Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Freya
L uke lifted her bag onto his shoulder and then over his head, so it draped crossways. Freya skipped along the quiet road to her house like she was walking on air. She hated carrying them home. When she used to meet Heidi, she would hump them a few hundred yards to the doctor’s surgery and mark the books in their breakout room until Heidi had finished for the day. Now that her best friend was loved up, Freya didn’t get that opportunity as much and had to lug the things home. She thought it was fantastic to walk home and carry nothing but her handbag.
“Holy fuck, how many books are in this bag? The strap is cutting into my shoulder.”
“Oh, cut your whining. I have to do it every week.”
“They’re heavy.”
“I know,” she answered slowly, like he was unable to grasp the concept .
“Can’t you get one of those old lady shopping trollies and wheel them home?”
“That’s not a bad idea. But you’re home now, so you can do all the humping for me.”
She gave him a side look to see his reaction. Whenever she mentioned a word linked to sex, his face turned to thunder. There weren’t many single women on the island, so he must be getting desperate by now.
“I won’t be humping them home for you,” he snapped.
Yep, definitely grumpy about something.
“I’ve spent years lugging my oversized shopping bag with exercise books home, and my shoulders are still intact, no blemishes or lopsided arms.”
“It’s a wonder you haven’t.”
“Come on, big strong man like you, afraid of a hundred exercise books?”
“Seems like it. I’d rather give an oil rigger an over-the-shoulder lift while he’s passed out drunk than these.”
Freya giggled at his grumblings and jogged ahead to her house. She unlocked her front door and held it open for him, then theatrically staggered through the door. He put the bag on the floor, stumbled over to her sofa, and flopped down like he’d run a marathon.
She kicked the door shut with her foot and stood there with her hands on her hips. His hair was the only thing she could see, the arm and the back of the sofa obscuring the rest of him.
“Will you be okay down here while I shower and change quickly?” she called over.
She got a groan as a reply, so she ran up the stairs and got washed and changed. Ten minutes later, she was back down to the living room to find Luke wasn’t there.
“Luke,” she shouted .
“Up here,” he called back.
“What are you doing up there?”
“Reading all your secrets,” he replied.
His voice sounded far away and muffled. Then it dawned on Freya where he was. Running back up the stairs two at a time, she hurried down the corridor, past her open bedroom door, the bathroom, and onto the spare room. Sitting on the floor with his ankles crossed and his arms folded was Luke staring up at the wall. He leaned against an armchair. Freya kept the curtains drawn in that room, so nothing faded.
“What are you doing in here? You’re supposed to be exhausted from carrying exercise books.”
Luke’s eyes scanned the wall, and she cringed.
“I got bored,” He said, like he was distracted.
“I was ten minutes.”
“More like twenty. I got bored after ten minutes and came snooping when there wasn’t anything sweet to eat in the kitchen.”
“You didn’t look hard enough. There was a box of Jason’s chocolate chip cookies behind the coffee mugs.”
“There was?”
“Yeah. Serves you right for doing a bloke look rather than a woman look.”
“Stop side-tracking me with cookies. What the fuck is all of this?”
“Nothing. Come on, let’s go,” Freya said, mortified that he had seen the room.
“I can’t believe you kept everything,” he muttered, not moving an inch.
“Didn’t you keep mine?” she asked.
“Nah, tossed them as soon as I read them. ”
That comment shot into her heart like he’d pulled the trigger of a gun.
“What?” she whispered, holding back the tears of his dismissive remark.
“Committed them to memory, of course, but I can’t lug around all your letters when I travel the world, and if I’d left them on the rig, then the other shift would’ve read them. There was no way they were reading about the first time you slept with a man.”
“Luke,” she snapped.
He ignored her and rose to his feet so fluidly he looked like a dancer the way he moved. On the wall opposite where he was sitting was a map of the world, six feet wide and three feet high. It was mounted on a wooden frame with spongy cork behind the map. Luke moved forward and pressed the different coloured pins. He traced the thin wool strands to mark the various routes he’d made every time he’d gone travelling with his brothers and sister.
“What do these numbers on the stickers mean?”
“I don’t want to tell you,” Freya said.
She felt stupid for keeping every letter and postcard he’d sent her. She felt ridiculous, marking every journey he’d made and tagging where his favourite places were. Places he’d said he wanted to take her because he thought she’d want to see it. Freya hadn’t ever left the UK, although she’d always had a passport. So she felt foolish when she renewed it, hoping Luke would ask her to join him on his set of three weeks off when they coincided with her school holidays. But he never did. The four Turner siblings were closer than any family members she’d met.
Luke turned towards her and then froze. She mustn’t have hidden her expression of hurt quickly enough .
“I’m sorry, Freya. I’m not making fun. I really love that you’ve done this.”
