The pleasure was all mine. Although, next time we hang out, we’re going shopping. That blue T-shirt made your skin tone appear way more porridge than Arctic hare, and I have a feeling the rest of your wardrobe isn’t much better.’
‘It’s no better,’ I started to reply, before Blessing, who had turned to check the time on the airport display board as she picked up her purchases, gasped.
‘Hello!’ She whipped her head back, eyes wide with glee. ‘What a perfect day for your secret lover to appear.’
‘What?’ I instinctively craned my neck to scan the trickle of travellers wandering about the concourse, embarrassed anticipation flooding my pale cheeks.
I didn’t have to ask who I was looking for. Blessing had been teasing me about Pip Hawkins since she’d caught us chatting back in September. Not that she knew we were on first-name terms. I’d been doing my utmost (and, it would seem, failing miserably) to pretend her comments about my crush were a puerile joke.
I had one real friend. No family. The only other men in my life were Stefan at the wholesalers, Dev the butcher and Gregory.
Of course I had a crush on the lovely, slightly awkward agricultural student who stopped to chat to me at the start and end of every term. (He’d assured me he was a mature student. I wasn’t blushing about a teenager.) I thought about Pip far more often than was reasonable. To see him now, a week before his university broke up for the summer (yes, I’d checked the dates), on a day when there weren’t even any flights to the Isle of Siskin, the tiny island in the Irish Sea that he called home and everyone else who lived there called simply ‘the island’, had my insides flapping like a flustered chicken.
He wore his usual outfit of heavy lumberjack shirt and dark T-shirt, hands pushed into cargo-trouser pockets, but there was no sign of the tatty rucksack he always took as a carry-on.
‘His hair is incredible.’ Blessing sighed. ‘Do you think he’d let me stroke it if I asked nicely?’
Pip had, in my unqualified opinion, perfect hair. Thick and glossy, so dark it shone indigo, it curled over his brow in a way that made your hand itch to smooth it out of his Celtic-blue eyes. He was a couple of inches above medium height in heavy boots, with the lean, robust frame of a man who’d spent his whole life working outdoors.
But none of those things were the reason I’d fallen hopelessly in crush with him. ‘Nothing is more beautiful than kind,’ Mum used to tell me, and it turned out she was right.
A few weeks after Mum died, I was still reeling, alongside getting to grips with the business and living with the vast, aching hole where she used to be. On a particularly bad day, starting with a flat tyre and including someone demanding a refund because they’d discovered they didn’t like mushy peas, splashing scalding-hot coffee down myself and running out of soft drinks because I’d forgotten to stocktake, I was now facing a customer threatening to sue me for causing his brand-new wife’s itchy, swollen face.
‘Look at her!’ he demanded, grabbing her arm and pulling her closer to the hatch.
Two flights had recently landed, with another one due to take off in an hour, and the kiosk was about as busy as it got.
‘You can’t deny she looks hideous!’
My frazzled mind was scrabbling like a hamster on a wheel, unable to reach an appropriate reply.
‘It does seem quite uncomfortable.’
What she looked was upset. Whether more about the splotches, or her husband’s response, I couldn’t tell. ‘But I’m not sure what that has to do with me.’
‘She’s allergic to cinnamon,’ he spluttered. ‘I spent thousands on this honeymoon, and you’ve ruined it.’
‘She had an apple pasty?’
‘Well, duh! Have you got another explanation for why she’s puffed up like a bullfrog?’
‘How absolutely awful.’ I turned to speak to his wife, feeling terrible about the tears trickling down her ballooning cheeks. ‘I’m genuinely so sorry this has happened, but the menu clearly says cinnamon apple custard.’
‘I didn’t read the menu, though, did I?’ the man yelled. The queue behind him had divided into those taking a nervous couple of steps back, and the people irate enough about the hold-up to press forwards. ‘I asked you if the pasty was custard, and you said yes.’
‘Look, mate, we’ve got flights to catch,’ a large man waiting to be served interrupted. ‘If you’ve got a complaint, write an email.’
‘And, what, I’m just hanging around at the airport for a laugh? We all have flights to catch. Are you going on honeymoon to a five-star hotel in Santorini, chauffeur-driven private tour included? No? Didn’t think so.’
‘Even more reason for you to send an email later – the Santorini flight is boarding.’
‘Um, we don’t have a flight to catch?’ a tanned young woman said, although she didn’t sound too sure about it. ‘We just landed.’
‘Yeah, but our train leaves in fifteen, so we still need to get our coffee, if you don’t mind,’ her friend chipped in.
