Chapter 7
JED
I turned the sign round to closed and locked the door to Yorkshire’s Best at five o’clock on New Year’s Eve, waving to Tara as she did the same at The Chocolate Pot opposite.
The past hour had been dead and I’d been tempted to close early but there was always a risk of that one customer rushing in at the eleventh hour in desperate need of a last-minute gift, so I’d always stuck to the set opening times at my Sydney gallery and I’d do the same here.
‘Maisie’s messaged,’ Lucy said. ‘They’ve done the food shopping and she says she’ll meet me at the car when I’m finished.’
‘In that case, you can leave early again.’
Lucy officially worked until quarter past to give us time to run the vacuum cleaner round, tidy up and restock after we closed. We’d needed that time before Christmas but trade had dropped off since we’d reopened and the extra fifteen minutes hadn’t been necessary.
Lucy’s smile widened and, with a thank you, she disappeared upstairs to retrieve her bag and coat ready for a sleepover at her best friend Maisie’s house. I’d been impressed with how quickly Lucy had settled in at the TEC and made friends and was glad she was spending New Year with one of them.
All my family had exciting plans for seeing the New Year in, with Erin spending it in Portugal with Zack and his family and my parents being away with Peter and Joyce on their mystery coach trip.
Mum had texted me shortly after setting off on Friday morning to say that they were heading north and had followed that up with a text in the afternoon revealing their mystery destination as Edinburgh and saying how excited they were to be celebrating Hogmanay.
Doris had joined me at the gallery on Friday, Saturday and today. She’d been such a good girl, content to stay in her bed in my studio rather than follow me each time I was needed downstairs. A long walk before and after work and a stretch of her legs at lunchtime probably helped.
Lucy raced down the stairs with Doris by her side, her overnight bag slung over her shoulder.
‘Have a good night,’ I said, unlocking the door for her. ‘I got you these for tonight.’ I handed her a gift bag with a selection of treats from Charlee’s Chocolates which I’d picked up at lunchtime.
‘Aw, Dad! Thank you. Bye.’ She waved as she hurried along the cobbles to meet Maisie.
‘Just the two of us for now,’ I said to Doris, stroking her head. ‘I’ll finish up in here and then we’ll call for Tara and take you out for a nice long walk. Okay?’
Doris had her head cocked to one side as though listening to me intently, which always made me smile.
I loved New Year. For me, no matter what had gone on across the past twelve months, it was a chance to turn over the book of your life to a blank page on which a brand-new story could be written – one full of fresh hopes and dreams. I saw it as a time to look forwards with excitement and anticipation rather than backwards with regret, but I knew that there were many who didn’t see New Year in such a positive light and that Tara was one of them.
Tara had struggled with the entire festive period since moving to Whitsborough Bay.
With Christmas, it was about how lonely she felt without her family or any meaningful relationships in her life.
She’d built a protective wall around herself to avoid getting hurt again, which had meant shutting herself off to close friendships and love.
After facing up to her loneliness and working hard on taking down that wall this year, she’d spent Christmas Day surrounded by the people who loved her and had well and truly fallen back in love with Christmas.
New Year was a different story and her feelings towards it were more complicated.
She’d met her ex-husband, Garth, on New Year’s Eve, it was the night he’d proposed to her two years later, and it was also when they’d married the year after that.
She’d understandably approached it each year with a feeling of dread and had locked herself away in her flat, trying to act as though it was a ‘normal’ day and hoping not to spiral, overwhelmed by the difficult memories.
When Tara said she’d like to spend New Year’s Eve with me, I considered whisking her away to a nice hotel but, when I started looking online at our last-minute options, I realised it was a bad idea.
There were practical work considerations for a start.
New Year’s Eve fell on a Monday, our businesses were open, and we both needed to work.
But more importantly, I didn’t want Tara to feel uncomfortable in any way.
Even though we’d said I love you to each other, we were taking the physical side of our relationship slowly and I didn’t want Tara to feel any sort of pressure if I booked just the one room or rejection if I booked two.
How we spent New Year’s Eve needed to be guided by Tara and it was just as well I hadn’t gone overboard because, when I’d asked her what she’d like to do, she’d wanted to keep it simple and lowkey.