It wasn’t him pointing out what she’d saved that hurt. It was that he hadn’t saved her words. She wrote to him twice when he was on the rigs during his three weeks on and then waited for his letters and postcards when he was on his three weeks off. She’d sent the letters telling him everything that had happened on the island since the previous letter and sealed the back with a kiss. The lipstick she was wearing would stain the back of the envelope. He never answered the questions she’d asked in a letter with his next letter because they rarely arrived in order, so she needed to piece together what she’d asked with his replies. She kept a copy when she wrote him a letter, so they were all in order.
“It’s all right. We should get going to search while it’s daylight.”
“What do the numbers mean, Freya?”
“They log which postcard or letter you sent from overseas. There aren’t many from the rigs, so they’re in a separate box.”
“You have boxes of my letters?”
“Look, Luke, maybe we should go ancestor matching another night. I have a lot to mark, and I could do with getting started.”
“Freya,” he said, coming right up to her and cupping her shoulders. “I’m sorry I made fun of you for keeping the letters. Where are the boxes?”
She couldn’t keep the glum expression off her face and nodded to the wardrobe over in the corner next to the window with the curtains drawn.
He gave her a warning look to silently ask for permission to go and look, and she nodded. His hand slipped down her arm, and he clutched onto her fingers so he could drag her over to the wardrobe. Then, with his free hand, he opened the doors and gasped.
“Holy fuck,” he whispered.
Still holding her hand, he opened the drawer at waist level and pulled it out. Stacks of envelopes and single cards were neatly stacked. The top edge was perfectly sliced to lift out the letter inside. Freya tried to pull away, but he squeezed her hand in warning. She relaxed without him looking at her. He lifted an envelope out and then placed it on top of the stack. Luke chuckled at his scrawl on the front. Picking it up, he squinted at the faded postmark.
“Vienna,” she whispered.
“You know which letter this is?”
“Yeah, you met a girl you fell madly for. She took you to the opera. It was your first time.”
Luke could hear the sadness and gave her a sharp look.
“I don’t remember her name,” he muttered.
“Dita.”
“Jesus,” he whispered.
“Does this feel creepy to you? I can box all this up if it freaks you out,” she said, moving to put the letter back in the correct place.
She closed the drawer slowly and quietly with the palm of her hand, then pushed the wardrobe doors shut. With one hand, Luke wasn’t grasping tightly.
“No, I’m not creeped out. I feel honoured you kept these, my words and thoughts. I poured everything into those letters. They were my escape to tell you what I was feeling, the thoughts I couldn’t share with my siblings because they were hurting as much as I was.”
“You know it wasn’t your fault, right?”
“I should’ve been able to do something,” Luke said.
He was so quiet as he spoke .
“But you know deep down you couldn’t have saved your dad. It was an impossible task. The aneurism was swift.”
“Not everyone believes that.”
“The only person I care about believing it is you, Luke Turner.”
Luke yanked her, so she collided with his chest and wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug. She knew it was the only way not to look at her face and crumble. It was the only way to hide his feelings from her and for that day when his dad died. They stood there for a beat or two until Freya wrapped her arms around his waist and burrowed closer, snuggling in like she was absorbing his pain. She had no idea how much she had done from the moment his mum left to right then. She was always there to share his pain. Even if he was unwilling to let it go. Freya had told him many times that she wanted to take his hurt and throw it into the ocean.
If only that was possible.
“Come on, let’s go grave hopping,” Freya said.
She lifted her head back, kissed his sternum over his top and shimmied out of his arms. She took his hand and tugged him out of the room.
Luke waited for Freya to lock up, and then he carted her bag to the buggy, making fun that the cart would tip over from the weight of the books. He made a play to put the books on both sides for equal distribution of weight like they were on a boat and could possibly capsize. They made it safely to his cottage, and he was fiddling with the back door key to let them in.
“I can’t believe I’m actually going inside your place. You call it a cottage, right?”
“My family call it a cottage, more like a large house. Too big for just me. But Daisy decided we’d all take a cottage instead of taking a room at Edward Hall, and we were to live in age order. So I have Sabrina Lodge.”
“It’s all weird. You call it a cottage. It’s named a lodge but really is a very big house.”
Luke finally got the door open, refusing to put the bag down and swung the door open.
“I think the lodge reference comes from when great-grandfather would have all his cronies come to stay, and they would go out hunting. Calling them hunting lodges. They’re named after the women in the family. Sabrina is my great-great-great-grandmother, I think. I don’t know, really. I should if we’re to do the family tree right.”
“There must be a scroll somewhere in the library or the study with all your ancestors handwritten in old English.”
Luke laughed at her description.
“I’m sure there is, but getting Aunt Cynthia to let us in anywhere in Turner Hall is a feat. We’ve only entered the study when we were given Edward Hall and these cottages.”
“Do you hate it all?”