‘If I don’t mind?’ The man’s face had turned almost as red as his wife’s. ‘Would you mind? Going on a holiday of a lifetime with a face like that? What about the photos? She’s going to scare our future children, if we ever dare show them.’
‘Dude, your flight is boarding,’ the large man repeated. ‘Get out the way, yeah?’
‘If I miss my flight, I’m adding it to the lawsuit.’ The man pointed at me. ‘Two and a half grand.’
‘Love, if I were you, I’d leave him to argue and get on the plane without him,’ someone said to his wife, patting her arm in sympathy.
‘What are you going to do about poisoning my wife?’
‘She’s not going to do anything. It says cinnamon in the menu. If your wife has an allergy, it’s up to you to check,’ someone called from the back of the queue.
‘Yeah, but the law says you have to display all potential allergens,’ another person added as the line rapidly descended into chaos.
‘It is displayed!’
‘Look at her, though – poor lass just got married.’
And so it went on.
In my panic, all I could think was how much I needed Mum, and how she’d have sent this man packing and restored order before I had time to pour his wife a free coffee.
Then, out of nowhere, an angel in a lumberjack shirt waded through the jostling crowd and interjected himself between the kiosk hatch and the angry man.
‘Stop,’ he said, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘Look at your wife. She’s in pain and upset and instead of offering comfort, you’re humiliating her. You need to apologise for your horrible mistake, then make it up to her with the holiday of a lifetime.’
The man gaped for a couple of seconds, until the large bloke spun him around. ‘Look at her, mate. This isn’t helping.’
‘I did ask you to check the menu,’ the poor wife whispered, as though she wanted to shrivel into a crack in the floor.
‘Come on, I’m getting the same flight as you,’ a regular customer called Joanie said, linking her arm through the wife’s. ‘We can still make it if we’re quick.’
‘If they let her on. She looks like she’s got leprosy,’ someone muttered from what used to be the queue.
‘Ignore them.’ Joanie started hurrying towards Gate One, dragging the wife with her. ‘I’ve got antihistamines in my bag. We’ll soon have you sorted.’
‘Can we get our pasties now?’ Barb called.
The husband had been twisting his head between me, the agitated crowd and his wife, until someone made up his mind for him with a firm nudge towards Gate One.
‘I’ve got two minutes until my break is over,’ Barb trilled. ‘Pop my usual in a takeout bag, would you, Emmie?’
‘Hang on, I was next!’ Someone attempted to shove her out of the way, and for a dreadful moment, it looked as though a brawl might break out after all.
‘Right, the fastest way to deal with this is for you all to get back into a queue, wait your turn and speak one at a time. If you’re in a hurry, try the shop instead.’ As soon as he’d said this, the man who had come to my rescue slipped around to the kiosk door and opened it.
‘My sister’s café has a machine like this, so I can serve coffee and put pasties in a bag, if you do everything else.’
‘Yes please,’ I said, still shell-shocked.
Fifteen minutes later, we handed the last person their order and I leant forwards, hands braced on the counter, head hanging low.
‘Here.’ I was still trying to gather myself back together when the man held out a hot chocolate, covered in a thick layer of cream and sprinkles.
I straightened up and took it from him with a weary smile.
‘I’d offer you a pasty but there’s only apple and custard left, and, well… I thought that might be too close to the bone.’
He had a strong island accent, the gentle mishmash of Irish and Welsh with the blunt vowels of Northern England that we heard often in Sherwood Airport, as it was the only place that flew to Siskin.
‘It’s listed in the menu as “cinnamon apple and custard”.’ I sighed, pressing an arm against my clammy forehead.
‘Don’t let it bother you. That man was what we islanders call a nerk.’
‘What’s one of them?’
He smiled. ‘Look it up in a Siskin dictionary and you’ll find a picture of him.’
‘Thank you so much. You literally prevented a riot. And please don’t let me keep you. You must have somewhere to be.’
‘Nowhere that can’t wait.’ He gave a self-conscious shrug, sipping from his own cup. ‘Are the customers often this difficult?’
‘People can get pretty stressed out when travelling. Normally, Parsley’s helps them calm down, instead of making it worse. I’ve been working here since I was thirteen so I’ve handled plenty of snarky customers. It’s just… been a bad day. A bad month. I’m not as resilient as usual.’
He hesitated for a moment before replying. ‘When I’ve been here before, there’s been another person… your ma?’
I nodded, the near-constant lump in my throat starting to throb. ‘She died.’