It was a big thing for her to spend New Year’s Eve with someone else and, even though she was in a positive place, she feared that her difficult past might catch up with her and make her emotional at some point.
‘You look snug,’ I told Tara when Doris and I met her on the cobbles a little later ready for our walk, noting her long quilted coat, fur-lined boots and a hat, scarf and gloves set. She rose from her crouched position, stroking Doris’s ears, and thrust her phone in front of me.
‘Have you seen how much the temperature’s dropped?’
The weather app showed three degrees and I frowned as I clocked the prediction for later in the evening. ‘Snow? That wasn’t there earlier.’
‘I know! I checked Edinburgh and your parents should be getting it too.’
‘My first snow in fifteen years,’ I said as we set off towards Castle Park.
‘Of course! Did you miss snow when you were in Australia?’
‘Not so much for me, but I missed it for the girls. I’ve got so many fond memories from childhood of building snowmen, sledging and snowball fights and they never got to experience that.
When Erin was two, we had heavy snow here and we’ve got photos of her in a snowsuit being pulled on a sledge, but she was too young to remember it.
I can guarantee that Lucy will be dragging Maisie out in it tonight and tomorrow too if it settles, and Erin will be gutted about missing it. Do you like the snow?’
‘Yeah. I have the same sort of happy childhood memories as you. Mainly it was my dad and me but I remember one winter when my mum felt up to making a snowman in the back garden. It started snowing again just as we put the head on him and Mum flung her arms out, put her head back, opened her mouth and tried to catch the flakes on her tongue so, of course, Dad and I had to do the same. It was a magical moment.’
I could hear the warmth in her voice and feel the love she had for her parents emanating from every word.
She spoke with the same warmth about her foster parents and I loved how she also referred to them as Mum and Dad – something she’d only done since reconnecting with them recently.
It could have been confusing but I always knew who she was referring to.
‘That sounds like a special memory,’ I said.
‘It really was. It wasn’t often that Mum felt well but, when it happened, she threw herself into it. Whenever it snows now, I picture her that day.’
We’d reached Castle Park and set off down the zigzag path towards the seafront, our plan being to walk all the way round The Headland to North Bay, returning to The Chocolate Pot via Hearnshaw Park.
‘It’s a bit quieter than it was on Boxing Day,’ I said as we crossed the road at the bottom of the zigzag and headed in the direction of the lifeboat station.
The tide was out but there was nobody on the beach, or no one we could see under the limited illumination of the white lights strung above the railings.
The gift shops were closed but most of the arcades were still open, although we only spotted two or three people at the most in any of them.
The fish and chip takeaways were also open but staff members were wiping down the counters, presumably preparing to close.
‘Even the pubs are empty,’ Tara observed as we reached Lighthouse Point – the approach to Whitsborough Bay’s red-and-white striped lighthouse. ‘It’s like a ghost town. I always assumed it’d be busy down here on New Year’s Eve.’
I shook my head. ‘It’s always been like this in the winter.
If the weather’s decent, you get a mix of locals and visitors during the day but evenings are dead.
The pubs in town will be busy and so will those on Sandy Bank but that’s about as far as people will go.
They won’t continue down as far as the seafront and the folk who live in the Old Town will go to the local there. ’
The walk round The Headland was quiet too. There were a few runners out and several other dog walkers but, for the most part, it was just the two of us and Doris.
‘How are you feeling about it being New Year’s Eve?’ I asked Tara.
She pondered for a moment. ‘The honest answer is that I’m not sure. This past year has been fantastic and, with my parents back in my life and you, I should be feeling elated…’
‘But you’re a bit melancholy?’ I asked when she tailed off.
She released a heavy sigh. ‘Yes, and I hate feeling like that. It doesn’t make any sense. I’m in such a good place right now that the last thing I expected was for the ghost of husbands past to still be haunting me.’
‘What specifically have you been thinking about?’
‘How I could have got it so wrong about him and about Leanne. I look back now and I can see the red flags everywhere but, at the time, I never spotted any of them.’
She ran through a few examples of the flags and something struck me strongly as she spoke.
‘Are you aware of how much blame you put on yourself when you talk about what happened?’ I asked.
‘Do I?’