“I have mixed feelings. All of this grandiose allows us to live and work together. We’ve only ever known living together, sticking together, warding off the evil aunt and travelling. I don’t think we’ve ever felt settled. I hope when Daisy comes back, we’ll start to feel happier. When Daisy returns, it will be around the time Archer and Erica’s baby will be born, so we’ll be aunts and uncles. That kid is going to be so spoiled.”
“I hope Heidi gets the bond back with Keith. I missed him before all this heartache happened with Jason. He’s slowly getting there. Sunday dinners are much happier than they were before.”
“When do I get an invitation to the dinner table?”
“My mum would have you there every week if you’d come. You don’t need to be invited. Jason and Heidi come every other Sunday, so you can choose to come when they’re there or when they’re not. I’ll be there every Sunday.”
“All right, I’ll be there.”
Freya didn’t get further than the open-plan kitchen. But she was there long enough to see the pottery. It sat in the middle of the island. At some stage, it had been coloured a light orange with a peach painted on the side.
“Luke,” she said.
Luke didn’t put the lights on. He dumped her bag of books and tugged her out of the cottage, locking up far more quickly, and they were on their way to the graveyard. Luke pulled out several pieces of paper from his back pocket and handed them to her. He then took a pen from his other pocket and handed it to her.
“You have pretty writing. Best you fill in the blanks,” Luke said with a wide grin.
“Thanks,” she said. “I can’t remember how many graves there are in the family plot.”
“Not that many, less than fifty. My family lost a lot of children in infancy, and I don’t know where they were buried. It’s only adults, as far as I know.”
“That’s sad. I hope they were buried somewhere safe.”
“I think they were buried in the main church cemetery. We might need to visit there too.”
“Okay, let’s do this first.”
They spent a few hours walking around the overgrown graveyard. Every time Freya looked across at Luke crouched by a gravestone, he was already looking at her. It made her warm all over. She had to put thoughts of Luke out of her head, he had set her in the friends-only box, and she had to live with that. She wouldn’t accept it, but she would live with it. It just made it really difficult to concentrate when he was staring at her.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Anything.”
“Why isn’t there any furniture in your cottage?”
“I’m not there for long. Either I’m at Edward Hall or my brothers’ homes. I haven’t been back long.”
“Don’t you have any personal stuff?”
“A lot of my personal stuff is at the other house. Well, it’s in storage, ready to come down here when I can arrange it. I’m going to use the furniture from there. Everything that was in the cottage has been shifted to Edward Hall. I didn’t want any of it in the cottage. I know the bed is brand new, so I kept that.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
“Is it hard for you to come back?”
“Yeah, really fucking hard. But you’re here, and my brothers and sister are here, well Daisy will be here. We all grew up around misery, so it’s easier to cope. Misery likes company, I guess.”
“Do I make it easier for you?”
Luke stood from his crouched position and came striding over to her. He was so fast that she dropped the paper and pen when he hugged her. He squeezed her so tight the wind got knocked out of her. Freya managed to stretch out her fingers that were squashed between them and flatten them on his chest. He wasn’t letting go, not that she wanted him to. Resting her cheek on her hands, she let out a long sigh.
“I don’t know what I would do if you weren’t here. I’m not convinced I’d stay in the crappy job Archer has given me if you weren’t here. ”
“Luke,” she whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Then neither am I.”
Luke held onto her so tightly when he stepped away, she swayed. To steady her, Luke lifted his hand to her cheek and stared down at her.
“I feel like I took you for granted all those years I was travelling. I’m not sure I deserve you as a friend, let alone anything else.”
Freya froze at the look on Luke’s face. What did he mean, let alone anything else? She cleared her throat and crouched, losing his touch and picked up the paper and pen.
“So, do we have everyone plotted?” Luke asked, clearly wanting to change the subject.
Freya wanted to question him further but knew from old that if Luke didn’t want to talk about it, no coaxing would work.
“It seems so. All the boxes have names except the two blank gravestones.”
“We’ll have to check out the leaves on the website and see what connections they’ve come up with. What if my grandfather had other children we don’t know about? Their parties here were raucous by all accounts.”
“But he’s been dead a while. Why would those graves appear in the last year or so?”
“No idea, but I want to get to the bottom of it. Someone must know.”
“I bet Cynthia does.”
“I am not going to ask her anything. She won’t tell me the truth if her life depended on it.”
“I wonder why she’s so hateful. Someone must have done her some damage when she was younger. ”
“My grandfather wasn’t all that loving. Not that I’m making excuses for her behaviour.”
Now Freya was itching to change the subject.
“Come on, let’s go and eat. I’m starving.”
“We might have to steal some of Archer’s outside chairs, as the only thing I have to sit on is a bed.”
Freya felt her cheeks heat up, and she turned her back on Luke to walk back to the cottages. He quickly caught up with her, slung an arm around her neck, and kissed her temple.
“Super sleuthing like we used to do. I’m feeling better already,” Luke said.
“Don’t forget florin hunting on Saturday,” Freya reminded him.
“Can’t wait.”