‘Hence the bad month.’ His face creased in sympathy.
‘And my reduced capacity to cope with bullies.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
I nodded, unable to say any more. We finished our drinks, I served a few more customers and then it was time to shut up shop.
‘Thank you. You really didn’t have to stay.’
He smiled. ‘I enjoyed it.’
‘Are you here on holiday or business?’ I asked as I wiped down the counter.
‘I’m starting a part-time master’s degree in Smart Agriculture.’ He ducked his head a little, eyes flashing up at mine then back down as he bent to sweep up a few stray pastry crumbs. ‘Meaning I’ll be back and forth every few weeks for the next two years.’
‘Oh!’ I suddenly remembered the pasty that I’d set aside for him earlier. ‘Here. On the house, of course. And any time you’re here between six and three, there’ll be a free pasty with your name on it.’
‘Oh, wow.’ He closed his eyes, mouth already full of flaky pastry and rich filling. ‘I’d forgotten how good these taste.’
I felt a thrum of pleasure watching him savour what were, in my opinion, exceptional pasties.
‘I’d better head off, though.’ He glanced at the concourse clock. ‘There’s a welcome drinks thing later.’ He finished eating and picked up the scruffy rucksack he’d left on the floor. ‘I’m Pip, by the way.’
‘Emmaline.’
I thanked him again for the millionth time, and he left, striding across the airport in the same way I imagined he traversed the wide-open fields of the island.
I mean, how could I not fall for him?
‘Hey, Emmie.’ Pip ducked his head, a shy smile at the corners of his mouth.
‘The Siskin flight is tomorrow,’ I said, wishing my own smile could be as subtle.
‘Yeah. Um. I’m flying home on Thursday.’
‘Oh. Okay.’
Blessing leant her arm on the counter, eagerly observing this stilted excuse for a conversation.
‘So… you were just passing?’
‘Aye…’ Pip flushed. ‘No. I’m finishing off my final project. The deadline is Wednesday and it’s reached the point of sheer torture. I mean, getting out there and carrying out the research – grand. Sat in my stuffy bedroom trying to explain it on paper – nightmare. So. Yeah. I had a sudden pasty craving that made it impossible to concentrate. I knew only one place could fix it.’
‘You knew only one place could fix it free of charge, you mean?’
‘It’s cost me the same in bus fares as half a dozen Greggs pasties.’
‘Yet still he came.’ Blessing smirked, causing Pip to jerk his head around in surprise.
‘Oh, this is my friend, Blessing, who works at the Travel Shop,’ I said, with a pointed look that wasn’t difficult to interpret as behave!
‘Nice to meet you. I’m Pip.’
‘Yes. I know.’ She gave both of us a totally unsubtle waggle of her groomed eyebrows. ‘I have to get to work.’
‘Here.’ I slipped one of each variety into a bag and handed it to him. ‘That’ll hopefully power you through to the deadline.’
‘Thanks. Can I get a coffee, too? I’ll pay for it, of course. Or make that two, if you have time for a quick break?’
I dismissed his bank card with a wave, still debating whether I had the courage to join him when a crowd of travellers started pouring through the arrivals door, some of them making an instant beeline for Parsley’s.
‘Maybe another time?’ I asked, cheeks flushing.
‘Well, I was going to mention that. This is my final term. So, Thursday is my last flight. Until graduation, in December. Although, the thought of no Parsley’s is making me seriously question whether to come back for a PhD.’
The Thursday flight to Siskin was at ten past five, so Pip would probably be checking in around the time I closed up.
‘Oh. Okay. I could see you then for one last pasty? And a box to take home, of course.’ Pip always bought a couple of extras for his family. I hadn’t asked whether that family included a wife or a girlfriend. ‘We can eat in the food court if I buy lunch there.’
He waited for me to serve a customer before replying.
‘Perfect. I’ll see you then.’ Pip started walking away, grinning as he waved the bag at me. ‘Thanks for saving the day.’
‘Good luck with the project.’
‘Oh, my goodness.’ Blessing laughed, slipping out from where she’d been eavesdropping behind an oversized baggage sign. ‘Day one of the new Emmie and you’ve got yourself a date.’
‘It’s not a date,’ I protested, although my fluttering heart refused to believe me. ‘It’s a goodbye snack with a sort-of friend.’
Blessing opened the jar of mini marshmallows on the counter and helped herself to one.
‘Yet another reason to book that holiday, then, hey? There’s, what, three thousand people living on that island? You’re sure to bump into him at some point.’